BREAKING: China's navy has seized an unmanned, underwater U.S. Navy vehicle in international waters

[kpete]

China's Navy seizes unmanned U.S. vessel: NBC News China's Navy seizes unmanned U.S. vessel: NBC News
41 Mins Ago | 01:41

A Chinese Navy warship has seized an underwater drone deployed by an American oceanographic vessel in international waters in the South China Sea, triggering a formal diplomatic protest from the United States and a demand for its return, a U.S. defense official told Reuters on Friday.

The incident, the first of its kind in recent memory, took place on Dec. 15 northwest of Subic Bay off the Philippines just as the USNS Bowditch, an oceanographic survey ship, was about to retrieve the unmanned, underwater vehicle (UUV), the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

"The UUV was lawfully conducting a military survey in the waters of the South China Sea," the official said.

"It's a sovereign immune vessel, clearly marked in English not to be removed from the water - that it was U.S. property."


http://www.cnbc.com/2016/12/16/china-has-seized-an-unmanned-us-navy-vehicle-in-south-china-sea.html

[FarCenter]

1. Most likely it will be returned disassembled

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USNS_Bowditch_(T-AGS-62)

[TheCowsCameHome]

2. Trump will handle it.

Watch for him to start tweeting at any moment.

[unblock]

4. "let 'em keep it, those drones are no good. i like drones that aren't captured."

[ffr]

7. Brilliant!

[unblock]

10. "and by the way, trump plaza shanghai is probably the greatest building in the whole world"

[CentralMass]

11. :-)

[Brother Buzz]

8. Let's just hope it's not Boeing's UUV

[yeoman6987]

9. I hope it's fixed before January 20th myself

[Eliot Rosewater]

3. I am absolutely struggling to breathe right now thinking about a scenario

like this with you know who in charge and with access to thousand of nuclear warheads.

I just think the day is coming very quickly when concerns about civil rights and the environment will be overshadowed by the threat of world war.

[still_one]

5. I am sure China will claim it is not international waters. Gee, don't we all feel secure who

will be at the wheel?

[Wellstone ruled]

6. First of many Crisis issues

to come in the next 30 days. Thank You GOP and Your Amazing Hugly Bigly Ding Bat President Elect.

[dumbcat]

12. This is happening now

not in the future. I wonder what President Obama plans to do about it? He is still in charge for another month.

Probably better to preempt Trump on this one.