Subsea Cable.

Pipe is power.

1. In less than a decade, four tech giants— Microsoft, Google parent Alphabet, Meta (formerly Facebook ) and Amazon —have become by far the dominant users of undersea-cable capacity. Before 2012, the share of the world’s undersea fiber-optic capacity being used by those companies was less than 10%. Today, that figure is about 66%. And these four are just getting started, say analysts, submarine cable engineers and the companies themselves. In the next three years, they are on track to become primary financiers and owners of the web of undersea internet cables connecting the richest and most bandwidth-hungry countries on the shores of both the Atlantic and the Pacific, according to subsea cable analysis firm TeleGeography. (Source: wsj.com)

2. European gas prices jumped on Friday after the breakdown in security talks between Russia and the US deepened concerns about supplies. Russia said on Thursday that this week’s talks with the US and Nato had failed to address its security grievances, casting doubt over the prospect of a western diplomatic push to defuse Moscow’s threat of military action against Ukraine. The news pushed the benchmark European gas contract almost 25 per cent higher over the last two sessions to reach €90 per megawatt hour. Traders fear these geopolitical tensions will constrain Russia’s gas exports to the continent, just at the time when inventories have shrunk to the lowest level on record for the time of year. (Source: ft.com)

3. The Russian government has sent operatives into eastern Ukraine in preparation for potential sabotage efforts that could serve as a pretext for a renewed Russian invasion, the Biden administration warned on Friday, escalating tensions with Moscow after preliminary diplomatic talks in Europe reached an impasse. U.S. intelligence has identified a group of operatives who have been prepositioned in east Ukraine potentially to conduct a “false flag” operation, a U.S. official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity under ground rules established by the Biden administration, said in an email. “The operatives are trained in urban warfare and in using explosives to carry out acts of sabotage against Russia’s own proxy-forces,” the U.S. official said, referring to Russian-backed separatists who have been waging a war against Ukrainian forces in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions. (Source: washingtonpost.com)

4. From The Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) at Stanford University: “The Russian military has deployed and sustained major forces on or near Ukraine’s border, raising significant concerns in Washington and other NATO capitals that the Kremlin may be planning a new assault on its western neighbor. Meanwhile, Moscow has demanded security guarantees for Russia and indicated that it otherwise will take unspecified “military-technical” measures. Michael Kofman, Research Program Director in the Russia Studies Program at CNA, discuss the Russian build-up, the military options it gives the Kremlin, and how a Russia-Ukraine conflict might play out. It’s a Zoom presentation, over an hour long and worth watching. (Sources: youtube.com, cisac.fsi.stanford.edu)

5. Turkey's aspirations to lead the greater Turkic world and become a Eurasian heavyweight has met a "reality check," analysts said, as violence erupted in the ex-Soviet, Turkic nation of Kazakhstan last week. When the oil, gas and uranium rich country needed security assistance to maintain order, it was the Russia-dominated Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) that it turned to. Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed victory Monday, after swiftly deploying CSTO forces to guard critical Kazakh infrastructure, allowing Kazakh forces to concentrate on tackling protesters. "I am confident that our joint efforts will make it possible to fully reestablish control over the situation nationwide and to stabilize it," Putin told fellow CSTO members in an emergency session. "We must make sure that events similar to the tragedy happening in the brotherly country of Kazakhstan will not catch us by surprise again and that we are fully mobilized and ready to push back against any new provocation," he said, hinting to leaders of other ex-Soviet states that the alliance would protect them too. (via asia.nikkei.com)

6. Afghanistan’s Taliban are battling a rebellion by ethnic minority fighters in their own ranks in the country’s north, a sign that ties are fraying within the alliance built by the Islamist group that seized control of the country in August. Some Uzbeks who joined the Taliban, which is dominated by Pashtuns from the country’s south and east, along with other Uzbeks, fought Taliban forces in Faryab province this week. At least four people were killed and others wounded in clashes Friday, local residents said. Inamullah Samangani, a spokesman for the Taliban, said that it was supporters of democracy that use ethnic divisions. “Now that they have nothing, the so-called democrats are struggling to come up with which ethnic group Talib is good and which is bad,” Mr. Samangani said, on Twitter. (Source: wsj.com)

7. A major United Arab Emirates sovereign-wealth fund has invested roughly $100 million in venture-capital firms in Israel’s technology sector, according to people familiar with the investments, a fresh sign of deepening business and investment ties between the countries at the forefront of the Abraham Accords. A year and a half since the deal that normalized diplomatic ties between Israel and the U.A.E., business is growing, with trade between the two counties forecast to reach $2 billion this year, up from roughly $250 million annually before the accords, according to the U.A.E.-Israel Business Council, a trade body representing 6,000 Emirati and Israel businesspeople. Israeli companies are investing in new offices in Dubai and Abu Dhabi and moving staff from Tel Aviv. Emirati sovereign-wealth funds are making direct investments into Israeli technology companies, and U.A.E. firms are positioning themselves as partners for Israeli expansion into the rest of the Middle East. (Source: wsj.com)

8. A research team in Changsha in central China’s Hunan province said it had developed the world’s first lightweight, flexible body shield to protect soldiers from armor-piercing weapons. Three rounds of armor-piercing incendiary (API) bullets were fired from point-blank range (up to 15 meters or 50 feet) into the bionic scale armor at nearly three times the speed of sound. None of the shots penetrated the composite materials, according to a paper published in the domestic peer-reviewed journal Acta Materiae Compositae Sinica on January 5. The 7.62mm API bullet was initially developed to destroy a tank. It could explode inside the target to inflict greater damage. Later, it was used against individuals wearing protective gear. (Source: scmp.com)