ghost

the ghost of drought has not yet gone away

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Spain’s reservoirs accumulate water. Quite. The balance published on Monday by the Government shows that the water reserve is at 73.4% of its capacity, which is equivalent to about 41,100 cubic hectometers (hm3), almost 3,000 more than last year and 9,300 than the average of the last decade. Now, that does not mean that Spain can breathe free from the specter of water cuts. On the contrary. Reserves have been declining for months while warnings echo of those who remember that droughts must be solved with the swamps still full. There is a revealing fact: the water reserve has been reducing since may and Galicia activated weeks ago the pre-alert for “moderate shortages” in several areas. The percentage: 73.4%. That is the level of occupancy of the reservoirs. He last balance from the Ministry for the Ecological Transition and Demographic Challenge (Miteco) shows that the swamps of peninsular Spain, with a capacity of 56,042 hm3, currently store 41,110. If we go down to detail we see that there are areas in which the stock is much higher and others in which it is clearly lower. In Júcar the reserves are at 60.8% and in Galicia-Costa at 65.2% while in the internal basins of the Basque Country or Catalonia they exceed 85%. In general, the Atlantic side remains at 74.8% and the Mediterranean side is around 68.8%. Is it a bad balance? No. Not at least if we take into account the panorama that Spain faced in other years at this point in the summer. At the end of July 2025, the country’s dams they remained at 68.4%with just over 38,300 hm3 of water, and there were certain regions in which the outlook was very worrying. The water reserve stored in the Segura basin It didn’t even reach 29%when now exceeds 56%. In general, Miteco itself recognizes that the dammed water is higher than that of a year ago and the average for the last decade, which is at 31,831 hm3. This is the case in both the Atlantic and the Mediterranean. It’s not all good news. No. And that’s probably the most important part. Perhaps the current water outlook is not bad, especially if we compare it with that of recent years, but there is one fact that cannot be omitted either: reserves have been declining for months and there is no hope of that changing. In fact, this negative trend can be traced back to May 19, when Miteco calculated that the reservoirs were above the 84% of its capacity. A month later that indicator had already dropped to 80.1% and on Monday it was at 73.4%. Dams that empty. A quick Google search comes up to find news about swamps that are slowly emptying. It happens with the Ciudad Real reservoirs and Salamanca or in Andalusia and Estremadurato cite a handful of examples. In Galicia the Xunta even went one step further and opted two weeks ago for activating the “pre-alert for moderate water shortage” in the Lérez and Anllóns and Costa da Coruña river systems up to the border with Arteixo. In Vigo have activated also the pre-alert. There at the beginning of the month the mayor, Abel Caballero, assured that there was water for five months and that its main dam, Eiras, has fewer reserves than it accumulated around the same time in 2017, the year in which the region suffered one of its worst droughts. How is that possible? Very easy, due to the peculiar meteorology that Spain is encountering this year. The winter was very rainy. So much so that Miteco calculates that it was the eighth with the most rainfall since it began collecting data on the subject, in 1961. So far in the 21st century there has only been two others in which the most water was collected, 2000-2001 and 2009-2010. This explains why in March the reservoirs accumulated just over 46,800 hm3 of water for human, agricultural and industrial consumption, 83.5% of its capacity. In the entire historical series there is no March with a better indicator. From that stage we went to a spring particularly “dry”during which 75% of what has been normal for that season between 1991 and 2020 was collected on the peninsula. In June the change was even more radical. The Aemet calculates that the average precipitation in peninsular Spain was just 12.4 mm“which represents 39% of the normal value for the month,” he clarifies. In the historical archive From the agency there are only two Junes in which the umbrella was less needed. “It is worth thinking about the drought”. It is not about being catastrophic with the reservoirs at 73.4% of its capacity, but it is advisable to keep in mind reflections such as the one I left in April in The Conversation Jorge Rodríguez-Chueca, professor at the Polytechnic University of Madrid (UPM). Despite the good water reserve data that Spain had at that time, the expert warned: “It is at this time when it is appropriate to think about the drought.” The reason is very simple: strategies must be drawn up when there is still water in the swamps, not when we have dragged on for months with hardly any rain. date hm3 of dammed water Water reserve (%) 05/19/2026 47,178 84.2 06/02/2026 46,593 83.1 06/16/2026 45,672 81.5 06/30/2026 43,955 78.4 06/14/2026 42,192 75.3 06/21/2026 41,110 73.4 The other figure: 32,000 hm3. Although the copious winter rains had allowed Spain leave behind the state of drought that the country has been dragging since 2021Rodríguez-Chueca insisted: “It is now, when the reservoirs are full, when the drought must be addressed through planning and awareness.” “The amount of water impounded is only a specific image, not a guarantee for the future,” insisted the UPM expert before slipping in a key piece of information: Spain’s annual consumption is around 32,000 hm3. “Drought does not appear suddenly, it is a cumulative process. If consumption remains high, the system may seem safe. But if it also rains less, … Read more

Europe believed that the Russian ghost fleet moved oil. Report points to something much worse: drone “aircraft carriers”

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During the First World War, the United Kingdom created the called Q-ships: Seemingly harmless merchant ships that hid cannons under their decks to attract German submarines and surprise them when they approached. The idea of ​​turning a commercial ship into a weapon It wasn’t new.. The striking thing is that, more than a century later, it could have evolved much more than we imagined. It all started with some drones. At the end of 2024 they began to register drone raids on several American military bases in England and, shortly after, on other strategic facilities in Germany. The devices appeared and disappeared without a trace, forcing investigations to be opened that they never identified publicly to those responsible. Those flights seemed like another episode in Europe’s growing hybrid war, although a new report maintains that the true origin could have been much further from the coast. Capture of the IISS report The hypothesis. a study from the International Institute for Strategic Studies maintains that it is “highly probable” that Russia used ships linked to its well-known ghost fleet as platforms to launch and recover drones. This network of oil tankers and merchants had been associated until now with crude oil transportation to avoid Western sanctions. If the hypothesis ends up being confirmed, those ships would have also played a military function much more sophisticated covert. A tanker can become an aircraft carrier. They counted TWZ analysts that the great advantage of a merchant ship is precisely that no one expects it to act as a military platform. A ship can remain for days in international waters, discreetly approach the coast, launch a reconnaissance drone and continue its trade route without raising suspicion. Compared to an aircraft carrier, whose presence is impossible to hide, a cargo ship offers perfect cover for operations that are difficult to attribute. The chosen bases. The targets included facilities such as RAF Lakenheathwhich is being prepared for host nuclear weapons American, as well as RAF Mildenhall, RAF Fairford, RAF Feltwell and Ramstein air base in Germany. The researchers collected around of 170 citizen noticesof which approximately half were considered credible after being corroborated by several witnesses or images. They also detected coordinated flight patternsdifferent types of aircraft and trajectories incompatible with recreational use. The sea offers an explanation. The report poses that some drones were able to take off from Russian-related ships located out of visual range of the coast. Among the possibilities is the Orlan-10a military drone with sufficient autonomy to cover these distances and equipped with intelligence sensors, surveillance, reconnaissance and even electronic warfare capabilities. The authors themselves recognize that using an identifiable military model would increase the risk of attribution, so they do not rule out the use of modified commercial drones to make it even more difficult to trace their origin. The boss worries. Plus: the study’s authors admit that their conclusions rest on a combination of cluesknown capabilities and geographical coincidences, not on definitive public evidence. No European government has officially linked a specific ship to a specific incursion, although various policymakers have called for new investigations. For their part, both the British Ministry of Defense and the US Air Force in Europe have confirmed drone flights, but remain silent on any intelligence information related to their possible authorship. The hybrid war. If the hypothesis is correct, the problem would no longer be solely the existence of a ghost fleet dedicated to transporting Russian oil. Europe would also have to assume that some of those same ships can serve as discrete platforms for espionage operationsreconnaissance or electronic warfare hundreds of kilometers from the front. In other words, the biggest threat of the report is not to identify who launched those drones, but to propose that a simple merchant ship could play part of the role that until now was only attributed to an aircraft carrier. Image | Google In Xataka | Europe has encountered a problem bigger than Russia: drones cannot be stored for more than eight weeks In Xataka | Cities such as London or Madrid appear on Russia’s new objective map. The reason: drone production

The biggest problem for Spanish olive trees is neither costs nor climate change: it is ‘ghost oil’

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Something smells bad in the olive oil market. We knew it for a long timebut it is now with the collapse of prices at source (almost 46%) that everyone has become nervous. The figures do not add up and the bill will not be paid by the large olive oil groups, but by the small producers. For this reason, on June 15, a COAG representative stood in front of the microphones and reported that 81% of olive oil Tunisian was entering Spain undercover. But how do you put 65,500 tons of oil under the radar? It has not been easy to determine, the truth is. But if the organization is right, the oil ship has more than one leak compromising its future. But it doesn’t have it. Always according to the COAGa good part of that oil comes from Portugal. But the ‘Portuguese way’ does not add up: with the data from the 2024-2025 campaign, Portugal produces between 160,000 and 195,000 tons of its own and imported only 3,406 of Tunisian oil. Those 3,406 tons cannot explain the 131,877 that it re-exports to Spain. Some part yes, but not all of it. And then? The problem seems different. It looks like ours, in fact. Because what COAG does seem to be right about is that a good part of the oil that entered the country did so under a special regime: that of active development. It is a formula of the Customs Code of the European Union that allows the importation of non-EU merchandise without tariffs or VAT as long as it is transformed and exported again. What the producers point out is that a good part of the oil that arrives in Spain to be “perfected” ends up being sold in the country without appearing in the statistics (marked, in fact, as community). The consumer does not notice it substantially in the price, but it is noticeable at the source. And a lot. But there is more. A few years ago, honey became a problem. Nobody really knew what they were eating in Europe. The key to this was to mix it up. Above all, because with completely insufficient regulation, it was enough to put “mix” so that there was nothing more to ask. This was attempted to be resolved with Directive (EU) 2024/1438 (the “Breakfast Guidelines“) which has not come into force in Spain until June 14, 2026. Among many other things, Brussels demands that the package states where what is inside comes from. Easy, clean, effective and… …non-existent for oil. The big problem, as almost always, is traceability. Not that we have problems, but that there is almost no real interest in doing it. As we have said many times, the Spanish agricultural market is a giant with feet of clay and now is the time to think if we want it to be something else. In Xataka | Something strange is happening with the price of olive oil and farmers have just denounced it: there are up to 2.8 billion at stake

open a ghost road that almost no one uses

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A mousetrap. This is how José Manuel Tofiño, mayor of Illescas, defines the A-42 highway that connects Madrid with Toledo. The road runs collapsed every day but next to it it has the most underused toll road in Spain. The claim is obvious. The answer, so far, too. Maddening. It is one of the terms that best defines the journey that thousands of drivers make every day on the A-42 towards Madrid. And in the direction of Toledo. Because back and forth, morning and afternoon, there is only one reality on the A-42 highway: it is clogged. Although neighborhood and political complaints are once again on the table, congestion on the A-42 has been critical for years. Already in 2020the representatives of the Popular party of the Community of Madrid and the affected municipalities of Toledo demanded measures from the Executive. Now they are the PSOE politicians those who demand solutions. What’s happening? Simply, the A-42 is clogged daily while the A-41, which runs parallel, is empty. According to data collected by The Countrythe A-42 has an average traffic flow of up to 90,000 vehicles per day at some points, while the payment option barely exceeds 2,000 vehicles. The figure has even been growing in recent years given that the neighboring free highway is completely overflowing. And a little over a decade ago the cars that passed through the A-41 was less than a thousand a day. The situation has even been causing for years delays on adjacent roads. National roads that drivers try to use as a means of escape from the highway. Because? Although the A-42 has been living in an extreme situation for years, the problem has become entrenched in recent years. The A-42 is a road that connects Madrid and Toledo passing through La Sagra. It is an area close to Madrid known for cities where a good part of the workers go to Madrid daily, such as Illescas and Yeles (Toledo) or Torrejón de la Calzada and Parla (Madrid). Next to the city, the road runs through Getafe. A good part of those workers left Madrid during the real estate bubble before 2008 looking for larger houses and at more affordable prices. However, the current housing crisis has once again caused Madrid residents look favorably on these towns south of the city. The cranes, for example, have returned to Seseñaclassic bubble burst image. But, in addition, together with Illescas, a logistics center has been promoted that has become one of the great merchandise hubs in the center of the peninsula. This has also triggered the transport of heavy vehicles, which complicates circulation even more. Precisely, The proximity of the A-42 is one of the great attractions to carry the goods there on the way to Madrid. make it free. Therefore, in their latest claims, regional politicians ask that the A-41 be opened to all vehicles to alleviate the situation on the A-42. The measure they propose is very simple: if one road is empty and the other is collapsed, let it be liberalized. The problem is that the concession for the A-41 does not expire until 2040. At the moment, the road is completely free from 0:00 to 6:00, which is an alternative to the first to hit the road. However, local voices They attribute this to the intention of the concessionaire company to save workers’ salaries and emphasize that at that time it is not a problem to travel on the A-42 since it is first thing in the morning when it gets stuck. Or at least public transportation. In his report, in The Countrycollect the testimony of Alberto Blázquez, a 28-year-old computer scientist and resident of Palomeque (near the A-42) who takes his car to Illescas and, from there, takes a train to Fuenlabrada (Madrid) and makes a transfer to get to Atocha and thus ends up arriving at his workplace. This is what some workers have opted for when they see that it takes the same time by public transport as by car. What they propose is that the Cercanías network be expanded to Illescas to facilitate the train connection with the city and that bus connections be improved, which right now, other voices point out in that same report, are also overwhelmed since they left Madrid. These claims, as well as the construction of a third lane from Parla, are the requests that residents and Madrid residents have been demanding for years. So far, the only thing that has changed is that the problem is even more serious. Photo | Miguel Angel Masegosa Martínez and DGT 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

This Norwegian valley has rocks on either side of the river that act like a giant pile. Maybe that explains your ghost lights

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The Hessdalen lights are a mysterious phenomenon which has been reported in the valley of the same name, in Norway, since 1811. However, it was in the 1980s when they began to be taken more into account, especially in 1984, when the Hessdalen project was established, aimed at monitoring them and trying to explain them. Unfortunately, despite all the efforts that have been put into this, it is currently not known exactly what this is due to. Although it is true that there are some hypotheses. A very disparate phenomenon. Both witnesses who have seen them and scientists who have recorded or photographed them describe the Hessdalen lights as a very disparate phenomenon. Sometimes they are formed at ground level, other times on roofs or at the height of mountain peaks. Sometimes they move more or less homogeneously, other times they move erratically, changing direction for no apparent reason. They are normally white and yellow, although they have been observed in other colors. Some last only a few seconds, while some can remain in the air for more than an hour. Even the shapes vary from an American football to an upside-down Christmas tree. The only thing that most witnesses seem to agree on is that they are about the size of a car. Hessdalen Project. A multidisciplinary team of scientists from several Norwegian institutions launched a project aimed at monitoring the lights of Hessdalen. Since then, they have been monitored thanks to the installation of radioelectric spectrum analyzers, magnetometers, seismographs, photo cameras, Geiger counters and infrared cameras. That is, earth tremors, magnetism, radioactivity and, ultimately, the emission of energy at different lengths of the electromagnetic spectrum are analyzed. This tracking system began operating in 1984 and is still active today. A peculiar hypothesis. One of the most peculiar hypotheses that have been made about the Hessdalen lights is that they could be the visible result of the formation of a wormhole micrometer that connects two points in space time. In reality, this hypothesis was raised in a magazine with little scientific reputation, very given to conspiracy theory and the supernatural, so it is not the most accepted at all. Hypotheses in the air. Thanks to the monitoring of these lights, there are much more plausible hypotheses. To begin with, it is thought that the Hessdalen lights could be due to the decay of radon, a very abundant gas in the Norwegian atmosphere. This disintegration would produce alpha particles capable of ionizing the molecules present in the air and dust, giving rise to structures capable of emitting light, called Coulomb crystals. Hypotheses on the ground. There are also hypotheses that point to the geology of the valley. For example, it is believed that it could be due to the combustion in the presence of air of dust clouds rich in scandium, an element that is abundant in the soil of this Norwegian region. It could also be a piezoelectric effect. This is the effect by which some materials are capable of emitting electricity when pressed or deformed. Quartz, for example, has great piezoelectricity and turns out to be very abundant under the valley floor. Copper is also abundant, which is a great conductor of electricity. And speaking of electricity, a battery effect could also be occurring. On one side of the river in the valley there are rocks very rich in zinc and iron. On the other side, rocks very rich in copper. The former could act as the anode of a battery and the latter as the cathode. In turn, local mines rich in sulfur could be releasing this element into the river, which would act as the bridge of a battery, allowing electricity to flow. If there is electricity, there is light. All these electricity emissions could be causing the ionization of molecules present in the air, giving rise to a process in which light is emitted. It is something similar to what happens with the northern lights, although the origin of the ionizing particles is totally different. The color of light depends on the molecules in the air. That is why it is not always exactly the same, although white and yellow tend to be abundant. In short, it is still not known where these mysterious lights come from, which can be seen both day and night. But that is precisely why they are so fascinating. Image | Bjørn Gitle HaugeØstfold University College, Fredrikstad, Norway In Xataka | Norway works little but produces a lot and that stresses them out. Generation Z has found the solution: the four-day week

the only tools this expat needs to hunt down Iran’s ghost tankers

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From the 47th floor of his Singapore apartment building, Remy Osman, a British expat who works in the beverage industry, has a front-row seat to one of the world’s biggest geopolitical clashes. Armed with binoculars, a wide-angle camera and live tracking applications, Osman watches as a 333-meter-long supertanker moves at a snail’s pace along one of the busiest shipping routes on the planet. The scene contains a brutal irony: as detailed Financial Timesthat ship’s cargo has almost doubled in value since it set sail just two weeks ago, coinciding with Brent crude oil reached 120 dollars per barrel in the wake of the war between the United States, Israel and Iran. From his balcony, Osman hunts the ships of the so-called “shadow fleet”, sanctioned oil tankers that operate outside the law, but in broad daylight. The ship that caught Osman’s attention is the Hugean 18-year-old oil tanker. According to the sanctions list records of the US Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC)it is an Iranian-flagged ship operated by the National Iranian Tanker Company (NITC) and heavily monitored since 2018. Although the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz began at the end of February with attacks by the United States and Israel, the Huge It has been one of the few large crude oil cargo ships (VLCC) that managed to get out of that mousetrap. From his privileged vantage point, Osman has identified an unmistakable pattern: the Iranian oil tankers sail towards the east sunken in the water, revealing that they are loaded to the brim, and a week later they return in the opposite direction floating much higher, with their load considerably lighter. The most surprising thing is the nerve with which they operate in the midst of the current crisis. Ships that were previously hidden now display their names and flags as if to say: “We have as much right to navigate these waters as anyone else,” Osman himself said. to the Finance Times. This impunity has reached the point that almost two-thirds of the NITC fleet have started transmitting data accurate in their Automatic Identification Systems (AIS) after seven years of manipulation and concealment. Tehran’s lifeline The impact of this ghost fleet parading in front of Osman’s window is titanic. As the world suffers “the largest supply disruption in history” due to the closure of Hormuz, Iran continues to export its crude oilsurpassing the barrier of 2 million barrels per day. The millions of barrels that Osman sees disappearing on the horizon have an overwhelmingly single destination: China. The Asian giant absorbs around 90% of Iran’s oil exports. The data tracked corroborate this massive escapeplacing the “Iran-China” route in first place in dark operations, moving more than 1.6 million barrels per day. While Iran profits, the rest of the planet trembles. With some 20 million barrels a day taken off the formal board due to the physical blockade of Hormuz, the scenario of a barrel at $200 is already a real possibility. The global threat is proportional to the size of this illicit network: according to Fortunethe dark fleet is estimated at about 1,100 vessels, representing between 17% and 18% of all liquid cargo tankers in the world. The machinery to outwit the Western powers is a marvel of evasive engineering that occurs a few kilometers from Osman’s house. As explained Financial Timestankers do not sail directly from Iran to Chinese ports, but instead perform ship-to-ship (Ship-to-Ship) transfers on the high seas. The main scenario for this transfer is the Eastern Outer Port Limits, in Malaysian waters, an area with little supervision. On a single day last January, satellite images confirmed the presence of about 60 of these ships anchored there, operating with total impunity. To achieve this level of invisibility, they exploit legal loopholes in the sea. As detailed Fortune, The international maritime system is based on voluntary compliance: ships simply turn off their radio transponders, spoof their locations, or change their identities by scratching their registration numbers. In addition, they rely on “flags of convenience.” According to the statistics of Tanker TrackersIn addition to Iran and Russia, dark ships often fly flags of countries such as Panama, Cameroon or Sierra Leone. The final link in this chain is found in Asia. The report of Kharon reveals that the final buyers They are not the large state oil companies, but the so-called refineries teapot. These small, independent refiners absorb 90% of Iranian exports and give Beijing “plausible deniability” in the international community, even though these private companies are deeply connected to the Chinese state through joint ventures and front-line networks in Hong Kong. Attempts to stop this illicit transfer have been few and often frustrating. Although Malaysian authorities recently seized crude oil worth almost $130 million from two suspicious tankers, the outcome was laughable: after paying bail of just $75,000, the ships were released. The next day, Osman looked out on his balcony again and there was one of them, the Celebratebrowsing again fully loaded. The paradox in the shadows Still, the war has brought some complications. According to Lloyd’s Listthe escalation of war forced at least six ghost tankers that were sailing empty towards the Persian Gulf to turn around (the so-called U-turns) and abort its operations. But the network is resilient: as experts point out, the shadow fleet is designed precisely to operate under disruption. The great irony is that, while those sanctioned find cracks to navigate, the legal actors are desperate. The blockade has forced Saudi Arabia to use its oil pipeline through the desert against the clock to divert millions of barrels to Yanbuin the Red Sea, where an emergency armada of supertankers is queuing up in an agonizing attempt to evacuate legal crude oil and prevent economic collapse. How to conclude Fortune, The dark fleet did not arise because the maritime system is broken, but because it was always voluntary. Today, sanctions have pushed countries like Iran to build a highly effective parallel system. While the formal world looks for alternative … Read more

There are 30 centimeters left before the Montejaque ghost dam becomes a very real problem

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At the beginning of the 20th century, getting light to the most remote towns in the Serranía de Ronda and Grazalema was an impossible mission. Despite “being close”, they were areas that could only be accessed with a lot of effort and any infrastructure became a logistical problem. It was at that time when the Sevillian Electricity Company decided to make a clean break: build a dam on the Gudares River and produce the energy (up to 20,000 kW) right there. They commissioned the work to a Swiss company and built an 83-meter concrete structure near Montejaque, in Malaga. Then they realized that it was tremendously stupid: the limestone soil in the area turned the reservoir into a sieve and, in the more than a hundred years since its construction, it has never been in use. Until now. Although “use” isn’t exactly the word. Because, in reality, what has happened is that, given the enormous amount of water that has fallen in the area in recent weeks, the dam has filled. Of course, this filling is relative: from the first moment the water has been filtering through the cat’s cavevery close to there. But, thanks to it, it has been possible to ‘laminate’ Gudares Avenue and control the flows. The problem is that, right now and for the first time since we have data, Montejaque is about to overflow. 30 centimeters away from it, in fact. A ghost dam filled to the brim? And draining as if there were no tomorrow: at a rate of 200 cubic meters per second. The images are not only spectacularbut (also) are completely unheard of. There were no clear precedents, but the system (using siphons, as opposed to the usual spillways) has been put into operation before it overtopped the dam. And now what? In principle, monitoring and preparation. The town councils of Jimera de Líbar and Benaoján they have evacuated 150 people and monitor both the Guadiaro riverbed and the Hundidero-Gato cave system. This dam system stands between the reservoir and the closest towns, but no one is very clear about what could happen: it is expected to collapse the possible flood, but it has never happened and the UME continues to monitor the situation for what may happen. Calm. That is the message most repeated by the authorities and, from what we know so far, it is justified. However, it shows that too often we forget what is in the bush. The Montejaque concession has already declined, but it is still there, converted into a tourist attraction. From now on it will also be the constant reminder that we have to rethink all our water infrastructures. Image | Ronnie Macdonald In Xataka | Andalusia anticipates the storm and has already canceled in-person classes and activated the UME. The doubt is placed on the workers

an 11-meter-long “ghost jellyfish”

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A dark red creature, without stinging tentacles but with fleshy arms that extend like theater curtains, sailing silently in the absolute darkness. This, which can be quite scary, This is exactly what a scientific expedition has found in the Argentine Sea: a specimen of Stygiomedusa giganteaa jellyfish which has surprised by its large size when compared to that of a school bus. Hard to see. The Stygiomedusa gigantea It does not receive the nickname “ghost jellyfish” on a whim, since, despite its large size, the truth is that It is very difficult to find because of how elusive it is. To give us an idea, since the first specimen was described in 1910, hardly any have been officially recorded. about 130 sightings throughout the planet for more than a century. This makes this sighting that was made by the expedition ‘Lives in extremes‘ be really striking, although what has mattered is the quality and detail of the data obtained. How it was done. The scientific team, aboard the R/V Falkor research vessel, used the SuBastian ROVa remotely operated vehicle capable of descending to abyssal depths and transmitting 4K video. It was this robot that captured the jellyfish on the Argentine continental slope that has left many with their mouths open. The images point to a huge size of 11 meters when it has its ‘arms’ extended, which makes it comparable to a school bus. But also, unlike other jellyfish, the Stygiomedusa It does not sting, since it does not have poisonous tentacles. What it does have are four massive oral arms that it uses to catch prey and bring it to its mouth. Its color. Its reddish-brownish tone makes it practically invisible in the depths, where the red light of the solar spectrum is the first to be absorbed by water. To the eyes of other deep-sea animals, this jellyfish is effectively black and invisible, which makes it very easy to find food. Beyond the jellyfish. Although it has received practically all the attention due to its large size, the true scientific “treasure” of the expedition could be on the seabed. And the researchers from CONICET and the University of Buenos Aires were not only looking for pelagic fauna, but They wanted to map and study the underwater canyons, like the Colorado-Rawson canyon. And there, the SuBastian ROV’s sonar and cameras found something unexpected: the largest cold-water coral reef known to date in the region. Its characteristics. It is nothing less, since we are talking about an ecosystem dominated by the species Bathelia candida, a scleractinian coral that forms complex three-dimensional structures. The data indicates that one of its patches covers 0.4 square kilometers and extends the known distribution range for this species some 600 kilometers to the south. This is a vital discovery, because this coral acts as an “ecosystem engineer”, providing shelter, breeding and feeding grounds for an immense variety of fauna, including fish of commercial interest. Use of technology. The ship that has given rise to all these discoveries has traveled more than 3,000 kilometers from Buenos Aires to Tierra del Fuego, carrying out a systematic sweep of the ocean floor. To do this, they have used robots like the SuBastian, which allows marine biologists to do something that traditional trawl nets could not: observe the behavior of species in their natural habitat without harming them. This type of mission reminds us of a recurring maxim in modern oceanography: we know better the surface of Mars than the bottom of our own oceans. Finds like this giant jellyfish or new coral reefs are not just curiosities; They are key pieces to understanding how to protect biodiversity in a rapidly changing ocean. Images | Schmidt Ocean Institute In Xataka | Thousands of people are hooked on the most popular streaming of the moment: seeing rare fish 3,900 meters under the sea

The ships of the oil “ghost fleet” turn off their GPS to avoid being detected. Malaysia is going to hunt them with drones

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In the crystal clear waters of Southeast Asia, where the Strait of Malacca meets the South China Sea, a war is being fought that does not appear in conventional military reports. There are no trenches, but there are rusty helmets that turn off their GPS signal to disappear from international radars. This is the kingdom of the “ghost fleet”, an ecosystem of lawless ships that, according to the latest researchhas found its safe harbor in Malaysia, doubling its activity in just twelve months. However, the time for impunity appears to be running out: from the use of artificial intelligence to the deployment of naval drones, technology is beginning to illuminate the darkest corners of the ocean. The black market boom. The situation on the east coast of Malaysia has ceased to be an open secret and has become a global security problem. According to the specialized media Seatrade Maritime“ship-to-ship” (STS) oil transfers have recently doubled, going from just seven weekly operations to peaks of fifteen in just one year. This increase responds to an infrastructure designed to circumvent the sanctions imposed on Russia, Iran and Venezuela, using Malaysian waters as a gigantic clandestine service station before the crude oil continues on its way, mainly to China. Analyst Charlie Brown, of the organization UANIhas managed to capture a disturbing reality through satellite images and direct photos. In mid-January 2026, some 60 vessels linked to Iranian oil and another 30 with Russian and Venezuelan cargoes were waiting at anchor in Malaysia’s Exclusive Economic Zone. These ships not only operate outside the law, but they do so under deplorable technical conditions. Images distributed by UANI show tankers with false names broadbrushed on their hulls and flags of convenience hidden under tarps to deceive authorities. The metamorphosis of the threat. What began as a purely economic strategy to keep Moscow’s revenue flowing has mutated into something far more dangerous for European security. As the chronicles of my colleague Miguel Jorge relate in XatakaRussia has converted part of this fleet into covert hybrid warfare platforms. It’s not just about moving barrels; Now these ships incorporate “technicians” who, under a civilian guise, are usually special forces veterans or mercenaries linked to the Wagner group. These agents wield authority that often exceeds that of the ship’s captain and have been accused of photographing military installations and monitoring underwater cables in EU and NATO waters. An example of this tension was experienced with the oil tanker Boracaywhich after embarking Russian technicians in the Baltic, was intercepted by the French navy off Brittany after suspicious drones were detected flying over critical infrastructure in Copenhagen. The ghost fleet is today, in essence, an extension of the Kremlin’s security apparatus sailing with impunity under the flags of countries like Gabon or Gambia. A new fragmented energy order. From the academic level, the Elcano Royal Institute’s analysis highlights that this phenomenon is the symptom of a “deglobalization” of the gas and oil market. In your reportresearcher Gonzalo Escribano explains that international value chains, previously based on efficiency and transparency, are being replaced by “geoeconometrically armored” circuits. Europe finds itself at a crossroads: although it seeks to disassociate itself from Russian energy, the persistence of these black markets complicates strategic autonomy. This fragmentation has even reached the LNG (Liquefied Natural Gas) market. According to Bloombergsanctioned Russian gas transfers have been documented in Malaysian waters, a technically much more complex operation than crude oil. The ship Pearlmanaged by an opaque company based in a Dubai hotel, is the face of this new network that desperately seeks buyers in Asia for the gas that Europe no longer wants. The technological response: AI and drones to the rescue. Faced with a fleet that “turns off” the real world by hacking GPS signals (spoofing) and the shutdown of transponders, the response is being purely technological. The middle CNBC highlights thatof the ships loaded with Iranian crude in 2025, 96% made dark transfers and 77% falsified their location. To combat this “blackout”, Ukraine has shown the way with an innovation that has made conventional fleets obsolete: the use of artificial intelligence in naval drones. The drones Be Baby have multiplied its capabilities thanks to AI, allowing precision attacks from thousands of kilometers away. In a recent operation near the Turkish coast, these drones hit Russian ghost fleet tankers, specifically targeting their rudders and propulsion systems. The objective is not to sink them, which would cause an ecological disaster of catastrophic dimensions, but to render them useless and turn them into an unbearable economic burden for those who operate them. This “precision offensive” is forcing insurers and shipping companies to reconsider the risk of collaborating with Moscow, raising the costs of war for the Kremlin. The dilemma of safety and the environment. The proliferation of elderly ships, without liability insurance and with dubious maintenance, is an environmental time bomb. Lars Barstad, CEO of the operator Frontline, warned in the Financial Times that organizations such as the International Maritime Organization (IMO) appear to be “sleeping at the wheel”. Barstad notes that it is only a matter of time before a major disaster occurs, as these ships operate outside of any regulatory framework. Meanwhile, diplomatic pressure increases. The US has begun a campaign of aggressive seizures, such as that of the ship Sailor (before Bella 1), which was boarded by the US Coast Guard in North Atlantic waters after a chase from the Caribbean. This “gunboat diplomacy” of the 21st century, analyzed by the Atlantic Councilposes immense legal challenges: once a steel giant full of crude oil is seized, the maintenance and storage costs are astronomical. The end of the shadow. The current geopolitical dashboard report shows that Malaysia, Spain or the waters of the Caribbean are just scenes of a larger battle for visibility. The ghost fleet survives in the shadow of legal ambiguity, but the advance of artificial intelligence and constant satellite monitoring are tightening the fence. As the analysis concludes from my partnerthis is not a frontal … Read more

The Canary Islands and Galicia have set off the Navy’s alarm bells. Russia’s ghost fleet has arrived in Spain with warships

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Since the annexation of Crimea in 2014 and, above all, after the invasion large-scale ukrainian In 2022, Russia has been perfecting a form of confrontation that avoids direct clashes and moves in the shadows of international law: hybrid war. Sabotage, energy pressure, disinformation and opaque commercial fleets have become tools as strategic as tanks or missiles, and among them the called “ghost fleet”. Now everything indicates that they have found a new route: Spain. The “fleet” arrives from the south. At the end of January 2026, a Russian tanker sanctioned by the European Union was left adrift off the coast of Almería and was escorted by Spanish Maritime Rescue to a port in Morocco without being detained. He did it despite transporting more than 425,000 barrels of refined products of Russian origin. The episode, starring a ship integrated the ghost fleet (old ships, with frequent changes of name and flag and opaque structures of ownership) showed how Spain has become a key point of passage and incident management of a system designed to circumvent Western sanctions. Something happens. In the heart of the western Mediterranean, the Russian hybrid war was beginning to materialize not with missiles, but with timely breakdowns, gray areas of maritime law and routes connecting Russian ports with North Africa under the attentive, but limited, action of the European authorities. Morocco as a hinge, the Canary Islands as an entrance. A few days later, the arrival in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria of a oil tanker from Tangier set off alarms about a possible indirect entry of Russian fuel into Spain, using Morocco as an intermediate platform. Maritime security experts stressed that it was not an illegal operation in itself, but it was an unusual route which fits with the patterns of the ghost fleet, given that Morocco lacks sufficient refining capacity and has become a common destination for oil tankers linked to Russia. The Severomorsk Destroyer in 2023 The crux. The key, they insisted, is in the loading documentation, because the origin of the product remains Russian even if there are intermediate stops. In this context, the Canary Islands appear as a vulnerable link: a lightly guarded Exclusive Economic Zone, located in the transit axis of opaque oil tankers, which reinforces the idea that Spain offers the perfect combination of geography, infrastructure and control loopholes for this new phase of the Russian economic war. Silent pressure. Finally, and in parallel to these commercial and logistical movements, the most classic dimension of Russian naval power has ended up becoming visible in Spanish waters, forcing the Navy Spanish to intensify its surveillance operations. Within a week, Spanish units have followed the transit of several Russian vessels (including the destroyer Severomorsk and a mixed military-merchant convoy) from the Strait of Gibraltar to the Atlantic, with monitoring relays off the Galician coast and constant coordination with the command centers. Hybrid war. These missions, framed in the permanent surveillance of waters of national interest, show that the phenomenon is by no means isolated: while the ghost fleet operates on the economic and logistical level, the Russian naval presence reinforces the strategic pressure about key runners such as the Alboran Sea, Gibraltar and the Atlantic coast. Spain, the perfect route. The sum of these episodes draws a coherent pattern: the russia hybrid war has left the Baltic and the North Sea to settle in the Mediterranean and the eastern Atlantic, and Spain has become one of your most effective routes. It seems clear that all those breakdowns managed without detention, indirect discharges via Morocco, fuels of dubious traceability entering through the Canary Islands and Russian military ships crossing runners strategic are part of the same logic of attrition, ambiguity and saturation that we had already seen in other parts of Europe. And as in those cases, it is not a frontal attack, but rather a constant pressure that exploits the gray areas of trade, energy and maritime security, now placing Spain at the center of a board where war is not declared, it is navigated. Image | US Navy, Mil.ru In Xataka | Russia’s ghost fleet has changed its business model. Oil has given way to a much bigger target: Europe In Xataka | For years Europe has wondered how to stop the Russian ghost fleet. Ukraine just showed you the way: with AI

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