Month: November 2025

If the question is whether you have to pay garbage tax for a parking space in Madrid, the answer is: good luck with the Cadastre

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April 8, 2022. The Government publishes in the BOE Law 7/2022, on waste and contaminated soils for a circular economy. Behind this name hides a small bomb that has been exploding, little by little, in each municipality. In Madrid, that detonation has come this year. Beyond the calculation, there are thousands of car parks that are now wondering: do I have to pay the new garbage fee? Where do we come from? My colleague Carlos Prego explained it a few days ago in Xataka. Madrid has recalculated its garbage rate, making reference to the famous Law mentioned above with a calculation that the OCU has come to define as “original and unfair”. The point is that controversy has arisen because Madrid City Council said “eliminate” this rate in 2015, alleging that they removed the tax burden from the citizen. The 2022 Law obliges municipalities with more than 5,000 inhabitants to begin collecting it, following European guidelines. To calculate that rate, The City Council has taken into account the cadastral value of the apartments or the tonnage of garbage that is collected in each neighborhood. That is, those who live in a neighborhood where more garbage is generated will pay more… and that directly affects neighborhoods with great tourist activity (hotels, tourist apartments…), commercial or very densely populated. a truce. The criticism has been so virulent on the part of the oppositionof the neighbors and of the associations of consumers who the City Council has partially rectified. They assure that now it will be taken into account the number of registered in each household looking ahead to next year. But what happens where no one lives? Yes, where, for example, there is a parked car because we are talking about a garage. And the garbage rate also affects the owners of a parking space… At least, apart from them. and a battle. Because although the neighbors seem to have received a truce with the new calculation in the garbage rate, which, yes, the City Council continues to defend that it will have little impact on obvious changes for neighborsthe new open front is what happens to the parking lots. And the door had been opened for a neighbor to have to pay a garbage fee for his home and another garbage fee for his parking lot. Despite the fact that, obviously, the garbage generated by a parking space is minimal or non-existent. Little more than general cleaning if we talk about a community parking lot. However, the rate taxes the provision of the service of collection, transportation and treatment of urban waste, in the words of the College of Administrators. That is, the same person (house and garage) could be charged for a single garbage collection. Who pays then? Those who will pay. Those owners of parking spaces whose parking lot is registered in the Cadastre as a “parking-industrial-use warehouse”, in the words of a circular sent by the Madrid College of Administrators to the Property Administrators of the Capital. What does this mean? They clarify it from the Cadastre which, upon consultation with one of these administrators, have confirmed that they are those independent garages that cannot be accessed from a home or from the common areas of a building. That is, those in which garbage is collected individually. Those who will not pay. Those owners of a parking space whose parking is registered in the Cadastre as “residential use”. Or, in a simplified way by this last entity, which are accessed from a home or from common areas with another building. In that case, they may be communities of different owners (garage and building) but if access is from the same common areas, the former will not pay the garbage fee. What does the City Council say? That they adhere to the type of land use specified in the Cadastre and, therefore, that it is the latter that specifies who should or should not pay the garbage rate. The only solution given in this case by the College of Property Administrators of Madrid is for the community to present a declaration of cadastral alteration to specify that the land use is residential and does not correspond to industrial use. The other alternative is to present a written due to discrepancies with the description of cadastral use. Photo | Kertis Stick and Madrid City Council In Xataka | The best horror movie of this winter has been released. And the protagonists are the owners of a home in Spain

every time I stepped on the brake it smelled like singeing

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Some cars at auction They seem like a bargainbut what one does not expect is that something that appears first-hand ends up holding a rather strange surprise. As and how did he count police in Ludwigsburg (north of Stuttgart) on their Facebook profile, someone bought a Mercedes-Benz GLE 400a high-end SUV that originally costs about 100,000 euros in its base model. However, on the way back home, the new owner discovered something that literally smelled like singeing every time he stepped foot. the brake pedal. “Eco-friendly” brake system Every time the new owner stepped on the brake pedal, he noticed that it began to smell like burnt wood, in addition to not braking as expected of a car worth almost 100,000 euros, so he decided to take it to the workshop. There, the mechanics made an impressive discovery: the front brake pads were actually blocks made of wood that fit perfectly into the space that the brake calipers were supposed to occupy and that, to make matters worse, even had the word “Brembo” written in marker, a popular brand of high-end brakes. This discovery led to the local Ludwigsburg police becoming involved in the investigation to discover what happened. The police themselves were surprised by the discovery “You don’t see something like this every day: wood instead of brake pads! It’s ingenious, but dangerous,” they published on your Facebook account. Tap on the image to go to the original message Obviously, the police confirm that this is not a case of counterfeiting of original parts of the brand. Something that, on the other hand, would not have been strange. According what was published by Self-easyIn 2023 alone, a team from the German brand working together with the police removed 1.6 million counterfeit parts and components from the market, and in 2024 the figure rose to 1.5 million components that are manufactured in clandestine factories. How did those wooden pills get into a luxury car? According to one of the hypotheses that the German police are considering, it seems like a strange mistake that probably occurred in a workshop. Some shops use wooden shims to hold the pistons that activate the pads in place while they are changed for new onesespecially after bleeding the brake system. It is possible that the replacement was delayed and that the workshop had to move the car within its facilities, so the “vegetable” pads covered the gap in the brake pads and allowed the car to be started to move it, since to start it it is necessary to press the brake pedal while pressing the start button. For some strange reason, no one noticed that the replacement of the brake pads had not been completed, so the car, perfectly functional thanks to the “trap” of the pads, was taken to the auction site without anyone noticing. Once the mystery of the ecological brake padsthe agents are trying to locate the workshop where this intervention was carried out to clarify if it was negligence and prevent something like this from happening again. Beyond the bizarre nature of the situation, this is a serious case of involuntary negligence on the part of the repair center. Driving with these brake pads poses a huge risk to road safety that could have caused a serious accident. Something smelled like singeing at that auction. In Xataka | I always dreamed of buying a Ferrari. What I never imagined was that I could buy it for 150 euros Image | Mercedes-Benz

Years ago Alicante opted for an artificial island with a luxurious restaurant and taxi boat. It hasn’t turned out as I expected

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The idea was good. AND on paper It was fable. Set up a restaurant an artificial island in the heart of the port of Alicante, a benchmark in the Valencian hospitality industry where people could eat paella or have a drink with views of the Mediterranean (directly on it, rather), surrounded by sailboats. So that clients could reach the island, it was even thought to build a taxi boat. The idea sounded so good, in fact, that the Port of Alicante decided to invest heavily in it, dedicating millions of euros to it. Now instead of an idyllic island to drink mojitos and coffees in the middle of the mouth what it has is a huge mess. An artificial island? That’s how it is. To understand it you have to go back a few years, to beginning of 2022when the Alicante Port Authority awarded Vías y Construcciones (subsidiary of the ACS Group) one of its most ambitious projects, at least as far as the interrelation between the docks and the city is concerned. What the Port entrusted to the company was the construction of a large platform at the mouth of its inner dock, a sort of artificial island of 669 m2 (34.8 x 20m) that would be supported with the help of three large 14 m concrete piles anchored to the seabed. The contest was launched with a budget of 2.7 million (taxes apart) and aroused the interest of several companies. The AC Group firm ended up imposing itself on the rest with a project of 2.1 million. And what did they want it for? The platform was just a means, not an end in itself. Its objective was to support a future restaurant located in a privileged enclave, a place that would offer food and drinks not with views of the sea (many bars in Alicante already have that) but directly over the sea. If the island measured 669 m2, the idea was that the building dedicated to hospitality uses would occupy 393 m2 on the ground floor and rise two levels (ground and first floor). The remaining 260 m2 would be dedicated to public access, with a three-meter wide promenade. So that people could reach that privileged enclave, it was also planned a taxi boat. The idea was once again ambitious: a purpose-built, sustainable boat managed directly by the restaurant. Did it stay in theory? No. The Port of Alicante took important steps to make the project a reality. The main one was the awarding of the works for the island platform, which ended up being erected, as can be verified today on the docks. The problem is that what should have been a simple work in theory ended up becoming complicated in a bad way, as recently recognized the Port itself. In 2023 one of the support pillars partially sank, requiring reinforcement work to be carried out on the seabed. From there the project entered a loop that now threatens to condemn it. In fact, the Port insists that it “has never received” the work, which is why it has not considered it good. “Once the work was completed, the contractor company refused to carry out a load test that would allow its stability to be evaluated, as provided for in the contract, and as an essential procedure for the port to sign the acceptance of the work,” remember from the organism. What’s more, he claims to have a report of CEDEX (an entity linked to the Ministry of Transportation) that “strongly advises against” carrying out the tests due to “the high risk of collapse of the structure.” And now what? After years of the open platform crisis and after the latest CEDEX report, the Port has decided to make a radical decision. Its last Board of Directors has given the green light to activate the procedures to “resolve” the construction contract for the island. That is, the organism wants break the agreementsomething that has been communicated to those responsible for Roads and Construction. Now the company has ten days to present allegations. Once that period has passed, “and after years of technical and negative incidents”, the proposal will return to the Board of Directors, something that will probably happen before 2026. “In recent years the Port has commissioned audits and expert reports that confirm the irreversible deterioration of the structure and the impossibility of meeting safety standards to locate the restaurant proposed in the original project,” the organization argueswhich in its 2024 accounts already contemplated “impairment losses” of 2.7 million euros, which it has invested in the platform. Is there anything else? Yes. The Port does not only propose to terminate the contract. He also wants the original seabed to be “restored” to “recover the navigable conditions” that existed before the platform works. If the contract finally ends up being broken, it is not unreasonable to think that the conflict will reach court, but the Port Authority assures that it has already touched all possible sticks, so it sees “all avenues to remedy the situation exhausted.” Are there more affected? The Port of Alicante not only awarded the works on the platform. In April 2022 it launched another contest which completed the project with its second fundamental piece: the building that was to rise above the artificial island to act as a restaurant. The one selected for its construction and management was a business alliance between Alicante Gastronómica SL and Restaura Gestión Forty SL, which from that moment became co-protagonists of the project. In fact, they would not only be in charge of the building, an elliptical, glass-enclosed block with a large interior garden patio, a restaurant with views of Alicante and a terrace for cocktails. Another of its functions would be to assume the “maintenance and governance” of the taxi boat that would connect the island, a ship whose investment, precise Alicante Plazatook over the Port and was commissioned for 460,000 euros (taxes included). In January the organization started to try it. Now … Read more

There are people listening to Drake on Spotify 23 hours a day. Or maybe they are not human and it is a ‘royalty’ fraud

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That Spotify pays artists quite poorly It’s no secret, but now they are being accused of something else: there are artists inflating their reproductions in order to reduce the payment for the rest since the distribution is proportional. The demand. They count in Ars Technica which is a class action lawsuit proposed by American rapper RBX. In it, the platform is accused of having allowed Drake to inflate his views. Currently, the rapper holds the record on the platform with 120,000 million views. Although Drake is at the center of the lawsuit, he goes further and claims that Spotify ignores “millions of fraudulent streams.” The signs. According to RBX, Spotify ignored at least 37 billion inauthentic streams of Drake’s music over the past three and a half years. To do this, they have analyzed listening patterns and have detected strange behaviors such as “months of significant increases” without the release of new music to explain those peaks. But the most suspicious of all is that certain accounts only played Drake’s music for 23 hours a day, something they consider “astonishing and irregular” and why Spotify had detected it. The payment system. Spotify does not pay artists for each play, but instead uses a proportional model. Every month a “pool” of money is created and each artist receives a proportional share based on the reproductions they have had in that period. Thus, if one month the sum amounts to 1 million euros, an artist who has achieved 1% of the total reproductions would take home 10,000 euros. It affects everyone. With the proportional system, if one artist inflates his figures, it negatively affects all the other artists competing for a piece of the pie. Although they have not given details of how they arrived at that figure, the lawsuit speaks of “hundreds of millions of dollars.” If the judge accepts the case, it could cover more than 100,000 copyright owners who use the platform. It’s not something new. Years ago we talked about the techniques to manipulate the charts on the platform. The most famous case was that of Justin Bieber, who In 2020 he asked his followers to loop his song ‘Yummy’ to take it to number one on the charts. But the normal thing is that it is done undercover, using fake accounts hidden under a VPN that hides the real location. In statements to Rolling Stonea Spotify representative has denied benefiting from fake plays and claims to invest in systems to protect artists and eliminate fake plays. Image | Wikipedia, Pexels In Xataka | The problem is no longer that Spotify has been filled with AI artists: it is that AI is “reviving” dead musicians

There are scientists deliberately causing earthquakes in the Alps and they have a good reason for it

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In the heart of the Swiss Alps, more than a kilometer underground, a team of scientists is doing something that sounds almost insane: cause real earthquakes. And it is not that they want to destroy a country, but just the opposite: they want to understand earthquakes better to look for ‘warnings’ before they occur. Right now There is a lot of mystery around earthquakessince it is not well known how they are produced, and this means that we do not have clear information about when they will occur in a specific area. And it is something fundamental for us, since having a ‘witness’ to warn us that an earthquake is coming will allow us to notify the population so that they can protect themselves and avoid significant human and material losses. The idea. The FEAR project (Fault Activation an Earthquiake Rupture), led by researchers at ETH Zürich, are looking for answer the big question: how to detect the signs that announce an earthquake before it happens? For this, in the Bedretto’s underground laboratorygeologists have drilled a tunnel through an active fault. Through the controlled injection of water—and, soon, hot water—they are triggering microearthquakes of magnitudes less than 1. Their goal is to observe, with a densely distributed network of sensors, how ruptures occur and what physical conditions trigger them. But… Why the Alps? In this case, the natural conditions offered by the Alps are ideal to carry out these experiments. The enormous pressure of the mountains on the faults generates tensions that, with the slightest change, can release seismic energy. In this way it is known that in these conditions an earthquake is going to occur at some point and what they do is anticipate it and control it with many measuring equipment. Ground disturbed on purpose. The microearthquakes induced by the Swiss team have a curious parallel with another practice known for less scientific reasons: seismicity induced by the fracking industry. In regions such as Oklahoma and Texas, the discharge of wastewater into deep wells has also generated thousands of small earthquakes, providing scientists with valuable models of how water alters the friction between plates. But the FEAR project differs in detail with respect to what the industry can do for its work: absolute control of the environment. While industrial operations cause unwanted earthquakes, they cannot be controlled. But in the Alps we specifically seek to know what happens in the seconds before a rupture. Throughout 2024 and 2025, their tests will escalate until they cause earthquakes of magnitude 1, a level weak enough not to be perceptible on the surface, but enough to modify the stress state of a fault. If they manage to correlate specific patterns with the energy released, they could establish predictive models applicable to active seismic zones that would be an advance in the understanding of how the Earth releases its internal energy. They are not alone. In different countries there are many similar projects that try to understand earthquakes. For example, in Japan the Nankai Trough Seismogenic Zone Experiment (NanTroSEIZE) center pierces the seabed off the coast to reach the fault where future large earthquakes are expected to occur. Something fundamental when talking about a very affected area by earthquakes. In Iceland the DEEP EGS (Enhancing Geothermal Systems) program has also registered many microseisms due to the injection of geothermal fluidsoffering direct data on how faults become unstable. A great challenge. The challenge remains enormous: no model has managed to predict an earthquake with temporal and spatial precision. But experiments like the one at the Bedretto Underground Lab offer something that didn’t exist before: a way to study the actual physics of seismic fracture initiation. Images | Çağlar Oskay Marco Meyer In Xataka | China built the Three Gorges Dam with three objectives. Got a fourth: changing the Earth’s rotation

Three Chinese astronauts have delayed their return to Earth due to an impact on the ship. The suspect: space junk

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The crew of the Shenzhou-20 spacecraft, which was scheduled to land this Wednesday in Inner Mongolia, has been forced to postpone its return to Earth. The cause is not bad weather, as is usual in manned flights, but the most feared enemy of modern space exploration: a probable impact of space debris. Evaluating risks. China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) broke the news this morning: The return of the three astronauts aboard Shenzhou-20 has been delayed indefinitely following suspicions that the ship may have been hit by a small piece of space debris. The ship is still docked at the Chinese Tiangong space station, where the crew are safe. The crew and engineers on the ground are analyzing the impact on the ship to try to determine the extent of the damage and assess the risks of the return journey. The problem is reentry. Three people traveled to the Chinese space station in April aboard the Shenzhou-20 spacecraft: Chen Dong, Chen Zhongrui and Wang Jie. The problem is not his immediate survival, but the viability of his ship surviving the atmospheric re-entry maneuver after the impact. In low orbit, objects travel at hypersonic speeds of up to 28,000 km/h. At that speed, even a tiny fragment of metal or paint can release devastating kinetic energy, especially if it hits critical components like the ship’s heat shield or its parachutes. What do we know for now? The CMSA has not specified where it believes the impact occurred or what data alerted them to the event. Now, engineers on the ground and the crew in orbit will perform telemetry checks, check for possible leaks, and analyze the guidance and propulsion systems. They will most likely use the Tiangong station’s 10-meter robotic arm to conduct a detailed visual inspection of Shenzhou-20. If necessary, an extravehicular activity (EVA) or spacewalk is not ruled out to assess the damage closely. A problem that China was trying to avoid. The irony of this incident is that the Shenzhou-20 crew itself is fully aware of the danger. In fact, part of its six-month mission in orbit focused on mitigating this risk. Two of the astronauts six hours passed in September by installing additional protective shields against orbital fragments outside the Tiangong station. Although they reinforced the station, the impact seems to have occurred in the way that would bring them back. Image | CMSA In Xataka | Three large pieces of space debris reenter every day: “one day our luck will run out and they will fall on someone”

What is the Richter scale, how it works and why you should stop using it when talking about earthquakes

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We still often hear about “an earthquake measuring so many degrees on the Richter scale” in the news or when reading about an earthquake. This is incorrect for one or more reasons.. To understand why, we must delve into what the Richter scale is, when it is used and, above all, when it is not. What is the Richter scale The Richter scale is a scale used to measure the magnitude of an earthquake. According to defines the National Geological Institute (IGN), the magnitude of the earthquake is “a measure of the energy released by an earthquake and is determined from the signal recorded in a seismogram.” There are several magnitude scales for earthquakes, since earthquake waves can vary in their characteristics. Among them, the best known to the public is that of local Richter magnitudeor simply ML for “local magnitude.” Local, in this answer, refers to the fact that this scale is used to measure earthquakes that have been captured from close range. Specifically, it is used for those captured at less than 600 kilometers, according to the IGN. Who was Charles Francis Richter The name “Richter scale” refers to the American seismologist Charles Francis Richter. Born in 1900 in the state of Ohio, this American physicist and seismologist would leave as a legacy the first scale of its kind, a systematic way of measuring the strength of an earthquake. The seismographs They had been used for decades as a way to measure earthquakes, but it was in 1935 when Richter brought up the idea to establish a magnitude with which to measure these events. Starting from this idea, Richter would have the help of the German-American seismologist Beno Gutenberg to put it into practice. Charles F. Richter died in 1985 in the US state of California. The scale And how are the magnitudes calculated? The scale It is based on the logarithm of the amplitude of seismic waves. That is, the magnitude of an earthquake is proportional (logarithmically) to the height reached by the waves drawn by seismographs. The calculation must be “corrected” to, among other things, adjust it to a “type seismograph”. What we measure with the Richter scale, and what we don’t We pointed out before that the Richter scale, or ML, is used locally. And for seismologists, “local” refers to earthquakes originating no more than 600 kilometers of the seismograph that must measure it. But not all earthquakes that occur in “local” contexts are the same, so they are not all measured using this scale. The use of the ML scale is also limited with respect to the magnitude earthquake: it is only used to measure earthquakes of small or moderate magnitude (magnitudes between 2 and 6.5). The objective of measure the magnitude of an earthquake It is to get an idea of ​​its strength. To do this, scales such as the Richter scale use the waves generated by the earthquake, as captured by seismographs. The problem, as the experts realized, is that waves in large earthquakes do not always allow extrapolation of the magnitude using the Richter scale: sometimes the magnitude thus calculated overestimates the strength of the earthquake and sometimes the opposite occurs. Come on, although there are two earthquakes less than 600 kilometers from where they have been recorded with a seismograph, this scale is not always accurate for both. Sometimes this scale is fine, but other times the actual strength of the earthquake is higher or lower than what it measures. To compensate for the shortcomings of ML, geologists created different scalessuch as body wave magnitude (Mb) or surface wave magnitude (Ms). Each of these scales works in its own context, but the problem arises because none are universally applicable. To solve this, we then had to create the Mw scale, which we will talk about below. Magnitude and intensity To avoid confusion, we have to have clear concepts such as earthquake intensity. The intensity of an earthquake has its own scalebut it does not measure the strength of the earthquake but its impacts. The European Macroseismic Scale graduates in a scale from I to XII earthquakes based on the damage caused. The ML scale and the Mw scale As explained by the United States Geological Survey (USGS), the limitations of the existing scales implied the need to create a new scale that would serve to cover these limitations. This is how the seismographic moment magnitude scale, or Mw, would have been born. This scale, although it is adjusted to “coincid” with the local magnitude scale where the latter is applicable, is based on a very different principle. Where the Richter scale converts recorded seismic waves into a magnitude, the Mw scale uses geological properties of tectonic movement. To do this, we start from the measurement of seismic momentthe product of the area traveled by the fault that has moved, the distance traveled in this displacement, and a measure of the stiffness of the rock that makes up the fault. This measurement is transformed through a logarithmic formula to obtain the magnitude of the moment (Mw) of the earthquake. Here, we can say that this scale is the closest thing to a universalsince it was created to be used in all earthquakes, even those with a magnitude greater than that supported by the Richter. Thus, it is currently the most used today to measure earthquakes, although in the news we will continue to hear about Richter’s. By saying degrees when they are magnitudes Other common mistake When talking about earthquakes and their scale, we talk about degrees, for example if we said “an earthquake measuring 5.5 on the Richter scale.” The origin of this common error is not clear, but some attribute it to the fact that there are scales (such as the one used to study the intensity of earthquakes) in which degrees are used. In Xataka | 0.2 magnitude points and 70 years of disaster preparedness: what differentiates the deadly tsunami of 1952 from the one that occurred … Read more

Rosalía’s new album has been leaked two days before its release. Actually, it suits you very well.

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One of the most careful and meticulously planned promotions in recent times has received a bucket of cold water: the new album by Rosalia‘Lux’, which was scheduled to be released this Friday, November 7, has been leaked on social networks. The question, more than “How did it happen?” It’s more like “How could it have happened at this point?” First notice. A first notice of the leak came with the sudden appearance on Spotify of the second preview song from the album, ‘Reliquia’yesterday Tuesday. It only lasted on the platform streaming a few minutes and was removed almost immediately. What was initially understood as a marketing maneuver was soon identified by the artist’s record label, Columbia Records, as an error on the part of the company’s parent company in the United States. Apparently, ‘Reliquia’ was planned to be a preview prior to the release of ‘Lux’, but not yesterday, Monday. What does ‘Relic’ tell us? The quickest listeners also had the opportunity to look at the song’s credits: no less than seven co-writers, including, in addition to Rosalía herself, the American Ryan Tedder. He is a member of the OneRepublic collective, and has gained some fame as a successful songwriter for stars of many different styles, such as Adele, Beyoncé, Taylor Swift, Ed Sheeran and Beyoncé. Of course, there are already theories that speak of a premeditated leakand which can be read as a message in tune with the spirituality planned in ‘Lux’. Another leak. After ‘Reliquia’, the entire album has been seen on social networks and platforms such as Telegram in files titled ‘Lux Leak’, which has clashed with a millimeter promotional campaign that Columbia Records was preparing. Among other planned actions, there is an appearance next Monday in Broncano’s ‘La Revuelta’ or a private presentation party this Thursday, to which will be added a performance at the LOS40 Music Awards Santander 2025 gala this Friday, the day of the album’s release. The record company has not made an official statement. She’s not the only one. Rosalía is, of course, not the only one who has recently suffered leaks. In 2024 and 2025, someone had access to almost all of Drake’s new album, leaking seven songs and various unreleased materials. In 2024, 100 GB of unreleased content was leaked. In October, Taylor Swift’s ‘The Life of a Showgirl’ It was leaked hours before its official launchwhich even extended to physical copies that some fans received ahead of time. Previously, Swift had suffered leaks of demos and unreleased songs. The almighty K-pop combo BTS too suffered them in 2025although here we do have the culprit: a producer from his record company, who leaked demos of an upcoming album, forcing his label to modify the strategies for this future album. How good it is for you. Although officially, and beyond fan theories, the leak was an accident, the truth is Rosalía She is not going to be harmed by this situation.quite the opposite. The fact that it happened only two days before the worldwide launch not only does not hurt in material terms, but it means that we already spend several days talking about the subject before it arrives. The conjecture is not crazy: it is suspected that Madonna herself, who Today he praised Rosalía’s workhe did (supposedly) with ‘Rebel Heart’, Korn with ‘Untouchables’, and Beyoncé with ‘4’ and ‘Renaissance’. The line between the leak and the mystery teaser is very fine. What will come on Friday. Just a couple of days should not greatly affect next Friday’s launch. ‘Lux’ is Rosalía’s fourth studio album and contains 18 songs in its physical edition. It was recorded in collaboration with the London Symphony Orchestra and promises to be an ambitious work where classical music and experimental pop collide, and where themes linked to feminine mysticism and a certain desire for transcendence will be played. The lyrics are in 13 different languages, including Catalan, Spanish, Arabic, English, French, German, Hebrew and Japanese. In Xataka | Rosalía’s revolution with her score is not an isolated case: pop artists have turned suspense into the best marketing

If you really want to understand China (and how it sees the future), it’s easy: read its five-year plans

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Today’s China bears little resemblance to that of the mid-20th century, when in the time of Mao Zedong the People’s Republic decided to promote its first five year plan. ran the year 1953 and the country was preparing for the Great Leap Forwardan attempt at industrial modernization that ended with a famine with tragic consequences. Since then China has chained almost uninterrupted five-year plans, documents that help understand its evolution. Its reading is interesting now that the Central Committee of the Communist Party has launched the machinery to provide a plan for 2026-2030. Playing short or long term? On Monday Isaac Stone Fish, founder of Strategy Risk, opened a debate interesting in X: What horizon does China use when drawing up strategies? Do you focus on the long term or do you think only a few years ahead? It is not a minor issue. Stone himself brought up the subject a video released by the White House, the fragment of an interview granted by Trump to CBS in which it was pointed out that the Chinese “are playing the long game.” Click on the image to go to the tweet. “A recommended read”. “Let’s stop saying that the Chinese are playing the long game. This is orientalist nonsense that we must eradicate from our discourse with China. Read the Five Year Plan from five years ago and you will see how different China has become from what its leaders predicted. The Chinese think, like the rest of the people, mainly about the challenges they will face today and in the years to come,” claims the analyst, who assures that long-term speeches have other purposes, such as the party’s self-reaffirmation. He is not the only one who believes it. “If you are interested in reality, read the Chinese five-year plans. They are instructive,” slid another user in X. “Read a plan from five years ago. It is recommended.” But what are five-year plans? Economic and social guides, five-year guidelines that the Chinese authorities set for themselves and that basically set objectives in terms of development, industry, innovation or well-being. Also the paths to reach them. The first dates back to 1953 and since then they have been happening (with almost no pauses) with greater or lesser success, but exerting a key influence on the national evolution of the last 70 years. In fact it is not strange to hear that the turning point in China’s modern development came in 1978, with the economic reform promoted by Deng Xiaoping, which was followed shortly after by a five-year plan for the period 1981-1985. “A macro guideline”. “The five-year plan serves as a way for leaders to take stock, examine challenges and tasks, set directions and move forward. It must be followed closely, as strategic thinking and planning have become a rarity among governments,” They explain to EFE Nomura analysts. “It is a macro-level instruction or guideline for the market to know, including investors, state-owned enterprises and the public, to have the correct expectation of what government policy will be in the future,” comment in AP Li Lun, professor at Peking University. Its role is important because, as remember Neil Thomasresearcher at the Asia Society Policy Institute, marks a key difference with Europe or the US “Western politics operates through electoral cycles, but Chinese policymaking operates through planning cycles.” In the focus. That the Chinese five-year plans are being talked about right now is no coincidence. The country is immersed in the preparation of the new roadmap that will mark its steps until 2030, a complex scenario marked by the real estate crisishe weakening of domestic consumptionthe trade tensionshe youth unemployment or the aging of the population, among other challenges. A few days ago the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party met behind closed doors to talk about the new five-year plan, a document that will not be approved until March 2026but the one that Beijing wanted advance some keys. Among other goals, the technological self-sufficiencymaintain at a level “reasonable” of manufacturing and raise life expectancy up to the 80 years. Why is it important? Because although there is still a long way to go for the approval of the new five-year plan, in the past this roadmap has been key to understanding the priorities of the Chinese Government. Also in its development. At the end of October Nick Mash published an analysis on the BBC in which he details three occasions in which the plans have influenced the world economy: the reformist and opening trend of 1981-1984, the commitment to “strategic emerging industries” during 2011-2015 and “high-quality development” (2021-2025). Images | Dominic Kurniawan Suryaputra (Unsplash) and Chinese Communist Party In Xataka | Xi Jinping wants two things: first, to create a global center that regulates AI. The second, that it is in Shanghai

There is an extensive system to avoid being cut off in the 48 km underground of the M-30. It’s time to renew it

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Madrid City Council will completely renew the radio communications network of the M-30 tunnels, a system that has been in operation for almost two decades and is vital for coordinating emergency services and keeping drivers informed underground. The tender for the project starts today, Wednesday, with a budget of 4.8 million euros. Why you need a renovation. The 48 kilometers of M-30 tunnels register 488 million users a year, according to advance from The World. The current radio communication system is practically the same with which these underground galleries were inaugurated almost 20 years ago. Like any technology, requires updates to continue providing service and guarantee quick responses to any incident. What systems maintain communication. Just like inform In the middle, the infrastructure has two differentiated networks that allow coordination between security forces. The TETRAPOL system covers the National Police and Civil Guard, while the TETRA connects the Municipal Police, Firefighters and SAMUR. Furthermore, according to collect El Mundo, these systems guarantee the operation of analog emergency channels, Madrid Calle 30 communications and commercial FM stations. All this works thanks to two radiating cables installed on the roof of the tunnels: one exclusively for emergency services and another for the rest of the transmissions. “What makes it possible for this system to respond are radio communications. When there is an incident, the emergency services and the Police have an effective possibility of coordinating between themselves,” explains Antonio Jesús Tocino, managing director of Madrid Calle 30, to El Mundo. When will the works start and what improvements will they bring?. As well as inform In the middle, the work will begin in spring 2026 and will continue for 13 months, until April 2027. The intervention will be carried out in control centers, technical rooms and the more than 200 emergency exits, without affecting traffic except for specific outages to renew amplifiers. Among the notable developments is the increase in FM stations, which now number 48 of the current 12. This will expand the ability of the M-30 Radio system to inform drivers of safety recommendations in the event of an emergency. “We have gone looking for the most modern thing on the market,” assures Bacon. A broader technology plan. This renovation is part of a comprehensive modernization of the facilities that has already mobilized 34 million euros. Recent improvements include bluetooth beacons that allow maintaining the GPS signal inside the tunnels, in addition to a project for centralized management of the control center financed with Next Generation European funds. Cover image | Google Maps In Xataka | 171 million euros later, Metro de Madrid wants to reopen line 7B. The big question is whether the tenth time will be the charm.

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