Warren says 'egomaniac billionaire' Bloomberg will make a good Trump stand-in during Democratic debate

Tim O'Donnell, The Week•February 18, 2020


The remaining Democratic presidential candidates don't seem very happy about billionaire and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg qualifying for Wednesday's debate in Las Vegas ahead of the Nevada caucus Saturday. But Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) sees a silver lining.

Warren on Tuesday blasted Bloomberg over Twitter, calling him an "egomaniac billionaire," but she suggested his presence could come in handy because he can serve as a stand-in for President Trump, giving the other candidates on stage a chance to show voters how they'd go after the incumbent should they win the Democratic nomination.

It’s a shame Mike Bloomberg can buy his way into the debate. But at least now primary voters curious about how each candidate will take on Donald Trump can get a live demonstration of how we each take on an egomaniac billionaire. https://t.co/H02radEZcv— Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) February 18, 2020

Warren and her competitors may indeed get a chance to test out some of their offensive game plan for Trump on Wednesday, but it remains to be seen if Bloomberg will fire back in a similar manner to Trump. At the least, they should expect fewer nicknames.

Locust swarms arrive in South Sudan, threatening more misery

AFP•February 18, 2020


Pest: Desert locusts are threatening millions of people in East Africa with hunger (AFP Photo/TONY KARUMBA)

Juba (AFP) - Swarms of locusts which are wreaking havoc across East Africa have now arrived in South Sudan, the government said Tuesday, threatening more misery in one of the world's most vulnerable nations.

Billions of desert locusts, some in swarms the size of Moscow, have already chomped their way through Ethiopia, Somalia, Kenya, Djibouti, Eritrea, Tanzania, Sudan and Uganda.

Their breeding has been spurred by one of the wettest rainy seasons in the region in four decades.

Experts have warned the main March-to-May cropping season is at risk. Eggs laid along the locusts' path are due to hatch and create a second wave of the insects in key agricultural areas.

The arrival of the locusts could be catastrophic in South Sudan, where war followed by drought and floods has already left six million people -- 60 percent of the population -- facing severe hunger.

Agriculture Minister Onyoti Adigo Nyikiwec said the locusts had crossed the eastern border with Uganda on Monday.

"The report came that these are matured. As you know locusts are like human beings, they send their reconnaissance ahead of time to make sure that whether there is food or not and if the area is good for breeding."

Meshack Malo, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) representative in South Sudan, said about 2,000 locusts had been spotted so far, and if not controlled quickly, could have a devastating impact.

"These are deep yellow which means that they will be here mostly looking at areas in which they will lay eggs."

He said the FAO was training locals and acquiring sprayers and chemicals to try and combat the locusts. It is the first locust invasion in 70 years in the country.

Other countries have employed aircraft to spray the swarms, while desperate locals have employed tactics like banging pots and pans or shooting at them.

Nyikiwec said the government had prepared a contingency plan.

"We are training people who will be involved in spraying and also we need chemicals for spraying and also sprayers. You will also need cars to move while spraying and then later if it becomes worse, we will need aircraft."

Earlier this month Somalia declared a national emergency over the invasion.
The FAO says the current invasion is known as an "upsurge," the term for when an entire region is affected.

However, if the invasion cannot be rolled back and spreads, it becomes known as a "plague" of locusts.

There have been six major desert locust plagues in the 1900s, the last of which was in 1987-89. The last major upsurge was in 2003-05.




Huge locust outbreak in East Africa reaches South Sudan

MAURA AJAK, Associated Press•February 18, 2020

Huge locust outbreak in East Africa reaches vulnerable South Sudan

JUBA, South Sudan (AP) — The worst locust outbreak that parts of East Africa have seen in 70 years has reached South Sudan, a country where roughly half the population already faces hunger after years of civil war, officials announced Tuesday.

Around 2,000 locusts were spotted inside the country, Agriculture Minister Onyoti Adigo told reporters. Authorities will try to control the outbreak, he added.

The locusts have been seen in Eastern Equatoria state near the borders with Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda. All have been affected by the outbreak that has been influenced by the changing climate in the region.

The situation in those three countries “remains extremely alarming,” the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization said in its latest Locust Watch update Monday. Locusts also have reached Sudan, Eritrea, Tanzania and more recently Uganda.

The soil in South Sudan's Eastern Equatoria has a sandy nature that allows the locusts to lay eggs easily, said Meshack Malo, country representative with the FAO.

At this stage “if we are not able to deal with them ... it will be a problem,” he said.

South Sudan is even less prepared than other countries in the region for a locust outbreak, and its people are arguably more vulnerable. More than 5 million people are severely food insecure, the U.N. humanitarian office says in its latest assessment, and some 860,000 children are malnourished.

Five years of civil war shattered South Sudan's economy, and lingering insecurity since a 2018 peace deal continues to endanger humanitarians trying to distribute aid. Another local aid worker was shot and killed last week, the U.N. said Tuesday.

The locusts have traveled across the region in swarms the size of major cities. Experts say their only effective control is aerial spraying with pesticides, but U.N. and local authorities have said more aircraft and pesticides are required. A handful of planes have been active in Kenya and Ethiopia.

The U.N. has said $76 million is needed immediately. On Tuesday, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo during a visit to Ethiopia said the U.S. would donate another $8 million to the effort. That follows an earlier $800,000.

The number of overall locusts could grow up to 500 times by June, when drier weather begins, experts have said. Until then, the fear is that more rains in the coming weeks will bring fresh vegetation to feed a new generation of the voracious insects.

South Sudanese ministers called for a collective regional response to the outbreak that threatens to devastate crops and pasturage.

Locusts swarm into South Sudan as plague spreads

By Denis Dumo, Reuters•February 18, 20203 Comments

JUBA, Feb 18 (Reuters) - Swarms of locusts ravaging crops and grazing land across east Africa have reached South Sudan, already reeling from widespread hunger and years of civil war, the country's agriculture minister said on Tuesday.

The locusts crossed into southern Magwi county, on the border with Uganda, Minister Anyoti Adigo Nyikwach said.

Kenya, Somalia, Eritrea and Djibouti are battling the worst locust outbreak in decades, and swarms have also spread into Tanzania, Uganda and now South Sudan.

Desert locusts can travel up to 150 km (95 miles) in a day and eat their own body weight in greenery, meaning a swarm just one kilometre square can eat as much food as 35,000 people in a day, the United Nations says.

The invasion is worsening food shortages in a region where up to 25 million people are suffering from three consecutive years of droughts and floods.

Meshack Malo, South Sudan's representative for the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization, said the locusts were mature and looking for breeding grounds that will form the basis of the next major infestation.

“These are deep yellow, which means that they will be here mostly looking at areas in which they will lay eggs,” he said.

Teams planned to mark the place where they lay eggs and then come back to kill the young insects in 14 days, he said, since poisoning the eggs in the ground could damage the soil.

At least 2,000 locusts had crossed the border, he said. During each three month breeding cycle, a single locust can breed 20 more, giving rise to the massive swarms that are now threatening crops on either side of the Red Sea.

Oil-rich South Sudan is recovering from five years of civil war that plunged parts of the country into famine in 2017 and forced a quarter of the population to flee their homes. In December, the U.N.'s World Food Programme said the food security outlook was dire after floods affected nearly a million people. (Writing by Katharine Houreld; Editing by Mark Potter)

COMPANY UNION
PG&E Union Warns Bernie Sanders Against ‘Bird-Brained’ State Takeover

WE HAD THIS IN CANADA WITH THE PWU, POWER WORKERS UNION OF ONTARIO HYDRO NUCLEAR PLANTS, FORMERLY A CUPE LOCAL DECLARED INDEPENDENCE WHEN BRUCE POWER WAS PRIVATIZED

THESE ARE SOME OF THE HIGHEST PAID WORKERS IN CALIFORNIA IBEW IS A TRADES UNION OFTEN IN THE BOSSES POCKET FOR WORK

Mark Chediak, Bloomberg•February 18, 2020

(Bloomberg) -- PG&E Corp.’s biggest union is pushing back against Bernie Sanders’ criticism of the embattled California power company, claiming the senator and presidential candidate supports a $100 billion state takeover of the utility.

The campaign by the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 1245 follows a new Sanders ad in California last week that blasted PG&E for sparking the deadly wildfires that pushed it into bankruptcy last year.

Sanders’ video, which comes as the state gears up for its March 3 primary, includes comments from fire victims and local activists who suggest that PG&E customers would be better served if the utility was in public hands. An online petition funded by his campaign also calls for a public takeover of the utility.

In local newspaper ads slated to run Tuesday, the union describes a state seizure of PG&E a “bird-brained idea” that would lead to higher energy rates and wouldn’t guarantee that PG&E operates in a safer manner

“Senator Sanders, you are just plain wrong on this,” Tom Dalzell, business manager for the union, says in a video ad posted Tuesday. “Publicly-owned utilities are capable of greatness. But they are also capable of bad management and bad luck, just the same as investor-owned utilities.”

IBEW Local 1245, which represents 12,000 PG&E workers, says in its video that a public takeover would threaten union pensions, be expensive for the state and expose it to future wildfire liabilities. The union estimates that turning PG&E into a government-run utility would cost $100 billion.

No Magic Words

Sanders’ campaign shot back, saying “greed and corruption” at PG&E have led to the neglect of California’s power grid.

“We cannot keep letting corporate profits stand in the way of safety and action on climate change,” Josh Orton, Sanders’ National Policy Director, said in a statement. “Bernie has a plan to transition to renewable energy and create millions of good-paying union jobs.”

The IBEW local, which also represents members of government-owned power companies in Northern California, has been vocal in its opposition to public ownership of PG&E. Some of its members staged a protest recently in San Francisco when a state lawmaker introduced of a bill that would turn PG&E into a government-run utility. The union has also opposed a move by San Francisco to buy out PG&E’s power network within the city.

“This isn’t Cinderella,” Dalzell says in the video. “There are no magic words that would change the fact that PG&E operates in high fire-risk areas at a time of serious climate change.”

(Disclaimer: Michael Bloomberg is seeking the Democratic presidential nomination. He is the founder and majority owner of Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News).

Mexican women protest after seven-year-old's murder
AFP•February 18, 2020


People lay white balloons and flowers at the site where the body of a seven-year-old girl was found over the weekend with signs of torture in Mexico City (AFP Photo/Pedro PARDO)More


Mexico City (AFP) - Dozens of women protested outside the presidential residence in Mexico City on Tuesday following the murder of a seven-year-old girl -- a crime that sparked an uproar in the violence-wracked country.

The child's body, which showed signs of torture, was found in the capital on Saturday. Since then there have been protests at her school, at her funeral on Monday and on social media.

Dressed in black and many with their faces covered, the protesters demanded an end to impunity and violence against women.

"Femicide is a state crime," protesters shouted as they demanded that left-wing President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador take responsiblity to end violence against women.
-
"Don't be indifferent, they're openly killing women," protesters also yelled.

Later they observed a minute's silence, fists in the air, in memory of the dead seven-year-old.

Lopez Obrador has defended authorities' response to this latest murder.

"We're taking care of the causes" of violence, he said in his morning press conference.

Asked by journalists, Lopez Obrador said he wouldn't be against creating a special prosecutor's office to deal with femicide.

"I think it's a really good idea, as is everything that delivers peace and tranquility," he said.

The child had been reported missing on February 11 and her body was found in the southeast of the capital on Saturday.

The local prosecutor's office on Monday offered a two million pesos ($107,000) reward for information leading to the identification of her kidnappers and killers.

It said the mother had gone to pick up her daughter from school but didn't find her and began a search.

Video footage has since emerged appearing to show the girl being held by the hand of another woman and walking in the street on the day she disappeared.

Mexico recorded more than 1,000 femicide victims in 2019, according to official figures, although experts believe the true figure may be much higher due to difficulties in registering murders as femicide.

ANOTHER TIN POT DICTATOR

Salvadoran president sends more soldiers to fight crime after standoff with lawmakers

By Nelson Renteria, Reuters•February 18, 2020


FILE PHOTO: Supporters of Salvadoran President Nayib 

Bukele protest outside the national congress in San SalvadorMore

By Nelson Renteria

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele deployed hundreds of soldiers on Tuesday to fight gangs, days after facing criticism for barging into Congress with the army to pressure lawmakers over his security plan.

The 1,400 soldiers will join about 8,600 already battling crime, an increase of about 16%.

In recent weeks, Bukele, who took office in June, has urged lawmakers to agree to a $109 million loan to help equip police and soldiers in the fight against crime in a nation racked by gang violence. He continued his push on Tuesday, delivering a fiery speech before hundreds of soldiers, complaining that legislators were delaying approval of the funds and accusing them of supporting criminals.
"These are difficult days in which you have decided to support and protect the Salvadoran people, days in which we know that most politicians are protecting criminals, days in which we know that deputies and former ministers financed the criminals that you are going to have to pursue and capture," Bukele said.

Bukele has faced criticism for his brief occupation of the National Assembly on Feb. 9, when he sat in the seat reserved for the president of Congress and cupped his hands together to pray as soldiers in full battle uniform looked on.

"Lawmakers are scandalized when they see a soldier, but they were not scandalized when gang members entered the Legislative Assembly to negotiate the lives of Salvadorans," Bukele said.

El Salvador’s murder rate has plunged since Bukele took office, but remains high.

Salvadoran soldiers have worked in security since the 1990's, though the practice is frowned on by human rights groups.

Medicare for All Would Save $450 Billion and 68,000 Lives: Study


Michael Rainey, The Fiscal Times•February 18, 2020

NOT MOTHER JONES, NOT THE NATION, BUT THE FISCAL TIMES THE BUSINESS PRESS

Bernie Sanders’ Medicare-for-All plan would save the country about $450 billion a year on total health care spending while preventing nearly 70,000 deaths, according to a study published over the weekend in The Lancet.

In the analysis, a team of epidemiologists led by Alison P. Galvani of the Yale School of Public Health applied the provisions of Sanders’ plan to real-world spending in the U.S. in 2017. They concluded that Medicare for All would have cost just over $3 trillion that year, or $458 billion less than the actual total. The analysis found that per capita costs would decline, resulting in lower costs overall, even with millions more people covered. And providing universal coverage would save 68,531 lives per year, the researchers.

Here are some key details and assumptions from the study:

A new analysis: Previous estimates of the cost of Medicare for All have reached significantly different conclusions, ranging from a roughly 16% increase over current national health-care spending levels to a 27% decrease. This latest study relies on a new analytical tool to measure the impact of different provisions within Medicare for All as applied to real-world data (you can review and adjust the parameters of the analysis in the Single-Payer Healthcare Interactive Financing Tool).


Big savings with a single-payer system: The researchers found that the proposed system would reduce total health-care expenditures by about 13% based on 2017 spending levels. Savings would come from a variety of sources. Here are some of the major savings the researchers found with Medicare for All, based on the 2017 total health care expenditure of nearly $3.5 trillion:

Reducing pharmaceutical prices via negotiation: $219 billion

Improving fraud detection: $191 billion

Reducing reimbursement rates for hospitals, physician, and clinical services: $188 billion

Reducing overhead: $102 billion

Eliminating uncompensated hospitalization fees: $78 billion in savings.

Revenues: The Sanders proposal would impose new taxes while reducing the overall cost burden on both businesses and households. The revenues look like this, according to the analysis:

Payroll tax: A 10% tax on employers would raise $436 billion. By comparison, employers currently pay $536 billion on insurance premiums, the equivalent of a 12.3% tax rate.

Household income tax: At the individual level, households would pay a 5% income tax above the standard deduction, yielding $375 billion per year. By comparison, households currently pay about $738 billion on premiums and service fees.

Wealth tax: A new tax on net worth over $21 million would produce about $109 billion a year.

The bottom line: There are some methodological questions about the analysis, and the politics of transitioning to a single-payer system remain as complicated as ever. You might hear Sanders talk up this study during a debate or on the campaign trail, but it will likely do little to change minds in the debate.

India's use of facial recognition tech during protests causes stir

By Alexandra Ulmer and Zeba Siddiqui, Reuters•February 17, 2020

MUMBAI/NEW DELHI, India (Reuters) - When artist Rachita Taneja heads out to protest in New Delhi, she covers her face with a pollution mask, a hoodie or a scarf to reduce the risk of being identified by police facial recognition software.

Police in the Indian capital and the northern state of Uttar Pradesh - both hotbeds of dissent - have used the technology during protests that have raged since mid-December against a new citizenship law that critics say marginalises Muslims.

Activists are worried about insufficient regulation around the new technology, amid what they say is a crackdown on dissent under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whose Hindu nationalist agenda has gathered pace since his re-election in May.

"I do not know what they are going to do with my data," said Taneja, 28, who created a popular online cartoon about cheap ways for protesters to hide their faces. "We need to protect ourselves, given how this government cracks down."

Critics also accuse authorities of secrecy - highlighting, for instance, that the software's use during Delhi protests was first revealed by the Indian Express newspaper.

India's home ministry did not immediately respond to requests for comment on facial recognition technology.

Modi's government has rejected accusations of abuse during demonstrations, and accused some protesters of stoking violence.

A spokesman for his ruling Bharatiya Janata Party had no immediate comment on concerns over the use of the technology and referred questions to the government.

But police said worries about facial recognition were unwarranted.

"I'm only catching targeted people," said Rajan Bhagat, a deputy commissioner of police at Delhi's Crime Records Office. "We don't have any protesters' data, nor do we plan to store it."

He declined to give details of potential arrests, however.

When it comes to surveillance, India trails far behind neighboring China. New Delhi, for example, has about 0.9 CCTV cameras for every 100 people, versus about 11.3 per 100 in China's commercial hub of Shanghai, a 2019 report by PreciseSecurity.com showed.

The Delhi police use Indian startup Innefu Labs' facial recognition software AI Vision, which also includes gait and body analysis.

"If somebody is throwing stones at a police officer, doesn't he have a right to take a video and identify him?" said Innefu co-founder Tarun Wig, 36.

Police in about 10 Indian states use Innefu products, Wig said.

Financial fraud analytics are among the services provided by Innefu, which published a social media analysis in January that concluded much criticism of the new citizenship law came from archenemy Pakistan to "destabilize the harmony" of India.

The company is representative of homegrown artificial intelligence startups tapping into booming demand for facial biometrics in India, in part thanks to their testing on Indian faces and more affordable prices.

A few established foreign firms, such as Japanese telecommunications and IT giant NEC Corp, also operate in India, where the market is expected to grow from about $700 million in 2018 to more than $4 billion by 2024, TechSci Research said in a report.




UTTAR PRADESH ARRESTS

Facial recognition helped police in Uttar Pradesh, home to 220 million people, detain a "handful" of the more than 1,100 people arrested for alleged links to violence during protests, said O P Singh, its police chief who retired last month.

Singh gave no details but said the technology helped cut the numbers of wrongful arrests and highlighted the state's extensive database of more than 550,000 "criminals".

Rights groups have decried what they call excessive force in Uttar Pradesh, which has the largest number of representatives in parliament and is governed by hardline Hindu priest and Modi ally Yogi Adityanath.

The state says tough policies have restored order.

Startup Staqu is supplying its product, the Police Artificial Intelligence System, to police in eight states, including Uttar Pradesh, says the firm's co-founder, Atul Rai.

Fears of mass surveillance in India were exaggerated, said Rai, 30, citing difficulties in collecting information because of India's large population of 1.3 billion. But there was a need for regulation to avoid potential problems, he added.

Police should have clear rules on use of facial recognition technology and there should be disclosure of the software's audits and algorithms, the non-profit Internet Freedom Foundation says.

"What India is seeing is a kind of personal data Wild West," said its executive director Apar Gupta.


PAN-INDIA FACIAL RECOGNITION

Law enforcement across India could soon be using facial recognition technology.

Modi's government is seeking bids to create a nationwide database, the National Automated Facial Recognition System, to help match images captured from CCTV cameras with existing databases, including those of passport and police authorities.

A foreign firm is expected to win the contract, since the bid terms require firms' algorithms to be evaluated by the United States' National Institute of Standards and Technology. Both Innefu and Staqu said they were not bidding.

Japanese firm NEC's India subsidiary helped develop the Aadhaar biometrics identity system and supplies facial recognition technology to law enforcement in the diamond industry hub of Surat in western Gujarat state.

The software has not been used during protests, however, the city's police commissioner, R B Brahmbhatt, told Reuters.

NEC spokesman Shinya Hashizume declined to comment on whether the company was bidding to build the nationwide database.

The system will boost police efficiency, says the National Crime Records Bureau, which launched the tender that closes at the end of March.

But critics say it puts India on the path to China-style mass surveillance.

Worried about being identified, a 21-year-old Muslim protester in New Delhi has adopted the pseudonym Moosa Ali and sometimes covers his face with handkerchiefs.

"We don't know enough about these things, but we are trying to take some precautions," he said.

---30---

(Additional reporting by Saurabh Sharma in Lucknow, Derek Francis in Bengaluru, and Sumit Khanna in Ahmedabad; Writing by Alexandra Ulmer; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)

Sanders Campaign Manager Slams MSNBC, Says Fox News Is ‘More Fair’ 

THAT IS CERTAINLY TRUE OF MORNING JOE AND CHRIS MATTHEWS, TODD, RACHEL, LAWRENCE, AM JOY, ETC. IN FACT THEY ALL SOUND LIKE THE TALKING HEADS ON CNBC

BUT NOT ALI VELSHI

 Tobias Hoonhout, National Review•February 18, 2020

THERE IS JOY IN THE RIGHT WING NEO CON UNIVERSE

 OF NATIONAL REVIEW


Bernie Sanders’s campaign manager, Faiz Shakir, has accused MSNBC of employing “double standard” in its coverage of the Vermont senator, claiming in an interview published Tuesday that Fox News is “more fair” in critiquing Sanders’s progressive platform.

“That’s saying something,” Shakir told Vanity Fair. “Fox is often yelling about Bernie Sanders’s socialism, but they’re still giving our campaign the opportunity to make our case in a fair manner, unlike MSNBC, which has credibility with the left and is constantly undermining the Bernie Sanders campaign.”

He added that MSNBC regularly criticizes Sanders’s base with “disdain.”

“It’s a condescending attitude: ‘Oh, they must not be that intelligent. They’re being deluded. They’re being conned. They’re all crazy Twitter bots,’” Shakir said. “My view is that there’s a bit of detachment from MSNBC and the people who this campaign gets support from. It feels like they’re covering progressives from an elitist perspective.”Following the Iowa caucuses earlier this month, MSNBC contributor James Carville warned that Sanders, if nominated, would fare no better than the U.K.’s Labour Party’s Jeremy Corbyn, who was crushed in a December election by Boris Johnson.

“We’re talking about people voting from jail cells, we’re talking about not having a border. . . . I don’t want the Democratic Party in the United States to be the Labour Party of the United Kingdom. And I think there’s some danger of that happening,” the former Bill Clinton strategist said. He later argued to Vox that Sanders has “never been a Democrat,” and is instead “an ideologue.”

Russian intelligence agents reportedly went to Ireland to inspect undersea cables, and it's reigniting fears they could cut them and take entire countries offline


Business Insider•February 17, 2020

Ireland cable map

Submarine Cable Map


Russian agents have been sent to Ireland to inspect its undersea cables, and it's sparking fears they could be tapped or cut in the future, according to The Sunday Times citing Irish police.


Irish security services suspect that Russia's intelligence agency, the GRU, is using their country as a base to gather intelligence on targets in the EU and UK, The Sunday Times reported.


The large number of tech companies that are based in Dublin could be another reason for Russia's suspected monitoring, an expert on transnational crime and Russian security told the newspaper.


There have been longstanding fears that Russian spies could cut transatlantic undersea cables to disrupt communications and financial transactions, and take entire countries offline.


Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Russian intelligence agents have been sent to Ireland to make the precise locations of undersea cables connecting Europe to North America, and it's raising fears that they plan to tap or even cut them, The Sunday Times reported.

Irish security services believe that the agents were sent by Russia's foreign intelligence agency, the GRU, and are checking the fiber-optic cables for weak points, The Times also reported, citing police and military sources.

They were also seen monitoring Dublin Port, which prompted the country to ramp up security at a number of landing sites along the Irish coast, The Times reported. It's unclear where else the agents have been seen.
- ADVERTISEMENT -


The vast network of transatlantic cables that run under the world's oceans power the internet, texts, calls, and global financial transactions. About 97% of all intercontinental data is transferred through these cables, according to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum.

Ireland is an ideal location for these undersea maps, given its proximity to North America and Europe. In 2015, Irish telecommunications company Aqua Comms set up a $300 million cable to connect the US to Dublin, and on to London and European continent, the Irish Examiner reported.

A map showing undersea cables around the world.

Submarine Cable Map

Irish police and military sources suspect the GRU is using Ireland as an operations base to gather intelligence on targets in the EU and the UK, The Times said.

Another reason for the Russians' presence could be Dublin's place as one of Europe's largest tech hubs, as authorities suspect the agents could also be spying on large tech companies, according to The Times. Google, Airbnb, Facebook, and Twitter all have headquarters in the city.

The country also presents itself as an ideal target to the Russians, Mark Galeotti, an expert on transnational crime and Russian security at the Royal United Service Institute think tank, told The Times.

"Ireland doesn't have a counter-intelligence capability. It's a relatively soft target. Ireland is a major node for the global internet. It has a large concentration of tech companies," he said. "This is the new battle space of the future."
A photo of Google's Dublin headquarters in 2013.

Peter Würmli, Camenzind Evolution

News of the Russian agents' arrival in Ireland has prompted concerns that Russia might ramp up its information warfare by cutting or tampering with the cables, which could disrupt global financial transactions or even take entire countries offline.

John Sipher, a retired CIA officer, in Moscow, told The Times that there is a high chance the agents are either spying or planning to cut communications.

"They also may wish to show their capability in order to threaten the West," he told the British newspaper. "Our FBI has caught Russians trying to gain access to underwater cables, including the areas where they come into land."

"They are also seeking to gain physical access to routers and communication nodes," Sipher added.

Undersea cables connecting the US to the rest of the world. Screenshot taken in 2018.

TeleGeography

Western countries have long feared that Russia could cut undersea cables and interfere with the global economy and way of life.

Air Chief Marshal Sir Stuart Peach, the UK's most senior military officer, said in December 2017: "There is a new risk to our way of life, which is the vulnerability of the cables that criss-cross the seabeds."

"Can you imagine a scenario where those cables are cut or disrupted, which would immediately and potentially catastrophically affect both our economy and other ways of living?"

Russian ships were seen in 2018 in the vicinity of vital undersea fiber-optic cables, sparking further speculation that the Kremlin was finding a new way to spy.
What are undersea internet cables?

More than 300 undersea cables, which run a total of 550,000 miles, keep the internet running around the world.

Most lines are owned by private telecommunications companies, including tech companies like Google and Microsoft. Their locations, which have been built up over the decades, can be easily identified on public maps.

Despite their importance, little is being done to guard and protect these deep-sea cables.

Cybersecurity experts told Business Insider's Jim Edwards in 2018 that it's only "a matter of time" before hackers can access these cables and entire countries can be taken offline.


Read more:


Scientists found a new earthquake fault system underwater near the California coast, thanks to a 32-mile network of deep-sea cables


Fiber optic wires, servers, and more than 550,000 miles of underwater cables: Here's what the internet actually looks like


34 billion devices will be connected to the internet by 2020

Trump commutes ex-Illinois governor's sentence

President Trump said he has commuted the 14-year prison sentence of former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who was convicted of political corruption. 

Appeared on 'Celebrity Apprentice' »