BEIJING – One of China's biggest animal feed producers said it had used a radio transmitter to combat crooks using drones to drop pork products contaminated with African swine fever on its pig farms, as part of a racket to profit from the health scare. In July, China's agriculture ministry said criminal gangs were faking outbreaks of swine fever on farms and forcing farmers to sell their healthy pigs at sharply lower prices. And Thursday, a state-backed news website, The Paper, reported that a pig farming unit of Beijing Dabeinong Technology Group Co. Ltd. had run foul of the regional aviation authority, as its transmitter had disrupted the GPS signal in the area. Answering questions from investors on an interactive platform run by the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, Dabeinong confirmed Friday that its pig farming unit in Heilongjiang province had unwittingly violated civil aviation rules. "Our unit in Heilongjiang province … to prevent external people from using drones to drop pork with African swine fever virus, violated regulations by using a drone control equipment set," the company said.

Fox News Flash top headlines for Dec. 21 are here. Check out what's clicking on Foxnews.com Near-simultaneous attacks believed to have been carried out by drones hit three government-run oil and gas installations in central Syria, state TV and the Oil Ministry said Saturday. No one claimed responsibility for the attacks, which targeted the Homs oil refinery -- one of only two in the country -- as well as two natural gas facilities in different parts of Homs province. Syria has suffered fuel shortages since earlier this year amid Western sanctions blocking imports, and because most of the country's oil fields are controlled by Kurdish-led fighters in the country's east.

Recently @Drone Racing League and @Lockheed Martin visited Austin, Texas as part of a series of drone races that pitted man against machine. The AIRR racing series stands for Artificial Intelligence Robotic Racing and took place this fall in four US cities. This drone racing series brought together teams of programmers from around the world to compete for a one million dollar prize. Each team was given an identical drone to work with and had to program it to complete a course using code only as its pilot - no human interaction at all with the drone. And the winner of each AI race then had to race against a human pilot, in this case @Gab707 from @Drone Racing League This entire event is part of the @Lockheed Martin AlphaPilot program, designed to foster innovation in the artificial intelligence and aviation worlds.

PARIS – France has officially deployed its first armed drones, three American-built Reapers fitted with laser-guided missiles, in its fight against a jihadi insurrection in Africa's Sahel region, Defense Minister Florence Parly announced Thursday. The drones, which have already since 2014 provided surveillance support to the French anti-jihadi Barkhane mission in Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso, will from now on also be able to strike targets, she said. France joins a small club of countries, including the United States, Britain and Israel, that use armed, distance-piloted aircraft in combat. The Reapers will each carry two 250-kg (550-pound) laser-guided bombs, and are entering service after a series of operational tests carried out from the airbase in the Niger capital Niamey. "Their main missions remain surveillance and intelligence … but these can be extended to strikes," Parly said.

WASHINGTON – The United States said new evidence and analysis of weapons debris recovered from an attack on Saudi oil facilities on Sept. 14 indicates the strike likely came from the north, reinforcing its earlier assessment that Iran was behind the offensive. In an interim report of its investigation -- seen by Reuters ahead of a presentation on Thursday to the United Nations Security Council -- Washington assessed that before hitting its targets, one of the drones traversed a location approximately 200 km (124 miles) to the northwest of the attack site. "This, in combination with the assessed 900 kilometer maximum range of the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV), indicates with high likelihood that the attack originated north of Abqaiq," the interim report said, referring to the location of one of the Saudi oil facilities that were hit. It added the United States had identified several similarities between the drones used in the raid and an Iranian designed and produced unmanned aircraft known as the IRN-05 UAV. However, the report noted that the analysis of the weapons debris did not definitely reveal the origin of the strike that initially knocked out half of Saudi Arabia's oil production.

ANKARA – Turkey has dispatched a surveillance and reconnaissance drone to the breakaway north of ethnically divided island nation of Cyprus amid tensions over offshore oil and gas exploration, Turkey's state-run media said Monday. The Anadolu news agency said the Turkish-made Bayraktar TB2 drone took off from an airbase in Dalaman, Turkey, and touched down Monday at the airport in Gecitkala -- known as Lefkoniko in Greek, on Cyprus. Kudret Ozersay, foreign minister of the self-declared Turkish Cypriot state, told reporters Sunday that the Turkish deployment would be limited to unarmed drones as there was "no need" for armed ones. Earlier, Turkish Cypriot Prime Minister Ersin Tatar said there was an "urgent need" to address the security concerns of Turkey and the Turkish Cypriots in the eastern Mediterranean. It's unclear what the drones will be specifically tasked to do.

Although insurers have not moved as quickly as other financial services providers in embracing fintech, there are lots of opportunities and it is a sector to watch. Technology has already played a significant role in disrupting other areas of financial services – in banking and payments there has been an influx of fintech providers to the market. However, unlike the insurance sector, this digital disruption has been underpinned by legislative reforms and regulatory intervention. The absence of similar intervention in the insurance sector, coupled with challenges associated with legacy systems and strict regulation around the provision of insurance, means that there are major barriers to entry in the market. However, this does not mean that insurtech disruption is not feasible or indeed happening.

Although insurers have not moved as quickly as other financial services providers in embracing fintech, there are lots of opportunities and it is a sector to watch. Technology has already played a significant role in disrupting other areas of financial services – in banking and payments there has been an influx of fintech providers to the market. However, unlike the insurance sector, this digital disruption has been underpinned by legislative reforms and regulatory intervention. The absence of similar intervention in the insurance sector, coupled with challenges associated with legacy systems and strict regulation around the provision of insurance, means that there are major barriers to entry in the market. However, this does not mean that insurtech disruption is not feasible or indeed happening.

The potential for advances in information-age technologies to undermine nuclear deterrence and influence the potential for nuclear escalation represents a critical question for international politics. One challenge is that uncertainty about the trajectory of technologies such as autonomous systems and artificial intelligence (AI) makes assessments difficult. This paper evaluates the relative impact of autonomous systems and artificial intelligence in three areas: nuclear command and control, nuclear delivery platforms and vehicles, and conventional applications of autonomous systems with consequences for nuclear stability. We argue that countries may be more likely to use risky forms of autonomy when they fear that their second-strike capabilities will be undermined. Additionally, the potential deployment of uninhabited, autonomous nuclear delivery platforms and vehicles could raise the prospect for accidents and miscalculation. Conventional military applications of autonomous systems could simultaneously influence nuclear force postures and first-strike stability in previously unanticipated ways. In particular, the need to fight at machine speed and the cognitive risk introduced by automation bias could increase the risk of unintended escalation. Finally, used properly, there should be many applications of more autonomous systems in nuclear operations that can increase reliability, reduce the risk of accidents, and buy more time for decision-makers in a crisis.

Turkey will be the first customer for a new military drone with a machine gun mount that can fire single shots or 15-round bursts and carry a total of 200 rounds. Developed by the Asisguard, a technology firm in Ankara that specializes in military technology, the drone will use a laser sighting system to deliver a high degree of accuracy. The drone will also use a set of robotic braces to offset weapon recoil and ensure the drone's flight path isn't thrown off by firing. According to a report in the New Scientist, the drone will be able to hit targets as small as six inches from a distance of up to 650 feet. The 55-pound drone, called Songar, will be able to travel up to six miles at heights of up to 1.7 miles above ground.