exception

Europe wants to put an end to the particular Iberian exception of the Spanish train. And Spain has a clear answer: no.

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There are investments and investments. More or less necessary. More or less large. But there are also more or less viable ones. And, of course, the Ministry of Transport considers that the European Commission’s proposal to change all roads from Iberian gauge to international gauge is anything but viable. And they have a good reason: 30,000 million euros. What does Europe want? In October 2025, The European Commission presented its project to cement, once and for all, the connection between Madrid and Lisbon with high-speed trains. After many delays, if the plans are fulfilled and both cities end up being united in 2030 with a single train, high speed will arrive on this line 20 years late. In the writing The bases that the routes must follow are reflected and there is an important paragraph in them: With the ambition to fully integrate the Lisbon–Madrid high-speed rail connection into the broader high-speed network in Spain and France, adopting the European standard nominal gauge of 1,435 mm is a key step. In this way, the competitiveness of long-distance passenger traffic will be strengthened. By connecting Portugal and Spain, and extending to France, the Lisbon–Madrid high-speed rail connection has a clear cross-border and Union dimension In it it is clear that we are talking about the Madrid-Lisbon line but on the occasion of this text, public entities must study the economic viability of migrating the railway network to the international gauge and definitively abandoning the Iberian gauge. The answer. No. Simple and concise. According to The Countrya medium that claims to have had access to internal documents of the Ministry of Transportation, the Government’s response to this migration is a resounding “no.” The reasons are as simple as that it would take 30 years of works and an investment of 30,000 million euros to reverse the Iberian exceptionalism of the Spanish and Portuguese train. In the documents that Spain will present to Brussels, it is specified that the matter is not viable in its entirety or in part since the possibility of installing “third threads or lanes to achieve mixed widths” was contemplated, they explain in the medium. No, no and no. They explain in The Country that the Ministry of Transportation rejects all the options that have been put on the table: Changing exclusively the lines of the European corridors: it would leave, according to Transport, more than 5,000 km of the network isolated. Implement a mixed width with third rails or threads: discarded due to the complexity of the work and the high maintenance cost Change all Iberian gauge roads: Transport considers it unapproachable although it has been the most studied option because it is ideal. What is this track width? Spain, since the 19th century it has lived in an Iberian exceptionality next to Portugal. Throughout this century, the railway was gaining followers all over the world. During its expansion, the lines were built with different track widths, taking into account the particularities of the terrain. In Europe, the number of tracks built with a width of 1,435 mm multiplied and ended up becoming established. Everything above it is considered “wide gauge” and below it as “narrow gauge” because those 1,435 mm were accepted as the standard. This is how the international gauge was born. In Spain, however, we chose to build our railway network on a track gauge of 1,672 millimeters, defended by three engineers who were entrusted with the task of projecting the future of the Spanish train. They argued that a wider track width allowed the use of more powerful locomotives and that this was essential in a mountainous country like ours. And the consequences? The consequences were immediate. Already in the middle of the 19th century From Portugal they asked Spain by letter to desist from building their roads with this new gauge because they would be isolated from Europe. And the problem, evidently, was greater for Portugal, which was dragged along by the Spanish decision. Spain, as you imagine, did not give up and now lives between three gauges of road: the international one (for about 4,000 km of high speed), the Iberian one (for 13,000 km of Cercanías) and the metric width (1,210 km for especially mountainous terrain). This is a problem for connectivity between tracks because trains cannot jump from one to another, except for the Talgo Avril. And it’s an advantage. At least for Renfe. And Renfe can take advantage of this particularity in some very specific points on the Peninsula. For example, in Madrid-Galicia, international gauge and Iberian gauge are used, already in the Galician part. Only Renfe has trains that can jump from one track gauge to another, so competition is eliminated. And the same will happen in Portugal. The connection between Madrid and Lisbon is being built on an international gauge but the Portuguese high-speed line between Lisbon and Porto will operate on an Iberian gauge. This leaves Renfe as the only company that could operate a Madrid-Porto train passing through Lisbon without the need to transfer. Now it is better understood why Renfe will invest in converting the Avrils fixed gauge on variable gauge trains and why Transportes believes that Portugal is a great market opportunity. Photo | Falk2 In Xataka | Renfe offers its juiciest contract: 4,000 million euros to buy trains. And everything indicates that he will not stay in Spain

A job offer without salary is a half offer. These Spanish technology companies are the exception

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Let me put you in a situation: you are looking for a job and you find an offer that broadly appeals to you, so you apply. Of course, the offer does not say how much you are going to charge, but you give it a chance. Your CV passes the first filter and you end up in some personal interview where they ask you the tricky question of “How much do you expect to earn?” and after dodging the bullet using Bill Gates trickthey end up revealing a salary range that doesn’t fit you. What a waste of time. Unfortunately, it has happened to (almost) everyone. Fewer companies do this transparency exercise than they should, but we have good news: in the absence of the Spanish government transposing the European pay transparency law to remedy it (it is late: the deadline expired on June 7), there is a list of technological employment companies that operate in Spain that do say how much they pay in their job offers. The pasta list. The Getmanfred platform created and maintains This public list on GitHub which Borja Pérez, Rebeca Méndez and Raúl Cotrina are in charge of reviewing and updating by hand by looking at the employment portals of each respective company: if the salary appears, they add to this list. There are more than fifty corporations, from Spanish startups like TaxDown or Landbot to large international companies like GitLab or DuckDuckGo, including Newtral, Mercadona Tech or PcComponentes. Not all of them are there, but they are all that are and if yours does not appear, you can always write to them to remedy it. Why it is important. Because information is power: when you don’t know how much a company pays, you’re at a disadvantage from the start. Furthermore, in general we tend to underestimate the salaries earned in other companies in the sector and this happens even more in low-paying jobs, according to this MIT study. Knowing the conditions from the beginning saves time, energy and disappointment. Salary opacity has a real social cost: in the Spanish state, women earn on average 4,781 euros less per year than men, a gap of 15.74% according to the INE with data from 2023. That salaries are a secret makes it much more difficult to detect and correct these inequalities. Context. Europe has been trying to resolve this by law for years. The Directive 2023/970 of the European Parliament approved in 2023 obliges companies to publish salary information and take corrective measures if their gender gap exceeds 5%. Spain has a previous rule, the Royal Decree 902/2020which required internal records, but the new directive goes much further. The interesting thing about Getmanfred’s project is that it includes the voluntary movement: companies that are ahead of mandatory requirements precisely because transparency (and the conditions) constitute an advantage for attracting talent. In detail. The repository is simple: a table with names and a link to their job portal: there is no automation or data scraping, but rather anyone can contribute to updating the list. In the table, the majority are tech with a remote work culture and Anglo-Saxon origin and just as important as those that are there are those that are not: large Spanish corporations are missing, since there is no trace of banks or traditional consulting firms. Yes, but. That a company makes public the salary of an offer could make one think that it is because it is an incentive, but this is not always the case. Come on, you are going to find some miserable salaries that show a reality: that of low salaries in Spain. On the other hand, there are “transparencies” that are of little use: if the range is “between 30,000 and 70,000 euros”, the information is not very valuable. Likewise, this directory also does not say anything about what happens within these companies: if they pay men and women the same, if the ranges they publish correspond to what they really offer or what criteria there are to move within the published range. In Xataka | If the question is in which country in the world the salary is highest, this graph has the answer: in Spain we could do worse In Xataka | The best paid jobs in Spain in 2026: from 56,000 euros for a doctor to 250,000 for directing private banking Cover | Ron Lach and Atlantic Ambience and Sora Shimazaki

Every time we have placed a GPS on wild boars they have surprised us. The last one in Spain has been no exception

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A team of researchers who followed wild boars with GPS in several European cities discovered something unexpected: Animals did not necessarily avoid human presence, but rather learned to live with it by modifying their schedules and behaviors until they became practically invisible. Scientists went so far as to describe this ability as one of the secrets to their success in environments where, in theory, they should feel more threatened. What each GPS reveals. The truth is that researchers have spent years placing GPS collars to wild boars to better understand how they live, move and survive in increasingly humanized landscapes. The striking thing is that each new follow-up seems to dismantle some preconceived idea. In some cases they have discovered unexpected routes, in others a constant presence near human activities and, recentlya behavior that perplexed even experts with decades of experience. Far from hiding in the most closed and dense shelters, some specimens have developed much more subtle strategies to go unnoticed: remaining motionless in places that are apparently not suitable for hiding and trusting in their ability to blend in with the environment. The wild boar that went viral. One of the most surprising cases was that of a young French wild boar named Phiphi. For almost two years, a GPS collar allowed us to follow each of its movements and revealed that the animal frequently used open areas to restsomething that contradicts the traditional image of the wild boar taking refuge in the densest vegetation. He often lay next to a few ferns or under the minimal protection of an isolated tree in the middle of a clearing. The strategy seemed simple but effective: stay completely still and take advantage of the natural camouflage to practically become part of the landscape. Even when her necklace disappeared for weeks and was later found by hunters, the discovery occurred again in an open area, reinforcing the idea that his success consisted precisely in hiding where no one expected to look for him. Movements of an adult wild boar marked with a GPS collar in the surroundings of a pig farm over the course of a week, evidencing the constant use of the immediate surroundings of the livestock facilities The invisible visitors. He latest scientific work By placing GPS on the animals, he has discovered something that not even the ranchers could have imagined. The studies carried out in Spain by IREC researchers They placed GPS on wild boars in Aragon, Catalonia and Murcia to analyze the risk of transmission of African Swine Fever. The results showed that these animals usually frequent the surroundings of intensive pig farms. without attracting attention of the ranchers. Signs of wild boar activity were detected in nearly half of the farms analyzed, even though many officials claimed not having seen any. The technology showed that the animals visited slurry ponds, feeding areas and other sensitive points discreetly and constantly, revealing a reality completely different from the perception of those who work daily in these facilities. A greater health risk than it seemed. The finding has important implications because the main danger does not lie in direct contact between wild boars and pigs, something relatively rare in intensive farms. The problem arises through indirect connections. Vehicles, clothing, tools or materials can act as a bridge between the environment used by wild boars and farms. The silent presence of these animals in the vicinity multiplies the opportunities for the transmission of diseases such as African swine fevera particularly worrying threat for a country that leads European pork production. The birth of a new tool. All this information has been used to develop the first scientific protocol specific external biosecurity against African Swine Fever in intensive pig farms. Unlike traditional approaches based on general recommendations, the new system analyzes each farm individually, studies its environment, evaluates its weak points and proposes measures adapted to the real risk. The objective is to move from theoretical protection to prevention based on specific data obtained in the field, incorporating for the first time the real behavior of wild boars into the health defense strategy. A species that continues to keep secrets. The common lesson that unites all these studies The fact is that the wild boar continues to surprise those who think they know it well. GPS has shown that it can be hidden in unexpected placesmove around livestock farms without being detected and exploit small vulnerabilities in the human landscape with remarkable effectiveness. Each new monitoring provides information that forces us to review what was taken for granted about the species. And if these works show anything, it is that a good part of the wild boar’s success lies precisely in its ability to be very close to us without us barely noticing its presence. Image | PXHere, A. Savin In Xataka | Neither drones nor snipers: wild boar hunters in Barcelona have a simpler natural and home remedy In Xataka | Putin has become obsessed with eternal life. And that’s why he has scientists experimenting with organs in pigs

Pirates have turned the Red Sea into hell for ships around the world. With an exception: the Chinese

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The Red Sea right now is the main commercial route around the world and millions European industries depend on it to be able to receive products from the Asian continent. But in recent months, it has become one of the most dangerous seas on the planet, taking months blocked by the attack of pirates. With an exception. Chinese ships can go through these waters and nothing happens to them. They are even protected. The Red Sea as a forbidden area. Since the Hutí Militia de Yemen, with the support of Iran, will start an assault campaign at the end of 2023 In retaliation for the situation in Gaza, this area has become a dangerous area. Sunk charges, attacked crews and a climate of total insecurity that forced giants such as Master or Hapag-Lloyd to deviate through the horn of Africa. Something that implies Add to the navigation plan between 14 and 18 days. Something that also represents a higher cost. China’s ships have ‘white letter’. Something that has been observed since April, and that has reported the maritime intelligence firm Lloyd’s List Intelligence, is that Nothing happens to Chinese ships. In this way, they have seen how fourte The insurmountable rorowhich sailed from China and crossed the Bab el-Mandeb Strait and the Red Sea for Europe, did not have to give a detour. The most interesting thing is the content they had inside: Chinese brands electric vehicles such as Byd or Mg. This is a pattern that clearly shows that there is an agreement behind. A tactical pact that is worth gold. Neither Beijing, nor Tehran, nor the hutis leaders have issued an official statement, but the evidence and geopolitical context draw a mutual interest agreement. The hutis, which They declare to attack ships with Israeli linksAmericans or British, seem to have received a clear instruction: ships that come from China have the free passage. The key to this immunity lies in China’s powerful influence on Iranthe main economic and military support of the hutis. China is the biggest Iranian oil buyer, a commercial relationship that is a lifeguard for the Persian economy. In exchange for this support, Beijing exercises a ability to persuasion in the region that no other power can match. Analysts like Daniel Nash, from the consultant Veson Nautical, Point out that “China has found a way of dealing with the huti rebels backed by Iran, and they have been told that their ships will not be attacked.” This “salvoconduct” not only applies to Chinese flag ships, but also to those of other nationalities chartered by Chinese manufacturers to transport their vehicles. Meanwhile, other Chinese ships that do not wear cars continue to opt for the African route to avoid risks. The secret weapon against European tariffs. For Chinese manufacturers, this shortcut is much more than simple logistics savings; It is a strategic weapon to be able to conquer the European market. Right now, the European Union, in an attempt to protect its own industry, has imposed tariffs of up to 35% To Chinese electric vehicles, claiming that they benefit from unfair state subsidies. Although now They study withdraw them. However, the savings of the Red Sea route helps to compensate for the impact of tariffs, causing the final price to consumers to remain very attractive. The competitors have felt the consequences. Brands like Tesla, Volvo, Suzuki or even suppliers like Michelin They have suffered strikes in their European factories As a result of deliveries in deliveries because ships have to give a greater rodeo. In this way, brands settled in Europe have to pay consequences, while China can overcome them without problems. Floating cities for the conquest of Europe. Far from being a temporary solution, China is betting strongly on this route. Chinese shipyards work in full performance To deliver to Byd and SAIC new ships to wear their vehicles. And it is that these ships such as the “Byd Explorer No.1” or the “Anji Ansheng” of Saic are authentic floating cities with capacity for more than 7,000 vehicles, designed to optimize mass transport through sea. Chinese cars begin to be an important alternative. In the case of Spain, Sales of Chinese electric cars They don’t stop growing with the Saic group at the head and next to Grupo Chery with their Omoda and Byd, which has also opted for hybrid cars. This way, China is flooding European with its cars as It is being seen in enrollments. And partly it is for this type of strategies. In Xataka | There are those who believe that being rich is a sufficient requirement to have a Ferrari. The most important thing is something else: Ferrari fell well

The world is drinking less wine than ever. Spain is the exception

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The world is drinking less wine than ever. Or at least, less than ever in the last six decades. In 2024, consumption fell for the third consecutive year to the minimum of the early sixties, according to the data of the International Wine Organization cited by Chain ser. Only one country goes in the opposite direction: Spain. Why is it important. This change in the trend of consumption is a threat to a key sector of many economies, including Spanish. Spain is the second country in the world on the surface of vineyards and the third in production. It is a employment generator, exports, and in part, of Spanish cultural identity. In figures. In 2024 … Global consumption stayed at 214 million hectoliters. Minimum figure since 1961. Spain remained in a consumption of about 10 million hectoliters, which in fact is very close to being its postpandemics record. That meant a 1.2% increase in consumption compared to 2023. In context. It is not that there are many people renouncing the wine, but that they drink less frequently and more selectively. There are more consumers, but with other patterns: it is drunk with greater moderation, the Alcohol without alcoholand there is greater social pressure to avoid excess. In addition, young people do not have the habit that their parents or grandparents did more frequently: accompanying meals with wine daily. Between the lines. Wine is less and less everyday to become something more linked to a whim. Less volume, more premium. In that line, global consumption has fallen, but not the interest in wines of a certain category. In fact, in Spain the food channel has risen in value (+2.7%) although it falls in volume (-0.5%). And now what. The wine industry, which You already have your own problems in Spainhas a dilemma: either adapt to the new consumer or continue losing presence in the face of new habits. The young audience, which drinks differently and in less quantity, is the key. The classic model, based on volume, tradition and hospitality, is not enough. Spain, who continues to drink, can mark the way. In Xataka | The “natural wine” has become fashionable. There is a place where he takes centuries without so much hype: Mass Outstanding image | Lily combs in Unspash

Not the entire peninsula was left without stable access to the Internet, there was an exception: "Starlink was better than usual"

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When the light left yesterday I did not alarmed. Then I realized that I did not have data, nor could I make calls, and I knew something fat It had passed. Starlink was the exception. Without wifi, or mobile connection, many are completely incommunicado. And although some operators they managed to partially restore the service With the generators of their cell towers, only users of Starlink They had means to feed the router and the antenna enjoyed a stable and fast connection throughout the day. With more than 7,000 Starlink satellites in orbitthe constellation of Spacex worked in the Iberian Peninsula without major problem. Satellites have the capacity to communicate with each other and, although they depend on land stations to access the Internet, they have backup equipment in case of energy loss, such as generators, solar panels and batteries. Youtuber Redskull maintained its Internet connection with Starlink and a cargo station A youtuber in the Malaga axarchy. Known as Redskull On YouTube, Alex ran out of light in the province of Malaga between 12:30 and 17:45, but did not recover the mobile connection until the next day. However, he continued connected through Starlink. “It worked throughout the time that the light cut lasted,” he told Xataka. “The discharge and climb speeds were even better than usual: about 300 MB of discharge and 30 mb of climb.” The smallest number of customers using the service by the blackout explains the latter. “Normally, at night, Starlink’s speeds are lower because the network is more congested. Yesterday it was not so.” Alex solved the lack of light with a huge external battery, the Jackery Explorer 1000 V2 Energy Station, which gave him for 12 hours of use, including the feeding of a mesh network that has installed in his house to improve the Wi -Fi coverage. However, he did not need to consume the load during the day thanks to a solar panel of 100 W. The Graells family maintained its Internet connection with Starlink, Solar Energy and Batteries Teleworking in a town in Barcelona. The Graells family He has solar panels and batteries of Tesla in his house, a single -family house of L’Ametlla del Vallès where two people telework. They only found out of the blackout due to the notification of the Tesla app because they also have a Starlink connection. “The connection was the same as any day, very good for particular use,” Eduardo Graells told Xataka. “Ping of 22 ms. Download of about 150-200mbps. Upload of about 15mbps. It was used from the early morning without any interruption until 18:00. At 20:00 we used it for YouTube and some series. Electricity returned to our area at 2:30 in the morning.” In Xataka While almost all Spain immersed in chaos, a place continued to function normally: Mercadona Despite the 14 hours of the blackout, the Graells lived a normal day with an eye on the battery, which went from 70% at the time of light cut to 40% when the supply was recovered. “Starlink can have some disconnection of 1-2 seconds when it seems to change satellite, and very occasionally. You just notice if you are talking in a videoconference. Watching movies, football, formula 1, etc., do not notice, I imagine that for the buffer.” Five stations in Spain. Starlink ends Open two terrestrial stations of Starlink In the Iberian Peninsula, one in the province of Barcelona and another in Santa Olalla, province of Toledo. There are already five, added to the three in Madrid, Huelva and Alicante. And as we have seen, resistant to blackout. {“Videid”: “X86xfvs”, “Autoplay”: False, “Title”: “Starlink arrives in Spain! This is the satellite Internet of Elon Musk”, “Tag”: “Webedia-Prod”, “Duration”: “279” These stations are small, but recognizable by the numerous phase antennas, covered with white domes. They maintain the connection of the constellation with the control centers and serve as link doors for the traffic of Internet Starlink customers. Basically, they act as intermediaries, receiving data from satellites and sending them to Internet networks. Image | Starlink In Xataka | Starlink satellites have transformed war: China and Russia work on “Starlink Killers” to be able to disable them (Function () {Window._js_modules = Window._js_modules || {}; var headelement = document.getelegsbytagname (‘head’) (0); if (_js_modules.instagram) {var instagramscript = Document.Createlement (‘script’); }}) (); – The news Not the entire peninsula was left without stable Internet access, there was an exception: “Starlink was better than usual” It was originally posted in Xataka by Matías S. Zavia .

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