How submarine cables are the global backbone of the internet
This marvel of engineering makes our modern, digital society possible
Phones have it. Homes have it. Even televisions, offices and entire cities have it. Yet even as more devices depend on Wi-fi, there's a fact about the internet that few of us truly appreciate. The web is not wireless.
It's not even close to being anything other than a hard, painstakingly constructed physical network. A whopping 99 per cent of international data is transmitted by huge submarine communications cables dragged along the bottoms of oceans. When you're online, your data is coming through these cables.
Ex-employees file police reports against Hong Kong’s Physical gym as complaints balloon
Number of complaints against gym chain has ballooned to 1,000 with claims rising to HK$31 million, Consumer Council says
Several fitness trainers formerly employed by Hong Kong’s Physical Health Centre have filed police reports over its alleged unfair trade practices, while a watchdog has said the amount involved in complaints against the fitness chain has reached HK$31 million (US$3.97 million).
Yau Tsim Mong district councillor Chan Siu-tong said on Monday Physical’s practice of “hard-selling” to customers could be in violation of the law if it had done so in a last-ditch effort to boost sales before its abrupt closure last week.
VW factory fears renew concerns about China exposure of German carmakers
China’s evolution into a formidable competitor is revealing cracks in Germany’s economic success, analysts said
Last week, Volkswagen chief executive Oliver Blume said the group was considering closing a large vehicle plant and a component factory, amid stiff competition from Chinese rivals.
“The European automotive industry is in a very demanding and serious situation. The economic environment became even tougher, and new competitors are entering the European market,” he said, while also pointing to Germany’s comparative weakness as a manufacturing location.
For economists and analysts, it is the latest symptom of the rapid march of cutthroat competitors from China, at a time when European companies are struggling with rising energy costs associated with decoupling from Russia, and grappling with an increasingly volatile geopolitical picture.
Sino-German relations analyst Noah Barkin, from the Rhodium Group research house, said Germany’s economic success in the first two decades of the 21st century was built on three pillars: “cheap energy from Russia, an open global trading system and highly competitive industrial products”.
“In the span of a few years, the first pillar has collapsed and the other two are showing deep cracks,” he said.
