Reuters:
Two undersea cables in Baltic Sea cut, Germany and Finland fear sabotage
By Johan Ahlander, Essi Lehto and Andrius Sytas
November 19, 2024
9:50 AM GMT+11, Updated 7 hours ago
A German U-32 submarine sails during the Northern Coasts 2023 exercise in the Baltic Sea, September 18, 2023. REUTERS/Janis Laizans/File Photo
A German U-32 submarine sails during the Northern Coasts 2023 exercise in the Baltic Sea, September 18, 2023. REUTERS/Janis Laizans/File Photo
Summary
- One cable cut Sunday, the other on Monday
- Finnish and German governments say are concerned about security of critical infrastructure, launch investigation
- Repair of Finland-Germany cable could take up to 15 days
HELSINKI/STOCKHOLM/VILNIUS, Nov 18 (Reuters) - Two undersea fibre-optic communications cables in the Baltic Sea, including one linking Finland and Germany, were severed, raising suspicions of sabotage by bad actors, countries and companies involved said on Monday.
The episode recalled other incidents in the same waterway that authorities have probed as potentially malicious including damage to a gas pipeline and undersea cables last year and the 2022 explosions of the Nord Sea gas pipelines.
The 1,200-kilometre (745-mile) cable connecting Helsinki to the German port of Rostock stopped working around 0200 GMT on Monday, Finnish state-controlled cyber security and telecoms company Cinia said.
The 1,200-kilometre (745-mile) cable connecting Helsinki to the German port of Rostock stopped working around 0200 GMT on Monday, Finnish state-controlled cyber security and telecoms company Cinia said.
A 218-km (135-mile) internet link between Lithuania and Sweden's Gotland Island went out of service at about 0800 GMT on Sunday, according to Lithuania's Telia Lietuva, part of Sweden's Telia Company (TELIA.ST) group.
Finland and Germany said in a joint statement that they were "deeply concerned about the severed undersea cable" and were investigating "an incident (that) immediately raises suspicions of intentional damage."
Finland and Germany said in a joint statement that they were "deeply concerned about the severed undersea cable" and were investigating "an incident (that) immediately raises suspicions of intentional damage."
Europe's security is threatened by Russia's war against Ukraine and "hybrid warfare by malicious actors," the joint statement said, without naming the actors.
"Safeguarding our shared critical infrastructure is vital to our security and the resilience of our societies," Germany and Finland said.
A spokesperson for Telia Lietuva, Audrius Stasiulaitis, said the other cable was severed as well. It is owned and operated by Sweden's Arelion to carry Telia Lietuva's internet traffic, the Telia spokesperson said.
"It is absolutely central that it is clarified why we currently have two cables in the Baltic Sea that are not working," Carl-Oskar Bohlin, Sweden's minister of civil defence, told Swedish public broadcaster SVT.
Located in northern Europe, the Baltic Sea is an active commercial shipping route and is ringed by nine countries including Russia.
A spokesperson for Telia Lietuva, Audrius Stasiulaitis, said the other cable was severed as well. It is owned and operated by Sweden's Arelion to carry Telia Lietuva's internet traffic, the Telia spokesperson said.
"It is absolutely central that it is clarified why we currently have two cables in the Baltic Sea that are not working," Carl-Oskar Bohlin, Sweden's minister of civil defence, told Swedish public broadcaster SVT.
Located in northern Europe, the Baltic Sea is an active commercial shipping route and is ringed by nine countries including Russia.
The damage to the Finland-Germany cable occurred near the southern tip of Sweden's Oland Island and could require five to 15 days to repair, Cinia's chief executive, Ari-Jussi Knaapila, told a news conference.
Last year a subsea gas pipeline and several telecoms cables running along the bottom of the Baltic Sea were severely damaged in an incident raising alarm bells in the region.
Investigators of the 2023 cases in Finland and Estonia have named a Chinese container ship that they believe dragged its anchor and caused the damage. But they have not said whether the damage was accidental or intentional.
Last year a subsea gas pipeline and several telecoms cables running along the bottom of the Baltic Sea were severely damaged in an incident raising alarm bells in the region.
Investigators of the 2023 cases in Finland and Estonia have named a Chinese container ship that they believe dragged its anchor and caused the damage. But they have not said whether the damage was accidental or intentional.
In 2022 the Nord Stream gas pipelines linking Russia to Germany in the Baltic Sea were destroyed by explosions in a case that remains under investigation by German authorities.
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kt comments:
Easier to criticise "a Chinese container ship that they believe dragged its anchor and caused the damage", but everyone knows the "bad actors" who caused "the 2022 explosions of the Nord Sea gas pipelines", so who's to say they aren't the same ones?
https://www.nationalreview.com/bench-memos/will-trump-pursue-bonkers-plan-to-adjourn-both-houses-of-congress/
ReplyDeleteWill Trump Pursue Bonkers Plan to Adjourn Both Houses of Congress?
I’ve been hearing through the grapevine of a crazy plan in which Donald Trump would exercise his authority under Article II, section 3 of the Constitution to adjourn both Houses of Congress so that he could recess-appoint his Cabinet officials. Trump’s stunning announcement that he intends to select Florida congressman Matt Gaetz as his Attorney General lends credence to this rumor, as it is extremely unlikely that the Senate would confirm Gaetz.
The plan would require the complicity of the Speaker of the House in eviscerating the Senate’s advice-and-consent role.
Here’s a sketch of what I understand to be the plan, but I could easily be wrong on some of the details:
The Constitution provides that “[n]either House [of Congress], during the Session of Congress, shall, without the Consent of the other, adjourn for more than three days.” (Article I, Section 5, clause 4.) Article II, section 3 provides that “in Case of Disagreement between [the Houses], with Respect to the Time of Adjournment, [the president] may adjourn them to such Time as he shall think proper.”
Step 1: The House adopts a concurrent resolution that provides for the adjournment of both the House and the Senate. (The House rules expressly state that a concurrent resolution “may provide for the adjournment of … both Houses.”)
Step 2: The Senate either adopts the concurrent resolution, in which case it adjourns (jump to Step 4), or it rejects the concurrent resolution (proceed to Step 3).
Step 3: Trump adjourns both the House and the Senate for at least ten days (and perhaps for much longer).
Step 4: Trump recess-appoints his Cabinet officers.
For the reasons I have previously given, I think that this plan is an outrageous attack on the Senate’s core duty to approve or reject the president’s nominations of his top officials.
If Speaker Mike Johnson is aware of such a plan, he needs to repudiate it forthwith.
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Message was sent to the other side. The photo was a message. Chatters point to big thing happening, possibly this week, linked to 22 Nov...and the Federal Reserve
https://t.me/WeTheMedia/112445
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And lots of public development...biden and longrange missiles to RU authorization, UK n FR follow suit, submarine foc cut, sweden issuing war footing preparation to citizens...
https://t.me/WeTheMedia/112497
☣️Sweden is sending out some five million pamphlets to residents urging them to prepare for the possibility of war, with instructions on how to stockpile food and water amid growing fears of a conflict with Russia.
Neighbouring Finland has also launched a new preparedness website while Norwegians recently received booklets instructing them on how to manage on their own for a week in the event of war and other threats.
Both Sweden and Finland dropped decades of military non-alignment to join the US-led military alliance NATO in the wake of Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
Since the start of the war, Stockholm has repeatedly urged Swedes to prepare both mentally and logistically for the possibility of war, citing the serious security situation in its vicinity.
The booklet 'If Crisis or War Comes', sent out by the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency (MSB), contains information about how to prepare for emergencies such as war, natural disasters, or cyber attacks.
It is an updated version of a pamphlet that Sweden has issued five times since World War II. However, underlining the seriousness of the potential threat, the book is twice the size of previous years.
In one of the more worrying excerpts, which harks back to advice given by governments during the darkest days of the Cold War, it informs people of the risk of nuclear weapons.
READ | XPOST
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EM is trolling'em hard...
https://t.me/WeTheMedia/112465
https://t.me/WeTheMedia/112494
ReplyDelete💥The Associated Press on Monday told staff it plans to reduce its staff count through layoffs and voluntary buyouts to invest further in efforts that will help modernize the brand.
AP is a not-for-profit agency, which means its profits must be reinvested further into the organization.
In a note to staff, AP's CEO Daisy Veerasingham said the company plans to reduce its workforce by 8% through a combination of buyouts and layoffs.
The staff reactions, she said, will impact less than half of the news division.
The company will offer a voluntary separation plan to a small number of eligible staff, based on department, role and length of employment, Veerasingham wrote.
She added that the AP has reached a tentative agreement with the News Media Guild to extend the buyout offer to some of its unionized staff in the U.S. that's subject to union ratification.
The staff cuts reflect broader challenges facing the entire media industry. Dozens of media companies have cut staffers this year amid an advertising slowdown and subscription fatigue.
READ | XPOST
Media industry update...
Deletehttps://t.me/WeTheMedia/112638
Comcast to spin off MSNBC, CNBC, entertainment channels as streaming dents cable: sources
Comcast is moving forward with plans to spin off its NBCUniversal cable television networks including MSNBC and CNBC, sources say, shedding a once core part of the business that has been a casualty of the streaming video revolution.
The company last month told investors it was evaluating hiving off its cable networks into a separate company owned by Comcast’s shareholders.
“We think there could be an opportunity to play some offense,” said Comcast President Michael Cavanagh said during the company’s third-quarter investor call.
READ | XPOST
The bespectacled guy standing behind Donald Trump jr and Robert Kennedy jr is House Speaker Mike Johnson. Picture was probably taken onboard Trump's jet after Saturday UFC.
ReplyDeleteAbout that photo op...there're interesting comments from a historical perspective about the group photo posing...
Delete~~~~~
https://t.me/tiktoknews45/32195
It's from an old novel. And the 5 in the painting saved the world from certain destruction
@TikTokNews45
https://x.com/financialjuice/status/1858807192339571173?s=19
ReplyDeleteUKRAINE MADE THEIR FIRST ATACMS STRIKE INSIDE RUSSIA - RBC UKRAINE
China is always good and innocent, yah
ReplyDeleteYaloh, initiated zero war anywhere in the world!
Delete