Gazan people question real purpose of US-built float pier for "aid delivery"

Some residents in Gaza City questioned the need and real purpose of building a temporary maritime pier by the United States, which claimed it is for facilitating aid delivery.

The United States announced last Friday that trucks carrying humanitarian aid had reached the coast of the Gaza Strip through the floating maritime port it had constructed.

On Sunday, vessels transporting aid supplies in the distance could be seen from the seaside of Gaza Port. According to U.S. estimates, the floating pier's initial shipping capacity is expected to be 90 tons per day, and will later reach 150 tons.

The Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories under the Israeli Defense Ministry said on the May 19 that approximately 160,000 liters of fuel and hundreds of pallets of humanitarian aid were transported to the Gaza Strip through the pier last week.

In this regard, the United Nations and relevant aid agencies said that the process of transporting humanitarian aid through a floating pier is cumbersome, and the transportation volume is far from meeting the needs of the Gaza Strip.   Farhan Haq, deputy spokesman for the United Nations Secretary-General, stressed last week that maritime corridor is by no means the most feasible and effective solution to aid delivery and all land crossing points must be opened to address the acute need of the people.

Some local people also questioned the role of the temporary pier built by the United States.

"When they (the United States) announced their intention to build a pier, they claimed that its purpose is to provide supplies to the Gaza Strip. But if we look at the actual situation, we can find that land ports are fully capable of allowing the passage of trucks with full load of cargo. If the land ports are fully operational, they can meet the needs of the people here," said a local resident Abdul Razak Abu Aisha.

"Land ports and terminals could have operated normally. Why not open the land terminals and build another good pier? We (Palestinians) have been under occupation for 76 years. When will it end?" said Nabil Al-Sharafa, another resident.

Gazan people question real purpose of US-built float pier for "aid delivery"

Gazan people question real purpose of US-built float pier for "aid delivery"

China’s first intelligent field plant phenotype precision identification platform went into operation recently in Sanya City, south China’s Hainan Province, which is a milestone in the country’s development of intelligent breeding.

The phenotype of a plant is a term used to describe observable characteristics of the plant, such as its appearance, and some inherent physiological characteristics, such as resistance to drought and diseases.

In an experimental field of the National Nanfan Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, a large piece of equipment is moving across the field. The equipment, called the field plant phenotype precision identification platform, can move according to the preset track and can be remotely controlled. While moving, the equipment can scan the plants with its six sensors, just like a CT machine for plants.

"The ultimate goal is to achieve high-throughput, large-scale, efficient and precise collection of germplasm resources, which can be four to five times higher than the efficiency of the traditional manual collection," said Jin Xiuliang, a researcher at the institute.

Although the equipment looks simple from the outside, it contains six high-precision image acquisition devices such as multi-spectral, thermal infrared, and chlorophyll fluorescence devices. Data can be collected at fixed times and points according to experimental needs, and the collection of a germplasm material can be completed within 30 seconds.

After the data collected through this platform is transmitted to the data analysis center, researchers can more quickly and accurately screen out germplasm resources with excellent traits, laying the foundation for subsequent crop breeding.

"The plant phenotype identification facility at the National Nanfan Research Institute is a milestone in the field of crop science in China. It can greatly enhance the independent innovation capabilities of germplasm innovation, gene mining, and variety breeding, and enhance the international competitiveness of China's seed industry," said Li Huihui, vice president of the institute.  

China makes major progress in smart crop breeding