May 10, 2019
New satellite imagery acquired by Digitalglobe shows that China has increased the deployment of Guizhou Aviation Industry Group (GAIG) EA-03 Xianglong high altitude long endurance (HALE) unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) to Yishuntun airbase in Jilin province. The platform, identified by its unique box wing design and V shaped vertical stabilizers, is often considered China’s answer…
April 5, 2019
By Nick Waters
Activists on Twitter have recently claimed that China has been destroying historic mosques across Xinjiang province, which is home to a large population of Uighurs, a primarily Muslim minority in China. By using open sources and satellite imagery we can locate these mosques and check such claims. We can also potentially narrow down when the…
March 15, 2019
By Robert Evans
On Friday, March 15th, one or more gunmen opened fire in two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand. As I write this, three men and one woman have been taken into custody by local law enforcement. It is unclear to what extent they were all involved. The only thing we know is that one of the…
March 2, 2019
On February 27th amid heightening tensions between India and Pakistan in Kashmir, an Indian Air Force MiG-21 aircraft was shot down by Pakistan. In the ensuing war of words over the incidents, both sides made varying claims about the incident, with India saying they had downed a Pakistani aircraft, while Pakistan stated it had downed…
January 9, 2019
If you are browsing around Google Maps and, for some reason, looking at islands in the East Siberian Sea, you will come across something peculiar — a nightmarish black blob covering up what should be a landmass named Jeannette Island. This island, in reality, is quite small, at only three square kilometers, and part of the…
November 25, 2018
Workers at the Bohai Shipyard at Huludao have constructed two additional Type 094 JIN-class ballistic missile nuclear submarines (SSBN), satellite imagery from Planet Labs suggests. One Type 094 relocated from the shipyard’s fabrication hall to the nearby fitting-out pier in November 2017, while another relocated in October 2018. The Type 094 is the People’s Liberation…
November 8, 2018
Recent satellite imagery from Planet Labs shows ongoing engineering works by the Azerbaijani armed forces on the Nakhichevan border into what was once considered neutral territory. Azerbaijani attempts to sidle up closer to the Armenian frontline since the 1994 ceasefire have primarily taken place on the Nagorno-Karabakh border, reducing the point of contact to fewer…
October 31, 2018
New infrastructure upgrades were completed at Lhasa-Gonggar earlier this year, satellite imagery from Planet Labs shows. Workers at the civil-military airfield widened a road and built an additional parking apron near the base of the mountain. Earlier this month, India’s Hindustan Times reported that China had built an underground facility to house fighter aircraft at…
October 5, 2018
Left: Planet imagery of the naval base in Palu Bay dated 29 Sept. 2018 / Right: 22 Sept. 2018 Satellite imagery acquired by Planet Labs shows significant damage to a recently renovated naval base in Palu Bay. Plans to berth the Indonesian Navy’s submarines at the facility will be delayed until workers make repairs and…
August 20, 2018
Throughout this summer, dozens of residents of Armenia’s Jermuk community and several other surrounding regions, including the villages of Gndevaz and Kechut, have been blocking all roads leading to the Amulsar mountain, a site targeted for gold mining to be operated by Lydian Armenia. The protesters began camping at the entrances to the mountain in…
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