asia

Hong Kong startup Neat raises $11M Series A to give small companies more financial services

Neat, a Hong Kong-based fintech startup, announced today that it has raised a $11 million Series A to help small businesses do cross-border trade. The round was led by Pacific Century Group, with participation from Visa and MassMutual Ventures Southeast Asia, and returning investors Dymon Asia Ventures, Linear Capital and Sagamore Investments.

Neat also announced a strategic partnership with Visa, which means that in the next few months Neat will start issuing Visa credit cards to SMEs and startups.

This brings Neat’s total funding to $16.5 million, including its seed round announced at the end of 2018.

Like San Francisco-based Brex, which achieved a $2.6 billion valuation last year, Neat focuses on giving startups and small businesses a more efficient, online alternative to traditional banking.

Its services allow them to open business accounts for multiple currencies online, send and receive payments from different countries and apply for corporate credit cards. Neat’s new funding will be used for expansion, with a focus on Southeast Asian customers that do trade with European companies. Last year it opened a Shenzhen office to serve Chinese export businesses, as well as an office in London for Western European companies that trade in China.

Neat co-founder and CEO David Rosa told TechCrunch that businesses are still looking to digitize more of their operations despite the worldwide impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. “Neat is serving entrepreneurs around the world that trade with Asia. Before they may have fitted visits to the bank into their business trips to Hong Kong, this is no longer an option,” he said.

Neat is a challenger bank for early-stage startups and SMEs

Corporate credit cards can be difficult for startups and SMEs to get because they typically need about three years of audited financials to qualify even for low spending limits, Rosa said. Employees often cannot get a corporate card because their managers do not have the tools to control their spending limits, making reimbursement more difficult. Neat’s partnership with Visa aims to solve many of the problems they encounter (it also offers a Neat Mastercard). In the future, Neat will launch tools for automated payroll, accounting and logistics.

In a statement, MassMutual Ventures managing director Ryan Collins said, “We’re proud to support Neat in the company’s vision to support entrepreneurs. There is a clear demand for better financial products for SMEs, especially when it comes to cross-border payments and trade, and we’re confident that Neat’s passionate and innovative team will deliver.”

09.04.19 Credit Cards

Elliptic banks $23M to shrink crypto risk, eyeing growth in Asia

Crypto means risk. To UK company Elliptic it also means business. The startup has just closed a $23M Series B to step up growth for a crypto risk-management play that involves selling tech and services to help others navigate the choppy darks of cryptocurrencies.

The round was led by financial services and asset management firm SBI Group, a Tokyo-based erstwhile subsidiary of SoftBank . Also joining as a new investor this round is London-based AlbionVC. Existing investors including SignalFire, Octopus Ventures and Santander Innoventures also participated. SBI Group’s Tomoyuki Nii and Ed Lascelles of AlbionVC are also joining Elliptic’s board.

Flush with a sizeable injection of Series B capital, Elliptic is especially targeting business growth at Asia — with a plan to open new offices in Japan and Singapore. It says client revenues in the region have risen 11x over the past two years.

We last spoke to Elliptic back in 2016 when it had just raised a $5M Series A.

The 2013-founded startup began by testing the crypto waters with a storage product before zeroing in on financial compliance as a pain-point worth its time. It went on to develop machine learning tech that screens transactions to identify suspicious patterns and, via them, dubious transactors.

Now it offers an integrated suite of products and services for financial institutions and crypto businesses to screen volumes of crypto-flows that sum to billions of dollars in transactions per day — analyzing them for links to illicit activity such as money laundering, terrorist financing, sanctions evasion, and other financial crimes.

It’s focused on selling anti-money laundering compliance, crypto forensics and cryptocurrency investigation services to the private sector — though has also sold tools direct to law enforcement agencies in the past.

Billions of dollars in financial services terms is of course just a tiny drop in a massive ocean of money movements. And growth in the crypto risk-management space has clearly required more than a little patience, from a startup perspective.

Three years ago Elliptic’s first blockchain analytics product had 10-20 Bitcoin companies as customers. That’s now up to 100+ crypto businesses and financial institutions using its products to shrink their risk of financial crime when dealing with crypto-assets. But the more three than year gap between Elliptic’s Series A and B is notable.

“To date, we’ve focused on product development and assembling the right team as the market has matured. This new funding will help us expand in the right way, namely by making the push into Asia without diluting our focus on the US and EMEA,” says co-founder and CEO James Smith when asked about the gap between financing rounds.

He declines to comment on how far off Elliptic is from achieving breakeven or profitability yet.

“We provide best-in-class transaction monitoring products for crypto-assets, which are trusted by crypto exchanges and financial institutions worldwide,” he adds of its product suite. “Our products are used as key components of larger compliance processes that are designed to minimise money laundering risks.”

With the addition of SBI Group to its investor roster Elliptic gains a strategic partner in Asia to help push what it dubs “bank-grade risk data” at a new wave of established financial institutions it believes are eyeing crypto with growing appetite for risk as larger players wade in.

Larger players like Facebook . Elliptic’s PR name-drops the likes of Facebook’s Libra cryptocurrency, Line Corporation’s LINK and central bank digital currencies, as markers of a rise in mainstream attention on crypto assets. And it says Series B funds will be used to accelerate product development to support “an emerging class of asset-backed crypto-assets”.

Regulatory attention on crypto — which has been rising globally for years but looks set to zip up several gears now that Facebook has ripped the curtain off of an ambitious global digital currency plan which also has buy-in from a number of other household tech and fintech names — is another claimed feed in for Elliptic’s business. More crypto implies growing risk.

It also points to the intergovernmental Financial Action Task Force’s global regulatory framework for crypto-assets as an example of some of the wider risk-based requirements and now wrapped around those dealing in crypto.

The focus on Asia for business expansion is a measure of relative maturity of interest in opportunities around crypto-assets and localized attention to regulation, according to Smith.

“Revenue growth is certainly very strong in this region. We have been working with customers in Asia for a number of years and have seen first-hand how vibrant their crypto-asset ecosystems are. Countries such as Singapore and Japan have developed clear crypto-asset regulatory frameworks, and businesses based in these countries are serious about meeting their compliance obligations,” he says.

“We have also found that traditional financial institutions in Asia are particularly keen to engage with crypto-assets, and we will be working with them as they take their first steps into this new asset class.”

“We believe that crypto-assets will play an increasingly important role in our everyday lives and are shaping the future of banking. Our investment in Elliptic is a further commitment to this belief and to SBI Holding’s appetite to help build the digital asset-related ecosystem,” adds Yoshitaka Kitao, CEO of the SBI Group, in a supporting statement.

“Elliptic’s pioneering approach is enabling the transparency, integrity, and trust necessary for this vision to become reality. We are seeing a growing demand for their services across our portfolio of crypto-assets related companies and view Elliptic as best-placed to meet this considerable opportunity.”

While Elliptic’s business is focused on reducing the risk for other businesses of inadvertently transacting with criminals using crypto to launder money or otherwise shift assets under the legal radar, the proportion of transactions that such illicit activity represents in the Bitcoin space represents a tiny fraction of overall transactions.

“According to our analysis, approximately $1BN in Bitcoin has been spent on the dark web, so far in 2019, on items ranging from narcotics to stolen credit cards. This represents a very small share of all Bitcoin activity — less than 0.5% of Bitcoin payments over this period,” says Smith.

Not that that diminishes the regulatory risk. Nor, therefore, the business opportunity for Elliptic to sell support services to help others avoid touching the hot stuff.

“Crypto money launderers are continually developing new techniques to cover their tracks — from the use of mixers to transacting in privacy coins such as monero,” Smith adds. “We are also constantly innovating to keep pace with this and help our clients to detect money laundering. For example our work with researchers from MIT and IBM demonstrated the application of deep learning techniques to the identification of illicit crypto-asset transactions.”

08.28.19 telecommunications

Under the curtain: Kashmir residents contend with pellet guns and restrictions

Srinagar, Indian-controlled Kashmir (CNN)When the Indian government stripped the state of Jammu and Kashmir of its autonomy and reclassified it as a union territory earlier this month, it left many citizens there in a state of confusion and concern.

The government has repeatedly assured the world that life there is getting back to normal and any unrest has been minor.

But scraps of information trickling out of the region tell a different story.

Officials in Srinagar, the capital of Indian-controlled Kashmir, tell of mass detentions and residents say tear gas and pellet guns are being used against Kashmiri citizens and restrictions on movement are still in place. Two local officials told CNN that more than 2,000 people were detained in Jammu and Kashmir in the days leading to, and after, the August 5 decision, including political leaders, elected representatives, lawyers, activists, businessmen and students.

Most were held under a controversial Jammu and Kashmir Public Safety Act (PSA) legislation, which allows authorities to book a person without charge or trial for up to two years. It is not clear how many of the 2,000 are still detained.

“The government wants us to believe everything is normal. But we still find out about protests, tear gas, injuries despite the continued communication blockade,” said shopkeeper, Mushtaq Ahmad, 35, who lives in uptown Srinagar. “Everything is still shut in the city and around us, and the movement is almost impossible when the restrictions are in place.”

Article 370 of India’s constitution gave Jammu and Kashmir the power to have its own constitution, flag and autonomy over all matters, save for certain policy areas such as a foreign affairs and defense.

The Indian government said the move to revoke the state’s special status was to ensure the nation’s laws are equal for all citizens. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has repeatedly insisted that the provisions restricted investment and economic growth.

And the government has said the communications blackout and restrictions on movement in Jammu and Kashmir in the run up to, and after, the announcement were put in place for security reasons. On August 12, the state government said in a statement that demonstrations against the removal of Article 370 were “minor localized protests of a routine nature in a few places.”

Since then, CNN has repeatedly reached out to the Jammu and Kashmir administration and the country’s home ministry about the restrictions, protests and number and nature of injuries, but haven’t received a response.

Thousands detained, pellet gun injuries

On August 10, Farooq Ahmad Qureshi walked out of his home in Srinagar to buy some bread from his local bakery. Instead, he says he found himself in the middle of a demonstration.

“I started moving towards the baker’s shop,” said the 35-year-old resident of the Karfalli Mohalla area of the old city. “I heard a sound and next blood started oozing from my left eye. I fell down and started crying in pain.”

The doctor told him he had been hit in the eye by pellets. “The doctors who treated me said I have little chance of regaining (my) sight as three pellets had seriously damaged my eye,” he said.

Human rights groups and local media have reported that Indian troops are firing pellet guns at protesters.

Senior police officer Munir Khan addressed the protests and violence in a press briefing on August 14, saying, “There have been no major injuries to anybody. There have been a few pellet injuries, who were treated and sent back.”

A doctor in the ophthalmology ward in the main hospital of Srinagar told CNN he has treated dozens of patients who have sustained eye injuries caused by pellet guns.

“We have so far treated 30 victims in the ophthalmology unit of SMSH (Shri Maharaja Hari Singh) hospital from August 5,” the doctor told CNN. He spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to media.

Pellet guns are commonly used by Indian security forces to disperse crowds in Kashmir, and protests have erupted when the local administration has lifted restrictions on movement. But details on the size and frequency of these protests — as well as number of potential casualties — are only anecdotal.

Other residents say security forces are firing tear gas on an almost-daily basis.

“The local youth engage in stone pelting in the evening when the Indian security forces start to withdraw for the day. The security forces respond by firing tear gas,” Ayub, 33, who only goes by one name, said from the Saraf Kadal locality in downtown Srinagar. “For the past 20 days or so, this has become almost a daily routine in my neighborhood, which sometimes results in injuries to the protesters. How is this normal?”

A bid for economic growth

Kashmir is one of the world’s most dangerous flashpoints. Claimed in its entirety by both India and Pakistan, it has been the epicenter for more than 70 years of an often violent territorial struggle between the nuclear-armed neighbors.

In 1947, after India’s independence from British colonial rule, the former ruler of Jammu and Kashmir was given an option to accede to either Pakistan or India and, in exchange for protection, chose the latter. But special provisions were added to the Indian constitution, under Article 370, to protect the rights of the territory’s residents.

Revoking Kashmir’s special status was one of the promises made by Modi ahead of recent national elections, saying the move would free the area of “terrorism.” Article 370, he said, had caused “separatism, terrorism, dynastic politics and corruption.”

Under the new system, non-residents will be allowed to purchase property in Jammu and Kashmir, and apply for jobs or scholarships that had previously been reserved for residents. Experts said it could open the way for a steady demographic change in India’s only Muslim-majority state.

That has caused widespread anxiety among the Muslim population in the Kashmir valley.

Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan, meanwhile, has likened India’s revoking of Jammu and Kashmir state’s broad autonomy to Nazi ideology, and said his country is prepared to “fight to the end” over Kashmir, which the country claims for its own. The two countries have fought three wars since 1947, two of them over Kashmir.

Pakistan has been pushing for international intervention over Kashmir, but a UN Security Council meeting on the issue — the first in almost 50 years — failed to agree on a statement, with some diplomats fearing any comment would escalate tensions or would show bias towards Pakistan by simply holding the meeting.

Life under lockdown

The local government has said its actions in Kashmir, on communications and freedom of movement in the region, is necessary for public order and peace. “Restrictions on connectivity continue as a result of security requirements,” the state government said in a statement on August 12.

Officials have repeatedly said the restrictions will be lifted in phases but have not provided a definitive timeline, leaving the entire region in confusion. The Jammu and Kashmir government said restrictions in parts of the state have already been completely lifted.

Currently, only some landline telephone services have been restored in the Kashmir valley, and there is still no mobile or internet connectivity. Furthermore, in the city of Srinagar, there is a heavy presence of paramilitary soldiers, with checkpoints every 200 meters.

The local government said it has set up “help lines” at the district commissioner’s office, police stations and police posts so people can contact their families.

“I have been going from pillar to post for the past 15 days to get in touch with my parents. But with no luck,” said Najam Rous, 26, whose parents had traveled to Saudi Arabia for the Muslim pilgrimage Hajj. Eventually she managed to contact her family from her neighbour’s landline phone. “My parents were crying and the first thing they asked me was if we had food at home,” she said.

In some places, restrictions prohibit gatherings of more than three people remain in place, police demand identification and a vehicle check at each checkpoint, and fears of violence are keeping residents inside their homes after sunset.

In downtown Srinagar, which is considered more volatile as it’s a poorer, more densely populated part of the city, coils of wire remain at every corner to restrict the movement of vehicles

Navnita Chadha Behera, head of political science at Delhi University State, said often restrictions are lifted, then put back in place just as quickly.

“(The government is) just sort of testing waters. And there are bound to be protests,” said Behera.

“To expect that just because you have put the valley under lockdown for X number of days and when you reopen it, people will accept what has happened, it is an unrealistic expectation,” added Behera, who is the author of several books on South Asia including “Identity and Violence: Jammu, Kashmir, and Ladakh.”

For example, after schools were shut for two weeks, some reopened in Srinagar on Monday. One school in uptown Srinagar, however, remained empty and teachers declined to comment to CNN. A couple of hours after opening, the school was shut again and the teachers had left.

The government said middle schools opened last Wednesday.

Delays and shortages

In parts of Srinagar, shops are boarded up and the streets deserted due to the continued presence of Indian paramilitary soldiers. Roadblocks have also made it tougher for the sick to reach hospitals, locals tell CNN.

In the city’s SMSH hospital, Mushtaq Ahmad said he traveled for eight hours through the night from his home in North Kashmir’s Kupwara district so his 8-year-old son, Khurshid Ahmad, could receive eye surgery. The 120-kilometer journey would usually only take two hours, he said, and it cost him a Rs 4,000 ($56) taxi ride.

“Normally we pay Rs 200 ($2.8) to reach the capital city. We are poor people. People in my area are as agitated as elsewhere in the valley against the scrapping of Article 370,” he said.

Rafiq Ahmad, 32, said he had to rush his nephew Rahat Iman, 5, to the hospital because of a throat infection and high fever. Driving from his home in South Kashmir’s Shopian town 85 kilometers away, Ahmad said, “Everything is closed en route. And there are roadblocks on the highway to Srinagar.”

Residents say they venture out only late afternoon or early mornings, but they are able to get essential supplies such as bread, vegetables, and rice, from their small neighbourhood stores. “Whatever we need, we are still getting it,” Irshad Ahmad, a resident in uptown Srinagar said.

Shauqat Ahmad, owner of grocery store on the outskirts of the city said a lot of businesses were relying on their stock from the Muslim festival Eid al-Adha, which many residents were unable to celebrate because of the crackdown. “We had enough stocks of essential items for Eid. But since people could not purchase them at the time, we are hoping they will last for some more time,” Ahmad said.

But other products have begun to run out. “We have a shortage of 80% drugs in our shop. No new supplies are coming because of the continuous shutdowns and restrictions,” said Raees Ahmad, owner of Friends Medicate pharmacy in Srinagar.

“We cannot transfer money to the suppliers outside the state to get supplies. We are telling our customers to try and get medicines from other medical stores in the vicinity.”

The state government said in its official Twiiter page that essential drugs are available at government shops and private retailers, and most chemist shops remain open in Srinagar and 65% across the Kashmir valley.

Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia director of Human Rights Watch, has called on the Indian government to ensure the rights of people living in Kashmir are respected.

“The disruption of internet and telecommunications and the restrictions on movement in Jammu and Kashmir placed vulnerable populations at risk, including in accessing crucial medical services. Under international law, India has the obligation to ensure that any such restrictions are necessary and proportionate, and not used as a tool of censorship under the guise of security,” she said.

08.07.19 Credit Cards

Financial services marketplace CompareAsiaGroup raises $20 million in new funding led by Experian

Experian, one of the largest credit reporting bureaus in the United States, announced today that it has invested in CompareAsiaGroup, the financial services marketplace. Experian led the initial closing of a $20 million B1 round.

In addition to new funding, the investment also gives Hong Kong-based CompareAsiaGroup access to Experian’s technology, including Experian One, a cloud-based credit scoring and risk assessment platform. CompareAsiaGroup recently opened a research and development center in Singapore to develop more tech tools and its partnership with Experian will enable it to launch new open banking services in Hong Kong that can also be adapted for other markets.

The platform currently claims 60 million users in Asian countries, including Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan and Thailand, which use it to comparison shop for bank accounts, personal loans, insurance, credit cards and other financial products.

This is the latest investment Experian has made in Asian fintech startups (the others include Jirnexu in Malaysia, C88 Financial Technologies Group and India’s BankBazaar). It is also participated in Grab’s Series H, announced earlier this summer.

Ben Elliot, the CEO of Experian in Asia Pacific, tells TechCrunch that Experian focuses on investments that give more people access to financial services. “Obviously we benefit from that, but I think this really shows our commitment to Southeast Asia in particular, and also in this case Hong Kong and Taiwan,” he said about the new funding in CompareAsiaGroup. “My view is that over time we’ll see our capabilities and CompareAsiaGroup really improving the experience of customers while they are borrowing.”

CompareAsiaGroup has now raised more than $90 million to date since it was founded in 2014. Its other investors include World Bank Group member IFC, Goldman Sachs Investment Partners, ACE and Company, Jardines, Alibaba Entrepreneurs Fund, SBI Group and H&Q Utrust.

07.31.19 telecommunications

How vulnerable are the undersea cables that power the global internet?

Hong Kong (CNN)On July 29, 1858, two steam-powered battleships met in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. There, they connected two ends of a 4,000 kilometer (2,500 mile) long, 1.5 centimeter (0.6 inch) wide cable, linking for the first time the European and North American continents by telegraph.

Just over two weeks later, the UK’s Queen Victoria sent a congratulatory message to then US President James Buchanan, which was followed by a parade through the streets of New York, featuring a replica of a ship which helped lay the cable and fireworks over City Hall.

In their inaugural cables, Queen Victoria hailed the “great international work” by the two countries, the culmination of almost two decades of effort, while Buchanan lauded a “triumph more glorious, because far more useful to mankind, than was ever won by conqueror on the field of battle.

The message took over 17 hours to deliver, at 2 minutes and 5 seconds per letter by Morse code, and the cable operated for less than a month due to a variety of technical failures, but a global communications revolution had begun.

By 1866, new cables were transmitting 6 to 8 words a minute, which would rise to more than 40 words before the end of the century. In 1956, Transatlantic No. 1 (TAT-1), the first underwater telephone cable, was laid, and by 1988, TAT-8 was transmitting 280 megabytes per second — about 15 times the speed of an average US household internet connection — over fiber optics, which use light to transmit data at breakneck speeds.

In 2018, the Marea cable began operating between Bilbao, Spain, and the US state of Virginia, with transmission speeds of up to 160 terabits per second — 16 million times faster than the average home internet connection.

Today, there are around 380 underwater cables in operation around the world, spanning a length of over 1.2 million kilometers (745,645 miles).

Underwater cables are the invisible force driving the modern internet, with many in recent years being funded by internet giants such as Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Amazon. They carry almost all our communications and yet — in a world of wireless networking and smartphones — we are barely aware that they exist.

Yet as the internet has become more mobile and wireless, the amount of data traveling across undersea cables has increased exponentially.

“Most people are absolutely amazed” by the degree to which the internet is still cable-based, said Byron Clatterbuck, chief executive of Seacom, a multinational telecommunications firm responsible for laying many of the undersea cables connecting Africa to the rest of the world.

“People are so mobile and always looking for Wi-Fi,” he said. “They don’t think about it, they don’t understand the workings of this massive mesh of cables working together.

“They only notice when it’s cut.”

Network down

In 2012, Hurricane Sandy slammed into the US East Coast, causing an estimated $71 billion in damage and knocking out several key exchanges where undersea cables linked North America and Europe.

“It was a major disruption,” Frank Rey, director of global network strategy for Microsoft’s Cloud Infrastructure and Operations division, said in a statement.

“The entire network between North America and Europe was isolated for a number of hours. For us, the storm brought to light a potential challenge in the consolidation of transatlantic cables that all landed in New York and New Jersey.”

For its newest cable, Marea, Microsoft chose to base its US operation further down the coast in Virginia, away from the cluster of cables to minimize disruption should another massive storm hit New York.

But most often when a cable goes down nature is not to blame. There are about 200 such failures each year and the vast majority are caused by humans.

“Two-thirds of cable failures are caused by accidental human activities, fishing nets and trawling and also ships’ anchors,” said Tim Stronge, vice-president of research at TeleGeography, a telecoms market research firm. “The next largest category is natural disaster, mother nature — sometimes earthquakes but also underwater landslides.”

A magnitude-7.0 earthquake off the southwest coast off Taiwan in 2006, along with aftershocks, cut eight submarine cables which caused internet outages and disruption in Taiwan, Hong Kong, China, Japan, Korea and the Philippines.

Stronge said the reason most people are not aware of these failures is because the whole industry is designed with it in mind. Companies that rely heavily on undersea cables spread their data across multiple routes, so that if one goes down, customers are not cut off.

How a cable gets laid

Laying a cable is a years-long process which costs millions of dollars, said Seacom’s Clatterbuck.

The process begins by looking at naval charts to plot the best route. Cables are safest in deep water where they can rest on a relatively flat seabed, and won’t rub against rocks or be at risk of other disturbances.

“The deeper the better,” Clatterbuck said. “When you can lay the cable down in deep water you rarely have any problems. It goes down on the bottom of the seabed and just stays there.”

Things become more difficult the closer you get to shore. A cable that is only a few centimeters thick on the bottom of the ocean must be armored from its environment as reaches the landing station that links it with the country’s internet backbone.

“Imagine a long garden hose, inside of which are very small tubes that house a very, very thin fiber pair,” Clatterbuck said. That hose is wrapped in copper, which conducts the direct current that powers the cable and its repeaters, sometimes up to 10,000 volts.

“The fibers are wrapped in urethane and wrapped in copper and wrapped again in urethane,” he said. “If we’re going to have to put that cable on a shoreline that is very shallow and has a lot of rocks, you’re now going to have to armor coat that cable so no one can hack through it.”

Cables in less hospitable areas can be far thicker than garden hoses, wrapped in extra plastic, kevlar armor plating, and stainless steel to ensure they can’t be broken.

Depending on the coast, cable companies might also have to build concrete trenches far out to sea, to tuck the cable in to protect it from being bashed against rocks.

“Before the cable-laying vessels go out they send out another specialized ship that maps the sea floor in the area when they want to go,” said TeleGeography’s Stronge. “They want to avoid areas where there’s a lot of undersea currents, certainly want to avoid volcanic areas, and avoid a lot of elevation change on the sea floor.”

Once the route is plotted and checked, and the shore connections are secure, huge cable laying ships begin passing out the equipment.

“Imagine spools of spools of garden hose along with a lot of these repeaters the size of an old travel trunk,” Clatterbuck said. “Sometimes it can take a month to load the cable onto a ship.”

The 6,600 kilometer (4,000 mile) Marea cable weighs over 4.6 million kilograms (10.2 million pounds), or the equivalent of 34 blue whales, according to Microsoft, which co-funded the project with Facebook.

It took more than two years to lay the entire thing.

Malicious cuts

The blackout came without warning. In February 2008, a whole swath of North Africa and the Persian Gulf suddenly went offline, or saw internet speeds slow to a painful crawl.

This disruption was eventually traced to damage to three undersea cables off the Egyptian coast. At least one — linking Dubai and Oman — was severed by an abandoned, 5,400 kilogram (6-ton) anchor, the cable’s owner said.

But the cause of the other damage was never explained, with suggestions it could have been the work of saboteurs. That raises the issue of another threat to undersea cables: deliberate human attacks.

In a 2017 paper for the right-wing think tank Policy Exchange, British lawmaker Rishi Sunak wrote that “security remains a challenge” for undersea cables.

“Funneled through exposed choke points (often with minimal protection) and their isolated deep-sea locations entirely public, the arteries upon which the Internet and our modern world depends have been left highly vulnerable,” he said. “The threat of these vulnerabilities being exploited is growing. A successful attack would deal a crippling blow to Britain’s security and prosperity.”

However, with more than 50 cables connected to the UK alone, Clatterbuck was skeptical about how useful a deliberate outage could be in a time of war, pointing to the level of coordination and resources required to cut multiple cables at once.

“If you wanted to sabotage the global internet or cut off a particular place you’d have to do it simultaneously on multiple cables,” he said. “You’d be focusing on the hardest aspect of disrupting a network.”

It would likely be easier to target onshore internet infrastructure with cyber and DDoS attacks, flooding the network and knocking key facilities offline. Though even then, Clatterbuck pointed out, military and other government organizations likely have satellite backups.

Submarines a centerpiece of Russia’s navy

Submarine spying

Tapping underwater cables is not a new thing. During the Cold War, US submarines transported divers with specially designed equipment that they attached to Soviet cables in the Sea of Okhotsk to intercept all communications.

The secret surveillance lasted almost a decade, until information about the operation, codenamed Ivy Bells, was sold to the Soviets by a former National Security Agency communications specialist, Ronald Pelton.

Today, more than 99% of international communications are carried over fiber optic cables, most of them undersea, according to TeleGeography. While tapping undersea phone cables was no easy feat, surveilling modern fiber optic cables is even harder, but not impossible.

According to researchers with AT&T Labs, by carefully targeting parts of internet infrastructure, attackers could knock out parts of a network that they can’t surveil and force people onto cables they already control, potentially without the target even realizing that their communications are being exposed.

The easiest way of doing so is not by tapping the cable, but the point where it connects to land. This what UK and US spy agencies have been accused of doing in the past, allegedly with the cooperation of the private companies operating the cables.

In 2013, the Guardian reported — citing documents provided by National Security Agency (NSA) whistleblower Edward Snowden — that British spy agency GCHQ had “secretly gained access to the network of cables which carry the world’s phone calls and internet traffic.”

According to documents provided by Snowden, in 2012 GCHQ was handling 600 million “telephone events” every day and had compromised more than 200 fiber optic cables.

The NSA allegedly ran a similar operation called Upstream, which a presentation leaked by Snowden described as being able to access “communications on fiber cables and infrastructure as data flows past.”

GCHQ declined to comment for this article. In a statement, an NSA spokesman said the agency “can neither confirm nor deny mission related activities.”

“What we can say is that NSA conducts its foreign signals intelligence mission in a carefully controlled manner, in strict accordance with US laws and subject to multiple layers of oversight, focusing on important foreign intelligence and national security priorities,” the spokesman added. “In particular, privacy and civil liberties are integral concerns in the planning and execution of NSA’s mission.”

Attaching a probe or surveillance device to a cable somewhere along its length without disrupting the fiber optic traffic or alerting the cable’s owners would be far more difficult.

“You would need specialized equipment with a grapnel that can lower down to the cable and grab it and pull it up without damaging the rest of the cable,” Stronge said. Then the cable would have to be cut and reconnected in a way that doesn’t disrupt the light passing over the fiber optics. You’d also have to hope the operator didn’t notice that something was afoot while this process was underway.

“That’s difficult, it takes a lot of specialized equipment to do that,” he said, not to mention the “pretty good chance of electrocution” in dealing with a copper cable transmitting 10,000 volts.

Countries have been rumored to be attempting to spy on undersea cables. According to multiple reports, never confirmed by the US military, the USS Jimmy Carter submarine possesses advanced underwater cable tapping abilities, including a floodable chamber inside the sub so divers and technicians can have easy access to the cable.

And Washington isn’t the only power believed to be carrying out such activity. In 2015, US intelligence officials said underwater sensors had spotted Russian submarines near key communications cables, along with a spy ship believed to carry small underwater vehicles designed to sever or damage cables.

China is also ramping up the size of its submarine fleet, as part of a wider expansion of its military under President Xi Jinping.

In a 2016 report by the hawkish foreign policy think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies, the authors wrote that “is likely that Russian auxiliary vessels, including tele-operated or autonomous undersea craft, are equipped to be able to manipulate objects on the seafloor and may also carry sensitive communications intercept equipment in order to tap undersea cables or otherwise destroy or exploit seafloor infrastructure.”

They added that “this capability could enable collection of sensitive traffic carried on transatlantic cables and/or cyber attacks against secure computer systems, among other things.”

Huawei and 5G: What’s at stake

No Huawei

Of course, if you control the cable itself, you don’t need to worry about the difficulties of tapping it.

This was the concern when Chinese telecoms giant Huawei — which has faced intense pressure from Washington and its allies over surveillance fears — began moving into the undersea cable market.

In 2017, Australia blocked a plan for Huawei to install a 4,000 kilometer (2,485 mile) undersea cable linking Sydney with the Solomon Islands. Canberra stepped to provide most of the funding for the Coral Sea Cable System, which will also link Australia to Port Moresby in Papua New Guinea.

In June, Huawei said it would sell its 51% stake in Huawei Marine Systems, its undersea cable arm. Both companies have consistently denied accusations they pose any security threat, but that hasn’t helpedassuage the firm’s fiercest critics.

James Stavridis, a retired US Navy admiral and former supreme allied commander of NATO, warned in April against “Beijing’s increasing influence in constructing and repairing the undersea cables that move virtually all the information on the internet.”

“There is no way to stop Huawei from building (undersea cables), or to keep private owners from contracting with Chinese firms on modernizing them, based purely on suspicions,” Stavridis said. “Rather, the US must use its cyber- and intelligence-gathering capability to gather hard evidence of back doors and other security risks.”

Clatterbuck, the Seacom CEO, was skeptical about how much use tapping an undersea cable would be, pointing to the huge amounts of data passing through it every second, creating a huge hayfield in which to look for needles.

“If you wanted to spy on people would you put a giant microphone over the US and spy on everyone?”

However, as the Snowden leaks demonstrated, governments are often happy to hoover up as much information as possible, whether they have a clear purpose or not, and artificial intelligence and other advances have made sifting through such datasets faster and faster.

China in particular, is building huge surveillance databases of its citizens, and has been linked to massive hack attacks against foreign companies and government bodies which resulted in terabytes of information being collected.

And if you’re looking for lots and lots of information, there are few better locations than the undersea cables which power the global internet itself.

04.22.19 telecommunications

Bombs tear through Sri Lankan churches and hotels, killing 290 people

(CNN)The calm of Easter Sunday was shattered by gruesome bombings that killed at least 290 people in Sri Lankan churches and hotels.

An intelligence memo warning of a possible attack had circulated 10 days earlier, raising questions about whether more preventative measures could have been taken.

“Serious action need to be taken as to why this warning was ignored,” Sri Lanka’s Minister of Telecommunications, Harin Fernando, tweeted along with a photo of the memo. The document, titled “Information of an alleged plan attack,” is dated April 11 and signed by the Deputy Inspector General of Police, Priyalal Dissanayake.

The explosions blew out the tiled roofs of churches and hotel windows, killing worshippers and hotel guests in the process.

Images and footage showed bloodied pews, broken glass, and plumes of smoke.

“You can see pieces of flesh thrown all over the walls and on the sanctuary and even outside of the church,” Father Edmond Tillekeratne, social communications director for the Archdiocese of Colombo, told CNN from St. Sebastian’s Church, one of the explosion sites.

He estimated that more than a thousand people had come to the church for Easter Sunday “because it is a special day.” Many came from villages afar, he said.

The first wave of attacks struck during busy Easter services at churches in the heart of the country’s minority Christian community — in the cities of Colombo, Negombo and Batticaloa.

More blasts ripped through three luxury hotels in the capital city of Colombo: the Shangri La, Cinnamon Grand and Kingsbury.

The Shangri-La in Colombo said the hotel’s Table One cafe was attacked just after 9 a.m local time. The hotel is popular with foreign tourists and the country’s business community.

Another blast rocked a hotel in front of the Dehiwala Zoo in Dehiwala-Mount Lavinia.

The final blast struck a private house in Mahawila Gardens, in Dematagoda, during a raid in connection with the attacks, officials said. Three police officers were killed.

“When crime division officials started questioning the people in the house, two explosions occurred,” police spokesman Ruwan Gunasekara said. “One sub inspector and two constables of police have been killed.”

Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe “expressed his gratitude” to the officers in a statement, according to state news agency Derena TV.

Wickremesinghe reiterated that “stern action will be taken against those responsible,” the news agency reported.

In all, the eight sites of explosions Sunday included:

St. Anthony’s Shrine, Colombo
St. Sebastian’s Church, Negombo
Zion Church, Batticaloa
Cinnamon Grand, Colombo
Shangri-La Hotel, Colombo
The Kingsbury Hotel, Colombo
Near Dehiwala Zoo in Dehiwala-Mount Lavinia
A house in Mahawila Gardens, Dematagoda

“There is also information that these have been suicide bombings carried out,” Manisha Gunasekera said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility by any terror group. But seven people were arrested following the attacks, said Harsha de Silva, Sri Lanka’s minister of economic reforms and public distribution.

The victims came from around the world

Of the hundreds of people killed, about 30 were foreigners, de Silva tweeted.

At least 20 foreigners were among those killed in the capital city of Colombo, hospital director general Anil Jasinghe said.

The foreigners killed include at least three Indians, two Turkish nationals and two Chinese citizens, Sri Lanka’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

Five British citizens, including two dual US-UK nationals, were also killed in the bombings, the statement said.

Social media is cut off

The Sri Lankan government blocked social media sites such as Facebook and Instagram while the investigation got under way.

Facebook issued a statement Sunday offering its condolences to the those “affected by this horrendous act.”

“Teams from across Facebook have been working to support first responders and law enforcement as well as to identify and remove content which violates our standards,” the company said.

“We are aware of the government’s statement regarding the temporary blocking of social media platforms. People rely on our services to communicate with their loved ones and we are committed to maintaining our services and helping the community and the country during this tragic time.”

Authorities order a curfew

Police in Sri Lanka imposed an island-wide curfew from Sunday evening until Monday morning. In Colombo, the streets were eerily quiet, with hardly any cars on the road and no signs of bustling city life.

Four guards carrying AK-47 rifles stood by a locked gate of a hotel not far from the Shangri-La, and bomb-sniffing dogs checked bags.

Earlier, the country’s authorities convened an emergency meeting involving the heads of the army, air force and navy, according to de Silva, Sri Lanka’s economic reforms minister.

“Horrible scenes, I saw many body parts strewn all over,” de Silva said after visiting the Kochchikade church and Shangri-La Hotel in Colombo. “We took multiple casualties to hospital. Hopefully saved many lives.”

De Silva said rescue operations were underway, adding that emergency crews were operating in “full force.”

Christians were the apparent targets

Sri Lanka’s minority Christian community appeared to be the main target of Sunday’s attack. Christianity is a minority religion in Sri Lanka, accounting for less than 10% of the total population of 21.4 million.

According to census data, 70.2% of Sri Lankans identify as Buddhist, 12% Hindu, 9.7% Muslim, and 7.4% Christian. It is estimated that 82% of Sri Lankan Christians are Roman Catholic.

Sunday’s attacks risk upsetting the country’s fragile post-war peace. Tensions between the majority Sinhalese and the Tamil minority led to a 25-year civil war between the Tamil Tigers, classified by the United States and others as a terrorist organization, and government forces.

More than 70,000 people died in the fighting, which ended when Sri Lankan forces defeated the Tamil Tigers in 2009.

In recent years, the country has witnessed a surge in ultra-nationalist Buddhism led by the Bodu Bala Sena, the country’s most powerful Buddhist organization, which has pledged to defend the religion.

04.15.19 Credit Cards

Partnering with Visa, emerging market lender Branch International raises $170 million

The San Francisco-based startup Branch International, which makes small personal loans in emerging markets, has raised $170 million and announced a partnership with Visa to offer virtual, pre-paid debit cards to Branch client networks in Africa, South-Asia and Latin America.

Branch — which has 150 employees in San Francisco, Lagos, Nairobi, Mexico City and Mumbai — makes loans starting at $2 to individuals in emerging and frontier markets. The company also uses an algorithmic model to determine credit worthiness, build credit profiles and offer liquidity via mobile phones.

“We’ll use [the money] to deepen existing business in Africa. Later this year we’ll announce high-yield savings accounts…in Africa,” says Branch co-founder and chief executive Matt Flannery.

The $170 million round from Foundation Capital and its new debit card partner, Visa, will support Branch’s international expansion, which could include Brazil and Indonesia, according to Flannery. Branch launched in Mexico and India within the last year. In Africa, it offers its services in Kenya, Nigeria and Tanzania.

A potential Branch customer

The Branch-Visa partnership will allow individuals to obtain virtual Visa accounts with which to create accounts on Branch’s app. This gives Branch larger reach in countries such as Nigeria — Africa’s most populous country with 190 million people — where cards have factored more prominently than mobile money in connecting unbanked and underbanked populations to finance.

Founded in 2015, Branch started operating in Kenya, where mobile money payment products such as Safaricom’s M-Pesa (which does not require a card or bank account to use) have scaled significantly. M-Pesa now has 25 million users, according to sector stats released by the Communications Authority of Kenya. Branch has more than 3 million customers and has processed 13 million loans and disbursed more than $350 million, according to company stats.

Branch has one of the most downloaded fintech apps in Africa, per Google Play app numbers combined for Nigeria and Kenya, according to Flannery.

Already profitable, Branch International expects to reach $100 million in revenues this year, with roughly 70 percent of that generated in Africa, according to Flannery.

In addition to Visa and Foundation Capital, the $170 Series C round included participation from Branch’s existing investors Andreessen Horowitz, Trinity Ventures, Formation 8, the IFC, CreditEase and Victory Park, while adding new investors Greenspring, Foxhaven and B Capital.

Branch last raised $70 million in 2018. The company’s overall VC haul and $100 million revenue peg register as pretty big numbers for a startup focused primarily on Africa. Pan-African e-commerce startup Jumia, which also announced its NYSE IPO last month, generated $140 million in revenue (without profitability) in 2018.

Startups building financial technologies for Africa’s 1.2 billion population have gained the attention of investors. As a sector, fintech (or financial inclusion) attracted 50 percent of the estimated $1.1 billion funding to African startups in 2018, according to Partech.

Branch’s recent round and plans to add countries internationally also tracks a trend of fintech-related products growing in Africa, then expanding outward. This includes M-Pesa, which generated big numbers in Kenya before operating in 10 countries around the world. Nigerian payments startup Paga announced its pending expansion in Asia and Mexico late last year. And payment services such as Kenya’s SimbaPay have also connected to global networks like China’s WeChat.

09.22.17 Tax Free Retirement Program

India mourns death of Air Force war hero Arjan Singh

New Delhi (CNN)Tributes are being paid to Marshal Arjan Singh, India’s last five-star officer and the only member of the Indian Air Force (IAF) to be awarded the accolade.

A state funeral was held on Monday in Delhi, with the national flag lowered to half-mast across all government buildings in the city.

The Indian Air Force tweeted: “#IAF & the Nation mourns the loss of a Great AirWarrior. The CAS (Chief of Air Staff) pays homage to the Marshal of the Indian Air Force Arjan Singh.”

Paying tribute to Singh, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said the country remembered his “outstanding service to the nation.”

The Indian Army gave a 17-gun salute to Singh while Indian Air Force jets performed a fly-past in honor of Singh.

From war to independence

Born on April 15, 1919 in Lyallpur, now known as Faisalabad in Pakistan, Singh was chosen for a pilot training course at the Royal Air Force College Cranwell in Lincolnshire, England, at the age of 19.

His training was cut short because of World War I and he returned home before being posted to the North Western Frontier Province, present day Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province in Pakistan, as a member of the No. 1 IAF Squadron.

In 1944, Singh led his squadron in combat during the Burma Campaign, in which forces from what was then the British Empire, the Republic of China and the United States defeated the Japanese. He received a Distinguished Flying Cross for his role in the fight, and was later promoted to Wing Commander.

When India became an independent nation on August 15, 1947, Singh led a fly-past of over 100 aircraft over Delhi’s Red Fort to mark the end of British colonial rule.

A national hero

In the following years, Singh quickly rose up the ranks of independent India’s new air force. In 1964, at the age of 44, he was appointed Chief of Air Staff with the rank of Air Marshal.

Over his long career, Singh flew more than 60 types of aircraft, from pre-World War 2 planes to the more modern Gnats and Vampires. In 1965 he was awarded the Padma Vibhushan, India’s second highest civilian honor, for his leadership and became the first Air Chief Marshal of the IAF that same year.

Following his retirement in 1969, Singh was appointed as India’s Ambassador to Switzerland in 1971 and concurrently served as the Ambassador to the Vatican. He became India’s envoy to Kenya in 1974.

In 2002, the Indian government gave him the rank of Marshal of the Air Force, making him the first and only ‘Five Star’ rank officer of the IAF.

The Indian Armed Forces have had only three Marshal rank officers, the highest honorary rank given.

The first, Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw, led the military operation that led to creation of Bangladesh, formerly East Pakistan, in 1971. He died in 2008 at the age of 94.

Field Marshal K.M. Cariappa, the first Commander-in-Chief of the Army, died aged 94 in 1993.

09.20.17 Credit Cards

China’s biggest tech CEO makes a grand entrance at a stadiumas Michael Jackson

You probably wouldn’t see Tim Cook doing this anytime soon.

Jack Ma, Alibaba CEO and Asia’s richest man, turned up at his company’s 18th anniversary birthday bash dressed as Michael Jackson.

He first rode onstage in a black motorcycle, before getting off and striking a number of poses, in a black and gold outfit similar to Jackson’s iconic Dangerous World Tour suit.

But because he was wearing a mask, the stadium of 40,000 Alibaba employees only broke into surprised applause when he stepped forward and took off the bejewelled accessory. What an entrance.

Watch the whole performance:

At the end of the opening sequence (which included Ma’s deputies marching onstage in Beyoncé’s “Formation” style) Ma put on a black helmet, and rode his motorcycle into a cage, which then hoisted him into the ceiling.

People watching the live stream of the party on Weibo were rapt.

“Not bad, an admirable effort,” said one.

“Okay, I’m applying for a job at Alibaba,” another user commented.

Why Jack Ma is Asia’s richest man

Alibaba is often referred to as China’s Amazon, running the biggest B2B marketplace, as well as the consumer retail juggernaut, Taobao.

Remember that last year in November, Taobao sales on its Singles’ Day shopping event (China’s version of Black Friday) moved $14.3 billion in merchandise in 15 hours.

Consider that in comparison, Black Friday last year saw $4.45 billion in spending.

The stadium in which Ma addressed his 40,000 employees.

Riding high on Alibaba’s success, Ma addressed the crowd, celebrating Alibaba’s status as the world’s sixth-largest company in terms of market capitalisation.

The company has 54,000 employees globally.

WATCH: You can now pay for your fried chicken with a smile because credit cards are so 2016

09.16.17 expense manager

Navy continues search for sailors, wants answers after collision

(CNN)As search teams continued Tuesday to look for 10 American sailors missing after a Navy warship collided with a commercial tanker east of Singapore — the latest in a series of similar incidents in the Pacific — the US defense brass wants answers.

Following the collision Monday between the USS John S. McCain, a guided-missile destroyer, and the merchant vessel, Defense Secretary James Mattis said he supports the decision by Adm. John Richardson, chief of naval operations, to conduct a “comprehensive review” of recent US Navy collisions.

The aim will be “to determine any of the causal factors, to determine what’s going on — both immediate contributors to this incident but also any related factors.”

The US 7th Fleet said search efforts are being focused on an area east of the Straits of Malacca and Singapore.

Monday’s crash marked the fourth time this year a US warship has been involved in an accident in Asian waters.

Richardson said in a Facebook statement that he has asked Adm. Phil Davidson, commander of US Fleet Forces Command, to take charge of the investigation, which will include a review of “the process by which we train and certify our forces that are forward-deployed in Japan to make sure that we’re doing everything we can to make them ready for operations and war fighting.”

The probe will also examine operational tempo and “trends in personnel, materiel, maintenance and equipment,” he said. “It will also include a review of how we train and certify our surface warfare community, including tactical and navigational proficiency.”

Richardson said there is no indication at this time that the incident was caused by cyberintrusion or sabotage, but the review will consider all possibilities.

“We are looking at every possibility so we are not leaving anything to chance there,” he said.

‘Forceful action’

Richardson is ordering a one-day pause in operations, allowing fleet leaders and commanders to take measures to “ensure safe and effective operations around the world,” he said.

“This is the second collision in three months and is the last in a series of incidents in the Pacific theater. This trend demands more forceful action,” Richardson said.

The pause is a one-day safety stand-down that will be done on a rotational basis over the course of a couple of weeks, at the discretion of individual commands, a source told CNN.

“The emphasis of that is really to take a look at the fundamentals, at the unit and team level, to make sure that we are not overlooking anything … the basic seamanship, airmanship, those sorts of things: teamwork, how we do business on the bridge, the fundamentals,” Richardson told reporters on Monday.

“We want to do this pretty briskly. My direction will be about a week we should execute all of this, and then we’ll roll those up and capture any lessons learned and roll those back out,” he said.

The 7th Fleet said the McCain collided with the merchant vessel Alnic MC while the destroyer was making its way to a port in Singapore. The collision was reported at 5:24 a.m. local time, east of the Malacca Strait, one of the world’s most congested shipping routes.

The Navy reported significant hull damage to the McCain, saying there was flooding in berthing compartments as well as machinery and communication rooms.

After the accident, President Donald Trump arrived at the White House on Marine One and told reporters of the collision, “That’s too bad.” He and Vice President Mike Pence also tweeted that their thoughts and prayers were with the sailors aboard the destroyer.

Sen. John McCain joined them and thanked the rescue crews for their service. The destroyer is named for the senator’s father and grandfather, both of whom were Navy admirals. The senator was a captain in the Navy.

Pacific naval impact

The collision comes at a time of high tensions in the Pacific.

Search on for missing sailors

The McCain is equipped with the Aegis missile defense system, which has been touted as a possible counter to any North Korean missile launch.

A US 7th Fleet spokesman said the McCain is one of 14 Aegis-equipped ships the Navy has forward-deployed to Japan and it plans to add another next year. The US Navy has 84 vessels equipped with the Aegis system.

Cmdr. Clay Doss said the United States has a mixture of ships and aircraft available to cover all missions even without the McCain or USS Fitzgerald, the McCain’s sister ship that was damaged in a June collision.

The US military and South Korea began 10-day military exercises Monday, as scheduled. The annual drills antagonize Pyongyang, which issued a statement Sunday that military exercises are “reckless behavior driving the situation into the uncontrollable phase of a nuclear war.”

The McCain’s last high-profile mission came earlier this month when it performed a freedom-of-navigation exercise near a Chinese-claimed island in the South China Sea.

Search and rescue

No fuel or oil was seen on the water near the ship after the collision as it steamed under its own power to Changi Naval Base in Singapore, the Navy said.

Malaysian officials said their ships and aircraft had joined the search for the missing sailors.

The search area encompassed 100 nautical square miles, they said, describing sea conditions as rough, with waves up to 1 meter (3.2 feet) high.

In addition to the 10 missing sailors, the Navy said five were injured in the collision. Four of those were flown by a Singapore navy helicopter to a hospital in Singapore, where they were treated for injuries not considered life-threatening, the Navy said.

US helicopters and Marine Corps Osprey aircraft from the amphibious assault ship USS America were joining search-and-rescue efforts along with Singaporean ships and helicopters, the Navy said.

Rocky year for Navy

The McCain collision marks the fourth incident involving a US Navy warship in the Pacific this year.

On June 17, the USS Fitzgerald collided with a container ship off the coast of Japan. That collision resulted in the deaths of seven US sailors. The Fitzgerald will be transported to the United States for repairs.

On May 9, the guided-missile cruiser USS Lake Champlain was struck by a small fishing boat off the Korean Peninsula.

And in late January, the guided-missile cruiser USS Antietam ran aground while trying to anchor in Tokyo Bay. Authorities at Yokosuka Naval Base said the Antietam remains out of action.

Experts: ‘Navy is not looking good’

Military experts said the latest incident calls into question the Navy’s training and will likely lead to changes in the Navy’s leadership.

“I can almost guarantee you that there will be a tumultuous shake-up in the senior leadership of at least the 7th Fleet and maybe the Navy in general,” CNN military analyst Rick Francona said.

“The Navy is not looking good about now, especially when we need those … Aegis-equipped ships for possible ballistic missile defense in a North Korean scenario,” he added.

In a report on the Fitzgerald collision released last week, the Navy said it would review its training and qualification procedures.

“The collision was avoidable and both ships demonstrated poor seamanship. Within Fitzgerald, flawed watch stander teamwork and inadequate leadership contributed to the collision,” a 7th Fleet statement said.

Oil tanker ‘three times bigger’

Carl Schuster, a former director of operations at the US Pacific Command’s Joint Intelligence Center, said the oil tanker would have been at least three times bigger than the USS John S. McCain.

“Oil tankers are huge, and it takes miles for them to change course,” he said.

“When you’re going into a congested channel, you’re supposed to be very alert, track ships around you to a very meticulous degree.”

The Malacca Strait, which runs between Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore, is the world’s second-busiest waterway, according to the World Economic Forum. The collision took place in waters to the east of the Malacca Strait, US authorities said.

At a press conference, Malaysian authorities said both ships were heading toward Singapore from the South China Sea when the collision occurred. They described the area as very busy, with some 80,000 ships passing through it every year.

Both ships should have reported to what the Malaysian authorities called a maritime “traffic separation scheme,” essentially air traffic control for ships.

Francona said no matter what the tanker did, the faster, nimbler US destroyer should have been able to avoid a collision.

“How does a state-of-the-art Navy destroyer — equipped with multiple radar systems and communications gear with a full bridge watch — not see, detect and evade a 30,000-ton slow-moving (10 knots) behemoth?” Francona asked.

No injuries on tanker

A US Navy official told CNN the McCain had experienced a loss of steering before the collision, but that steering had been regained.

Merchant marine websites describe the Alnic MC as a 600-foot-long oil tanker flying a Liberian flag.

The Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore said the Alnic sustained damage to a tank at its bow, about 7 meters (23 feet) above the waterline. No one was injured on the tanker, it said, and no oil spill was reported.

The vessel is 505 feet long and displaces about 9,000 tons.