Zero Hedge

Kraken Robotics Demos Next-Gen Tech For Maritime And Defense Operations

Kraken Robotics Demos Next-Gen Tech For Maritime And Defense Operations

At a time when waterways like the Strait of Hormuz have occupied almost every headline and have been the impetus behind a good portion of the ongoing conflict in Iran, Kraken Robotics has successfully completed a new demonstration of its autonomous mine countermeasure technology, highlighting the growing role of unmanned systems in maritime security.

The company announced that its KATFISH towed synthetic aperture sonar system, along with its autonomous launch and recovery system (LARS), was fully integrated and tested aboard SEFINE’s RD-22 unmanned surface vessel. The demonstration was carried out in partnership with SEFINE SISAM, the company’s Strategic Unmanned Systems Research Center, during the first quarter of 2026 off the coast of İstanbul, Türkiye.

The trial showcased how autonomous platforms can be used to detect and classify underwater threats more efficiently. According to Kraken Robotics, the exercise focused on identifying mine-like objects and monitoring critical subsea infrastructure—capabilities that are becoming increasingly important as global attention turns to protecting maritime routes and underwater assets.

Bernard Mills, Kraken’s Executive Vice President of Defence, said the demonstration reflects the urgent need for advanced tools to secure key waterways. He noted that combining SEFINE’s multi-role unmanned surface vessel with Kraken’s sonar and launch system allows navies to deploy high-performance mine countermeasure technologies more quickly and with greater flexibility.

During the test, the KATFISH system delivered high-resolution sonar imagery with precision down to 3 by 3 centimeters, scanning areas up to 200 meters on each side. The data was transmitted live to an onshore command center, where operators used SEFINE SISAM’s mission planning software to analyze and classify potential threats in real time.

The event drew representatives from multiple navies and government organizations, underscoring international interest in next-generation autonomous defence systems.

This latest demonstration builds on earlier trials conducted in November 2025, when the same KATFISH and LARS setup was deployed from a Royal Navy ARCIMS unmanned surface vessel. Together, these successful integrations mark a significant step toward more agile, modular, and cost-effective solutions for modern mine countermeasure operations.

Kraken Robotics develops advanced subsea technologies, including 3D imaging sensors, robotic systems, and power solutions designed to operate safely and efficiently in challenging ocean environments. Its portfolio—featuring synthetic aperture sonar, sub-bottom imaging, LiDAR, and high-density pressure-tolerant batteries—supports applications in ocean safety, infrastructure inspection, and subsea energy storage.

Tyler Durden Wed, 04/08/2026 - 04:15

UK Schools Rake In Record £572 Million For Non-English Speaking Pupils

UK Schools Rake In Record £572 Million For Non-English Speaking Pupils

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,

Mass immigration is once again exposing the true cost to British taxpayers, with UK schools now receiving a record £572 million to support pupils who do not speak English as their first language.

The bill has soared by £157 million since modern records began in 2020, according to Department for Education figures. This comes as the number of such pupils has climbed to 1.8 million – one in five children nationwide – up from 1.2 million a decade ago.

As revealed in a Daily Mail report, two schools alone – one in Manchester and one in Northampton – each collected at least £500,000 this year for translators, bilingual teaching assistants and support materials. Manchester Academy topped the list with over £670,000.

The funding is not ring-fenced and councils admit it can be spent on “almost anything” within a school’s overall budget. Nationwide, the average payout sits at around £27,418 per school, or roughly £320 per eligible pupil.

This latest education bombshell ties directly into the wider crisis of unchecked migration straining every corner of British life.

As we’ve highlighted, migrants are set to swallow 40% of all new UK homes by 2030, based on Conservative analysis of Office for Budget Responsibility projections. 

With net migration forecast at 1.2 million between 2026 and 2030, around 500,000 extra homes will be needed just to house new arrivals – equating to nearly four in ten of all projected builds.

And this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to taxpayer exploitation.

A whopping 1.3 million migrants are on Universal Credit, with over half unemployed – directly contradicting years of claims that immigration delivers a net economic boost.

Benefits costs have doubled in just five years, prompting Reform UK leader Nigel Farage to slam the prioritisation of migrant payouts over British pensioners.

A massive 1.158 million foreign claimants are draining public funds on an industrial scale

As we’ve further documented, small UK towns are finding themselves suddenly inundated with hundreds of illegal migrants and the social fallout is evident with foreigners accounting for 79 per cent of theft arrests and 40 per cent of violent suspects on UK trains, and migrants being 3.5 times more likely to be arrested for sex crimes than native Brits.

Back in the classroom, the education funding surge has sparked sharp criticism. Chris McGovern of the Campaign for Real Education told the Daily Mail: “Stop pitying them, we obsess about it far too much and we don’t need to fret about them – we need to worry about the white working-class kids.”

He added: “Of course children who don’t have the requisite English language skills need to be assimilated and have time and money spent but that should come before they enter the school system.”

McGovern continued: “We have consistent and obvious annual evidence that it is the white working-class children who perform worse and need numeracy and literacy support, if there is money to be going around. A lack of imagination is the big problem with the educational world but however we tackle it we need to focus on the right group – don’t pity the immigrant, they are the education system’s biggest success story.”

Just one in five white working-class pupils achieve a good pass in English and maths, compared to 45.4 per cent across all demographics. Yet the system continues to pour resources into English as an Additional Language (EAL) provision, which now features in Ofsted inspections.

A Department for Education spokesman responded: “Every child deserves a high-quality education, including children who speak English as an additional language. We trust schools, who know their pupils best, to make decisions about how to invest their funding to support every child while getting the best value for money from overall resources.”

Critics argue the real priority should be British children whose communities are being transformed beyond recognition. The same open-borders policies driving the housing crunch, welfare explosion and crime spikes are now turning classrooms into translation hubs at massive public expense.

Britain cannot keep subsidising mass immigration while its own working-class children and struggling towns are pushed to the back of the queue. The numbers don’t lie – and neither do the consequences.

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Tyler Durden Wed, 04/08/2026 - 03:30

Russia Ferries 175 Russian Nuclear Scientists Out Of Iran Via Land Border With Armenia

Russia Ferries 175 Russian Nuclear Scientists Out Of Iran Via Land Border With Armenia

Russia has announced that it has successfully evacuated a last main group of Russian workers from Iran's Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant (NPP), which has been hit several times by US-Israeli strikes throughout the over one-month long war.

A group of 175 Russian employees of Rosatom Atomic Energy Corporation were evacuated via land route through northern Iran, before taking a flight out of the Armenian capital of Yerevan to Moscow.

Anadolu Agency

According to TASS, "Earlier, Alexey Likhachev, director general of Russia’s Rosatom Atomic Energy Corporation, said that evacuation buses left the Bushehr facility about 20 minutes after a US strike hit the area on Saturday, and headed for the Iran-Armenia border."

Moscow had requested that the US impose a ceasefire for the site while the Russian staff were evacuated. They were then driven to the Norduz-Agarak border crossing (a very long overland route). Already several rounds of Russians at Iran's nuclear facilities were taken out of the country.

Russia's foreign ministry thanked Armenian authorities "for their kind attitude and quick handling of exit procedures" for Rosatom personnel.

Apparently some key Russian personnel have agreed to stay at the facility. "Some of Rosatom’s personnel expressed readiness to continue working in Iran, Rosatom's Likhachev had said on Sunday. The first power unit of the Bushehr NPP remains operational, Rosatom has also said.

As for the requested local ceasefire for the site, it's unclear whether or not that was ever enacted. Israel has shown more of a penchant for hitting nuclear facilities in Iran of late.

Meanwhile, IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi has also urged "maximum restraint" during the conflict in order to prevent the risk of a nuclear accident. 

Just like war in Ukraine has threatened nuclear power sites, so has the Iran conflict raised concerns over nuclear fallout and radiation - in the instance of a strike leading to major accident.

Tyler Durden Wed, 04/08/2026 - 02:45

Germany's 67-Point Climate Plan: Fatal Yet Highly Effective

Germany's 67-Point Climate Plan: Fatal Yet Highly Effective

Submitted by Thomas Kolbe

Travel is said to broaden the mind. At least, this wisdom applies to those willing to leave their routines behind and not stubbornly defend their claimed spot by the pool. In the case of Economics Minister Katharina Reiche, the “aha” moment arrived at breathtaking speed. She is currently traveling in North America, specifically in Ontario, Canada.

This week, the CDU politician toured the site of a so-called SMR, a small modular reactor. Apparently deeply impressed by the technology and the high efficiency of energy generation—which occurs almost emission-free and without waste—she came out on the sidelines of the CERAWeek energy conference as a converted nuclear energy supporter.

As noted: travel broadens the mind. Little is known about the travel habits of her cabinet colleagues, yet it appears they prefer monotonous package trips over stimulating cultural journeys.

The contrast could hardly be greater:

Almost simultaneously, Environment Minister Carsten Schneider of the SPD presented a comprehensive set of measures to deepen the climate strategy. Schneider thereby proves that one can settle comfortably into a simulated pseudo-reality. Berlin mobilizes all resources to perpetuate the long-failed energy transition into the future. The return to nuclear power is not part of the plan.

German politics has become dysfunctional, having constructed an ideologically dystopian pseudo-world whose stimulus-response patterns are no longer causally connected to the surrounding environment.

The devastating signals from the German economy—the ongoing insolvencies and job cuts, clearly linked to the energy crisis and disastrous climate policies—are shielded from public scrutiny by political protective membranes.

It almost seems as if the Berlin Degrowth Club is actively wishing for deindustrialization to free up capacity for its own clientelist networks. The climate plan complements this green control ideology precisely.

An astounding 67 points make up this expanded action framework, designed to help Germany reach its target and cut CO2 emissions by 80% by 2030.

By then, Schneider must cut an additional 25 million tons of CO2 to meet the ambitious deindustrialization goals. Environmental groups find the plan far from sufficient, and their criticism was immediate.

The Thunberg faction of Fridays for Future appeared visibly dissatisfied with the minister’s presentation. The German Environmental Aid (DUH), always present when it comes to taxing German taxpayers and pushing entire industries over the cliff with an army of lawyers, voiced even sharper criticism.

It threatened to take the government to court if the 2030 climate target is not met.

The situation highlights the precarious position of the Federal Republic. By enshrining the Net-Zero target in the constitution, the party cartel has embedded a suicidal time bomb deep within the state’s foundations. DUH careerists now hold the fuse, using it as leverage to maximize Germany’s decline.

A battlefield, then, for the eco-socialist NGO complex, whose parliamentary arm, Green faction leader Katharina Dröge, called Schneider’s climate program a brazen deception. Apparently, more is never enough; Schneider nevertheless offered a lifeline for companies thriving on the endless subsidies of the green machinery.

The highly subsidized wind sector alone is set to expand by 2,000 additional large turbines by 2030. These are unmistakable signs of the green triumph, disfiguring the landscape with potentially enormous aesthetic losses.

In addition, the existing infrastructure of over 200,000 electric vehicle charging stations is set to be massively expanded with public funds. Nine million private parking spaces, Schneider notes, could be integrated into the EV network. Naturally, all funded by taxpayers.

The federal government is providing an additional €8 billion on top of existing subsidies, including purchase incentives for 800,000 EVs. Still not enough for the green subsidy hunters? The answer is likely a firm no.

The enormous green complex is accustomed to billions in subsidies. Criticism from environmental groups is therefore almost understandable—they crave ever higher doses.

That public budgets are rapidly deteriorating in the recession is irrelevant to these circles. In the heart of the saturated NGO complex and climate industry, there is plenty of excess—funded by the anonymous army of taxpayers, the very people met with maximum contempt.

Ignoring criticism from his own ranks, Schneider defends his program. It will supposedly deliver a boost to climate protection and reduce dependence on expensive and unreliable oil and gas imports. The plan is projected to save seven billion cubic meters of natural gas and roughly four billion liters of gasoline annually.

If policymakers stick to Agenda 2030, no additional measures will be needed. Fuel, heating, and vacations will become luxury goods in an increasingly pauperized society, with consumption naturally declining. One can rightly say: the climate agenda works. It is fatal, yet highly effective.

Geopolitical strategy, ecological ambition, and energy efficiency merge in Berlin’s fantasy world into yet another guillotine descending on the German middle class.

According to the Environment Ministry, the plan serves multiple purposes. It is meant to pacify the militant NGO complex, pushing for faster industrial destruction, while Berlin naively assumes the majority of Germans still do not see through the political camouflage behind the CO2 narrative. Thus, officials are convinced that by preaching a fusion of ecology and economy, they can deliver a small economic miracle.

Finally, it should be noted: The CO2 saved in Germany will immediately contribute to dirtier industrial production elsewhere, yet the Berlin climate clan does not care. In the land of unlimited green subsidies, the extraction machine runs at full speed, and the chancellor was wrong to claim the lemon had been fully squeezed. Germany is only at the beginning.

* * * 

About the author: Thomas Kolbe is a German graduate economist. For over 25 years, he has worked as a journalist and media producer for clients from various industries and business associations. As a publicist, he focuses on economic processes and observes geopolitical events from the perspective of the capital markets. His publications follow a philosophy that focuses on the individual and their right to self-determination

Tyler Durden Wed, 04/08/2026 - 02:00

War Unicorn Hermeus Raises $350 Million For Unmanned Supersonic Fighter Jets

War Unicorn Hermeus Raises $350 Million For Unmanned Supersonic Fighter Jets

Atlanta-based aerospace startup Hermeus Corp. has secured $350 million in a funding round that values the builder of uncrewed supersonic and hypersonic fighters at north of $1 billion, according to a Bloomberg report.

Bloomberg reports that the company will use the proceeds from the latest funding round to build two more supersonic jets, called "Quarterhorse," and to expand manufacturing as it works on an uncrewed aircraft designed to fly at Mach 3 or faster.

The company is also working on a hypersonic uncrewed jet called "Darkhorse."

The round was led by Khosla Ventures and included investors such as Founders Fund, Canaan Partners, RTX Ventures, and In-Q-Tel. The company says it has now raised more than $500 million in total and is valued at $1 billion.

Hermeus says the aircraft is designed to deliver fighter-jet-level payload capacity in a cheaper, unmanned platform for defense use.

Founded in 2018, Hermeus is part of the rising class of startups in the defense space that we have called "war unicorns," as the Department of War resets the procurement process and focuses on funding a new era of defense startups rather than bloated legacy defense primes that are highly skilled at squandering taxpayer funds.

Vinod Khosla, the founder of Khosla Ventures, told the outlet, "The US is very far behind anything in Russia or China on hypersonic flight and weapons. So it becomes imperative that we have a strategy, and that's what Hermeus is doing."

Hermeus is trying to close the gap in hypersonic aviation as the US remains behind Russia and China. The US is still in the testing phase of hypersonic weapons, while Russia and China have already fielded such weapons.

Tyler Durden Tue, 04/07/2026 - 23:00

US Scientists Crack Superconductor Code - Zero Energy Loss Moves Closer To Reality

US Scientists Crack Superconductor Code - Zero Energy Loss Moves Closer To Reality

Authored by Prabhat Ranjan Mishra via Interesting Engineering,

Researchers in the United States have unlocked secrets of high-temperature superconductors.

Small differences in how atoms are arranged in a crystalline lattice can strongly affect superconductivity. (Representational image) Wildpixel/Charles

Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory have discovered how tiny changes in superhydride structure enable superconductivity at near room temperatures but extreme pressure - offering clues for designing more practical superconductors.

“These experiments show what the upgraded APS can do. We can now study atomic-level structures with unprecedented detail in materials under extreme pressure,” said Maddury Somayazulu, Argonne physicist.

Superconductors allow electricity to flow without resistance

Researchers revealed that superconductors allow electricity to flow without resistance, meaning no energy is lost as heat. This property makes them useful for technologies such as MRI scanners, particle accelerators, magnetic-levitation trains and some power-transmission systems.

They also highlighted that most superconductors, however, only work at extremely low temperatures - often hundreds of degrees below zero Fahrenheit. Keeping materials that cold requires complex and costly cooling systems, which limits where the superconductors can be used.

Now, researchers in the U.S. have helped take a step toward easing that limitation. They have gained new insight into a class of materials called superhydrides that can become superconducting at much higher temperatures - around 10 degrees Fahrenheit.

In the new study, Hemley and his fellow researchers explored whether changing the material’s chemistry could lower the pressure needed for superconductivity. They added a small amount of yttrium to the lanthanum superhydride to make it more stable and reduce the pressure required.

“To reach these extreme pressures, we squeezed a tiny sample between two diamonds,” said Maddury Somayazulu, a physicist at the APS. The team’s diamond-anvil device can generate pressures as high as five million atmospheres.

Forming superconducting material at high pressure and temperature

After forming the superconducting material at high pressure and temperature, the team used high-energy X-rays from the APS to study its structure (at beamlines 16-ID-B and 13-ID-D).

​”We focused an intense X-ray beam onto a sample only a few micrometers thick and about ten to twenty micrometers across,” said Vitali Prakapenka, a beamline scientist and research professor at the University of Chicago. One micrometer is about 1/70th the width of a human hair.

The recent APS upgrade made these measurements possible. Its brighter, more tightly focused X-ray beam allowed researchers to study extremely small samples while changing the pressure, according to a press release. ​

“That beam allowed us to separate signals coming from the tiny sample itself as opposed to those coming from the surrounding materials and diamond anvils,” Prakapenka said.

The team found that small differences in how atoms are arranged in a crystalline lattice can strongly affect superconductivity. They identified two different crystal structures, each becoming superconducting at a slightly different temperature, as per the release.

“These experiments show what the upgraded APS can do,” Somayazulu said. ​”We can now study atomic-level structures with unprecedented detail in materials under extreme pressure.”

Researchers also highlighted that although the pressures used in the experiments are still very high — about 1.4 million times atmospheric pressure — the researchers see this as part of a longer path forward. They are adding more elements to lower the pressure further with the goal of making these materials practical.

Tyler Durden Tue, 04/07/2026 - 22:35

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