Middle East Internet Blackouts Spur Geopolitical Suspicions

[blackcat]

http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/february2008/020108_internet_blac kouts.htm

[conspiracy analyst]

http://worldpressnetwork.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=172


Funny how Iraq, Lebanon and Israels weren't cut?

This happened as a prelude to WW1

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0QUY/is_2004_July/ai_n6142317/p g_2

Russia is sending a fleet to the Atlantic for war games...

http://in.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idINIndia-31720220080201

[Mark Gobell]

Internet provider in Emirates confirms undersea cable cut in Persian Gulf between Dubai, Oman, cause unknown

The Associated Press

Published: February 1, 2008

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates: A leading Internet provider in the Emirates said an undersea cable had been cut early Friday in the Persian Gulf, causing severe phone line disruptions here and compounding an already existing Internet outage across large parts of the Middle East and Asia after two other undersea cables were damaged earlier this week north of Egypt.

Omar Sultan, chief executive of Dubai's IPS DU, said the incident was "very unusual." He said it wasn't known how the underwater FLAG FALCON cable, stretching between the United Arab Emirates and Oman, had been damaged.

"The situation is critical for us in terms of congestion" on international lines, Sultan told The Associated Press, but refused to speculate on the extent of the damage. DU said in a press release that the cause of the incident "had not yet been identified."

The owner of the FALCON cable, U.K. FLAG Telecom said the cable was cut at 05:59 GMT Friday, 56 kilometers (34.8 miles) off the coast of Dubai and that a "repair ship has been notified and expected to arrive at the site in the next few days."

The U.K. company is also the owner of one of the undersea cables that were sliced Wednesday in the Mediterranean Sea. That damage triggered wide Internet outages, hampering businesses and private usage across the Mideast and Asia.

A FLAG official in India, speaking on condition of anonymity because of company policy, said workers were still trying to determine how the Persian Gulf cable was cut. He declined to comment on whether the cut was somehow linked to Wednesday's cut in Egypt, but said he did not believe FLAG's cables were deliberately targeted.

As in the case of the Mediterranean damage, which Egyptian officials said was caused by a ship's anchor when a vessel couldn't dock in the port of Alexandria, there was also speculation that an anchor had sliced the Persian Gulf cable.

DU said the incident "added further complications to the existing cuts on the FLAG Europe-Asia and SEA-ME-WE4 cables" off the coast of Egypt and that the Persian Gulf cut "impacted all international voice calls through the DU network," leading to "severe congestion and degradation of international voice calls."

It said national calls in the Emirates and Internet access were not affected.

DU serves large residential communities of expatriates in the Emirates, including residents on the man-made luxury islands off the coast of Dubai. The Internet provider also serves Dubai International Financial Center.

The full impact of the latest incident on trade in the Mideast's business hub will not be gauged until Sunday, the first working day after the Friday-Saturday Muslim weekend.

In Lebanon, Telecommunications Ministry officials met Friday with representatives of Internet companies operating in Beirut to discuss "a plan to contain the damage caused by a cut in the FLAG cable off Egypt's coast," the state-run National News Agency reported.

Earlier Friday, FLAG said that a repair ship was expected to arrive Tuesday at the site of the damaged cables off the coast of Alexandria, and that repair work would likely take a week.

The Mediterranean cut took place 8.3 kilometers (5 miles) from Alexandria, on a stretch linking Egypt to Italy, the company said but gave no explanation why repairs would take so long. Alexandria harbor has been closed for most of this week because of bad weather.

Egypt's Minister of Communications and Information Technology Tarek Kamil said Friday that the Internet service in the country would be up and running to about 80 percent of its usual capacity within 48 hours, revising an earlier statement that this level would be restored by late Friday.

"However, it's not before ten days until the Internet service returns to its normal performance," Kamil told the Friday edition of the state Al-Ahram newspaper. There are eight million Internet users in Egypt, according to a ministry count.

Kamil described Wednesday's damage as an "earthquake" and said the reason behind the cut would only be determined once repair teams with their robot equipment reach the damaged cables.

The official MENA new agency quoted Kamil as saying technicians managed to raise the level of the Internet service Thursday to about 45 percent and that Telecom Egypt would get soon a bandwidth of 10 gigabyte to be increased to 13 gigabyte — close to the country's total capacity of 16 gigabytes.

But Internet access remained sporadic Friday.

The paper also said that state Telecom Egypt on Thursday "sealed a deal" for a new 3,100 kilometer (1,900 miles) -long undersea cable between Egypt and France, also through the Mediterranean that would take over 18 months to complete. It did not say who Telecom's partners in the deal were.

Source IHT AP article

Iran traffic is at 0% with 100% packet loss

Refresh this page

[TonyGosling]

I'm confused Mark,

http://perspolis-tehran.ir/

http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=41557&sectionid=3510303

http://tourismiran.ir/en/

all working fine and dandy

[Mark Gobell]

Most curious . . .

[karlos]

Is the Iranian commodities exchange cut off as well?

[conspiracy analyst]

US Crashes Internet In Middle East After Saudi Threat Russia Responds With Air Forces

By: Sorcha Faal, and as reported to her Western Subscribers

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.]

http://www.whatdoesitmean.com/index1067.htm

__________________

[chek]

Unfortunately Sorcha Faal is about as credible as Pinocchio with a four foor schnoz.

[blackcat]

[GazeboflossUK]

http://www.internettrafficreport.com/asia.htm

[conspiracy analyst]

[conspiracy analyst]

Published on 3 Feb 2008 by Energy Bulletin. Archived on 3 Feb 2008.
Iran oil bourse scheduled

by Staff
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EB reader BB writes:
Iran was scheduled to inaugurate its Oil Bourse this coming week.

That probably isn't going to happen because all internet access in Iran was cut over the weekend (the undersea cables were chopped). This was mentioned on Wikipedia for a day... but now the article links and coverage have disappeared.

Iran is in total internet blackout at the moment. Any further information is appreciated.




Iran Oil Bourse to deal blow to dollar
MK/JG/RE/HAR, Iran Press TV
The long-awaited Iranian Oil Bourse, a place for trading oil, petrochemicals and gas in various non-dollar currencies, will soon open.

Iran's Finance Minister Davoud Danesh-Jafari told reporters the bourse will be inaugurated during the anniversary of the Islamic Revolution (February 1-11) at the latest.

"All preparations have been made to launch the bourse; it will open during the Ten-Day Dawn (the ceremonies marking the victory of the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran)," he said.

The Minister had earlier stated that the Oil Bourse is located on the Persian Gulf island of Kish.

Some expert opinions hold inauguration of the bourse could significantly devalue the greenback.
(4 January 2008)
Also reported at IranMania and mentioned in a report from Global Research (Jan 23, 2008). Otherwise, no reports seem to appear in the media.
-BA




Third undersea cable reportedly cut between Sri Lanka, Suez
Tahani Karrar, Dow Jones Newswires
A third undersea fibre optic cable running through the Suez to Sri Lanka was cut Friday, said a Flag official.

Two other fiber optic cables owned by Flag Telecom and consortium SEA-ME-WE 4 located near Alexandria, Egypt, were damaged Wednesday leading to a slowdown in Internet and telephone services in the Middle East and South Asia.

"We had another cut today between Dubai and Muscat three hours back. The cable was about 80G capacity, it had telephone, Internet data, everything," one Flag official, who declined to be named, told Zawya Dow Jones.

The cable, known as Falcon, delivers services to countries in the Mediterranean and Gulf region, he added.

"It may take sometime to fix the cut but we are rerouting the traffic to another cable in the U.K. and U.S., the bandwidth utilization will go down," the official said.

There are conflicting reports of how the two Alexandria cables were cut. Oman's largest telecom, Omantel, said a tropical storm caused the damage while du, the United Arab Emirates' second largest telecom, said the cables were cut due to ships dragging their anchors.
(1 February 2008)
According to the Internet Traffic Report site, the router located in Iran (router1.iust.ac.ir) is out of commission. Looking at other reports on the site, however, one sees that several other routers are out of commission (in Africa, Florida and Columbia).

Several posts have appeared on the Internet, claiming that Iran may have been targeted.

A Reuters report on the outage doesn't mention Iran.
-BA

Background

the Energy Bulletin archives has more than 40 items on the proposed Iranian Oil Bourse. A few articles of special interest are listed below. As you can see, some writers think that the proposed bourse will damage the U.S. dollar, while others are skeptical.


Interview with Chris Cook, inventor of the Iran Oil Bourse
Angelique van Engelen , Ohmynews
Chris Cook, 52, the former director of the International Petroleum Exchange, is the originator of the idea behind the IOB. He's planning to go back to Iran, from his native England, after Ramadan, and set to work again on the launch of this bourse which cuts out the dollar as a currency in which to trade oil.

... He is part of the Wimpole Consortium that's commissioned by the Iranian government with creating the IOB. Cook's been plodding on in Iran for the last three years. Without success. He wasn't even paid for his work for over two years. The platform's launch, much hyped in the media, has been delayed time and again. Iranian oil ministry officials have been hampering his work.

...Cook has been an oil/energy insider for way longer than the past three years. The Iranian connection was established in 2001, when he "blew the whistle" about investment banks' greedy immoral market manipulation and pointed out the nasty effects on producers and consumers. A well-connected Iranian introduced him to the Iranian Central Bank Governor, who was convinced of the necessity for a Middle Eastern oil exchange which was not susceptible to speculator driven volatility and manipulation by middlemen. "A couple of years later [the Wimpole Consortium was] invited to draw up blueprints for the "IOB" project," says Cook.

So what is the Iranian Oil Bourse about, if it's not a deliberate attempt to kick the U.S. dollar in the goolies, as is so often suggested? "The currency of the IOB contracts was never a consideration," says Cook. Nevertheless, the exchange completely takes the dollar out of the equation. The bourse will be trading on a concept that is new in the oil markets but which is already operating in other fields. It's bafflingly simple. Buyers and sellers connect via the internet on a peer to peer market place. A clearing function ensures the actual delivery of contracts. There won't be any trading intermediaries such as investment banks as middlemen that are making hefty profits.

While the global oil price is determined by supply and demand, Cook believes that the proposed IOB structure will remove much of the current price volatility caused by a toxic combination of speculation by hedge funds and market manipulation by intermediary traders.
(19 September 2007)

Some articles by Chris Cook, archived at EB:
The Iran oil bourse - a new direction? (Dec 10, 2006)
Interview with Chris Cook, originator of the Iranian oil bourse (Aug 13, 2006 at TOD)
Iran - Perception and Reality (Jan 27, 2006)


Damage to the U.S. Dollar?

* The Proposed Iranian Oil Bourse by Krassimir Petrov.
* Petrodollar Warfare: Dollars, Euros and the Upcoming Iranian Oil Bourse by William Clark. By the same author: The Real Reasons Why Iran is the Next Target.


Skeptics

* Let me kill off once and for all the Iranian oil bourse story" by Jerome a Paris
* Strange ideas about the Iranian oil bourse by James D. Hamilton (Econbrowser)



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Editorial Notes ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

On the highly politicized subject of Iran and the oil bourse, it's good to take online reports with a grain of salt and not jump to conclusions.

[karlos]

This is a very interesting development.
I dont know whether people know the history of Kish Island but i will briefly explain just in case people dont know.
The iranian government after seeing the success of Dubai which is located in the Persian Gulf decided to make Kish island a free trade zone. Tax free and also having many laws relaxed such as gambling etc.
The result of which is that Kish Island now has many expensive hotels and houses and apartment blocks and is developing at a very fast pace.
Investment has come in from all over the world especially from Germany and Japan with which Iran has strong historic links.
Kish island has golf courses and even SEVEN star hotels.

The Petroleum Exchange is therefore located in a very good location, and there is no reason why it cannot become a very successful exchange.
The world at the moment has two leading exchanges for oil London's IPE (where i used to work!) and New York. Some oil trading also occurs in Rotterdam.
However, there is no reason why there should not be trading in other countries too, after all every country has it's own stock markets so why not have their own commodities markets as well.
Malaysia for example produces alot of rubber and indeed has a commodity exchange in Kuala Lumpor. Japan has it's own futures exchange as does Australia. So why should't Iran join the party.

Many people dont realise that Iran is quite advanced for a country. It produces over a million cars every year, it exports trains and buses to other countries. It manufactures it's own submarines and in fact according to todays news actually launched it's own rocket into space!
It's economy is expanding rapidly. So a commodity exchange managed by experienced British staff is part of this continued development.

But ofcourse all of these are reasons why the USA and Israel want to attack and destroy Iran.
Cutting the undersea internet cables has not in fact cut Iran off, they still have land cables to China and Russia so it is actually wrong to say they are 100% cut off. But Kish Island may well be cut off and this may prevent the exchange from opening.

The world must see the USA as being playground bullies.
I hope Iran learns the lesson NOT to rely on undersea cables anymore.

[chek]

[TonyGosling]

This thread continues here in news
Middle East Internet Blackouts Spur Geopolitical Suspicions
http://www.nineeleven.co.uk/board/viewtopic.php?t=13474