Russia and West clash over probe of Nord Stream pipelines sabotage

By Edith M. Lederer The Associated Press

UNITED NATIONS—Rus - sia clashed with the United States and other Western nations Tuesday over the Kremlin’s call for a UN investigation of last September’s sabotage of the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines from Russia to Western Europe.

Russia’s UN Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia told the UN Security Council that Moscow has “no trust” in the separate investigations being carried out by Denmark, Sweden and Germany, but it does “fully trust”

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to establish an independent international investigation of the explosions.

The United States, United Kingdom, France and others said authorities from the three countries are still investigating the pipeline attacks and the real reason Russia raised Nord Stream 1 and 2 now was to divert attention from the first anniversary of its invasion of Ukraine and high-level UN activities for the next three days including adoption of a General Assembly resolution condemning Moscow’s action.

“Today’s meeting is a blatant attempt to distract from this,” US Minister-Counselor John Kelley told the council. “As the world unites this week to call for a just and secure peace in Ukraine consistent with the UN Charter, Russia desperately wants to change the subject.”

Ahead of the meeting, the ambassadors of Denmark, Sweden and Germany sent a letter to council members saying their investigations have established the pipelines were extensively damaged “by powerful explosions due to sabotage.”

The letter, circulated Tuesday morning, said further investigations are being conducted in all three countries and that it’s unclear when they will finish. It says Russian authorities have been informed about the investigations.

But Russia’s deputy UN ambassador Dmitry Polyansky told reporters: “They are claiming that they are informing Russia about it which is not true...Any attempt for us to get any information was rejected by them or ignored.”

Russia circulated a draft resolution to council members late last week asking the UN secretary-general to urgently establish a commission to investigate the Nord Stream attacks. Security Council experts held closed consultations Monday on the proposed resolution and council diplomats said there was opposition to it.

Russia’s Nebenzia said Moscow hasn’t been allowed to join investigations by any of the three countries, saying they “are not only not transparent, but it is quite clear that they seek just to cover the tracks and stick up for their...American brother.”

Russia has alleged that the US was behind the sabotage, which its proposed resolution says “occurred after the repeated threats to the Nord Stream by the leadership of the United States.”

Kelley, the US diplomat, responded, telling the council “clearly and plainly: Accusations that the United States was involved in this act of sabotage are completely false. The United States was not involved in any way.”

Nord Stream 1 carried Russian gas to Germany until Moscow cut off supplies at the end of August 2022.

Nord Stream 2 never entered service as Germany suspended its certification process shortly before Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022. The explosions on both occurred on September 26.

UN political chief Rosemary DiCarlo briefed the Security Council, saying the UN is not in a position to verify any claims relating to the explosions and urging “all concerned to show restraint and avoid any speculation.”

“While exactly what happened beneath the waters of the Baltic Sea in September 2022 is still unclear, whatever caused the incident, its fallout counts among the many risks the invasion of Ukraine has unleashed,” she said.

Economist Jeffrey Sachs told the council the consequences of the sabotage were “enormous” not only from the economic losses but in the heightened threat to all cross-border infrastructure, including undersea internet cables and offshore wind farms.

“It is the responsibility of the UN Security Council to take up the question of who might have carried out the act in order to bring the perpetrator to international justice, to pursue compensation for the damaged parties and to prevent future such actions,” he said.

Sachs, a Columbia University professor, is also director of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network and a commissioner of the UN Broadband Commission for De - velopment. He was invited to speak by Russia and said he appeared before the council on his own behalf.

Sachs said the destruction of the pipelines “required a very high degree of planning, expertise and technological capacity,” and to do so in the exclusive economic zones of Denmark and Sweden “adds greatly to the complexity of the operation.”

“Only a handful of state level actors have both the technical capacity and access to the Baltic Sea to have carried out this action including the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, Poland, Norway, Germany, Denmark and Sweden, either individually or in some combination,” Sachs said. “Ukraine lacks the necessary technologies as well as access to the Baltic Sea.”

In their letter to the council, Denmark, Sweden and Germany reiterated that acts of sabotage against the pipelines were “unacceptable, endanger international security and give cause for our deep concern.”

How to mend PHL’s digital divide

IN his fifth State of the Nation Address on July 27, 2020, President Rodrigo Duterte complained about the poor Internet service in the country and threatened to close down telco giants Globe Telecom and Smart Communications, “unless their services improve by December.”

Duterte even said in jest that he would hang Globe Telecom Pesident Ernest Cu from one of his cell towers if Globe Telecom fails to improve its services by the end of the year. Cu, in turn, quipped that it was red tape in government that prevents them from improving telco services. He informed Duterte about the problems they usually encounter when applying for permits to build telecommunication towers.

Five months before Duterte was set to leave Malacañang, Anti-Red Tape Authority Director General Jeremiah Belgica reported that the whole-of-government approach of simplifying the process of putting up telecommunications infrastructure facilitated improvements in the speed of fixed broadband and mobile data in the country. This happened after Duterte gave LGUs three days to finish the processing of documents of telecommunication companies wishing to build towers to improve their services.

With Duterte’s order to speed up site approvals, the two big telcos have won permission to deploy hundreds of additional 4G and 5G base stations. But the incremental improvement in telco services was hardly enough to meet the growing demand for broadband communication services. The Covid-19 pandemic has led to an exponential surge in the use of digital technologies due to the nationwide lockdowns and the required physical distancing to limit the spread of the virus.

A global research on the quality of the digital wellbeing in 85 countries, dubbed Digital Quality of Life Index 2020, said the Philippines is among countries with “least affordable” Internet services, yet consumers are receiving mediocre quality of connectivity.

The study, which was conducted by Surfshark, a Virtual Private Network service based in the Netherlands, assessed 85 countries on five metrics: Internet affordability, Internet quality, electronic infrastructure, electronic government, and electronic security. The global study was based on information provided by the United Nations, the World Bank, Freedom House, the International Telecommunications Union, and other public data sources.

“Internet quality in the Philippines is comparatively mediocre, and on a global scale fixed broadband Internet is better than mobile,” Surfshark said. The country’s fixed broadband Internet speed is at 75.1 megabits per second (Mbps), while mobile Internet is at 38.7 Mbps.

The study said the Philippine ranking in terms of digital wellbeing fell to 55th—from 48th in the previous year—out of 117 countries. This was based on five fundamental digital life pillars, including Internet affordability, which was the Philippines’s weakest spot as it ranked 98th globally.

Among 117 countries ranked on Internet affordability, Surfshark said Singapore’s Internet affordability is ranked second in the world. The island-state beat out high-tech countries such as South Korea and Japan. In Singapore, the cheapest 1Gbps plan is S$40 (P1,643) a month on a 24-month contract. You can also get a 300Mbps plan for S$29 (P821). One reason why Singapore can offer such high speeds at competitive rates is due to its 2011 Next Generation Nationwide Broadband Network initiative, which deployed an ultra-high speed fiber network with 1Gbps speeds to all physical addresses in Singapore. Internet penetration rate in the Philippines stood at 68 percent (76 million) of the total population in 2022. For millions of Filipinos living in rural communities, online connection is not yet a reality. That’s because most cell towers are located in wealthy cities and towns, according to an analysis by Asian Development Bank.

The Department of Information and Communications Technology has been pushing for a government-owned broadband network to improve Internet quality, coverage and affordability. The agency said in November that the National Broadband Plan (NBP) will start serving the public by mid-2023. Residents in rural areas are hoping that the NBP succeeds in providing faster, more efficient, and equitable broadband connectivity nationwide, especially in remote areas with no Internet connection. That’s the best way to mend the country’s digital divide.