By Tim Lister, CNN

(CNN) — The United States, Australia and the United Kingdom have taken a big step towards tackling growing threats to undersea pipelines and cables, which carry huge amounts of energy and data around the world.

The three governments are planning to develop new unmanned undersea vehicles ⁠as part of their trilateral AUKUS defense ⁠pact.

The agreement was announced at a meeting of the three countries’ defense ministers in Singapore, with deliveries due next year.

Western governments see a growing risk of Russian and Chinese sabotage of undersea cables and are also concerned that Iran may seek to exploit the many data networks running through the shallow waters of the Persian Gulf.

The “seabed is a battlefield” said Australia’s Defence Minister, Richard Marles, in Singapore, calling for tougher action against so-called shadow-fleet vessels.

US President Donald Trump has been severely critical of European allies for spending too little on defense and not helping restore freedom of navigation in the Gulf. But the US has continued to work with governments in Europe and Asia on new defense technologies, especially drones.

The programme will improve the three nations’ reconnaissance and strike capabilities, “and bolster ⁠superiority in anti-submarine and anti-surface warfare,” as well as mine countermeasures, AUKUS said.

US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the vehicles would be highly adaptable and “support undersea operations and maintain our collective advantage in the maritime domain.”

The new AUKUS project will sharpen all three countries’ ability to respond to threats, including those targeting underwater cables and pipelines, through a range of “cutting edge sensors and weapons systems for undersea drones,” UK Defence Secretary John Healey said.

Marles said undersea internet cables – “the arteries of modern civilization” – were being cut at an unprecedented rate, with island nations like Australia acutely vulnerable.

“Over the past 18 months, we have witnessed a series of attacks against subsea critical infrastructure at a scale and frequency that is historically unprecedented,” he said.

The UK government has also highlighted the vulnerability of the world’s digital highways.

“Every international payment, every cross-border trade executed in milliseconds, every flow of data between businesses here in the UK and markets overseas – all travel along the seabed,” Telecoms Minister Liz Lloyd said Friday.

A vulnerable network

Around 570 cables (plus a further 80 planned) carry between 95% and 99% of the world’s intercontinental telecommunications data. Fiber cables can carry terabits per second; satellites handle far less.

Networks of green energy cables carrying electricity are also starting to sprawl across the world’s seabeds.

Last month, the UK said it had tracked three Russian submarines covertly surveying undersea cables in the north Atlantic.

Healey warned Russian President Vladimir Putin: “We see your activity over our cables and pipelines. And you should know that any attempt to damage them will not be tolerated and will have serious consequences.”

A UK parliamentary inquiry warned last year that UK infrastructure might be targeted in a crisis, adding it was “not confident that the UK could prevent such attacks or recover within an acceptable time period.”

The UK

Por Thomas Bordeaux y Tamara Qiblawi, CNN

Irán está en condiciones de disparar muchos más misiles de largo alcance contra Israel y otras naciones de Medio Oriente después de desenterrar rápidamente sus arsenales enterrados, un esfuerzo que pone de relieve los límites de la estrategia de bombardeo de EE.UU., dijeron expertos.

Durante semanas, los ataques de Estados Unidos e Israel restringieron el acceso de Irán a sus sitios subterráneos de misiles al destruir carreteras y sepultar las entradas de los túneles.

Pero imágenes satelitales revisadas por CNN muestran cómo Irán ha utilizado equipos sencillos como excavadoras y camiones volquete para contrarrestar esas costosas campañas, lo que sugiere que las capacidades de misiles de Teherán no pueden destruirse únicamente atacando las entradas de los túneles, dijeron expertos.

Mientras Irán y EE.UU. han alcanzado un acuerdo provisional para reabrir el estrecho de Ormuz, quedan meses de trabajo para concretar los detalles.

Si se reanudan las hostilidades, Irán está en posición de “seguir lanzando misiles mientras tengan lanzadores y equipo, incluso si la producción se ha detenido”, dijo Sam Lair, investigador asociado del James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies que analiza las capacidades de misiles de Irán. “No hay nada que impida que los lanzadores se armen con el amplio arsenal de misiles que los iraníes aún tienen”.

Durante los combates, Irán trabajó para excavar las entradas de los túneles con gran riesgo, ya que EE.UU. e Israel a menudo atacaban el equipo utilizado para excavar. Ese trabajo permitió a Teherán seguir disparando misiles durante toda la guerra, aunque a ritmos muy reducidos. Desde el alto el fuego de hace más de siete semanas, los esfuerzos iraníes por excavar las bases se han acelerado significativamente.

CNN encontró que Irán ya ha despejado 50 de las 69 entradas de túneles atacadas por EE.UU. e Israel en 18 instalaciones subterráneas de misiles.

Irán también ha reparado otras partes de las bases, incluidas carreteras que EE.UU. e Israel bombardearon para impedir que los lanzadores de misiles las utilizaran. Las imágenes satelitales muestran que casi todos esos cráteres ya han sido rellenados y, en dos sitios, incluso repavimentados.

“Las Fuerzas Armadas de EE.UU. son buenas para lograr éxitos tácticos, y sepultar y suprimir a la fuerza de misiles iraní es un gran ejemplo de ello”, dijo Lair. “Sin embargo, si eso no va acompañado de un conjunto de objetivos estratégicos de guerra razonables y una teoría de la victoria alcanzable, puede terminar siendo un fracaso estratégico”.

El portavoz del Pentágono, Sean Parnell, no respondió a preguntas específicas sobre los hallazgos de CNN, repitiendo una declaración anterior de que “las Fuerzas Armadas de Estados Unidos son las más poderosas del mundo y tiene todo lo que necesita para actuar en el momento y lugar que el presidente elija”.

El presidente Donald Trump ha señalado repetidamente el arsenal de misiles de Irán como una razón para la guerra, siendo su destrucción uno de los objetivos clave. En una publicación de marzo en Truth Social, Trump enumeró “degradar completamente la capacidad de misiles iraní, los lanzadores y todo lo demás relacionado con ellos” como uno de cinco “objetivos” de la guerra.

La red de bases subterráneas de misiles de Irán, que comenzó a construir hace más de 20 años, ofrece una protección considerable a sus misiles y lanzadores. La profundidad de las instalaciones, algunas de las cuales están bajo cientos de metros de roca, limita las opciones que tienen las fuerzas militares de EE.UU. e Israel para atacar las bases.

Por ello, en las primeras semanas del conflicto, las fuerzas militares recurrieron a atacar sus entradas, lo que, combinado con los esfuerzos por localizar y destruir lanzadores, resultó en limitar significativamente el fuego de misiles iraní.

By Tamara Hardingham-Gill, CNN

(CNN) — Living within walking distance of the mountains of Bavaria, Molly Williams never misses an opportunity to go hiking.

She has hiked all over the Alpine landscapes around her home in southern Germany, in the pretty town of Allgäu near Munich, as well as the trails of the Dolomite mountains, over the border in northeastern Italy.

Today, she feels at home in this corner of the world. But 15 years ago, having never visited before, it was unknown to her. She’d grown up in Michigan and was living in Portland Oregon.

That didn’t stop her taking the leap to move here with her son, then aged eight.

“When I look back, I think I must have been crazy to take that leap,” Williams tells CNN. “But it really has proven to be one of the best decisions of my life.”

She now feels a sense of calm that she never experienced while living in the US. She’s married to a German and her son, now in his early 20s, is thriving. Williams works for a global industrial company.

“I feel like there’s a lot of noise in the United States,” she says. “And here, things just feel more real and grounded.”

But her move wasn’t an overnight success. Williams experienced problems settling in during her early days, but now feels she’s in the right place.

“I like being here,” she says. “I like the rhythm, and it smells like home to me.”

‘Best decision’

The seemingly sudden decision to move to Europe was actually many years in the making. She spent her early years in Germany, having been born there when her father was in the US military and stationed in the country and her mother was teaching there. The family returned to the United States when she was around three.

“In many ways, Germany has been both the beginning and the second chapter of my life, first as the child of Americans abroad, and later as an American rebuilding a life overseas with my own son,” Williams says.

Originally, she had been on track to spend her life in the United States, after going to college, building a successful career and starting a family.

Later, divorced and bringing up her child alone, Williams says she soon realized she wouldn’t be able to provide her son with the type of life that she wanted, so she started looking for “opportunities” outside of the US.

“I was a mid-level income professional in the United States,” she says. “And I feel I still couldn’t make it work the way I wanted to.”

Exhausted by the pressure of having to balance work, childcare, healthcare and finances, she felt unsupported as a single parent.

“I wasn’t feeling at home in the US,” she says. “I didn’t feel like there was the infrastructure to support being the type of parent I wanted to be.”

Researching potential relocation destinations, she liked the look of Germany’s minimum vacation policies and was intrigued by its education system — especially its embrace of nature and the outdoors, as well as its reputation for engineering and technology.

She felt that moving to the country could be a great opportunity for her son to become fluent in multiple languages.

Above all, she hoped Germany might be able to offer her the kind of lifestyle she’d hoped for.

Feeling emboldened, Williams, called a Germany-based company to enquire about potential opportunities and was offered a position.

Safety net

“They said, ‘Well, we’d actually like to move you to Munich.’ And I jumped at that opportunity… And three months later, I was relocating here.”

Williams arrived in Munich in 2012 with six suitcases, one filled with nearly 40 pounds of Lego bricks, and went on to move into an apartment in Glockenbachviertel, a vibrant Munich neighborhood.

The cost of relocating came to around 15,000 euros, which is roughly $17,451.

By Will Ripley, Kocha Olarn, Rebecca Wright, Laura Sharman, Isaac Yee, Angie Puranasamriddhi, Ally Barnard, Issac Yee

Xaisomboun province, Laos (CNN) — Hungry and weak, the Laos cave survivors huddled together in damp darkness for 11 days, clinging to hope as a wall of water blocked their way out.

When they noticed the water finally start to recede, they somehow found the strength to attempt a daring escape, completely unaided –– shocking the rescue team above ground when they appeared at the cave entrance on Saturday.

Their courage was born from fear, one the survivors told CNN in an exclusive interview.

Through narrow, treacherous tunnels, some waterlogged and cold enough for wetsuits, others so tight oxygen was scarce, the men navigated 260 meters (approximately 850 feet), from the chamber they’d been trapped in to the cave’s mouth, a distance equivalent to the height of a 78-story building.

One member of their group, who had entered the cave searching for gold, was guided to safety by a multinational team of cave experts using diving equipment a day earlier. The other four were left to wait for when conditions were safe enough.

“I was afraid because we were there alone,” Mee Singfamalai, a 23-year-old barber, told CNN from Long Tieng Hospital, where he is recovering.

“We had been there for a long time and the water had dried up. It was too cold inside, so we decided to crawl our way out,” Mee said.

The water was at least a meter deep in sections of the cave.

“Sometimes we had to dive, sometimes we had to crawl. We crawled slowly. The passage was just about the size of a person.”

The rescuers had first reached the group of five on Wednesday, an entire week after they had entered the cave and become trapped when heavy rain came down over the jungle outside, during the humid Laotian summer.

Exhausted and surviving only on water, they slept as much as they could, and they prayed that salvation would come.

“We slept hugging each other. Four or five of us,” he said. “It helped a lot. We didn’t have any blankets.”

And they clung to the hope of being reunited with loved ones to distract themselves from their hunger.

“I always believed I would survive. I had to make it back out to see my sisters and my mother,” Mee said. “When we stepped outside and saw people cheering for us, it felt like I had been given a new life. It was overwhelming. I suddenly had hope.”

This torturous ordeal marked Mee’s first time entering this cave, located in the foothills of a mining project near the village of Long Tieng, hours away from the nearest cities and on muddy roads that have been lashed by the rainy season.

An informal mining economy has expanded across parts of Laos in recent years, particularly in remote limestone and river basin regions where formal livelihoods are scarce and enforcement is limited.

Having found gold elsewhere once before, Mee and his friends decided to try their luck in the cave in the hope of earning some money.

“We’re villagers. We go into the mountains to make a living. We heard there was gold, so we went in looking for it. Then the cave flooded and we couldn’t get back out.”

Mee said he was thankful for “everyone who helped (him) survive.”

A massive rescue effort had been mounted to save the men, involving divers from all over the world, large pumps to drain water from the cave and heavy machinery to clear makeshift roads to the remote location.

Asked if he would venture into the cave again, Mee said: “Never.”

“You would have to send me to death if you want to force me in,” he added.

None of the villagers had prior diving experience, yet were faced with the hellis

Por David Goldman, CNN

En sus 50 años de historia, Costco nunca había visto una demanda de gasolina como la actual. Muchas de sus estaciones se han visto tan abrumadas que han tenido que llamar a camiones cisterna varias veces al día para evitar quedarse sin combustible, dijo Costco esta semana durante su llamada de resultados trimestrales. Un número creciente de clientes está comprando solo lo suficiente para rellenar sus tanques, preocupados por los precios que puedan haber mañana.

A medida que los precios han superado los US$ 4 a nivel nacional –y los US$ 6 en la costa oeste– Costco se ha convertido en el destino de Estados Unidos para conseguir gasolina barata. Bueno, relativamente. Costco suele vender gasolina unos 30 centavos por galón más barata que las estaciones locales.

Eso es una oferta tentadora en cualquier momento, aunque las largas filas a veces disuaden a los clientes, especialmente cuando la gasolina es barata. Ahora no: Un número significativo de miembros de Costco llenaron su tanque por primera vez en los últimos tres meses, dijo Costco en esa llamada de resultados.

¿Cómo –y por qué– vende Costco gasolina tan barata? Todo se trata de los pollos. Bueno, más o menos.

Costco en realidad obtiene ganancias con la gasolina; unos pocos centavos por galón. Eso es sustancialmente menor que el margen de 25 a 35 centavos que aplican la mayoría de las estaciones de servicio.

A diferencia de la mayoría de las estaciones de servicio, que son pequeños negocios independientes –quizás con una tienda de conveniencia o un taller de reparación adjunto– Costco puede apoyarse en su enorme escala y su modelo de membresía para generar ganancias.

El año pasado, las cuotas de membresía representaron aproximadamente dos tercios de las ganancias de la empresa. Costco vende la mayoría de sus productos de la misma manera que vende gasolina: al costo o apenas por encima del costo; y a veces por debajo, como su famoso combo de hot dog y refresco por US$ 1,50.

Las estaciones de servicio competidoras necesitan ese margen para pagar gastos generales y reparaciones. Cuando los precios de la gasolina suben, los clientes compran menos, lo que limita la cantidad que pueden cobrar.

Por eso, irónicamente, cuando los precios de la gasolina son altos, la mayoría de las estaciones de servicio tienen dificultades para ganar dinero.

Costco tiene un problema diferente: cuando los precios de la gasolina son altos, Costco vende más gasolina. Pero, como la gasolina es uno de sus productos con menor margen de ganancia, el margen de beneficio general de la empresa se reduce. Lo contrario ocurre cuando los precios son bajos.

El año pasado, cuando los precios estuvieron durante un tiempo considerable por debajo de los US$ 3 por galón en promedio, la gasolina sumó alrededor de una décima de punto porcentual al margen bruto de la empresa. El último trimestre, la gasolina restó dos décimas de punto.

Sin embargo, es un buen problema para tener. Costco dijo que ingresó US$ 2.300 millones menos en ventas de gasolina en 2025 que el año anterior porque los precios bajaron.

Costco tiene 747 estaciones de gasolina, que representaron el 10 % de sus ventas totales el año pasado.

¿Dónde entran los pollos?

Costco dice que aproximadamente la mitad de sus clientes que llenan el tanque terminan entrando a un almacén. A medida que un número récord de miembros visita las estaciones de gasolina de Costco, el tráfico peatonal en las tiendas aumentó alrededor de un 5 %. Y los clientes también están comprando más cuando hacen sus compras.

“Creemos que esto generará una lealtad aún mayor con estos miembros en el futuro, ya que los miembros que usan nuestras estaciones de gasolina suelen ga