Posted on 02/03/2008 7:26:10 PM PST by NCjim
Ships are not responsible for damaging undersea internet cables in the Mediterranean, Egypt's Government says.
Two cables were damaged earlier this week in the Mediterranean sea and another off the coast of Dubai, causing widespread disruption to internet and international telephone services in Egypt, Gulf Arab states and South Asia.
A fourth cable linking Qatar to the United Arab Emirates was damaged on Sunday causing yet more disruptions, telecommunication provider Qtel said.
Egypt's transport ministry said footage recorded by onshore video cameras of the location of the cables showed no maritime traffic in the area when the cables were damaged.
"The ministry's maritime transport committee reviewed footage covering the period of 12 hours before and 12 hours after the cables were cut and no ships sailed the area," a statement said.
"The area is also marked on maps as a no-go zone and it is therefore ruled out that the damage to the cables was caused by ships."
Earlier reports said that the damage had been caused by ships that had been diverted off their usual route because of bad weather.
A repair ship is expected to begin work to fix the two Mediterranean cables on Tuesday.
You said — “A fishing boat dragged a net across it, or it was an anchor drag. Just like many, if not most other cable breaks.”
Now, what article were you referencing when you said that. Since this article says that there was *no ship traffic* at the time of the disruption, I conclude that you’re reading a different article.
Could you please provide us with that article — which of course, would tell us why the cameras did not record any ship traffic at the time of the disruption (that is, would take into account that Egypt has already said it wasn’t ship traffic, and thus they would explain why it was ship traffic that didn’t show up...).
I would definitely be enlightened... :-)
Regards,
Star Traveler
“Egypt has already said it wasn’t ship traffic”
You presume that Egyptians are credible in anything that they say. They aren’t.
They cut corners, they lie, they blame every societal ill, every policy mis-step on Israel, or some conspiracy.
Most cable breaks are because somebody in a boat did something they weren’t supposed to do, or some poor design flaw (failure to bury the cable in the silt, or mis-specifying the forces the cable is subjected to, for example).
So Egypt says it was sabotage (that is what I believe they are implying) because they are unwilling to admit to their own failures - failure to enforce maritime rules on where it is safe to weigh anchor, or cast bottom-dragging nets.... it’s classic Arab victim behavior. Arabs lie, and blame Israel, the US or some other Zionist saboteur.
Maybe it just broke....that does happen sometimes.
I look for the simple explanation (a boat did something it wasn’t supposed to do) before I am willing to accept conspiracies. It is much easier for me to believe Egyptian government authorities will lie about a boat dragging anchor across the cable, than it is for me to believe that Israel picked this week to deny Egyptian men their porn downloads.
The Cold war era ended in 1990, and a new generational era began. The different regions of the earth are being liberated step by step. It’s Arabia’s turn. Saddam’s power grab in Aug of 1990 was the beginning; (about)19 years later it comes the end.
At a micro level, there is great friction and turmoil beneath the surface. Saudi Arabia doesn’t reflexively side against the Jews anymore, as was evidenced with the criticism of Hezbollah in the last conflict they had with Israel. The pot is going to come to a boil soon if Iraq succeeds and private investmentment flows in there. History flows in one direction.
At a macro level, the dictatorships will begin to fall in two more years and the Arab world will look different by the end of 2010. These matters happen in 9 and 18 year cycles.
Im not sure how deep the breaks are at but in working with BT this week on the FLAG outage they reported that the break was close to shore so we are look at a fast est. time to repair (ETR), about a month...(I’ve seen 6 month+ outages on Pac rim cables)
I worked International tel com for 15 years and undersea cable outages like this happen all the time. I have to tracked these outages and the repair.. I might be tracking two three outages in any given week.. The FLAG and SE-WE-ME 4 outages this last week, while causing problems, was not that unusual... there is restore or Alt path (redundant) bandwidth held in reserve for just this reason
And yes I’ve had undersea cable outages caused by submarines running over the cable
Really?
Beautiful.
2 answers, but that photo inspired it.
How dare you ruin budding conspiracy theories with a logical explanation based upon knowledge and experience? :^)
Well, I had to go back and read that article once more — because I missed the reference in the article about porn, and I also missed the reference in the article about sabotage, and then I missed the reference in the article about Israel. In fact, I missed just about every item you mentioned — in that article....
Maybe I was just reading a different article than you. Your article (the one you read) obviously talked about porn, Israel, sabotage and conspiracies...
Regards,
Star Traveler
I do not think the path of submarine cables is unknown to most governments. Detailed route maps can be swiped off the internet.
Besides, terrorists can always buy intelligence from governments like Russia and China.
since we are all speculating and have no real information yet, has anyone though maybe these outages are caused by some entity trying to tap into the system for intelligence? Us or someone else? Is this preemptive work for something larger ?
>>>>And yes I’ve had undersea cable outages caused by submarines running over the cable
Close to shore, (shallow) I was thinking more of SCUBA sets, a kippah and big bolt cutters.
the following from a blog: If the Kremlin is blaming us , it is them for sure.
...................
Sorcha Faal (Russia) is hit-or-miss with her intel reports but this looks plausible:
Reports circulating in the Kremlin today are painting a grim picture of just how desperate US War Leaders have become as their economy continues its freefall towards total bankruptcy by their crashing of Global Internet access for the Middle East’s banking centers in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, Iran, UAR, Turkey and Kuwait.
These reports state that the Americans became ‘enraged’ this past week when the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) rejected US demands for an immediate increase in oil production.
Further angering the Americans this past week was Turkey’s rejection of US demands for them to sever banking ties with Iran’s Bank Mellat, and which allows Iranian continued access to Global banking resources.
But, these reports state, the greatest fears of the United States were raised this past week when Saudi Arabia ‘warned’ the United States to ‘back off’ of its threats against Iran or face the Saudi’s decoupling the US Dollar from its enormous World oil trade transactions.
Though the American President [pictured top left with Saudi King] personally went to the Saudi Kingdom to lobby the US’s Middle East allies in agreeing for attacks against Iran for the Iranians decoupling of the US Dollar from its oil trade, Bush was quickly rebuffed.
It should be noted that those Nations who have dared to decoupled the US Dollar from their oil trade, Iraq, Iran, Russia and Venezuela, have come under withering attacks from the Americans, and their Western Allies; none worse than the Iraqis who are reported to have suffered over 1 million deaths since being invaded by the US in 2003.
But, as these reports state, the ‘worst nightmare’ of the Americans appeared to be coming true this past week when their Saudi Arabian allies were reported to have begun the decoupling of the US Dollar from their oil trade with the intention of replacing the rapidly declining American currency with the European Euro.
American War Leaders, though, have had previous warnings of the Saudis growing fears of being the holders of trillions of declining US Dollars with Saudi Arabia, for the first time, refusing to drop their interest rates in ‘lock-step’ with the US Federal Reserve, and leading to fears of a ‘stampede’ by other Middle Eastern Nations out of US Dollar backed assets.
Under such a threat, and with the Saudi King growing closer to Iran’s President Ahmadinejad [both pictured top left 2nd photo], Russian Military Analysts state in these reports that the United States invoked one of their so called ‘nuclear options’ by severing the three major undersea cables connecting the Middle East’s major banking centers to their Western, and Global, counterparts.
The significance to the severing of these cables is the Middle East Banking Centers being denied access to the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT), based in Brussels and which carries up to 12.7 million messages a day containing instructions on many of the International transfers of money between banks, lies in Saudi Arabia, or any other Middle East Nation, being unable to change their previously, before loss of communication, encoded currency instructions from being changed.
Moscow’s actions against the West, in the severing by the United States of these cables, was swift as President Putin ordered Russian Air Force Fighters and Bombers to take immediate action to protect the Russian Nations vital undersea cables in the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans.
To some of the Russian Air Force assets used we can read as reported by the Reuters News Service article titled “Russia sends bombers, fighters to Atlantic, Arctic”, and which says:
“Air force pilots will carry out practice in the areas involving reconnaissance, missile-bombing attacks on a navy attack force of a hypothetical enemy, air-to-air combat and refuelling and patrolling,” an air force spokesman said. The bomber group included two Tupolev Tu-160 strategic bombers, codenamed “Blackjack” by NATO, two turbo-prop Tu-95 “Bear” strategic bombers, and eight Tu-22 “Blinder” bombers. MiG-31 and Su-27 fighters were also sent to the region.”
To the final outcome of these events it is not in our knowing, other than one Russian Banking Official, wishing to remain anonymous, stating that, “Should the Saudi’s effectively decouple their oil from the US Dollar, the United States, for all practical purposes will cease to be a World power as it economy will collapse completely as the US Dollar has no value in and of itself due to the staggering debt of the Americans. Without oil they are nothing.]
© February 3, 2008 EU and US all rights reserved.
“Your article (the one you read) obviously talked about porn, Israel, sabotage and conspiracies...”
The article was noticably missing key elements like “why the cable failed” - only stating that “the cable failed, and we know what didn’t cause it”.
I responded to other posters as well. That’s kind of how this all works...people comment and other people comment on their comments. It can be quite entertaining.
LINK ?
did the Kremlin really say that ?
If some of it was true we would not hear about it.
we did not even hear about the "oil for food" scandal
This is huge if they make the OPEC'ers belive we are having a tantrum, destruction of the US economy is the entire point of the WOT
Wouldn't surprise me if one or more of their subs was tailing our carriers and waiting for an incident similar to the one 2 weeks ago. Hoping to goad us into firing, at which time they try to torpedo a carrier.
lololol
the website is pretty wacky - i am just following the money trail- plus with these WWII bombers lugging around distracting attention from what is going on under the surface.
I say its the russkies.
You said — The article was noticably missing key elements like “why the cable failed” - only stating that “the cable failed, and we know what didn’t cause it”.
Yes — *that* is the article I read — the one that said, “the cable failed and it doesn’t appear to be a ship and we don’t know what caused it to fail.”
That’s exactly the point of the article.
To put in “porn”, “Israel”, “sabotage” and “conspiracies” — when the article did not mention them, or to attribute that to the Egyptians (when they never mentioned it; but supposedly according to you, they were definitely trying to “say that” by the mere absence of them saying it) — is — the *conspiracy-nut theory* in and of itself...
And that came from inside the heads of some posters here — and *not* from the article. I think we have enough “conspiracy nuts” as it is. There’s no need to read a conspiracy into every newspaper or online article by the mere absence of words (which they would have said, if they had a chance to), and/or the statement — “Well..., I know those xxx [fill in whomever you wish] and they’re definitely xxx [again, fill in whatever you wish].
There’s a difference between reported news and the kinds of conspiracy-nut-theories that come out of too much pizza the night before and the wild dreams that one had...
Regards,
Star Traveler
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