10月29日CNN聽力：美國擔心俄羅斯會割斷其海底電纜
Another maritime issue reportedly concerningAmerican officials involves a U.S. rival and thenetwork of underwater cables that helps the worldcommunicate.
Every continent but Antarctica is connected, notthrough the air but through a tremendous system offiber system of fiber cables.
Since the 1800s, ships have been laying them across the seabed.
Today's cables carry email, videos, business and military communications worldwide.
They're accidentally cut from time to time by natural disasters or ships' anchors.
But it's usually in an area where they can be easily repaired.
What if a country were to cut them intentionally and sabotage international communications?
A new report from "The New York Times" cites more than a dozen unnamed U.S. officials raisingconcerns Russian submarines and spy ships are aggressively patrolling near importantundersea cables.
Massive fiber optic lines spanning from continent to continent carrying the bulk of the world'sInternet communication.
Their goals are to humiliate the United States and show that it can't defend itself and toproject naval power into the Atlantic, thus showing the United States and Europe, we're here.
You have to deal with us and take us seriously and we can propose a threat to your most vitalinterest.
According to "The Times", officials are concerned that if a larger conflicts between Russia andthe West broke out,a Russian ship could locate an Internet cable on the sea floor, lower andsubmersible to it, and either attach a wiretap to eavesdrop on it, or worse, sever the cable,cutting off a crucial data pipeline.
They're extremely vital.
They're the core of our communications infrastructure.
So, we hear a lot of talk about the Cloud, for example, and we think of it as somethingnebulous, something in the sky.
Well, the Cloud is really under the ocean.
Jonathan Hjembo works with the company which monitors telecom infrastructure.
He says there are hundreds of these cables stretching across the ocean floors, enough he saysto span the globe with the equator 15 times.
Hjembo says if multiple undersea cables were cut at once, it could harm American business andgovernment interests and could have even more catastrophic effects on Europe.
The Pentagon won't confirm the concerns raised in "The New York Times".
One official says while the Russians could tamper with the cables, the U.S. hasn't seen asignificant increase in Russian activity where the cables are located.
There's also been no evidence of any actual cable cutting.
But newspaper reports say the Russian ship the Yantar, which is equipped with submersiblescapable of cutting undersea cables, has been spotted cruising in the Atlantic on its way toCuba, not far from where at least one cable is located.
No U.S. agency would comment for the record on the concerns raised in "The New York Times"report.
A Pentagon spokesman said it would be concern if any country was tampering with America'sInternet cables.
The Russians meanwhile are pushing back hard, a foreign ministry spokeswoman saying themedia has been whipping up hysteria lately, trying to make Russia look like the aggressor.
Those reports, she says, are not based on facts but on assumptions.
Brian Todd, CNN, Washington.
U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt famously said the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.
There's a phobia for that.
Now, you might be familiar with arachnophobia, the fear of spiders, or acrophobia, fear ofheights.But if you fear fear, you're afraid of developing any kind of phobia, you may just havephobophobia, and you may just want to stay home this Halloween.
Now, that's random.
OK. Now, for years, U.S. retail companies have looked forward to Black Friday, like manyAmericans look forward to turkey the day beforehand.
The Friday after Thanksgiving is traditionally one of the busiest shopping days of the year.
It's called Black Friday because in business, to be in the black is to be profitable.
Companies usually sell a lot of merchandise offering deep discounts to encourage people toshop.
In recent years, stores have opened earlier and earlier-some in the middle of the night, some onthe afternoon of Thanksgiving.
But at least one U.S. retailer has a different strategy this year.
It's not opening at all.
REI stores will be closed on Black Friday.
What is this all about?
I think for us, Black Friday was kind of one of those iconic days that has come to mean moreabout shopping.
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