Atlantic

One of the most feared airports in Europe faces a new problem. And it comes from the Atlantic

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There are airports that seem designed to remind us how complex flying is. It also depends on the exact place where you are trying to land. In Madeirathat reality is understood very quickly: Cristiano Ronaldo airport It coexists with the Atlantic, with difficult terrain and with winds capable of altering operations. The novelty is not that it is a demanding airport, something well known, but that Portugal has put figures to a problem that seems to have worsened. The data. He put the information on the table Hugo Espírito SantoSecretary of State for Infrastructure of Portugal, during a parliamentary hearing held at the end of May. According to DNOTICIAS.PTweather records show an “abnormal variation” in wind speed starting in 2015 at Madeira airport. The average climb is around three knots, approximately 5.5 km/h, a figure that may seem small from the outside, but which in an infrastructure so sensitive to the wind has very concrete operational consequences. In the words of the president himself, this increase “makes a large part of the operations unviable.” An airport conditioned by its geography. To understand why three knots matters so much, you have to look at where the runway is. Euronews describes the airport as one of the most demanding in the world due to an unpleasant combination: one end built on concrete pillars, terrain that rises quickly in the vicinity, cliffs near the other end and winds generated by the nearby mountains. This mix can translate into local turbulence, waiting in the air, detours or cancellations when the weather is not good. Looking for an explanation. After recognizing the average increase of three knots, Espírito Santo explained that the Portuguese Institute of the Sea and Atmosphere and the National Civil Engineering Laboratory are analyzing the phenomenon to determine its causes. That caution is relevant: we know that the records show an abnormal variation in wind speed, but not why. In an airport so exposed to local conditions, this difference between confirming the problem and explaining its origin is key to not taking for granted what is still being investigated. New system. The MAWINDS system combines LIDAR and X-band radar to analyze weather conditions in almost real time around Cristiano Ronaldo Airport. The project was presented by the Portuguese Government in December 2024 with an investment of 3.5 million euros assumed by NAV Portugal, although its technical incorporation was not yet fully closed in May 2026. Its purpose is to better detect episodes of turbulence and adverse wind before they affect the operation. Technology still in development. Everything seems to indicate that installing such a system is not equivalent to fully incorporating it into operations from one day to the next. The Portuguese infrastructure manager acknowledged that there were still no preliminary reports on MAD Winds and attributed the delay in its certification to the complexity of an unusual technology. As he explained, before being installed in Madeira this technology had only been deployed in four airports. That is to say, the airport already has a more advanced tool for observing the wind, but its full use still depends on technical work that cannot be simply accelerated. The roadmap. When MAWINDS was presented in December 2024, it was explained that a one-year pre-operation phase was opening to generate data and give ANAC the necessary information before considering, in the future, a possible revision of the wind operating limits. The system is not only designed to better look at the weather, but to build a sufficiently solid database to allow regulatory decisions to be made without lowering the priority of safety. Images | Madeira Airports In Xataka | The biggest move in history will be in Dubai: 35 billion dollars to build the largest airport in the world

The United Kingdom has just activated an unprecedented air mission over a lost island in the Atlantic. There is a hantavirus suspect

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In 1961, a nurse had to be urgently evacuated from Tristan da Cunha after a volcanic eruption forced completely vacate to the entire population of the remote island. For weeks, that small territory lost in the middle of the Atlantic remembered something that remains true today: when an emergency occurs there, arriving on time can become an extremely complicated operation even for a country like the United Kingdom. The forgotten island of the Atlantic. While dozens of passengers from the MV Hondius cruise They began to disembark in Tenerife between health checks and repatriation flights for a hantavirus outbreakmuch further south and far from the cameras, the United Kingdom has started an operation completely different on an island that almost no one would know how to locate on a map. Tristan da Cunha, considered the most remote inhabited island on the planet, has suddenly become the scene of a unprecedented air mission for British forces after a british citizen showed symptoms compatible with hantavirus after leaving MV Hondius. With just 221 inhabitants, no airport and almost a week by boat from the nearest major port in South Africa, the island was caught in an extremely delicate situation when oxygen reserves began to run out and the small local medical system found itself unable to face the risk of contagion and isolation alone. An unprecedented military mission. The British response was as extraordinary as the place where he was to be executed. The Royal Air Force mobilized an Airbus A400M Atlas from RAF Brize Norton accompanied by a Voyager tanker plane to carry paratroopers, doctors and tons of medical supplies to the middle of the Atlantic. There was no possible landing strip, so the United Kingdom took a unprecedented decision: drop military doctors by parachute over the island. Six members of the 16 Air Assault Brigade They jumped alongside a doctor and an intensive care nurse in an extremely complex operation marked by strong winds and a minimal margin for error. The jump was made practically over the ocean before to correct the trajectory towards the island, with the real risk of ending up falling directly into the Atlantic if something went wrong. Never before have British forces deployed medical personnel by parachute drop on a humanitarian mission of this type. Medical supplies were dropped on the remote island, which has no landing strip and has a population of just 221. The cruise ship that took the problem to the middle of the ocean. It all began weeks before aboard the MV Hondius, the expedition cruise ship that was sailing through the South Atlantic when it appeared a hantavirus outbreak which would end up leaving several dead and multiple confirmed cases. The case has been of particular concern because the identified variant belonged to the Andean strain, one of the few capable of be transmitted between people. Apparently, the British citizen who ended up isolated in Tristan da Cunha had abandoned ship mid April and began to develop symptoms days later on an island that, as we said, does not have advanced hospital capacity and is normally cared for by just two medical professionals. While some passengers were treated in the Netherlands or South Africa and others were isolated in the United Kingdom After returning from Tenerife, the British health authorities quickly understood that the real problem was no longer on the cruise ship, but in that small isolated community in the middle of the ocean where any worsening could turn into a emergency impossible to manage with conventional means. Geography as a threat. Plus: the operation revealed the extent to which geography continues to condition even to countries with enormous military capabilities. Tristan da Cunha has no airport, no regular air routes and its sea connections are extremely slow and limited. Simply evacuating paratroopers and medics after the mission will require a complex maritime operation carefully planned due to health risk. I was counting a few hours ago BBC that the jump was not made over a large open space either, but rather over a small island buffeted by winds that usually exceed 40 kilometers per hour. The soldiers, in fact, ended up landing at the local golf course while the island’s inhabitants improvised receiving medical equipment and unloading more than three tons of supplies for the hospital. All this to contain a possible contagion in a territory where any logistical failure can take days to correct. The unknown Atlantic. If you will, history also reveals an uncomfortable reality about major modern health and geopolitical crises: almost all the attention tends to be focused on in visible places and connected while huge peripheral spaces remain out of focus until an emergency breaks out. Thus, while the media focus has followed the arrival of the cruise ship to the Canary Islands minute by minute, the hantavirus has ended up activating parachute dropsmilitary doctors and extreme logistical operations on Tristan da Cunha, a place so remote that even a relatively small health emergency forced resources to be mobilized normally associated with war scenarios or major catastrophes. Image | Ministry of Defense In Xataka | It is not so contagious, but it is very lethal: in Argentina the hantavirus went from 17% to 33% in the blink of an eye In Xataka | We believed that hantavirus did not jump between humans. Until someone went to a birthday party in Argentina

an interoceanic corridor capable of connecting the Pacific with the Atlantic in seven hours

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If you are in the Atlantic and want to reach the Pacific (or vice versa), the only viable option from the point of view of time and distance is pay the fee and cross the 80 kilometers of the Panama Canal. The options of surrounding the northern or southern part of the continent are directly unfeasible, whether due to distance, climate, geopolitics or danger. But Panama is not the only country that has a privileged location from a logistical point of view: there is Colombia, Costa Rica, Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua or Mexico. In fact, a few years ago Nicaragua already tried his own channel without success. Now it is Mexico that has put an ambitious project on the table: the Interoceanic Corridor of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec (CIIT). Of course, it is not an artificial waterway that unites the two oceans, but rather a combination of ports and railways to connect both coasts of the North American country. A “dry canal”. The Interoceanic Corridor of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec is a multimodal infrastructure project that combines three railway lines, which exceed 1,200 kilometers of tracks (including branches) with two ports, the from Coatzacoalcos (Veracruz) and Salina Cruz (Oaxaca). The idea of ​​passage is the following: the containers disembark at a port, cross the territory by train and are re-embarked on the other side, all of this in less than seven hours. Your goal is transport 1.4 million containers a year. The three railway lines of the Interoceanic Corridor of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec Why is it important. The Mexican government itself refers This project is considered to be of great importance for the economic development of the country for three reasons: the improvement of its railway and port infrastructure, promoting the transfer of goods and also becoming a competitor to the Panama Canal. It will be especially interesting for those boats that do not fit in the canal, such as post-Panamax and Ultra Large ships. The corridor is also a blessing for the nearshoring at a time when the American market (and its president) is inviting companies to leave China in favor of localizations closer ones like Mexico: being able to move goods from the Pacific to the Atlantic and vice versa is a real boost. Finally, this infrastructure will contribute to the development of the region: crosses 79 municipalities46 from Oaxaca and 33 from Veracruz. The infrastructure, in detail. The system is articulated in three axes: Line Z, from Coatzacoalcos to Salina Cruz, 214 km. The FA Line, from Coatzacoalcos to Palenque, 308 km. Line K, from Ixtepec to Ciudad Hidalgo, 476 km. As for ports, although Coatzacoalcos on the Atlantic and Salina Cruz on the Pacific are the main nodes, Dos Bocas and Puerto Chiapas are complementary. Furthermore, it carries the industrial impulse under its arm: the project includes the construction of 14 industrial parks along the corridor forming different clusters. The government provides logistics infrastructure and access to suppliesthus tax benefits to promote companies to establish themselves. The roadmap. The Government of Mexico formalized the CIIT roadmap for the period 2025–2030. Regarding the railway lines, the Z has been operating since December 2023, the FA line since September 2024 and the one that is still under construction is the K line. However, its completion is planned by June 2026. As for the ports, the project contemplates the modernization of all of them to reinforce their capacity and increase their depth, essential to allow the docking of larger and more ships. The objective of the Mexican government is that the Corridor operate at 100% by mid-2026. Bottom line: In theory, it’s just around the corner. Yes, but. The real success of the Corridor depends on the railways, ports, roads and industrial parks functioning as a single perfectly assembled and optimized system. At the moment, ports, trains and industrial estates are going at different paces. Currently, the Corridor is partially operational and the difference between installed capacity and real demand is abysmal: according to the 2024 Railway Statistical Yearbook of the Railway Transport Regulatory Agencythe railroad moved 111,000 tons of agricultural cargo and 1,000 tons of industrial cargo, well below what is expected for a competitor to the Panama Canal. In addition, it has handicaps compared to its neighbor’s structure: having to unload, load into a wagon and reload is a structural disadvantage compared to a direct transfer. The project brings with it challenges such as environmental threats not only derived from the seismic conditions of the Isthmus and high rainfall, but also the risk of deforestation, endangered species or water stress derived from industrial activity. Finally, insecurity and the lack of qualified labor can also cause a dent in its real impact in Mexico. In Xataka | Saudi Arabia’s impossible bridge to join Africa and Asia: a 32-kilometer megastructure over the Red Sea In Xataka | The Mayan Train has become a nightmare for Mexico: what seemed like a great plan has run into justice Cover | face islam and Alex Pagliuca

All the lighthouses that illuminate the coasts of the North Atlantic, gathered in an impressive interactive map

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The figure of the solitary lighthouse keeper in charge of the thankless task of keeping his tower operational and in good condition at the service of the boats has long been a rare sight: they are in danger of extinction in front of the automated towers, both in terms of lighting and other auxiliary tasks within of the DGPS differential system. There are (almost) no lighthouse keepers, but the lighthouses look like never before. Only Europe’s 90,000 kilometers of coastline They are a veritable garden of lighthousesbut one thing are lighthouses (that iconic tall tower with a light on top) and another is lights for maritime signaling, where large lights, small lights, beacons or buoys enter. The reference technical standard is IALA Recommendation E-110, as collects and translates into Spanish Puertos del Estado. If we talk about maritime signage, things change there and the figures increase: there are 23,217 lights in the northern seas alone, according to OpenStreetMaps. It must be considered that this is open data, provided by the community, with areas very well mapped and others not so well. The lighthouses of the North Seas, as we have never seen them If we stick to the northern seas, the lighthouses drop to around 2,500 units. Although his thing is teaching and business, Wharton University professor Ethan Mollick has condensed all this information into an interactive map using vibe coding: Lighthouse Atlas. Lighthouse Atlas This map of the northern seas is more than a mere cartography of that maritime signage: it is interactive, making it a tool as visual as it is impressive for the possibility of playing with zoom, filtering or the information it shows. If you also hover over the lights, you can see more data such as their name, color range or frequency. In addition to being able to filter to see only the headlights (‘Major lights only’), as Mollick explainseach light has the correct color, each flashes with the appropriate frequency, and its brightness has been scaled according to OSM data. You can also see how far away they are visible. How far are the light signals seen in the Atlantic, between the Spanish and French states Thus, the size of the points serves to get an idea of ​​how close or far the vessels can be to view the signals. For example, on these lines you can see how much the signals of the muga between the Spanish and French states illuminate. Especially striking because of how congested the Norwegian coast is, as can be seen numerically. in the database from Norsk Fyrhistorisk Forening, the company that compiles a detailed map of locations along the entire Scandinavian coast. However, of the historical 212, it has about 150 operational. It is not the only one: Scotland and the Isle of Man, the coasts of Denmark and the Adriatic Sea, on the coasts of Greece and Türkiye are also well nourished. In Xataka | A man bought a desert island in 1962: he planted 16,000 trees and turned it into an anti-rich sanctuary In Xataka | All the lighthouses of Europe, with their different patterns and colors, gathered in this fantastic map Cover | Lighthouse Atlas

The US has been looking from space for years at a huge brown ribbon in the Atlantic that goes from Mexico to Africa that should not be there

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The blue planet looks very different from space. We have internalized things like that the Chinese Wall is seen and it is not true: what is appreciated They are the greenhouses of Almería. Or a great old man desknown as the Great Dam of Zimbabwe. And for a few years now, NASA satellites they have been registering the presence of a brown stripe that extends across the Atlantic Ocean. It’s not a big brown island or a continent, but it looks like it. What is that “brown continent”. It is a mass of brown algae that, according to research from the Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute and Florida Atlantic University in whose last record It weighed 37.5 million tons and surpasses the 8,000 kilometers in length, more than from New York to Madrid. And it has a name: the Great Sargassum Belt. Context. He pelagic sargassum It is a seaweed that historically has always lived confined to the Sargasso Sea. However, since 2011 NASA has been documenting its expansion into the open sea until what it is now: a brown strip that by the end of 2024 left the Gulf of Mexico and spread until it reached the coasts of West Africa. This phenomenon is actually a huge accumulation of algae that reappears almost every year with one exception: 2013. The Great Atlantic Sargassum Belt is bigger than ever: evolution documented by NASA Why is it important. Because this stratospheric mass of algae is not only spectacular from a visual point of view: it has repercussions on the marine ecosystem, destroys beaches and even contributes to accelerating climate change. It is also an ecological alarm signal for the Atlantic. According to Dr. Brian Lapointelead author of the review of changes in pelagic sargassum and professor at FAU Harbor Branch, explains that it even caused the emergency shutdown of a Florida nuclear power plant in 1991. Why are they growing like foam?. Lapointe and his team have been investigating the evolution since the 1980s and have found that the nitrogen content in brown algae has increased by 55% between 1980 and 2020; the nitrogen/phosphorus ratio also increased by 50%. This change has occurred because brown algae no longer only feed on natural nutrients from the ocean, but also receive nitrogen and phosphorus from land thanks to human activity, such as agricultural runoff or wastewater discharge. The result is uncontrolled growth. Sargassum is transported by ocean currents, especially in floods from the Amazon, towards the Atlantic. There it thrives thanks to that extra supply of nutrients. An unaesthetic and harmful stain. Brown algae per se are not harmful and in fact, they serve as habitat for different species. However, its enormous presence has altered the ecosystem. Upon reaching the coasts, they begin to decompose, thus releasing hydrogen sulfide, a toxic gas that damages coral reefs, reduces the oxygen present and emits greenhouse gases. What can we do. In short: stop feeding them. After this exhaustive monitoring, the research team warns that humans should reduce nutrient runoff from the coast since, if this continues, more Great Sargassum Belts could appear throughout the ocean. In Xataka | The brutal floods facing Portugal and western Spain, seen from space In Xataka | A 2.5 billion-year-old geological wonder: Zimbabwe’s Great Dam seen by NASA from space Cover | POT

The first great Atlantic submarine cable that connected us to the internet says goodbye for a simple reason: it was too expensive to repair it

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It has been at the bottom of the sea for more than two decades, forgotten. But now, finally, the TAT-8, the first fiber optic cable that crossed the Atlantic and connected us to the Internet, is being removed from its place. And to understand the importance of this, it is worth telling its story, since perhaps the Internet would not be as we know it without this cable. The cable that started it all. On December 14, 1988, AT&T, British Telecom and France Telecom developed TAT-8, the acronym for Trans-Atlantic Telephone 8. It was the eighth transoceanic cable system between Europe and the United States, but the first to use optical fiber. Before him, transatlantic cables ran on copper, with very limited capacity. With the TAT-8, voices and data traveled converted into pulses of light through glass threads thinner than a hair. Just like account Wired in its report, at the inaugural event, writer Isaac Asimov connected by video call from New York with audiences in Paris and London to celebrate, in his own words, “this inaugural voyage across the sea on a ray of light.” Why was it so important? When it came into operation, the Internet was still too technical a concept for the general public. But the TAT-8 literally built the highway on which everything later circulated. The curious thing is that in just 18 months it already reached its maximum capacity, so this forced new cables to be laid as soon as possible, especially after the outbreak of the world Wide Webelectronic commerce and in a context in which the Internet became increasingly relevant. By 2001 the TAT series had already reached 14. Disconnection. Just like account In the middle, in 2002, the TAT-8 suffered a breakdown, and repairing it was not worth it, it was that simple. With more modern and higher capacity cables already operational, it made no sense to invest in their recovery. It went offline and was abandoned at the bottom of the Atlantic, where it has remained for more than two decades. Now they are taking it out of the sea. According to collect Wired, a specialist company called Subsea Environmental Services is physically recovering the cable with its vessel MV Maasvliet. It is one of the few companies in the world whose entire business consists of recovering and recycling retired submarine cables. The operation involves dragging a flat hook across the seabed, waiting hours until tension is felt in the cable, and then hoisting it aboard meter by meter. The workers they explain As the ocean floor is an increasingly crowded space, and recovering old cables frees up routes for new ones. What is done with the remains. The TAT-8 is not thrown away. Fiber optic cables contain high purity copper, steel and polyethylene, all recyclable materials with market value. Copper, especially, is a valuable resource and may become scarce in a few years. And according to the International Energy Agency, in less than a decade could be scarce if the industry does not find new sources. On the other hand, the steel of the cable will end up being converted into fences, and the plastic, processed in the Netherlands, will be transformed into pellets to manufacture non-food packaging. In fact, just as they count At Wired, you may soon be using shampoo in a bottle made from remains of the first fiber optic cable to cross the Atlantic. Sharks. Curiously, the TAT-8 is at the epicenter of one of the legends that has lasted the longest in this sector: that sharks bite internet cables. Just like share In the middle, it all started with a test prior to the TAT-8, the Optican-1, which ended up failing due to problems in its insulation. A Bell Labs engineer appeared at a conference with shark teeth that had supposedly been removed from the damaged cable. The story spread instantly. As well as point At the time, AT&T even included four pages on protection against shark bites in its press kit for TAT-8. Actually, there has never been consensus about whether the sharks really caused that damage. Subsequent tests in aquariums, where they were starved to see if they would bite into wires with electric fields, did not yield any clear patterns. At least the outcome of all that testing and debate was positive, as engineers added a layer of steel between the insulation and the fibers, which improved the cable’s overall resistance to abrasions and damage of all kinds. Cover image | What’s Inside? In Xataka | In 1901, a Spanish man had one of the ideas of the century: invent the remote control before television

Spain prepares for a “festival” of Atlantic storms

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After a month of January that has been through water and snow (especially the last few weeks) and in which the Sun has made little appearance, all eyes are on how the month of February will start this Sunday. But a priori, the trend of constant rains seems to continue to prevail throughout the peninsular territory, as AEMET itself has pointed out in its latest bulletin. Boiled. This is undoubtedly the best summary we have for what we will see throughout the month of February, at least until the 22nd, which is what it covers the latest prediction from the national meteorological agency. And the fault is not an isolated front that reaches the peninsula, but a real carousel of fronts that will come and go of the national territory. This means that rainfall throughout the month of February will be above average, and a significant rainfall surplus is expected, especially in the west of the peninsula, Extremadura and the central-southern area. Something similar to what we have had in recent days, so we will not find any changes. They are persistent. As we say, prediction models such as ECMWF point to an atmospheric configuration that opens the door to the continuous arrival of storms from the Atlantic, a scenario that counteracts the initial forecasts that it was going to be a much drier winter than usual. And this change in the forecast completely breaks the trend of the dry environment and it is good news, since the reservoirs begin to fill for spring and summer. Something that is undoubtedly very positive in case half of the year the trend continues to be quite dry and that could be a serious problem if we had not now filled our water reserves. The cold on pause. If the water is the protagonist, the temperature is the supporting actress that surprises, and despite the rain and overcast skies, we are not going to experience extreme cold. Something that agrees with what the AEMET pointed out when seeing that we have been there for three years (for now) without a great cold wave throughout Spain. That is why normal temperatures or slightly above the historical average are expected, and without severe frosts. This is because the Atlantic air flow, being oceanic and humid, usually tempers the environment, avoiding the drastic drops in thermometers typical of continental or Siberian air inlets. In the long term. These predictions are made with the ECMWF models with their weekly maps and clearly show the persistence of low pressures surrounding the peninsula until the middle of the month. But in the long term everything can end up changing and give a very different prognosis. Although it is true that combining it with ICON and other global models reinforces the instability forecast, which increases the reliability of this prediction throughout the month of February. In Xataka | We have always believed that London is very rainy and that Barcelona is not. The only problem is that it’s a lie

The clash between a polar front and the Atlantic threatens Twelfth Night

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Just a few hours away from closing 2025, all eyes are already on the weather at the beginning of January and especially on Three Kings Day. after seeing that New Year’s Eve will be quiet. And although there is still room for change, current models already suggest a drastic change in weather with a general drop in temperatures and a large amount of snow spread across the peninsula. The model. The last installment that we have the European model of the ECMWF proposes a scenario of great instability for January 4 and 5, 2026, with snowfall that could reach unusual levels and affect a large part of the center and northeast of the peninsula. Something that is already being shared on social networks by accounts specialized in meteorology. A situation of great instability that would respond to the entry of a cold front of polar origin and the arrival of Atlantic storms loaded with humidity. Two factors that when they collide are the perfect ingredient for widespread snowfall. Although there is still room for this to change, since reliability is low for periods longer than five days. The position of the AEMET. The State Meteorological Agency (AEMET) maintains a much more conservative position. In its special prediction for this Christmas, the agency confirms that the beginning of 2026 will be colder than normal, especially due to the arrival of the storm Francis. This will leave rain starting on January 1 in the Canary Islands and starting on Friday the 2nd it will affect the west of the peninsula. From here, what is expected is that on January 4 there will be strong northerly winds and a generalized thermal drop. But from day 5 there is a “high uncertainty.” Although the models indicate persistent low temperatures, the agency does not currently confirm snowfall at low levels that could turn Three Kings Night white. Fifth anniversary. It is impossible to ignore the psychological component of this forecast, since this coming January marks five years of Filomena. That is why at this time it is easy to look at the maps with a little more disbelief in case there are signs of something similar, although at the moment nothing similar is confirmed. For now wait. With all this, the most prudent thing is to wait until this Twelfth Night approaches to have clear conclusions, especially in view of the different parades that leave in different parts of Spain that can be threatened by adverse weather, but that can always change up to at least 48-72 hours before. Images | TheWeather In Xataka | La Niña is going to be meteorologically “less intense” than we expected. And that actually hides a problem.

An “invisible” Russian submarine has set off alarms in the Arctic. Europe’s response: Atlantic Bastion

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The launching of the Khabarovskthe new and ultra-quiet Russian submarine capable of deploying nuclear torpedoes Poseidonhas reactivated a fear that had been latent for decades in cities like London: the possibility that the naval balance of the Atlantic is once again tilting in favor of Moscow. The response from the United Kingdom has been forceful, and it is called Atlantic Bastion. Submarine warfare. Although the public image of the Russian threat usually revolves around research vessels like Yantarsuspected of mapping and potentially manipulating underwater cables and pipes, European specialists know that what is truly disturbing lies much further down. Russia has spent decades reducing the acoustic signature of its submarines to levels that they border on invisibilitycombining new propulsion systems, composite coatings and virtually undetectable cooling pumps. In this environment, where silence is power, a ghost submarine with nuclear capacity alters not only the sea routes, but the very heart of the strategic infrastructures that connect Europe with the world. UK reinvents itself. Faced with the resurgent threat from Khabarovskthe Royal Navy has launched what they have called as Atlantic Bastiona plan designed to restore British strategic advantage in its own and allied waters. Its origin is not new and it we have counted before: the United Kingdom has been monitoring the Greenland-Iceland-United Kingdom gap (GIUK gap) since before the creation of NATO, and the Second World War already demonstrated that controlling that maritime corridor was essential to prevent enemy forces from slipping into the North Atlantic. But what used to be destroyers and acoustic sweeps is becoming a hybrid framework that combines Type 26 frigates equipped with new generation sonar, aircraft P-8 Poseidon capable of patrolling thousands of kilometers and, above all, swarms of underwater drones equipped with artificial intelligence. According to the Ministry of Defensethis architecture aims to detect, classify and follow any enemy submarine that tries to penetrate British or Irish waters, and to do so constantly, autonomously and with an unprecedented range. The algorithms arrive. The core of the project will be Atlantic Neta distributed network of autonomous underwater gliders equipped with acoustic sensors and guided by artificial intelligence systems capable of recognize sound signatures with a level of precision that until a few years ago was little less than the preserve of science fiction. Unlike the SOSUS of the Cold War, based on gigantic fixed hydrophones placed on the seabed, the new generation will be mobile, expandable and adaptable to the routes and behaviors of increasingly soundproof submarines. The ultimate ambition is to deploy hundreds of cheap, persistent units that together create aa surveillance mesh much harder to evade. The metaphor is revealing: if finding a silent submarine is like searching for a needle in an oceanic haystack, modern technology makes it possible to exponentially multiply the number of searching hands. Khabarovk The technological challenge of hunting shadows. However, even with this technological revolution, experts warn that detecting new Russian submarines will continue to be an extremely complex undertaking. Since the 1980s, Moscow has drastically reduced lacoustic emissions of its fleet, which requires combining passive and active sensors and complex configurations such as bistatic sonar, where one vessel emits a pulse and another collects the echo. These techniques require coordination, multiple platforms, and significant sensor density, something that Atlantic Bastionaims to provide but it is still far from being deployed on a full scale. The arrival of the Type 26 frigates, designed to be the flagship of British anti-submarine warfare, is fundamental to this purpose, as is the cooperation with Norway and other allies that are also strengthening their capabilities in the North Atlantic. The Russian Bastion Puzzle. Even if Atlantic Bastion managed to limit the presence of Russian attack submarines in the Atlantic, there is one dimension that no Western system can solve: Russian strategic submarines already they don’t need to abandon its own bastion in the Arctic to threaten Europe or the United States. Its intercontinental ballistic missiles can hit targets thousands of kilometers without moving from the Barents Sea or the White Sea, protected by layers of defenses and favorable geographical conditions. There they play a hiding place lethal where the West cannot penetrate without significantly escalating the conflict. The paradox is clear: the United Kingdom can reinforce its waters and monitor every meter of the GIUK gapbut it cannot deny the Russian nuclear capacity deployed in its natural refuge, a reality that frames the entire British effort within a logic of containment rather than domination. An underwater chess. If you want, Atlantic Bastion ultimately represents the recognition that underwater competition has returned with a vengeance, now fueled for digital capabilitiesdistributed sensors and autonomous platforms that transform the nature of ocean surveillance. The North Atlantic once again becomes a stage silent maneuvers where Russia and the United Kingdom measure their technological resistance in an environment reminiscent of the Cold War, but with algorithms and autonomy as new weapons. A career that is not decided by great battles, but by the ability to listen better, process faster and anticipate invisible movements. In this theater of shadows, the advantage is not whoever shoots the most, but rather whoever is able to detect first (already happens in Ukraine). Thus, Atlantic Bastion aspires to return that capacity to the British, although the contest that is opening now does not look like it will be brief nor simple: In the depths of the Atlantic, the prelude to the next era of strategic rivalry between Russia and the West is underway. Image | SEVMASH/VKONTAKTE In Xataka | A Russian submarine has appeared off the coast of France. And Europe’s reaction has been surprising: have a laugh In Xataka | Russia’s most advanced nuclear submarine was a secret. Until Ukraine has revealed everything, including its failures

In 2001, a yacht took refuge on a remote island in the Atlantic. Days later its inhabitants breaded fish with coca

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To the island of Sao Miguelthe largest and most populated of the Azores archipelago, is known as the ‘Green Island’ for its lush meadows. In 2001, however, the most appropriate thing was to refer to it as the white island. In one of those pirouettes of destiny that usually inspire Netflix scriptwriters (and in this case that’s how it was) began to arrive on the coasts of São Miguel, more specifically on those of the freguesia of Fish Taildozens and dozens of uncut bales of cocaine of extraordinary purity. The Atlantic brought them by surprise and without anyone in Rabo de Peixe being able to explain very well why or where they came from. What there is little doubt about more than 20 years later is that that episode changed history of the island. Not only because Rabo de Peixe was forever associated with surrealist images (it is counted that on the island there were families who they breaded mackerel with cocaine instead of flour), but for the mark it has left on a population of humble fishermen in which until then white powder was a luxury available to an elitist minority. Twenty-four years later, his story is back in the news thanks to streaming. Netflix has just released a new documentary about that episode, ‘White Tide: The surreal story of Rabo de Peixe’a launch that coincides with the premiere of the second season of a series inspired by the same event, the successful ‘Rabo de Peixe’. A drifting sailboat The Azores are a paradise on earth, but even the greatest of paradises can turn into hell. Antonino Quinzi saw this for himself at the beginning of June 2001, while steering a yacht of 12 meters across the Atlantic towards Spain. Although he was an experienced sailor and had recently completed the Canary Islands-Venezuela route, near the Azores he was surprised by a strong storm that damaged his ship’s rudder and threatened to set him adrift. Faced with such a panorama, Quinzi decided to postpone his original plan, which was to sail back from Venezuela to Spain, and seek refuge in some discreet cove of São Miguel. The word ‘discreet’ is not a minor nuance. To the residents of the parish of Pilar da Bretanha who saw how his yacht appeared on the horizon and sought shelter among the cliffs, Quinzi it seemed to them one more amateur sailor. One of the many sailboat owners who set out to sail the ocean without enough boards and end up finding themselves in trouble. In this case they were wrong. Quinzi was a hard-working Sicilian navigator and if he seemed to be stumbling along the coast of São Miguel it was because he was actually looking for a secluded place in which to hide the cargo he was transporting. On board his yacht, in addition to food and everything necessary for his long voyage, he hid hundreds and hundreds of kilos of cocaine from Venezuela. How many? Officially there is talk of half tonalthough there are those who remember that the ship could carry up to 3,000 kg and it would be strange for the Sicilian to embark on its ocean voyage without taking advantage of that cargo capacity. The fact is that Quinzi needed to reach a port where he could repair his yacht, but for obvious reasons he could not do so with the holds full of bales. To get out of trouble he decided to get rid of drugs. Some versions they count who used a boat to take part of the load to a cave, but had to abort the mission when he was surprised by some fishermen. Whether or not it is true, the fact is that to get rid of a large part of his cargo, Quinzi chose to another more radical solution. A wave of bundles Which? After ensuring that the bales would not be damaged by water, he placed them in fishing nets and then lowered them off the coast with the help of heavy chains and an anchor. Once he finished the task, he set sail towards the port of Rabo de Peixea humble and discreet fishing town located just over 20 kilometers from where he had hidden the shipment. The plan seemed perfect, if it weren’t for the fact that the same waves that had forced Quinzi to seek shelter ended up destroying the net that hid the coca bales. The result: dozens and dozens of packages began to emerge and the waves dragged them towards the coast. Guardian account how the first official notice was recorded on June 7, 2001, just one day after Quinzi’s yacht was seen lurking around the cliffs. While walking through a cove, a local came across a large black plastic sheet that hid what looked like dozens of packed bricks. He notified the police, who soon found that there were 270 bales that weighed nearly 300 kilos. Over the next few days, the authorities received similar notices from people who found bundles while walking along the coast. It is said that in just two weeks the agents seized more than 400 kg of drugs, which is not a bad balance if you take into account that the police estimated that the total shipment It was around 500 kg. But… And the rest? And above all, was the yacht actually transporting more drugs, as one of the Portuguese journalists who covered the event suspects? “The ship could carry up to 3,000 kg and no one would cross the Atlantic with only a small part of what it can carry,” argues Nuno Mendes, a reporter who traveled from Lisbon to cover the news. There was more or less drug, almost a hundred kilos or many more, what seems evident is that most of that unseized cocaine ended up in the hands of the inhabitants of São Miguel, where they barely live. 140,000 people. The focus is placed above all on the population of Rabo de Peixe, one … Read more

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