Month: March 2026

the risk prevention law

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You return to work after six months offbut no one asks you how you are, if you can do the same as before or if something in your position should change because there is no direct connection between those who look after your health and who manages your work. A new proposal from the Ministry of Labor advocates including some improvements in the Occupational Risk Prevention Law to improve the health of workers, and update a standard that has been in force for more than thirty years. He preliminary draft reform of the Occupational Risk Prevention Law has been opened for public consultation and includes the agreements reached between the Government and unions after almost twenty months of negotiations, although it does not have the support of the employers’ association, which ended up leaving the table. The context of this reform is to reduce accidents and with more prevention. In 2024 alone, 796 people died in work accidents in Spaincompared to the 1,356 people who did so in 1995. Medical recognition from day one. The most notable change contemplated in the Ministry of Labor proposal is found in its article 22, which establishes regulations for the medical examinations that workers undergo. Currently, companies do not have a general obligation to do them, and they are only carried out on the recommendation of labor mutual societies. In practice, many employees go years without going through one. Under the new law, the company will have to offer a health exam when someone starts working at the company, periodically while they are at the company, and also when they return after a long absencegenerally from six months onwards. What changes in the proposal is not only the fact that medical examination exists, but the purpose of it. The prevention doctor will no longer limit himself to saying whether or not the worker is fit to perform a certain function, but will also be able to recommend changes and adaptations to the workplace if the person needs it. And the company will be obliged to take this into account and establish a reinstatement protocol when someone returns from a long leave, including updated training if necessary. ​Voluntary, but with important exceptions. Just because the company has to offer recognition does not mean that the worker is forced to do so. The general rule remains that each person decides, as is currently the case, and refusing should not have any employment consequences. But there are three situations in which the company can require it without the employee being able to refuse it: when it is essential to know if the working conditions are affecting their health, when there is a real and demonstrable risk for themselves or their colleagues, or when a specific rule imposes it because it is a particularly dangerous job. In any case, what the doctor discovers in these tests will remain confidential. The company will only receive the conclusions that are relevant to adapt the position, not the worker’s complete medical history. New risks enter the equation. Another of the great novelties of the proposed draft is that the law explicitly recognizes for the first time in its article 4 the emotional risksbehavioral or social, placing special emphasis in its article 16 on attention to the surveillance and prevention of psychosocial risks and derived from climate changein clear reference to the protection of workers against heat waves or the DANA. The reform now requires us to identify, evaluate and plan them concrete measures to reduce them. The law also defines workplace harassment for the first time, and goes beyond what we usually imagine: it includes behaviors that occur only once if they are serious enough, and also those that are carried out through algorithms or artificial intelligence, something especially relevant. on digital platforms where the “boss” is an automated system that assigns the workload. SMEs and the million-dollar question: when? In Spain there are around 1.1 million companies with ten workers or lesswhich employ three million people. They are the ones that have the most difficulty complying with occupational risk regulations, and the law takes this into account. To provide coverage, a new figure is created: territorial prevention agents. They will be people designated in each autonomous community by the unions and employers of the sector, and their job will be to visit these small companies, detect risks and, if they are not corrected, give part to the Labor Inspection. It also opens the door for mandatory risk prevention training to be subsidized for these companies. The text presented is only a working draft that must be debated in Congress and is susceptible to modifications to be approved with sufficient support from the Chamber. If they continue their ordinary course, most of the measures would begin to apply on January 2, 2027, with a period of up to an additional year for some parts of the regulation, so this initial text would be far from being the definitive one. In Xataka | Some researchers have analyzed the working day in Spain: people work the same as 40 years ago, but in worse jobs Image | Unsplash (Vitaly Gariev)

China and the electric car

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October 1973. The world is divided into two clearly differentiated poles. We are in the middle of the Cold War and the clash between the United States and the Soviet Union has spread across half the world. The Missile Crisis is beginning to be far away and the confrontations between both powers are moving to Asia and Latin America. The Operation Condor in Americathe battles in vietnam either Cambodiato give just a handful of examples. And the Yom Kippur Warof course. It was, as we said, October 1973. Egypt and Syria, taking advantage of the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur, attack Israel with the primary objective of recover the land lost in the Six Day War. But also with another very clear one: to demonstrate that Israel was not invincible. The attack catches Israel, which is supported by the United States, off guard. Little by little, they manage to stop the bleeding and the Arab countries stand up. They have a weapon that goes beyond bombers: oil. An embargo on all countries that support Israel causes energy chaos. The Oil Crisis has an enormous impact on society and, especially, on the American automobile market. The savages muscle car they are domesticated. In the second half of the 70s, the customer no longer appreciated those huge engines that were the watchword of the country. And one country had exactly the car that the American wanted: Japan. Toyota, Nissan and Honda They made their way at a frenetic pace through the streets. The country had achieved an evolution that was key. The efficiency (and later they would discover reliability) was its great value. And Ford and General Motor were quickly relegated to the background because nationalism usually falters when the customer’s pocket is touched. Now, a new war and a new crisis threatens to bring a paradigm shift to the automobile market. The electric car is at its best moment to convert the skeptic. And the country that is bidding hard to gain a foothold is China. A new paradigm Explains my colleague Alba Otero that with the Oil Crisis of 1973 four million barrels left the market. Today, the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz is five times more serious. The world is more interconnected, there is greater production but the market is also more sensitive, with a closed energy funnel and one of the largest fuel producers, such as Russia embargoed for its attacks on Ukraine. The rope is tight. So tense that the price of gasoline has skyrocketed. Diesel is much worse, with prices for “basic” fuel that are close to those offered by 98 gasoline. In two and a half weeks, the price of diesel has skyrocketed by almost 50 cents/liter on average in Spain. The prices are so high that right now it eats up any type of savings promoted by this fuel. A car that uses 5 liters/100 kilometers costs the driver 9.55 liters per hundred kilometers. An electric car with a consumption of 20 kWh/100 kilometers (which is not surprising) needs to pay 0.50 euros/kWh to match its price, a high figure that is associated with high-power recharging. If the car consumes 16 kWh/100 km, such as a Tesla Model 3 that circulates relatively unconcerned about consumption, it will improve spending on all recharges below 0.625 euros/kWh. A diesel car that consumes 5 l/100 km is paying almost 10 euros. An electric car with a domestic rate does more than 600 kilometers for that money The gap is even greater if recharging is done at home. Right now, those who pay 0.15 euros/kWh, which is not a particularly attractive rate, can go 100 kilometers for 1.50 euros. They are 8.05 euros less per 100 kilometers. The difference is so substantial that if this new crisis continues and prices remain high, we are facing the best breeding ground for the electric car. The interest of potential buyers is increasing significantly. In fact, Google searches related to the terms “cheap electric car” have soared just when more and more models begin to arrive on the market. In recent months, the avalanche of electric cars has been unleashed. We have all kinds of options. From premium cars with hundreds of kilometers of autonomy that are equal in price to gasoline cars, like the BMW iX3 or the next Mercedes GLC either electric CLAto attractive vehicles for families such as Kia EV5, Renault Scenic either Peugeot 3008as well as urban mobility vehicles with recognized success as the BYD Dolphin Surf (one of the best-selling electric cars in Spain) or the Renault 5with the first demand band covered. Without forgetting, of course, the Tesla Model 3 and Model Y whose low consumption and very low interest financing allow them to continue to be some of the most interesting models you can buy. The context is especially important in a Europe that is moving towards the electric car. 2025 emissions targets pushed back to 2027 but manufacturers will have to comply with an average to be calculated in that period of time. This leads us to most expensive combustion cars in the coming months (to be less attractive and, if sold, offset possible fines) and more affordable electric vehicles (to lower average emissions). General photography is also particularly interesting for Chinese manufacturers. Absolute technology dominators and of electric batteriesit is the country that can tighten the most on price even if tariffs on their electric cars remain. Spain is one of the countries where we are most sensitive to price and where we are most willing to buy vehicles with an attractive quality/price ratio. Of the 10 best-selling electric cars So far this year, two are Chinese and have prices significantly lower than the competition, such as the BYD Dolphin Surf and BYD Atto 2. The weight of this country is more forceful among plug-in hybrids: four of the 10 best-selling cars are Chinese cars. Spain is by no means a general photograph of Europe. But it does give clues … Read more

Samsung is NVIDIA’s best friend. AMD just got into the relationship and TSMC looks askance

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Lisa Su has been at the head of AMD since 2014. Captaining such an important ship, it is assumed that on some occasion he will have visited one of its main component suppliers. But it turns out that, in his role as CEO, he had never traveled to South Korea, home to one of the world’s leading foundries. The journey has paid off and AMD turns with latest generation memory. But the one who is happiest is the one who is going to allow AMD and NVIDIA to create their new platforms for AI. Samsung. Visiting. In Pyeongtaek, south of Seoul, is one of the main factories from Samsung. The South Korean company is expanding and has the objective of becoming one of the names of the American industry while maintaining its local muscle, and the plant inaugurated a few years ago is an example. This is how Samsung makes money: the secret is in the IPHONE As it could not be otherwise in these times, the facility is focused on the creation of memory chips to power the AI ​​hardware. SK Hynix and Micron are the two big competitors of Samsung in this field and are also opening and purchasing plants to increase their memory production. And AMD wants a piece of that pie because Samsung is, right now, the main supplier of next-generation memory. The agreement. The trip, apart from seeing the facilities, was the perfect setting to make the announcement that Samsung was will convert in the main memory supplier HBM4 from AMD. Specifically, the Instinct MI455X GPU, the next generation of the American company. Because when we talk about GPUs for AI, we talk more about NVIDIA (which also they just presented news) because they are pulling with everything (and in all sectors), but AMD is the other big one that doesn’t want to be left out of the conversation. They are achieving billion-dollar agreements with companies like Metathey have some growth forecasts stratospheric and although far from NVIDIAthey want to be in charge of providing the hardware for AI. Happy managers | Photo: Samsung HBM4. That Samsung is the one that supplies the HBM4 memory to AMD is great news for them because they are the ones that, at least for the moment, have the most refined manufacturing process for this type of memory. In the past they had already supplied the HBM3E for AMD’s current MI350X and MI355 accelerators, but the new agreement means that they will access the same type of memory as their own Samsung exclusively supplies -for now- to NVIDIA. Memory is not everything, obviously, but it plays a fundamental role. The higher and faster bandwidth, the more data per second it can handle. Think of this memory as a very wide and perfectly paved highway. And Samsung was the only one that had managed pass demanding NVIDIA tests for your new architecture Vera Rubin. Samsung at its best. And in this agreement it is evident that both parties win, but Samsung is achieving extreme recognition in recent months. Achieving the agreement first with NVIDIA and now with AMD implies that they separate from their main rivalalso South Korean SK Hynix, which is somewhat further behind with the development of its HBM4 chips. But, furthermore, the release AMD indicates that Samsung will also supply DDR5 memory to AMD’s EPYC servers and the possibility of them manufacturing some of AMD’s future chips has been discussed. Because Samsung manufactures memory, yes, but also other processors. There they have their own Exynos for the Galaxy S26but in the past they manufactured the most powerful Qualcomm Snapdragons and it has been proposed again that the South Korean company be the one make 2 nanometer chips from Qualcomm. On the other hand, they have already won a contract of more than 16,000 million with Tesla to create chips focused on AI. It is clear that TSMC is the main foundry in the world, but Samsung is determined to be one of the main hammers with which to build the future of AI. And, speaking of the king of Rome, the agreement means that Samsung manages to take over TSMC and AMD achieves a second role to reduce its dependence on the Taiwanese company. because there We already know that there is a best friendand it is undoubtedly NVIDIA. In Xataka | “It’s not a temporary squeeze, it’s a tsunami”: we are seeing live how the cheap smartphone disappears

We thought we had an AI bubble. There are powerful arguments that indicate that we were wrong

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You either love AI or hate it. Either you are a (deluded?) optimist, or you are on the bandwagon of skeptics and bet due to an imminent puncture of that AI bubble that everyone talks about. The well-known analyst Ben Thompson has been in the second group for some time and stated that in fact we were in a “good” bubble and beneficial even if it bursts. The annual NVIDIA conference a few days ago has made him change his position, and for him there is no bubble. It doesn’t have just one argument, but three. Or rather, three jumps. The first jump: ChatGPT. The launch of ChatGPT in November 2022 was an eye-opener and demonstrated what generative AI could do. That first model, yes, had two serious problems. The first, that he was frequently wrong. The second, that when I didn’t know something, he invented it and hallucinated with astonishing security. That made ChatGPT something awesome but unreliable, like a cool toy that needs constant user supervision to be truly useful. The second leap: reasoning. Almost two years later, another unique revolution occurred in the field of generative AI. In September 2024 OpenAI launched its o1 model and with it there was a spectacular novelty. For the first time, the model did not simply blurt out the first thing that came to mind: he reasoned about his answer before giving it, evaluated whether it was correct, and considered alternatives. The result was an AI significantly more reliable and, therefore, more useful. The price? More computing. AI models with the ability to “reason” consume many more tokens than those that respond directly, and that triggered demand for infrastructure. Or what is the same: data centers. The third jump: the agents. These two revolutions have been joined by the third, that of AI agents. Claude Code and Codex at the end of 2025 showed that AI agents were no longer a promise and became something that really worked. From then on it is possible to give them instructions so that they can then start executing nested tasks that can keep them working for hours. These agents verify their own results and correct errors without the human having to intervene. The difference with what we had before is notable, but it also dismantles the bubble theory. Bubble? In a bubble, Thompson explained, investment exceeds real demand. However, in his opinion, the opposite is true here, because each hyperscaler—Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Meta—has made it clear that the computing demand is surpassing them, and to solve it they are all announcing astronomical investments in AI data centers. These investments exceed market expectations, but not those of these companies, which like Thompson are clear that in reality the demand is going to end up being so enormous that the current infrastructure will fall very short. Millions of users are not needed. Even more striking in this analysis is another nuance that this analyst points to. Chatbots were supposed to need mass adoption to generate economic impact, but on the other side we have agents, who don’t have that requirement. A single person can control thousands (millions?) of agents simultaneously, creating complex tasks. That means it doesn’t take everyone to use AI for computing demand to skyrocket: enough people just need to use it as they are likely to use it: to create those “one-person businesses” where one human being has thousands of AI employees. Companies will pay. The reality is that the vast majority of consumers are not going to want to pay for AI. Companies do, because they pay for productivity and AI seems start fulfilling that promise. But the argument goes beyond cost savings: agents not only make the work that humans do more efficient, but they allow a small group of people with a clear strategic vision to execute it on a scale that previously required hundreds of employees who also had to be coordinated. Large companies have been adding layers of management necessary to scale for decades, but all that hierarchy disappears with agents. But. This analyst is also clear that the wave of layoffs is going to be increasingly evident and it is evident that AI is going to have a clear impact. However, he explains that many of these current layoffs correspond more to the overemployment experienced with the COVID-19 pandemic. What will happen now is that companies will no longer wonder if they hired too much for the “pre-AI” world, but rather if they hired too much for the “post-AI” world. In fact, those that don’t ask will probably end up competing with smaller rivals, built from the ground up with AI and with radically lower cost structures. For him two things are clear. The first is that the demand for computing will not stop growing. The second, that the bubble, if it exists —and according to him, the answer is that he doesn’t—, it’s not going to explode. In Xataka | His dog had cancer, his vets had no solutions and he found an mRNA vaccine elsewhere: ChatGPT

Android’s controversial new requirements for installing apps from unverified developers

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Android has always boasted something that set it apart from the rest: the freedom to install applications from practically anywhere. That possibility still exists, but what we have seen now points to an important shift in how it is exercised. Google does not eliminate it, although it does surround it with more friction so that it stops being an impulsive gesture. And that change, although it does not close the door, does clearly transform the experience of those who were used to traveling that path without too many obstacles. The change. This is a novelty that does not equally affect everything outside of Google Play, and here we should stop so as not to mix concepts. What Google proposes is not to tighten any external installation, but to add new barriers when the application comes from a developer who is not verified within the new system that the company wants to implement. In that specific scenario, the process stops being immediate and begins to require more time, more steps and a much more conscious decision. What steps will we have to follow. When Google activates this flow, scheduled for August according to the company, installing an app from an unverified developer will no longer be a quick process and will involve a very specific sequence. These are the steps we will have to complete: Manually activate developer mode in settings, without shortcuts Confirm that no one is guiding us to disable system protections Restart the phone, something that cuts off calls or active remote access Wait 24 hours before continuing, in what Google calls “protective waiting period” Reauthenticate us with biometrics or PIN to confirm that it is us Finally install the app, with visible warnings and the option to allow this type of installation for seven days or indefinitely The argument. Google says that Android is no longer a platform associated primarily with enthusiasts, but rather a digital foundation used by billions of people. In this context, the company maintains that previous warnings and barriers were not enough to stop certain frauds supported by social engineering. As he explains, many attacks are based on generating urgency, keeping the victim under pressure and pushing him to deactivate protections without thinking, and this new system seeks precisely to break that dynamic. Openness vs. control. Google insists that this move does not break with the essence of Android, but rather tries to balance openness and security. On your blogthe company emphasizes that advanced users will still be able to install apps from unverified developers, and that this “advanced flow” is intended for them as a one-time process. How it affects us. In practice, the impact will depend a lot on how we use Android. If we move within Google Play, we will not see relevant changes on a day-to-day basis. However, if we are used to installing applications from outside or following independent developers, the experience does transform. Installing from an unverified source will involve more steps, and more time. Images | Xataka | Google In Xataka | The foldable that comes closest to the perfect screen avoids all problems except one: the OPPO Find N6 points the way forward

The US continues to hit targets in Iran, but the Islamic republic keeps another weapon practically intact: its cyber attacks

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In recent days, tension between the United States and Iran has escalated with direct military actions. Washington has resorted to Tomahawk cruise missiles launched from warships and fighters F-35 to attack Iranian strategic infrastructure. At the moment, there is no evidence that Tehran has managed to respond with military attacks on US territory. Its response, however, has been felt on another front: the attacks against energy facilities in the Gulf, like those of Ras Laffan, in Qatar. In parallel, the conflict is also being fought in a less visible terrain, cyberspace. The information war. The photograph of the conflict begins to be completed when we look beyond the military level. Analysts cited by The Register They argue that Iran is turning more intensively to cyberspace to pressure the United States, an area in which it can operate with less direct exposure. In this context, the attack against Stryker is not interpreted as an isolated episode, but as an indication of a trend. “This is just the beginning,” said retired Gen. Ross Coffman. A case already visible. The most recent example of this dynamic is offered by Stryker, a medical device manufacturer with a global presence. According to Reutersa cyberattack last week altered its internal operations and made it difficult to manage personalized inventory. The company confirmed that it had contained the incident, although the episode shows how this type of action can impact especially sensitive sectors, beyond the strictly technological field. Beyond a specific interruption. Bloomberg notes that the impact on Stryker’s operations had an indirect impact on hospitals and patients, with surgeries that had to be rescheduled due to problems in the supply of specific material. This is a clear example of how the border between digital and physical can quickly blur. The American Stryker specializes in surgical equipment, orthopedic implants and neurotechnology solutions Civilian targets. Along the same lines as the analysts pointed out, the focus is not limited to public organizations. The aforementioned media reports that several voices agree that companies may be more exposed than government agencies, in part due to their unequal defenses. Targeting this type of offensive seeks to generate economic pressure and disruption without the need for a direct confrontation, they explain. A historical case. A clear example is Stuxneta malware discovered in 2010 that managed to infiltrate the Natanz nuclear plant and manipulate its systems until it caused failures in about a thousand centrifuges. The code was designed specifically for that environment, acting stealthily for weeks while altering processes without being detected. Its authorship has never been officially confirmed, although it has been widely attributed to the United States and Israel. When the damage is physical. The Stuxnet case helps to understand a key idea in this type of conflict. As we tell in a video from Xataka Presentahe malware He did not limit himself to infiltrating computer systems, but took control of the industrial controllers that regulated the centrifuges and altered their operation. First accelerating them and then slowing them down, he caused progressive wear until they became unusable. A front that already leaves its mark. The scenario that is drawn is clear. While there is no evidence of a direct Iranian military attack inside the United States, the conflict is already having effects inside the United States through other means. The Stryker case shows how an intrusion can translate into real disruptions in sensitive sectors, with an impact on companies and patients. Images | DC Studio | Stryker In Xataka | Russia is not sending troops or weapons to Iran: it is sending something much more important to take down the US

Predicting dementia seven years in advance seemed impossible. An AI with Spanish participation has just achieved it

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The diagnosis of the neurodegenerative diseases You face a problem at the time the diagnosis is made, since in many cases it is diagnosed when the symptoms are already evident and this makes the brain damage irreversible. But… What if we could peer into the future of the brain years before the disease shows its face? This is precisely what a Spanish team has done with a new biomarker. The study. The future of medicine involves making increasingly earlier diagnoses so that the success of treatments is much greater, and now in a recent published article in Science Report The door opens for this to be a reality in dementia. To get here, what the researchers propose, where have you participated Rubén Armañanzas, from the DATAI Institute of the University of Navarra, is the use of a test such as the electroencephalogram together with artificial intelligence to develop a biomarker capable of predicting the risk of dementia with up to seven years in advance. Your methodology. To understand the magnitude of this advance, we must look at the population on which the study was carried out, which are people with subjective cognitive impairment. These are patients who go to the doctor because they notice that their memory is failing, but when they undergo standard cognitive tests, the results are completely normal, so they cannot be given a clear diagnosis even though it seems that something is not right. Until now, medicine found a blind spot in this phase as there was no way to know if these ‘complaints’ in memory were the prelude to Alzheimer’s or simply confusion. But now, the study with 88 older adults with this situation has shown that the brain emits alarm signals long before psychological tests detected them. You just had to know how to ‘read’ them. A new method. Here the research has unified different metrics to be able to read these warning signs. The first thing of all is to use an electroencephalogram to measure brain activity, which is a cheap, quick and non-invasive test. From here, the BrainScope technology platform analyzes this data by looking for 14 specific features related to neuronal connectivity and brain wave behavior. Once these characteristics are ‘found’, an AI algorithm comes in that processes the patterns and determines whether the patient analyzed can progress towards mild cognitive impairment or dementia such as Alzheimer’s. And the results are spectacular, since it has demonstrated outstanding precision when separating patients who develop the disease from those who do not. The future. The great value of this biomarker is not only technological, but also clinical, since the most reliable current tests to predict pathologies such as Alzheimer’s require painful lumbar punctures or scans that are not cheap. A system based on EEG and AI could be easily integrated into primary care clinical protocols or routine neurological consultations as it does not have a very high cost and, above all, is not invasive. The important thing here is to detect neurodegeneration in the earliest phases in order to gain golden time so that new drugs can act at the beginning of the disease and gain years of quality of life. Images | Robina Weermeijer In Xataka | We have a new “theory of everything” to understand Alzheimer’s. Its key is in some small granules

The US is suffocating Cuba energetically. Russia’s response is to send two megaships loaded with oil

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The island of Cuba woke up this week plunged into darkness. A total collapse of the national electrical grid last Monday left the country paralyzedinterrupting surgeries in hospitals, food rotting in refrigerators due to lack of refrigeration and forcing airlines to suspend their flights. This massive blackout is the sixth that the Caribbean nation has suffered in the last 18 months, an unequivocal symptom of a humanitarian and energy crisis that has hit rock bottom. Where does it start. The origin of this asphyxiation dates back to the beginning of the year. The capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in january by US forces cut off the supply of oil that Venezuela, its main benefactor, sent to the island. Since then, Donald Trump’s government has intensified the energy blockade. However, in the midst of this strangulation, an old ally has decided to make a move on the board: Russia. The voyage of the lifeboats. Cuba only produces around 40% of the oil it needs for its national demand, historically depending on imports. according to the data provided The Maritime Executive. The island has not received “a single drop” of large-scale fuel since January 9, the date on which the Mexican ship docked Ocean Mariner with 86,000 barrels. Mexico canceled subsequent shipments after giving in to pressure and threats of tariffs from the Trump administration. Now, all eyes are on two boats: seahorse: This Hong Kong-flagged vessel is carrying 200,000 barrels of diesel (or about 27,000 tons of Russian gas, according to maritime intelligence firm TankerTrackers cited by him Financial Times). After being detained for three weeks in the Atlantic, it resumed its march at a speed of 9.9 knots and is expected to reach the western Cuban coast between this weekend and Monday, March 23. Anatoly Kolodkin: Flying the Russian flag and owned by the state company Sovcomflot (sanctioned by the US, the EU and the United Kingdom), this colossus set sail from the Russian port of Primorsk on March 8. According to statements from the Kpler firm collected by Guardianis loaded with about 730,000 barrels of crude oil from the Urals. Its arrival is estimated for April 4, although other sources place it earlier. A fight between the Kremlin and the White House. The arrival of these ships is much more than a commercial transaction; It is a declaration of intent. According to ReutersUS President Donald Trump has raised the tone drastically, telling reporters that he hopes to have “the honor of taking Cuba” and that he can do “whatever he wants” with a nation he considers “very weakened.” Washington’s goal according to New York Timesis to force the departure of the Cuban president, Miguel Díaz-Canel. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has also demanded regime change. Moscow’s response has not been long in coming. Without directly mentioning Trump, the Russian Foreign Ministry issued a statement reaffirming its “unbreakable solidarity” with the “government and brotherly people of Cuba,” condemning attempts at “crude interference” and intimidation on what they called the “Island of Freedom.” as detailed Reuters. However, in practical terms, the relief for Cubans will be short-lived. Jorge Piñón, researcher at the Energy Institute of the University of Texas interviewed by The Countrywarns that diesel seahorse—vital for generating sets, transportation and agriculture—will only be able to satisfy national consumption for 10 days. “We must remember that inventories are empty,” emphasizes Piñón. Cuba had already reached its “zero hour.” Military tension and desperate measures. The Caribbean board is red hot. Adding to the diplomatic tension is the military presence. According to The Country, Two US-flagged vessels, one of them identified as part of the Coast Guard (USCGC), were recently prowling near the coast of Holguín, in eastern Cuba. Asphyxiated by the blockade, the Díaz-Canel government has resorted to unprecedented measures. Havana has allowed for the first time that small private companies import their own fuel. Simultaneously, the regime has invited Cuban exiles to invest and own businesses on the island, while the official newspaper Granma desperately promotes the installation of solar panels, calling them “the light and energy that cannot be blocked.” The countdown. While the ships seahorse and Anatoly Kolodkin shorten the nautical distance to the port of Matanzas, the outcome of this crisis remains uncertain. The secret negotiations between Havana and the US administration to ease the blockade, confirmed last week, hang by a thread in the face of the aggressive rhetoric of the White House. For now, the Cuban government is entrenching itself. As published by President Díaz-Canel on social networkCuba will not give in to those who plan to “take over the country, its resources and its assets.” Any external aggressor, the president warned, will encounter “unassailable resistance.” It is a scenario that inevitably awakens the ghosts of the Cold War: the United States tightening the siege and Moscow sending an energy lifeline to its historic ally. Meanwhile, eleven million Cubans look at the sea, waiting for those ships to bring just over 10 days of light. Image | Unsplash Xataka | Cuba faces an unprecedented situation in the 21st century: that no plane enters or leaves the country due to lack of fuel

the result of decades of veto by the US and Japan

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China has just become the first country in the world to mass produce T1200 grade carbon fiber, the strongest synthetic material ever manufactured on an industrial scale. The milestone is led by the state group China National Building Material Group (CNBM), which presented it on March 11 at JEC World, the most important composite materials fair in the sector, held in Paris. We tell you all the details. What exactly is the T1200. In the world of advanced materials, the number that accompanies the T is a tensile strength rating. The higher the number, the stronger the fiber. T1200 has a resistance greater than 8 gigapascals (GPa), ten times more than conventional steel, and yet its diameter is ten times smaller than that of a human hair. Chinese media CCTV exposed the example that a rope less than two millimeters thick, made from 120,000 twisted T1200 filaments, is capable of towing a bus with 54 adults on board. And it weighs a quarter as much as steel. dhe laboratory to the factory. Zhou Yuxian, president of CNBM, counted that it has taken the country about 20 years to move from its research and development to mass production. The plant has a projected capacity of about 100 tons per year. Compared to that of Toray Industries, the Japanese company that leads the global market with 29,100 tons per year, it is laughable. But be careful, Toray announced in 2023 that it had developed its own T1200, also with 8 GPa resistance, but to date they have not offered details about a supposed mass production. China has beaten them to it. Mbeyond engineering. Industrial carbon fiber is a material that can be used for endless applications: from civil (aeronautics, electric vehicles, hydrogen storage, drones, medical devices, elite sports equipment) to military (fighter aircraft, missiles, satellites, fuselage structures). Precisely for this reason, Japan and the United States They have been strictly controlling their exports for decades through mechanisms such as the Wassenaar Agreement. China, which for years has depended on imports or has been forced to obtain the material through alternative means, just remove that dependency. The same has happened with semiconductors, since the foreign blockade has served to amplify their technological self-sufficiency. How China has accelerated in just a few years. Toray launched the T300 in 1971 and took 43 years to introduce the T1100. China didn’t have its own T300 until 2008. However, in just over a decade it has climbed from the T300 to the T1200, a cadence that the entire industry is watching closely. The key has been a model that China has already demonstrated with previous grades of this material: combining state capital, university research and industrial capacity in the same ecosystem, with continuous improvement cycles until reaching mass production. Who else competes in this race. The global carbon fiber market is an oligopoly with few relevant players. Mitsubishi Chemical (Japan) advertisement in December that it plans to double its production capacity in Japan and the United States between now and 2027 for sectors such as aeronautics and supercars. The South Korean Hyosung Advanced Materials aims to reach 24,000 tons per year in 2028. On the other side of the globe, Hexcel, an American composite materials company, defines itself as the world’s largest producer of aerospace carbon fiber and the main supplier for United States military programs. But the geographical trend has already changed. And according to the report Future Markets’ Global Carbon Fiber Market published in February, Asia-Pacific has surpassed North America and Europe as the world’s largest consuming region. Cover image | CCTV In Xataka | Japan has a rare earth megadeposit: 700 years of consumption to challenge China

the concert industry is unleashed

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Shakira will close her world tour in Spain with a temporary stadium built specifically for her by Live Nation and which will be called Shakira Stadium. It is not the first time it has happened (Adele did it in Munich in 2024) but the phenomenon speaks of something deeper: the live industry has entered a phase in which mainstream artists do not adapt to existing venues. Rather, the enclosures adapt to them. When he said it. Was in the RTVE program ‘Al cielo con ella’broadcast on March 15: will close its world tour in Spain with this exclusive stadium. The artist stated that “it was going to be something from another world, a production that I think has not been seen before in Spain.” Without revealing dates or location, he confirmed that there will be more than two nights of concerts, a kind of residency. Among the possible locations there are means that They point out the Iberdrola Music in Villaverde, the same space where Mad Cool is celebrated. Continuing success. Shakira is right now one of the main Latin artists in the world. His Women No Longer Cry World Tour has collected 421.6 million dollars and sold 3.3 million tickets in almost a hundred concerts: it is the highest-grossing Latin tour in history, surpassing the Luis Miguel Tour 2023-24 that held the previous record. The tour started in February 2025 in Rio de Janeiro and has toured Latin America, the United States and Canada. The leg on the other side of the Atlantic, stopping in the Middle East, India and Egypt before reaching Spain, will close the tour. Come on, the Shakira Stadium is more than justified. The precedent: Adele. In August 2024, Adele performed ten times at the Adele Arenaa temporary enclosure built on the grounds of the Messe München in thirty days. It took 700 workers to build it and it had a capacity for 80,000 people. Total attendance was around 730,000 spectators. A 220-meter LED screen crowned an infrastructure whose total cost was estimated about 130 million dollars. The advantages. What characterizes This type of stage on conventional stadiums is the scale: a conventional touring stage is 60 meters wide, Adele’s was 220. “The fact of not having to tour the show means that the scale can be much larger,” explained production director Malcolm Birkett. Significantly, Adele’s promoter was also Live Nation. The stadium also included Adele World: a perimeter ring with an amusement park, a replica of a London pub and additional performances. It is likely that Shakira will set up comparable facilities. The “staging” of the live. To understand why something like the Shakira Stadium happens, you have to follow the music industry over the last fifteen years. When the streaming revenue from the sale of physical formats sank, live streaming emerged as the economic core of the business. Today, that process is completely consolidated: the global live music market has an annual growth rate of 8.78%. Live Nation alone reported $23 billion in revenue in 2024, and 151 million attendees at its events. In Spain, the Association of Music Promoters billed only with tickets 725.6 million euros in 2024, 25.32% more than the previous year. This growth has a very specific architecture. As we told at the time1% of artists generate 60% of revenue from live performances. The average ticket price of the top 100 tours rose more than 20% between 2022 and 2024. The market is growing, but is concentrated. Dynamic prices, VIP packages and Ticketmaster commissions have turned big concerts into luxury goods. The barrier to entry is increasingly higher for the public, and the losers are also the artists who do not have the capacity to fill stadiums. The logic of the own stadium. And so we have things like the Shakira Stadium. When the artist doesn’t need to move the stage between cities, he can build something that would be impossible to fit into a traveling tour. The investment is enormous, but the concentration of the public in a single point for several nights allows it to be amortized. And it’s worth keeping in mind, too, that Live Nation, whose business practices are being investigated It is the only company in the business with the capacity to execute it on this scale. In Xataka | We Spaniards have stopped watching TV, going to the cinema and reading books: the only thing that interests us is going to concerts

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