China plans $500 million subsea Internet Europe-Middle East-Asia cable to rival US-backed project

Workers install the 2Africa undersea cable on the beach in Amanzimtoti, South Africa, on February 7, 2023. (REUTERS/File)
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Updated 06 April 2023
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China plans $500 million subsea Internet Europe-Middle East-Asia cable to rival US-backed project

  • Cable would link Hong Kong to China’s Hainan, before snaking to Singapore, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, France
  • Plan is a sign that an intensifying tech war between Beijing and Washington risks tearing the fabric of the Internet

SINGAPORE: Chinese state-owned telecom firms are developing a $500 million undersea fiber-optic Internet cable network that would link Asia, the Middle East and Europe to rival a similar US-backed project, four people involved in the deal told Reuters. The plan is a sign that an intensifying tech war between Beijing and Washington risks tearing the fabric of the Internet.

China’s three main carriers – China Telecommunications Corporation (China Telecom), China Mobile Limited and China United Network Communications Group Co. Ltd(China Unicom) – are mapping out one of the world’s most advanced and far-reaching subsea cable networks, according to the four people, who have direct knowledge of the plan.

Known as EMA (Europe-Middle East-Asia), the proposed cable would link Hong Kong to China’s island province of Hainan, before snaking its way to Singapore, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and France, the four people said. They asked not to be named because they were not allowed to discuss potential trade secrets.

The cable, which would cost approximately $500 million to complete, would be manufactured and laid by China’s HMN Technologies Co. Ltd, a fast-growing cable firm whose predecessor company was majority-owned by Chinese telecom giant Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd, the people said.

They said HMN Tech, which is majority-owned by Shanghai-listed Hengtong Optic-Electric Co. Ltd, would receive subsidies from the Chinese state to build the cable.

China Mobile, China Telecom, China Unicom, HMN Tech, Hengtong and China’s Foreign Ministry did not respond to requests for comment.

News of the planned cable comes in the wake of a Reuters report last month that revealed how the US government, concerned about Beijing eavesdropping on Internet data, has successfully thwarted a number of Chinese undersea cable projects abroad over the past four years. Washington has also blocked licenses for planned private subsea cables that would have connected the United States with the Chinese territory of Hong Kong, including projects led by Google LLC, Meta Platforms, Inc. and Amazon.com Inc.

Undersea cables carry more than 95 percent of all international Internet traffic. These high-speed conduits for decades have been owned by groups of telecom and tech companies that pool their resources to build these vast networks so that data can move seamlessly around the world.

But these cables, which are vulnerable to spying and sabotage, have become weapons of influence in an escalating competition between the United States and China. The superpowers are battling to dominate the advanced technologies that could determine economic and military supremacy in the decades ahead.

The China-led EMA project is intended to directly rival another cable currently being constructed by US firm SubCom LLC, called SeaMeWe-6 (Southeast Asia-Middle East-Western Europe-6), which will also connect Singapore to France, via Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and half a dozen other countries along the route.

The consortium on the SeaMeWe-6 cable – which originally had included China Mobile, China Telecom, China Unicom and telecom carriers from several other nations – initially picked HMN Tech to build that cable. But a successful US government pressure campaign flipped the contract to SubCom last year, Reuters reported in March.

The US blitz included giving millions of dollars in training grants to foreign telecom firms in return for them choosing SubCom over HMN Tech. The US Commerce Department also slapped sanctions on HMN Tech in December 2021, alleging the company intended to acquire American technology to help modernize China’s People’s Liberation Army. That move undermined the project’s viability by making it impossible for owners of an HMN-built cable to sell bandwidth to US tech firms, usually their biggest customers.

China Telecom and China Mobile pulled out of the project after SubCom won the contract last year and, along with China Unicom, began planning the EMA cable, the four people involved said. The three state-owned Chinese telecom firms are expected to own more than half of the new network, but they are also striking deals with foreign partners, the people said.

The Chinese carriers this year signed separate memoranda of understanding with four telecoms, the people said: France’s Orange SA, Pakistan Telecommunication Company Ltd. (PTCL), Telecom Egypt and Zain Saudi Arabia, a unit of the Kuwaiti firm Mobile Telecommunications Company K.S.C.P.

The Chinese companies have also held talks with Singapore Telecommunications Limited, a state-controlled firm commonly known as Singtel, while other countries in Asia, Africa and the Middle East are being approached to join the consortium as well, the people involved said.

Orange declined to comment. Singtel, PTCL, Telecom Egypt and Zain did not respond to requests for comment.

American cable firm SubCom declined to comment on the rival cable. The Department of Justice, which oversees an interagency task force to safeguard US telecommunication networks from espionage and cyberattacks, declined to comment about the EMA cable.

A State Department spokesperson said the US supports a free, open and secure Internet. Countries should prioritize security and privacy by “fully excluding untrustworthy vendors” from wireless networks, terrestrial and undersea cables, satellites, cloud services and data centers, the spokesperson said, without mentioning HMN Tech or China. The State Department did not respond to questions about whether it would mount a campaign to persuade foreign telecoms not to participate in the EMA cable project.

DIVIDING THE WORLD

Large undersea cable projects typically take at least three years to move from conception to delivery. The Chinese firms are hoping to finalize contracts by the end of the year and have the EMA cable online by the end of 2025, the people involved said.

The cable would give China strategic gains in its tussle with the United States, one of the people involved in the deal told Reuters.

Firstly, it would create a super-fast new connection between Hong Kong, China and much of the rest of the world, something Washington wants to avoid. Secondly, it gives China’s state-backed telecom carriers greater reach and protection in the event they are excluded from US-backed cables in the future.

“It’s like each side is arming itself with bandwidth,” one telecom executive working on the deal said.

The construction of parallel US- and Chinese-backed cables between Asia and Europe is unprecedented, the four people involved in the project said. It is an early sign that global Internet infrastructure, including cables, data centers and mobile phone networks, could become divided over the next decade, two security analysts told Reuters.

Countries could also be forced to choose between using Chinese-approved Internet equipment or US-backed networks, entrenching divisions across the world and making tools that fuel the global economy, like online banking and global-positioning satellite systems, slower and less reliable, said Timothy Heath, a defense researcher at the RAND Corporation, a US-based think tank.

“It seems we are headed down a road where there will be a US-led Internet and a Chinese-led Internet ecosystem,” Heath told Reuters. “The more the US and Chinese disengage from each other in the information technology domain, the more difficult it becomes to carry out global commerce and basic functions.”

Antonia Hmaidi, an analyst at the Berlin-based Mercator Institute for China Studies, said the Internet works so well because no matter where data needs to travel, it can zip along multiple different routes in the time it takes to read this word.

Hmaidi said if data has to follow routes that are approved in Washington and Beijing, then it will become easier for the United States and China to manipulate and spy on that data; Internet users will suffer a degradation of service; and it will become more difficult to interact or do business with people around the world.

“Then suddenly the whole fabric of the Internet doesn’t work as it was intended,” Hmaidi said.

The tit-for-tat battle over Internet hardware mirrors the conflict taking place over social media apps and search engines created by US and Chinese firms.

The United States and its allies have banned the use of Chinese-owned short video app TikTok from government-owned devices due to national security concerns. Numerous countries have raised fears about the Chinese government gaining access to the data that TikTok collects on its users around the world.

China, meanwhile, already restricts what websites its citizens can see and blocks the apps and networks of many Western technology giants, including Google, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter.


Israeli politician slammed for saying country should not ‘kill babies for a hobby’

Updated 3 sec ago
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Israeli politician slammed for saying country should not ‘kill babies for a hobby’

JERUSALEM: Israeli government and opposition leaders condemned on Tuesday a left-wing politician, Yair Golan, after he said in a radio interview that “a sane country... does not kill babies for a hobby.”
“Israel is on the path to becoming a pariah state among the nations — like the South Africa of old — if it does not return to behaving like a sane country,” said Golan, chairman of Israel’s Democrats party.
“A sane country does not wage war against civilians, does not kill babies for a hobby, and does not set goals involving the expulsion of populations,” he told Israel’s Kan public radio.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Golan, a former major general in the military, of “wild incitement” against Israeli troops and of “echoing the most despicable anti-Semitic blood libels against the (Israeli army) and the State of Israel.”
Golan also drew condemnation from government critics, with opposition leader Yair Lapid saying in a post on X: “Our fighters are heroes and are defending our lives. The statement that they kill children as a hobby is incorrect and is a gift to our enemies.”
Education Minister Yoav Kisch, of Netanyahu’s party, called for an incitement investigation into Golan, whose party is a coalition of several left-wing factions.
“Golan is not a member of Knesset and does not have immunity. I expect the attorney general to immediately open an investigation against him for incitement,” Kisch said on X.
Foreign Minister Gideon Saar also took to X, saying Golan’s comments would “undoubtedly serve as fuel for the fire of global antisemitism — at a time when Israel is fighting for its survival against a coalition determined to destroy it.”
Military chief Eyal Zamir in a statement condemned remarks that cast doubt on the “morality” of the army’s actions and of its troops.
Responding to criticism, Golan said on X that he was trying to sound the alarm on the direction he believed Israel was headed.
The government’s war plans are “the realization of the fantasies of (Itamar) Ben Gvir and (Bezalel) Smotrich,” Golan said, referring to two far-right ministers.
“If we allow them to realize them, we will become a pariah state,” the left-wing politician said.
During a press conference, Golan said his criticism “was in no way directed at the army.”
“My criticism is aimed at the government, not the army, which is my home and in my heart,” he told journalists.
“A government that says we can abandon hostages and starve children is a government that speaks like a spokesperson for Hamas,” he added.
Golan, a vocal opponent of Netanyahu’s government and its policies, has been a controversial figure since a 2016 speech in which he appeared to draw parallels between Israeli society and the rise of fascism in Europe in the 1930s.
In November 2024, he accused Netanyahu of putting his own political interests before the country’s following a decision to dismiss defense minister Yoav Gallant.

Abbas to discuss weapons in Lebanon’s Palestinian camps during Beirut visit: delegation member

Updated 20 May 2025
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Abbas to discuss weapons in Lebanon’s Palestinian camps during Beirut visit: delegation member

  • Mahmoud Abbas will meet with the Lebanese president during his three-day visit to the country

RAMALLAH: A member of Mahmoud Abbas’ delegation to Beirut told AFP on Tuesday that the Palestinian president will discuss the issue of weapons in Lebanon’s Palestinian refugee camps during his three-day visit to the country.
“The issue of Palestinian weapons in the camps will be one of the topics on the agenda for discussion between President Abbas, the Lebanese President and the Lebanese government,” said Ahmad Majdalani, a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s executive committee who is accompanying Abbas on the visit.


UK halts trade talks with Israel, summons envoy over Gaza

Updated 20 May 2025
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UK halts trade talks with Israel, summons envoy over Gaza

  • Foreign Secretary David Lammy accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government of 'egregious actions and rhetoric'
  • The moves are the UK's toughest stance yet against Israel’s conduct in the war in Gaza

LONDON: Britain suspended free-trade negotiations with Israel on Tuesday and summoned its ambassador to the foreign ministry in its toughest stance yet against Israel’s conduct in the war in Gaza.
Foreign Secretary David Lammy accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government of “egregious actions and rhetoric” over its expansion of military operations in the Palestinian territory.
During an impassioned speech to Britain’s parliament, Lammy also said the UK government was imposing new sanctions on individuals and organizations involved in settlements in the West Bank.
“The world is judging, history will judge them. Blocking aid, expanding the war, dismissing the concerns of your friends and partners. This is indefensible and it must stop,” he said.
Lammy said Britain “cannot stand by in the face of this new deterioration” in Gaza and was pausing negotiations with Israel on a new free-trade agreement.
He said Britain would be “reviewing cooperation” with Israel under its so-called 2030 roadmap for UK-Israel relations.

The world is judging, history will judge them. Blocking aid, expanding the war, dismissing the concerns of your friends and partners. This is indefensible and it must stop

Foreign Secretary David Lammy

“Netanyahu government’s actions have made this necessary,” Lammy said.
Israel’s government responded by saying “external pressure will not divert Israel from its path in defending its existence and security against enemies who seek its destruction.”
“If, due to anti-Israel obsession and domestic political considerations, the British government is willing to harm the British economy — that is its own prerogative,” Israeli foreign ministry spokesman Oren Marmorstein said in a statement.
Lammy said the Israeli government’s plan to displace the Gaza population and its limiting of aid to civilians “facing starvation, homelessness and trauma” meant the conflict was “entering a dark new phase.”
Middle East Minister Hamish Falconer said Israeli Ambassador Tzipi Hotovely was being summoned to the Foreign and Commonwealth Development Office in protest against “the wholly disproportionate escalation of military activity in Gaza.”
He added that Israel’s weeks-long blockade on aid entering the strip, which was marginally lifted on Monday, had been “cruel and indefensible.”
The UK government announced financial restrictions and travel bans, targeting prominent settler leader Daniella Weiss and two other individuals, as well as two illegal outposts and two organizations accused of backing violence against Palestinian communities.
Lammy said Israel suffered a “heinous attack” at the hands of Palestinian Hamas militants on October 7, 2023 and the UK government had backed Israel’s right to defend itself.
He repeated calls that Hamas must release all remaining Israeli hostages seized that day “immediately and unconditionally.” He also reiterated that Hamas “cannot continue to run Gaza.”
Britain and Israel opened negotiations on a free-trade agreement in 2022.
According to the British government, Israel was the country’s 44th-largest trading partner last year, with the two countries exchanging 5.8 billion pounds ($7.8 billion) in goods and services.


US asking countries for ‘voluntary’ Palestinian relocation: Rubio

Updated 20 May 2025
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US asking countries for ‘voluntary’ Palestinian relocation: Rubio

  • Responding to a question in testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Rubio said: “There’s no deportation“
  • “Those will be voluntary decisions by individuals“

WASHINGTON: The United States has reached out to countries about accepting “voluntary” relocations of Palestinians fleeing Israel’s offensive in Gaza, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Tuesday.

Israel has again warned the population of Gaza — nearly entirely displaced since the war broke out over the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel by Hamas — to move ahead of a new offensive, which comes after it has blockaded food and supplies for more than two months.

President Donald Trump has repeatedly mused about displacing Gaza’s two million people to make way for reconstruction.

Responding to a question in testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Rubio said: “There’s no deportation.”

“What we have talked to some nations about is, if someone voluntarily and willingly says, I want to go somewhere else for some period of time because I’m sick, because my children need to go to school, or what have you, are there countries in the region willing to accept them for some period of time?” Rubio said.

“Those will be voluntary decisions by individuals,” he said.

Democratic Senator Jeff Merkely replied, if “there is no clean water, there is no food, and bombing is all around you, is that really a voluntary decision?“

Rubio did not say which countries had been approached but denied that Libya was among them.

NBC News, quoting anonymous sources, recently reported that Trump’s administration is working on a plan to relocate permanently up to one million Palestinians from the Gaza Strip to Libya.


Lebanon pushes for local elections despite Israeli attacks

Updated 20 May 2025
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Lebanon pushes for local elections despite Israeli attacks

  • Interior minister underlines commitment to ensure elections are conducted with integrity and safety
  • Elections in the South and Nabatieh governorates, scheduled for their fourth phase this coming Saturday, will be held during ongoing Israeli incursions south and north of the Litani River

BEIRUT: The Lebanese government still faces one final — and perhaps the most security sensitive — electoral challenge: the elections in the South and Nabatieh governorates.

These elections, scheduled for their fourth phase this coming Saturday, will be held during ongoing Israeli incursions south and north of the Litani River.

Interior Minister Ahmad Hajjar, in the southern city of Sidon on Tuesday, affirmed that “the government is mindful of the potential for Israeli violations and assaults during the municipal elections scheduled for Saturday. However, the decision remains clear and resolute regarding the continuation of the electoral process regardless of the circumstances.”

The minister emphasized to Mansour Daou, the governor of South Lebanon, and representatives of the security, military, and judicial agencies in the South, “the state’s commitment to ensuring that the elections are conducted with integrity and safety,” underscoring their significance as part of the reconstruction process for the people of the South.

In the lead-up to the elections, an Israeli military drone targeted a motorcycle on the road between Mansouri and Majdalzoun in the Tyre district, resulting in reports from the Ministry of Health indicating that “nine individuals were injured, including two children, with three of the injured in critical condition.”

Another Israeli drone launched a bomb at fishermen off the coast of Ras Al-Naqoura.

Attention in the south is focused on two issues: observing the extent to which people will participate in the elections, particularly those whose homes were destroyed and displaced to other villages; and monitoring Hezbollah’s ability to maintain its popularity in the south, where the devastation and rubble are still visible to the public. To date, no reconstruction has occurred in any facilities either north or south of the Litani River, because Israel has turned the border area into a devastated and desolate zone, maintaining its occupation of five strategic hills and daily thwarting any attempts to establish readymade rooms for logistical purposes to assist the affected population.

The latest data from the Lebanese Ministry of Health, as of May 12, indicates that since the ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah took effect on Nov. 27, “Israel has killed 156 individuals and injured 376 others, with a total of 3,138 air and maritime violations recorded.”

According to the Israeli army, “by the end of April, around 140 Hezbollah members had been eliminated, with the vast majority of assassinations (more than 50 percent) taking place south of the Litani River. Assassinations north of the Litani River and in the Bekaa region accounted for 48 percent of the operations; 33.3 percent north of the Litani River and 14.7 percent in the Bekaa.”

The Israeli army claimed that “the majority of the assassinated members belonged to Hezbollah’s Aziz, Nasr and Badr units.” In a new study, the Israeli Alma Center stated: “Those individuals were involved in the rehabilitation of infrastructure on the ground.”