country

Microsoft wanted to create a mega data center in Kenya. To function, half the country had to live without electricity

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In May 2024 Microsoft announced what seemed like a historic agreement for Kenya’s technological development. The goal: create a gigantic data center that would be powered by geothermal energy. This center was going to be created in the Olkaria region, but the Kenyan president, William Ruto, has been blunt with Microsoft’s energy claims: to power the total requested 1 GW capacity, the country “would have to shut down half the nation.” too fair. Kenya has an electrical capacity installed capacity of between 3 and 3.2 GW, with peak demand that already reaches 2.44 GW. Microsoft’s project would consume approximately a third of the country’s total capacity. Even the first phase, which requires a capacity of 100 MW, would take a huge bite out of the production of the Olkaria geothermal complex, which generates about 950 GW in total. Kenya seems to be clear that sacrificing domestic consumption was not worth it when most of the project’s profitability will end up in the hands of a large foreign technology company. Financial disagreement. In addition to the energy problems, the negotiations have ended up getting stuck in the economic field. According to sources close to the process cited in BloombergMicrosoft and the investment firm G42 have reportedly asked the Kenyan government for a financial commitment. Specifically, payment for a certain amount of capacity each year, something with which the Kenyan leaders did not fully agree. The project has not been canceled. John Tanui, head of Kenya’s Ministry of Information, explained that his country is still in negotiations with Microsoft and G42, and that the agreement “has not failed or been abandoned. The scale of the data center they needed requires some structuring,” and that includes solving both the energy and economic problems. A project with a lot of geopolitics behind it. This project was not only a technological milestone for Microsoft and Africa, but also a diplomatic one. It is part of a $1.5 billion deal between Microsoft and Abu Dhabi-based G42, which was designed to counter potential deals on this continent with China. In fact, as a condition for the G42 agreement had to divest its Chinese assets and remove Huawei equipment from their systems. While the project is on hold, however, the Chinese company continues to expand in this region and has recently launched new broadband services over fiber with the largest Kenyan operator, Safaricom. Bottlenecks everywhere. The case of Kenya is not the only one that is stopping Microsoft’s plans. The company has announced a capex of 190 billion dollars by 2026 that will be invested in data centers, and the company is adding approximately 1 GW of computing capacity each quarter globally. However, about half of the data centers planned in the US this year have been canceled or delayed due to the shortage of electrical infrastructure. Image | Microsoft In Xataka | In 2024, Big Tech spent absurd amounts of money on AI. In 2025, they managed to spend 77% more

Europe and Japan step on the accelerator of nuclear fusion and place the ball in the court of a strategic country: Spain

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Europe and Japan walk hand in hand towards nuclear fusion commercial. They have been working together for several years in the JT-60SA experimental reactorthe largest magnetic confinement fusion energy machine that currently exists. However, this is not the only project in which they collaborate. They are also fine-tuning the LIPAc linear particle accelerator (Linear IFMIF Prototype Accelerator or IFMIF Prototype Linear Accelerator). This machine resides in Rokkasho (Japan). After having undergone a very ambitious update, it is ready to begin the final phase that will conclude with its commissioning in 2027. Its purpose is to test the limits of particle beam physics to pave the way for future fusion reactors. Europe and Japan began developing this 36-meter-long particle accelerator in 2007 with the aim of validating the design of an IFMIF-type machine (International Fusion Materials Irradiation Facility) capable of acting as a neutron source. To achieve this, this device had to recreate the intense irradiation conditions that occur inside a fusion reactor. One of Europe’s most important contributions is a huge steel cryostat with magnetic shielding and a thermal shield that houses a powerful superconducting radio frequency system. This component serves to accelerate protons and deuterium nuclei until they reach a maximum energy of 9 MeV (megaelectronvolts), which will place them close to the high-energy neutrons that future commercial fusion reactors will produce. LIPAc is the precursor of IFMIF-DONES, which is already being built in Spain The knowledge that scientists hope to gain from LIPAc will be used in the development of IFMIF-DONES (International Fusion Materials Irradiation Facility DEMO-Oriented NEutron Source), that is already being built in Escúzar, a town in the province of Granada. The heart of this facility is a linear particle accelerator that will cost approximately 450 million euros, although the Government of Andalusia will provide half of this money. However, this is the cost of the accelerator; The entire IFMIF-DONES project will cost around 700 million euros. Spain will contribute half of this capital. IFMIF-DONES is one of the three fundamental pillars of the nuclear fusion edifice in whose construction the European Union is involved. The other two are ITER (International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor) and DEMO. The experimental nuclear fusion reactor that is currently being built in the French town of Cadarache aims to demonstrate that fusion at the scale that man can handle worksand also that it is profitable from an energy point of view. However, ITER does not aim to produce electricity. That will be the task of DEMO (DEMOnstration Power Plant), a facility that will take the technological advances that have been proven to work correctly at ITER and take them one step further to establish itself as the true precursor of commercial nuclear fusion reactors. However, without IFMIF-DONES there will be no DEMO, so right now Granada is the center of attention. The IFMIF-DONES linear accelerator will produce high-energy neutrons with the intensity and irradiation volume necessary to test candidate materials To fully understand the role of the IFMIF-DONES project, it is necessary to briefly review the fundamentals of nuclear fusion. One of the greatest challenges faced by technicians involved in the development of nuclear fusion reactors using magnetic confinement, such as ITER, is to recreate the conditions necessary for them to operate inside the vacuum chamber of these sophisticated machines. deuterium and tritium nuclei fuse. However, this is by no means all. When this reaction takes place, the fusion of a deuterium nucleus and another tritium nucleus triggers the production of a helium nucleus and a neutron that is ejected with an energy of about 14 MeV. The problem is that the neutron lacks a net electrical charge, so it cannot be confined inside the magnetic field which, however, does manage to retain the deuterium and tritium nuclei, which have a positive electrical charge. This is the reason why when it originates as a result of the nuclear fusion reaction, this neutron is ejected towards the walls of the vacuum chamber with enormous energy. This particle is very important because in practice it will be closely linked to the production of electrical energy in nuclear fusion reactors, but, at the same time, it represents a very aggressive form of radiation that can significantly degrade the materials used in the reactor. The components that will be most affected by the direct impact of high-energy neutrons and the most intense heat flow are the internal wall of the vacuum chamber and the blanket. The components that will be most affected by the direct impact of high-energy neutrons and the most intense heat flow are the inner wall of the vacuum chamber and the blanketwhich is a mantle that covers it and whose purpose is to regenerate the tritium that must be used as fuel in the nuclear fusion reaction. This is why it is crucial to develop new materials that are able to withstand the neutron flux and therefore ensure that the reactor will have a long operational life. This is, neither more nor less, the purpose of IFMIF-DONES. And to carry it out it is necessary to set up facilities designed to allow the technicians involved in the project evaluate the properties of candidate materials to intervene not only in DEMO, but also in future commercial nuclear fusion reactors. The mission of this project invites us to intuit what the heart of IFMIF-DONES is: a source capable of producing high-energy neutrons with the intensity and volume of irradiation necessary to test the candidate materials. And this neutron source will be nothing more than a linear particle accelerator that will help IFMIF-DONES scientists to test, validate and qualify the materials that in the medium term should reach future electric energy production plants through fusion. Image | Fusion for Energy More information | Fusion for Energy In Xataka | ITER has faced one of the great challenges of nuclear fusion: preventing plasma at 150 million ºC from destroying the reactor

It is not that Germany is promoting the four-day work day, it is that it is the country that works the fewest hours per year

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In May 2025 and through the Eurostat dataa reality was confirmed that sometimes confuses a story: the myth that says that Germans work harder than Spaniards did not stand with figures in hand. The key, as we comment thenwas in the quality of the labor market: a good part of German workers work fewer hours per week in part-time jobs, but they did so for more years than Spanish workers. And now the OECD has arrived to put Germany in your place. Work identity crisis. Germany, traditionally associated with discipline and productivity, today faces a paradox: according to the OECDis the developed country where fewer hours worked per year, just 1,331 compared to the 1,898 of Greece or the 1,716 of Portugal. The situation represents a symbolic blow for a country that just a decade ago imposed austerity policies on southern countries, stigmatizing them as not being hard-working. The drop in workload is combined with a economic deterioration palpable: unemployment has exceeded three million people For the first time in a decade, the economy has contracted for two consecutive years and the GDP is already lower than in 2019, while Spain and Greece are growing at rapid rates. greater than 2%. The debate about work. we have been counting. The reduction in hours worked has become on central theme in German politics. Chancellor Friedrich Merz warns that four-day work weeks and an overemphasis on “life balance” will not sustain the country’s prosperity. The data they are striking: German workers enjoy longer vacations than the legal minimum, numerous holidays and an average of 19 sick leave a year, compared to 16 before the pandemic, a change that experts attribute more to culture than health. Scandals like that of a teacher on leave since 2009 receiving full salary have reinforced the perception that labor laxity is unsustainable. The roots of the phenomenon. They counted in the Washington Post that specialists maintain that it is not about laziness, but rather structural barriers. Almost half of German women work part-time, a figure that exceeds 65% in the case of mothers, which translates into one of the largest gaps in full-time equivalent employment in the entire EU. Historical factors also weigh in: in West Germany, working mothers were stigmatized like “crow mothers”while in the East, under the socialist model, full-time employment was promoted with daycare from an early age. Currently, cultural differences and a child care system with short hours persist that prevent many families from holding full-time jobs. Proposals and resistances. The experts match in which expanding daycare centers and extending their hours would be decisive, but technical solutions collide with politics. Changing the tax system from joint to individual filing could add the equivalent of half a million jobs full-time, but it is perceived as “anti-family” and difficult to approve. For their part, businessmen they claim less bureaucracy and more immigrationwhile some researchers advocate for simple reforms that free up hidden work hours. However, government responses have been considered timid and insufficient, and the feeling of postponement persists. The four-day elephant. Paradoxically, while political leaders call for more work, more and more companies are experimenting with shorter work weeks. In 2024, 45 companies will test the four day week with equal salaries and reduced hours, with positive results: higher productivity per hour and more satisfied employees. The majority of these firms plan to maintain the model, consolidating the trend in favor of free time. Thus, Germany moves between two poles: a productive system that suffers stagnation and pressure to lengthen working hours, and a society that increasingly values ​​life outside of work, drawing a clash of visions that puts not only the economy, but the identity of the country at stake. Image | International Tr In Xataka | Germany seeks a revolutionary change in its labor system: making working more hours profitable In Xataka | Germany tried working four days a week: seven out of 10 companies no longer want to work five days a week A version of this article was originally published in September 2025

The country has no real alternative to Telcel

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The sale of Movistar Mexico to the Melisa Acquisition consortium (450 million dollars for an operator with approximately 15% of the market) closes a chapter of more than two decades in which the Spanish operator has invested more than 3,600 million euros to end up competing, in permanent structural inferiority, against a monopoly that has never ceased to be a monopoly. Why is it important. Anyone might think that the departure of Telefónica changes the Mexican telecommunications market, but the reality is that it does not change it much. On the contrary: it confirms it. Mexico has one of the most concentrated mobile markets in the developed world, with Telcel, owned by Carlos Slim, controlling almost 60% of users. No competitor has managed to gain share in a sustained manner so far this century. The strange thing is that Telefónica has taken so long to leave the country, because it has only done so in the context of a total withdrawal in Latin America after years of losses. The backdrop. Telcel inherited the commercial muscle, infrastructure and customer base of Telmex, the former state monopoly privatized in 1990. Since then, Mexican regulators have not been able to balance the market, or have not been willing enough to do so. AT&T has been trying for years with its own network and remains below 16%. In fact is also looking for a way out. Telefónica, which In 2019 it had to return its spectrum and relying on AT&T’s infrastructure to survive, it already operated in practice as a kind of “premium MVNO”: with its own brand, but without its own network and without room to grow. Between the lines. The buyer says a lot. Melisa Acquisition is not a typical telecommunications operator: it is the sum of Oxio (technological platform for virtual operators with barely 350,000 clients) and an investment fund. They are not there to build network infrastructure or to dispute Telcel’s quota. They simply arrive to manage what is there: an inherited customer base, an asset-light model, and the hope that Oxio’s technology will allow some more margin to be squeezed out of an operation that Telefónica no longer wanted to maintain. In figures. The ARPU (average income per user) tells in numbers the trap in which Telefónica operated in Mexico: 64.7 pesos per month per customer, less than half that of AT&T (141.1) and less than a third that Telcel (176). It is no longer that Movistar had few clients, it is that each client was worth little in terms of billing and profitability. A model like this does not allow for investment in the network, in spectrum or in the future. The sale is not an elegant strategic retreat: it is the logical conclusion of years competing in the cheapest segment of an already cheap market. Yes, but. The sale will generate heavy accounting losses for Telefónica, something inevitable given the historical outlay, but it fits perfectly into its strategy. In less than a year and a half, the telecom chaired by Marc Murtra has undone practically all of its positions in Latin America: Argentina, Chile, Peru, Uruguay, Ecuador, Colombia… and now Mexico. Only Brazil remains, the only market in the region where Telefónica has enough scale to truly compete and which has become one of its growth enginesif not the main one. Main loser? The Mexican user. With Telefónica jibarized, the Mexican market is even more unprotected in the face of Telcel. Effective competition in price, coverage and quality of service now depends almost exclusively on AT&T, which has also not demonstrated the ability to challenge Slim’s dominance and, as we have already said, look for a way out for a long time. Mexico doesn’t just lose one operator: it loses one of the few that at least had incentives to try. In Xataka | Mexico has an ambitious plan to be the tenth economy in the world and that involves technology: semiconductors Featured image | david carballar

While half the world wants to distance itself commercially from China, there is a country that is increasingly doing just the opposite: Spain

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Pedro Sanchez Yesterday he took a selfie with the CEO of Xiaomi as part of his official visit to China. In it he has taken advantage of visit also Tsinghua University in BeijingAI talent pool— and of course for meet with the president of the People’s Republic of China, Xi Jinping. But what this official visit tells us is something important about Spain and Europe: we want to depend less on China, but the data says that we are becoming more dependent. The narrative of decoupling. The discourse that we are seeing in general media or in news programs on television networks is usually the same: The West is reducing its dependence on China. There is talk about how supply chains are diversifying or how geopolitics are reordering global trade. Although the message is coherent and is usually supported by European and North American leaders, the reality is different. The numbers simply do not match. The data that dismantles everything. Between 2014 and 2024, EU imports from China increased by 101.9%, while European exports to China grew by only 47%. The relationship between both economic powers is not cooling, but quite the opposite: it is intensifying and, furthermore, becoming unbalanced. In 2024, the EU exported goods worth 213.3 billion euros to China, and imported 517.8 billion euros with a trade deficit of 304.5 billion euros. China remains by far the largest supplier to the EU and represents 21.3% of all extra-EU imports. Behind her are the US with 13.7% and the United Kingdom with 6.8%. Who “buys” more. The three largest importers of Chinese products within the EU in 2024 were Netherlands (109 billion euros), Germany (96 billion) and Italy (50 billion). The only countries with a trade surplus with China in the EU were Ireland and Luxembourg. The case of Germany is paradoxical, because this country leads this discourse of “reducing strategic dependencies”, but at the same time it is the second largest European buyer of Chinese products. One thing is the political message, and another is the commercial reality. Spain has a deficit, but it doesn’t seem to matter. The case of Spain is also special not because of the figures, but because of how it communicates them. In 2024, Spain imported Chinese goods worth 45,174 million euros, only behind Germany. What is striking is that the trade deficit of this exchange was enormous for Spain: 37,706 million, because Spanish exports to China were 7,467 million euros. That is to say: Spain buys China almost seven times more than what it sells. In 2025, imports grew even more, to 50.25 billion euros, but Spain’s discourse is not that of Germany: it does not seem to have any problem with increasing this commercial dependence. The Bank of Spain warns. The products most imported from China were industrial machinery, telecommunications equipment and motors, that is, goods that feed Spanish production. The Bank of Spain warned in 2024 that China is the great commercial weak point for both Spain and the EU. It is due to the volume of imports as well as their concentration and nature. The problem is that this dependency cannot be resolved with speeches: we would need alternative supply chains that are not being created at the moment, at least on the scale necessary to reduce this strategic dependency. Four visits in four years. Pedro Sánchez has visited China in March 2023, September 2024, April 2025 and April 2026. No other European leader has visited the Asian giant with that frequency in this period. It is true that all the presidents of the Government since Felipe González have traveled to China at least once, but none had done so four years in a row. Zapatero also made four trips, but he made them between 2005 and 2011. What Sánchez has done has no Spanish or European precedents. But Europe also builds ties with China. This movement towards rapprochement with China in 2025 and 2026 is not exclusive to Spain. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron have visited China in recent months. All these movements are a clear consequence of the tariffs that Donald Trump activated in 2025 and that have accelerated this European conversation about the need to reduce dependence on Washington. Which difference to Spain from the rest of its European partners is that he has been forging that alliance for years. Many visits, but the deficit grows. Although the relations between China and Spain are notable, the trade deficit has been at historic highs for years and Pedro Sánchez’s visits have not only failed to correct them, but have aggravated them. What grows with each trip are the cooperation agreements or investment statements in renewable energy, but that still does not affect the short-term trade imbalance. Not only that: while Spain sells to China automotive components, chemicals or serrano hamChina sells to us our industrial future. There is an asymmetry not only of volume, but also of structure. To reduce strategic dependence, nothing. The conclusion after analyzing the data is uncomfortable. The rhetoric of decoupling, digital sovereignty and the reduction of strategic dependence collide head-on with that commercial reality in which Europe imports products from China as if there were no tomorrow. The difference between Spain and the rest of Europe is that Spain does not maintain this fiction of distance, and this “honesty” may have strategic value. We will see if that ends up serving to reduce the enormous trade deficit with China. In Xataka | We thought that US tariffs would prohibit Chinese cars from entering. BYD wants to challenge them

They are essential for the defense of the country

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Finland has learned to live on alert throughout its history. During the Cold War, until flying trees were invented to mislead the Soviets. And since the conflict between Russia and Ukraine began in 2022, the threat of an eventual Russian invasion has once again flown over the horizon. In December 2025, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte warned to the allies (the EU) in the face of a possible attack by Russia in the next five years. Faced with a Russian incursion into Europe, Finland is on the front line. The Nordic country knows it: It has been involving the entire population in defense for decades. Not even supermarkets are spared. The Nordic total defense. Finland, Sweden, Norway and Denmark have been applying a model in which the military and civil sectors operate in combination for decades: the total defense. In short, defense is the responsibility of the entire society, not just the army. This model is also not limited to times of war, but is always active, with courses, drills and contingency plans. And it does not only contemplate a traditional war, but also any threat, such as cyberattacks or sabotage. Of all the Nordic countries, Finland has the most developed system (and Denmark dismantled it almost completely): it did not lower its guard with the end of the cold war and your last update describes comprehensive security as the foundation of resilience in Finnish society. What happens in supermarkets. A practical example of how total defense reaches all levels is in supermarkets: they have the obligation to maintain strategic reserves of essential products, such as flour, sugar or oil; which they keep in cellars or underground bunkers with emergency generators. Thus, no matter what happens, supply to the population is guaranteed. The BBC collects the example of Group S and Kesko, the two largest supermarket chains in the Nordic country: together exceed 80% quota of food retail trade). In addition, they participate in preparation committees alongside administration officials and undergo drills. Why it is important. Because preparing for war in times of war is normal (there is no choice), but doing so and maintaining it in times of peace is more complicated. The Nordic plan requires a social assembly between civil and military society that moves in difficult terrain: can a democratic and market society function as a cohesive defense system without falling into authoritarianism? Considering the Finnish reality, it seems so. Of course, psychologist Jennifer De Paola from the University of Helsinki explains for the English medium that there are two pillars on which this total security is based and makes it unviable for other states: trust in institutions and a high level of social equality. The level of corruption in Finland is very low: it ranks second (out of 182 countries) in the Corruption Perception Index. Spain ranks 49 55. Since childhood. Thinking about a war looming in the future is a frightening possibility because of everything it implies, so this permanent alert mode could potentially be a problem for the emotional stability of the population. It’s no secret that preparing for the worst creates anxiety. Paola tells something curious: when asking children between 10 and 12 years old to draw happy people, I expected to find drawings related to fun. What he found was that they associate happiness with security and unhappiness with insecurity. It is no coincidence: it is the result of decades of socialization in a culture where collective security is a value internalized since childhood. In Xataka | Now that Europe has sent its troops to Greenland, a question emerges that no one wants to ask: what happens if the US invades it? In Xataka | When the USSR declared war, Finland decided to protect its roads in a peculiar way: with flying trees Cover | András Rátonyi and Tara Clark

the 106 kilometers of jungle that no country has been able to pave

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If you like driving, throughout the planet there are some roads so legendary that they invite you to travel them at least once in your life. This is the case of the iconic Route 66 that crosses the United States from Chicago to Los Angeles, the beautiful and curvy Romanian Transfăgărășan or the dangerous Highway of Death in Bolivia. But if you have time and you are in America, there is one to explore the continent practically from start to finish: the Pan-American route. The longest road in the world. The Pan-American Highway It has a length of 17,848 kilometers, which allows it to travel across the American continent from north to south: from Prudhoe Bay in Alaska to Ushuaia, Tierra del Fuego in Argentina. Of course, the figure corresponds only to the main road, but in reality it is a multitude of roads in different countries and characteristics, so that they adapt their layout to areas such as large cities, the coast or the mountains. If we add the variants and branches, it shoots up to 30,000 kilometers, although the Guinness says simply that it is more than 24,140 kilometers through the 14 countries it crosses. The origins. Although originally was glimpsed like a pan-american railroad, at the Fifth International Conference of American States 1923 when the idea took shape like a highway, given the takeoff of the automobile. However, it would take decades for it to materialize: it was at the Convention on the Pan-American Highway when the 14 countries signed the agreement and Mexico the first country to complete its partback in 1950. To choose which route was the best, the “Brazilian Pan-American Highway Expedition” was a pioneer in the task of traveling the continent choosing the most practical route. Lieutenant Leônidas Borges de Oliveira as mission leader, Francisco Lopes da Cruz as observer and Mário Fava as mechanic left Rio de Janeiro on April 16, 1928 with two Model T Fords and arrived in Washington DC ten years later. In figures. Only those 17,848 kilometers of length of its main road already make it the longest route, followed by others such as transsiberian highway (it only runs through Russia and is about 11,000 kilometers) or the Highway 1 Australian 14,500 kilometres. But there are more impressive figures: It travels through 14 countries and connects 10 state capitals. There is only an incomplete section of 106 kilometers. 23 days, 22 hours and 43 minutes is the record time to travel it by car, which is registered in the Guinness Book of World Records. If you drive 8 hours a day, it doesn’t add up Its highest point is in Costa Rica Hill of Deathat about 3,500 meters high. The exception: the Darien plug. Although the Pan-American Highway runs through America from top to bottom, technically this is not the case: there is a hole in the border between Panama and Colombia, the Darién Gap. This jump on the road is in a mountainous and rugged area in the middle of the jungle. That is, the highway ends in Turbo (Colombia) on one side and in Yaviza (Panama) on the other. Mountains, swamps and a dense jungle have been a compelling orographic reason why you cannot cross America continuously by car without leaving that road. However, there have also been environmental and political problems that have prevented the closure of the route. In 1971, the United States, Colombia and Panama they agreed cover this route and their respective economic contributions. However, after environmental protests and a correction in the cost estimate that practically doubled it, the project was stopped. Today there are no active plans to close the Pan-American Highway. A road full of challenges. This environmental wealth reveals a reality, that of the confrontation between the development of infrastructure and the conservation of the environment, as it passes through unique landscapes. Along its route, the Panamericana crosses tropical jungles, the Andes mountain range, deserts or seismic zones that mean that this was not just another highway construction. Access or weather conditions are a challenge for machinery, personnel and materials. And once built, there is the challenge of maintaining a road network across different countries, budgets and standards. In Xataka | The longest straight road in the world is a mental challenge: 240 km without curves, in the middle of the desert and with truck traffic In Xataka | Yes, the V16 beacons transmit your position in the event of an accident. No, the DGT cannot “spy” on you with them Cover | Joseph Corl, FanHabbo and Seaweege

The map of Spain’s exports, a much more industrial country than you think

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In a global world but with tariffs where China is the factory of the world and Germany is the engine of EuropeIt is easy to fall into historical clichés when we talk about the Spanish state and the great Mediterranean classics such as olive oil, ham or wine, but the reality is that Spain exports many more products to the world. Yes, those typical ones appear on the list, but there are other less known ones that are ahead. And if we open the range to products and services, we cannot miss a sector in which it is a world power: tourism. He Atlas of Economic Complexity from the Harvard Kennedy School is a very useful tool from the popular Harvard University, which takes the international trade data that different states report to the United Nations to display them in a single graph after cleaning them with the Bustos-Yildirim method. It includes data from 250 countries and territories, classified into 20 categories of goods and five categories of services, covering more than 6,000 products. The result is an x-ray of what Spain sells to the world and what it reveals does not always coincide with the image we have. The last period of time collected by the Atlas of Economic Complexity is 2024, where we see that the Spanish state exported 590,000 million dollars in more than a dozen sectors. And there is a clear dominant: the service sector. What does Spain sell to the world? 2024 Edition. Harvard Atlas of Economic Complexity Travel and tourism takes over the top left corner, worth $107 billion. It is pure tourism: according to the World Travel & Tourism Councilthat is the spending of international tourists within the territory, 10.9% more than the previous year. It is followed by a generic “Business” and if we take into account other pink portions such as insurance, financial services, transportation or the mixed bag of “Not specified”, we find that this pink band of services is 163,000 million dollars of the total, that is, Services account for 28% of everything that Spain exports. There is life beyond services The second largest rectangle on the graph corresponds to cars, with a value of $37.1 billion. It’s in the upper right corner, in purple: the car is also the first manufactured productbut in third place and well behind two categories of services. As we saw in this map of the European automobile industrythe gold of the sector in the old continent belongs to Germany, but Spain takes the silver, with a share of 16.4% and almost two million cars assembled per year. Next to it is the rectangle of engine parts, with 10,000 million dollars. However, if we add the set of cars, parts and commercial vehicles, the set adds up to about 65 billion dollars. That is to say, that automotive is the second sector that Spain exports the most. From this point on the difference is no longer so much and in fact it can be divided into two. On the one hand and in pink, the chemical block, with medicines as the most prominent industry (more than 12,000 million dollars). The total is around 37 billion dollars. Yellow corresponds to food, which together represents about 45 billion dollars. Here exports are scattered with pork, olive oil, wine or citrus being the most relevant. Outside of these sectors, the most notable is petroleum and refined oil, with just under 9 billion dollars and below 3%. Minerals, machinery, metallurgy, electronics or textiles have even less influence. A global and deeper reading of the map makes it clear that Spain is, in terms of exports, a tourist and agri-food power with a notable automobile and chemical industry. Dependence on tourism is a double-edged sword in that it allows us to take advantage of Spain’s competitive advantages, but at the same time it depends on external factors, such as COVID or emerging markets that can absorb demand with lower prices. And although it is money that comes in without the need to manufacture anything, it does not add complexity: there are no patents or exportable technologies. Furthermore, the quality of employment is lower than other sectors. In short, it is a structural issue: no rich country sustains itself by selling good weather and that is the best invitation to reindustrialize. In Xataka | Who has seen you and who sees you, Spain: Google Maps to find out how it has changed from the 50s to today In Xataka | Wealth inequality by country, explained in a graph: Spain among those where the wealth gap has grown the most Cover | The Atlas of Economic Complexity

The big winner of the Hormuz blockade is the country that the West has tried to suffocate for years: Russia

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The script was written and the West was already celebrating the definitive economic strangulation of Russia. However, geopolitics has a bad habit of blowing up office plans. Today, the world is witnessing a historical paradox: the United States has just opened the back door to Vladimir Putin’s oil to try to stop a global energy collapse. The war between the United States and Israel against Iran has set the markets on fire, pushing up barrel prices above 100 dollars. Faced with the abyss of an unprecedented crisis, diplomacy has had to surrender to the stubborn reality of infrastructure. The “digital fog” and an emergency rescue. To understand the magnitude of the paralysis you have to look at the maritime traffic monitors. As detailed Bloombergthe Strait of Hormuz has become a “digital fog.” The few ships that dare to sail do so by turning off their location transponders (AIS) and suffering constant interference and GPS spoofing (spoofing) fruit of electronic warfare. In this scenario of physical suffocation, India was on the brink of collapse. The Asian giant is heavily dependent on imports from the Middle East, and the closure of Hormuz has cut off its rennet supplies. Reuters reported last week that state refineries like MRPL (Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd.) have been forced to close entire processing units due to the simple and simple shortage of crude oil. The unexpected lifesaver? In a turn of events, the US administration has had to swallow its own sanctions. As confirmed The Moscow Times and it is observed in the official OFAC document (the Treasury Department’s General License 133), the United States has issued a temporary 30-day waiver, valid until April 4, 2026, allowing Indian refiners to purchase Russian oil loaded on vessels by March 5. Paradoxically, how to explain BloombergIndia had drastically reduced its purchases from Moscow at the beginning of the year after facing the threat of punitive 50% tariffs from Trump himself. Now, cornered by the crisis, dozens of Russian oil tankers that were wandering aimlessly are changing their coordinates on the high seas to come to the rescue of Indian ports. The political story versus the reality of the market. Officially, Washington tries to minimize the impact of this capitulation. In statements collected by The Kyiv Independentthe US Secretary of Energy, Chris Wright, assured that “there is no change in policy towards Russia” and that the exemption is only a “pragmatic decision.” For his part, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent defended that this measure “will not provide significant financial benefits to the Russian government” as it is applied only to crude oil stranded at sea. But the reality of the markets tells a very different story. According to CNBCRussian crude oil of the Ural variety has gone from being sold with humiliating discounts of between 10 and 20 dollars, to being traded at a historical premium of between 2 and 4 dollars above the barrel of Brent in its deliveries to India. This injection of capital to Moscow has unleashed an internal political storm. The Democrats They have demanded Trump to immediately reverse the exemption, accusing him of strengthening an adversary. From the humanitarian field, the NGO Global Witness, cited by Guardian, has been blunt, accusing the White House of “feeding Putin’s war machine” to cover up a price crisis that the United States itself has unleashed. Putin rubs his hands. To understand the magnitude of the Russian victory, you have to look at where they were just a month ago. Bloomberg, in your market analysishighlights that Russian exports were under unprecedented pressure. The Kremlin had nearly 140 million barrels stuck in the sea (65% more than usual), and was forced into a suicidal price war against Iran to try to place its surpluses in the limited Chinese refineries. Overnight, the Hormuz blockade removed all of its Middle Eastern competition from the equation. The crisis has been a gift from heaven. From Moscow they don’t even hide. How to collect CNBCKremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov publicly boasted to the press: “We are seeing a significant increase in demand for Russian energy resources in connection with the war in Iran,” reminding the world that Russia “remains a reliable supplier.” Hurt pride and a sea of ​​uncertainty. As Russian ships sail south, the battle of public perception rages in India. Although in the BBC estimates that the country It barely has crude oil reserves for about 25 days, the Indian government is trying to project absolute calm. As reported Mashable Indiaauthorities insist that “there is no shortage in the world.” However, on social networks the narrative is one of deep sovereignist indignation. Politicians like Rajiv Shukla cried out on social network X against American paternalism: “Who is the United States to dictate to us that we can only buy oil from Russia for a month?” Added to this is the harsh reality that there are no easy alternatives. Although Saudi Arabia or the United Arab Emirates They have pipelines to bypass the Strait of Hormuz, its maximum capacity barely covers a fraction of the 20 million barrels per day that the world has just lost. The laws of thermodynamics do not understand sanctions. This whole scenario returns us to a conclusion that We already analyzed in the recent crisis of the Druzhba pipeline in Europe. The West has spent years writing laws, imposing price caps and signing embargoes on elegant offices to isolate Russia. But geopolitics always ends up submitting to mathematics and thermodynamics. While China watches the crisis calmly, with its reserves filled to the brim after years of silent strategic purchases, the European Union and the United States have had to swallow their own sanctions in record time to avoid collapse. The energy embargo on Russia has proven to be a gigantic house of cards; It only took someone to cut off the passage through the Strait of Hormuz for everything to collapse. Image | Coded and kremlin.ru Xataka | The EU has a perfect plan to suffocate Russia. The … Read more

Europe has reached the end of winter with depleted gas reserves. A country has a model to save it: Spain

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This winter, which is coming to an end, is being colder than expected, something that as we have seen has caused havoc. Without going any further, there have been planes that have not been able to fly due to lack of antifreeze. If we talk about gas for heating, storage has also reached red numbers: the Netherlands has a reserve of approximately 12%, Germany and France are around 21%, according to AGSI data. In this low-minimum scenario, there are two countries that deviate from the norm: Spain and Portugal, with reserves of 56.87% and 76.7%, respectively. Of course, the difference in capacity is abysmal: 3.57 TWh for the first and 35.9 TWh for the second. It is not a coincidence: it is that the Spanish state has a particular infrastructure that has led it to this point. The context. The conflict between Ukraine and Russia that began in 2022 accelerated the independence of the old continent from Russian gas. Among the measures from Brussels, an emergency rule by which all EU member states had to start the winter with their gas reserves at 90% to ensure supply. However, in 2025 the EU decided to maintain that 90% target. but relaxing the norm to optimize costs. This greater flexibility together with a harsher than expected winter has brought an end to winter with reserves that are at their lowest in the last five years. The harsh European winter. In mid-January, deposits fell below 50%. If the winter ends with a capacity of 30%, Europe will have to inject 60 billion cubic meters of gas. To get an idea, approximately the annual gas consumption of all of Germany. In short, Europe has to refill its tanks in the summer and it will need a lot of imported gas to do so, which means go out into the market and face other competitors and the logistics of bringing it here in an increasingly complicated geopolitical scenario. The Spanish strategy. The Spanish gas storage system is based on two pillars: underground storage and LNG regasification. The second leg is providential, insofar as it is where Spain makes the difference and, furthermore, It is a powerhouse. In fact, Spain owns 35% of all LNG storage capacity in the EU, how Sedigas collects. Its enormous regasification capacity enables diversification of origin, with USA as first supplier with 44.4% of the total gas and another 15 different countries later, according to Enagás data. Spain has an infrastructure of seven plants that makes it possible to receive LNG ships from different sources, thus ensuring supply in case any mishap (technical problems, conflicts, political decisions) fails. Spain started the winter making decisions. Although the previous strategy gives it an advantage over other member states, Spain adopted a conservative strategy When facing this winter 25/26, adjusting to concentrate reserves in January and February, the coldest and with the most demand. A management decision to not waste that cushion prematurely. He was absolutely right: in January gas consumption rose 10.2% compared to the previous year, with a 30% increase in that destined to generate electricity because renewables contributed less than expected. Spain plays in another league. Thanks to its infrastructure, Spain no longer only consumes gas: it re-exports it. It has become a hub for redistributing gas to Europe as a kind of energy logistics platform, providing geopolitical and economic value to a state that, due to its geographical location, is isolated (which, for example, in the electrical field plays tricks on him) Is there real risk? While it is true that widespread shortages are not expected, there are localized risks in Europe. As summarizes El Economista, Spain has precedents of similar levels, such as 2016, 2017, 2019, 2022, where supply was not compromised. Of course, we will have to see what happens with the demand for LNG in summer globally, because it could make European replenishment significantly more expensive. In any case, Spain will get to that moment better than most. The scenario is not very rosy at the moment, precisely, with the Strait of Hormuz closed and the diplomatic crisis between Spain and the US, its main supplier. In Xataka | Europe believed it had won the gas war against Russia. Now it faces a much more uncomfortable reality: its dependence on the United States. In Xataka | The gas market becomes unpredictable: we have tanks full and ships on the way, but the price remains an enigma Cover | Pronor

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