Gold

The Boeing 747 that the Emir of Dubai uses as a private plane is so luxurious that even the pilot’s controls are made of gold

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When we talk about private jetsluxury is already inferred in that same concept, but even within something as exclusive as that, there are airplanes and then there is he Boeing 747 of the emir of dubaia separate category that makes a normal Gulfstream look like a regular bus. Sheikh Mohamed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, emir of dubaidid not limit itself to converting one of the largest airplanes in the world into a flying mansion, it also extended the luxury to the pilot cabin, with the engine control knobs, flaps and brakes covered in gold. Aviation youtuber Sam Chui had access to the interior and documented in detail everything he found aboard this flying palace that has all the luxury and comforts of a five star hotel designed both to satisfy the government needs of its owner, as well as those of the entire entourage that accompanies him. A jumbo jet with a double identity The base of this mobile mansion is a Boeing 747-400 Combi, a variant of the commercial jumbo jet that combines a large passenger area in the front, with cargo capacity in the rear. This duality allows it to transport the head of state, his team and the cargo (luggage, vehicles, etc.) they need on the same flight, something that clearly differentiates it from other private jets. more “modest.” The most striking element of the interior is the majlis, the traditional Arab reception room, adapted in the form of a huge open space in the central part of the plane in which there are a series of very comfortable seats for the president and his governing council. At the front, just below the cockpit, is the master bedroom, which looks more like a the luxury hotel suite than to a cabin at 10,000 meters above sea level. The lighting is warm, the bathroom and faucets are goldand it has a shower that you don’t expect to find on a plane. In the rear, a large dining room serves as a meeting room with capacity for 26 people, turning the plane into a valid space for negotiations or state dinners. On the upper deck there are eight minisuites with large reclining seats for VIP passengers, and a section with business class seats for the staff who accompany the emir on each trip. When luxury reaches the cockpit Most private jets reserve luxury for the passenger and limiting the cockpit to a more practical and austere function. That doesn’t happen on the emir of Dubai’s plane. Just like published LuxuryLaunchesin this private jet right down to the throttle levers, aerodynamic brake controls and flaps They have a gold finishturning each maneuver into a symbolic gesture and reminding pilots what type of aircraft they are flying. The Combi configuration of the aircraft allows cargo to be carried in the rear, including specific containers for the emir’s horsessomething consistent with the sheikh’s well-known love of horse riding. The plane has a range of about 13,500 kilometers, enough to connect Dubai with any part of the world without stops. The sheikh has at least two Boeing 747s like this one. According to Mallorca DiaryIn March 2026, one of them landed in Palma de Mallorca, generating all kinds of speculation about its destination. In Xataka | The Emir of Dubai bought a 500 million superyacht but discovered that it had a serious problem: there was no mobile coverage inside Image | Wikimedia Commons (Ukrainian Government), Sam Chui

France has taken all its gold from the US: it has gained from the transfer

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The Bank of France confirmed yesterday something that had been brewing in silence for a long time: he has withdrawn every last gold bar he had stored in the vaults of the New York Federal Reserve. An operation that normally could have lasted two decades but has suddenly accelerated. The trigger has its own name: Donald Trump. What initially began as a technical operation to update its gold reserves, with the latest movements of the US against its European allies, including France, has become the first major geopolitical movement that has left half of Europe looking at each other. Furthermore, the play has left them with more money than they had. The key is to sell at the right time and place. The first thing to understand is that France did not charter any plane loaded with gold to bring it back to Europe. Instead of physically moving the bullion, the Bank of France made a smarter decision. As the bank explained in a statementbetween July 2025 and January 2026, they have been selling the 129 tons of old gold that was stored in the New York Federal Reserve in the North American gold market. In Xataka The gold of discord: why 14 municipalities of Guadalajara have rebelled against the plan "mineral sovereignty" from Europe In this way, the French have taken advantage of higher gold prices at historic highs. With these income, France has been purchasing gold bars that met the new higher quality standard in the European market, which registered more contained prices, to store those bars directly in its vaults in Paris. The operation was completed in 26 different transactions and generated extraordinary income of 11 billion euros for the French central bank. A result that transformed the 7.7 billion euros in losses that it registered in 2024, into a net profit of 8.1 billion of euros in 2025. Why was there European gold in the US? The history of this gold in New York goes back at the end of World War II. After the conflict, the dollar became the axis of international trade and having reserves in New York allowed countries to sell them quickly and obtain currency to facilitate payments in global trade. Furthermore, with the Cold War raging and the USSR looming, many European governments preferred their gold reserves to be kept in distant New York rather than in Paris or London, protecting their treasury from hypothetical invasions Russian. A first major reduction of that gold reserve came in the sixties, when De Gaulle made the decision to repatriate part of the reserves French and other countries imitated it. But they didn’t take everything. France still maintained 5% of its total reserves on the other side of the Atlantic, a figure that may seem small but is equivalent to a mountain of ingots. With the latest move, France now concentrates all of its 2,437 tons in Paris, becoming the world’s fourth largest holder of gold. In Xataka The safest and most profitable investment you can make today is the same as 3,000 years ago: buy gold The spark that has ignited Europe. This same year It has been known that India has already repatriated 274 tons of gold since 2023, and currently around two-thirds of its total 880.8 tons are in national territory, driven by geopolitical risks and the need for greater control and liquidity. From OMFIF they point out that the location of gold storage has once again become a priority for central banks, especially since Russian assets deposited in third countries were seized following the invasion of Ukraine. However, the spark that has ignited the machinery of repatriation of European gold has been the erratic attitude of Donald Trump. His attacks public to Jerome Powell and its repeated attempts to interfere in monetary policy have generated a growing concern between European central banks over who really controls the institutions that custody their gold. {“videoId”:”x90yx2y”,”autoplay”:false,”title”:”THE LARGEST GOLD MINE IN EUROPE IS IN SPAIN AND NO ONE DARES TOUCH IT”, “tag”:”WEBEDIA-PROD”, “duration”:”483″} Germany and Italy: the next ones in the spotlight. Following France’s move, attention has turned to the central banks of Germany and Italy, the two countries with larger gold reserves on American soil. Germany preserves 1,236 tons in the vaults of New York, 37% of its total reserves, while Italy has 1,053 tons there, 43% of the total. Together, both countries accumulate the equivalent of $245 billion in bullion in New York. Michael Jäger, Vice President of the German Taxpayers’ Federation (Bund der Steuerzahler) and President of the European Taxpayers Association (TAE) declared that “Trump’s unpredictability and his relentless pursuit of revenue means our gold is no longer safe in the Federal Reserve vaults. What happens if the provocation over Greenland continues? The risk that the Bundesbank will not be able to access its gold is increasing. That is why it should repatriate its reserves.” For now, neither country has announced an official decision on the future of its gold in the US. In Xataka | They don’t call him the “gold tycoon” for nothing: he is 82 years old and has won 746% betting on a mine that doesn’t even work Image | Unsplash (Samuel Regan-Asante, Scottsdale Mint) (function() { window._JS_MODULES = window._JS_MODULES || {}; var headElement = document.getElementsByTagName(‘head’)(0); if (_JS_MODULES.instagram) { var instagramScript = document.createElement(‘script’); instagramScript.src=”https://platform.instagram.com/en_US/embeds.js”; instagramScript.async = true; instagramScript.defer = true; headElement.appendChild(instagramScript); – The news France has taken all its gold from the US: it has gained from the transfer was originally published in Xataka by Ruben Andres .

After 10 years in prison for not revealing where 500 gold coins are, the world’s greatest treasure hunter is now free to go after them

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Right off the bat, the name of Tommy Thompson It may not sound familiar to you at all. Besides ocean engineer and inventor, he is one of the greatest treasure hunters in the world, a profession that inevitably evokes Indiana Jones and a life of cinema. And well, Thompson has it: a few days ago he was released from prison after serving 10 years of his sentence. The crime? Do not reveal where 500 gold coins from a famous sunken ship are (among other things). The discovery. In 1988 Tommy Thompson and his team, the Columbus-America Discovery Group, they found the remains of the steamboat SS Central America at a depth of 8,000 feet in the Atlantic, about 200 miles east of Charleston, South Carolina. To achieve this, they used Bayesian search theory and a remotely operated vehicle. The SS Central America was known as the “Gold Ship” for something: how much gold it transported. How much? good question. The gold ship. To give some context, it was the time of the gold rush and the mission of the ship was to transport that valuable metal from the new San Francisco Mint to increase the reserves for the banks of the eastern United States. He never did. On September 3, 1857, while operating on the Panama route, it sank off the coast of South Carolina when it was involved in a category 2 hurricane. The ship carried 477 passengers, 101 crew members and much, much gold. In fact, its sinking was one of the triggers for the panic of 1857. I don’t have the accounts. Gary Kinder spent a decade studying the event to write his “Ship of Gold”, where details which was carrying 3 tons of gold and possibly a similar amount of passengers (undisclosed and therefore unquantifiable) and it was also rumored that there was another 15 tons of gold in a secret army shipment. However, a US Department of Defense document declassified in 1971 reported that the official cargo was 11.2 tons of gold (not including personal or secret gold). The American naval history magazine, the closest source to the discovery, It does not give a figure in weight but a value: The gold consigned to New York banks was equivalent to 40 million dollars at the time. In general, the figure of 30,000 pounds of gold (about 14,000 kg) is also relatively widespread. But what was on the boat is one thing and what they found is another. Or they said find. Bob Evans, chief scientist of the expedition (and another one that followed in 2014). from the hand of Odyssey), account for the Seattle Times that in 1988 they found two tons of gold. The legal conflict. Much of that gold was later sold to a trading company for about $50 million. as reported by Reuters. But according to those 161 investors who financed $12.7 million for the expedition, they never reaped the benefits. So In 2005 they filed a lawsuit for breach of contract and concealment of assets. Thompson first secluded himself in Florida, then disappeared and lived under a false identity. He was finally arrested in 2015. The case reached a dead end: the judge in the case ordered him to reveal the whereabouts of 500 missing gold coins, but the engineer He claimed not to know where they are. He was declared in contempt, which is why he has served a decade in prison. The liberation. Today Tommy Thompson is 73 years old and a few days ago regained his freedom because, according to the judge, keeping him imprisoned does not work. CBS News picks up the opinion of civil law experts who explain that it is very unusual for a sentence for civil contempt to last so long. He has neither revealed where the coins are nor has he settled the debt with his investors. Meanwhile, the treasure of the SS Central America continues to feed the myth: in 2022 was auctioned one of the largest bars on the ship, 866 ounces (almost 27 kg), reaching a price of 2.16 million dollars. In Xataka | I dedicate myself to digging with a metal detector and I have more than 4 million followers on YouTube In Xataka | A man from Osaka left 21 gold bars at the doors of City Hall. I only had one requirement: renew the pipes Cover | Olga ga and Zlaťáky.cz

In the cemeteries of Galicia, the Christs have begun to disappear from the tombstones. There is a suspect: “red gold”

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The surprise was capital. And sad. Mostly sad. A few days ago, when she went to the pantheon where her relatives are buried, a neighbor from Celanova (Galicia) found that the figure of crucified Christ that decorated the tomb was missing. The curious thing is that not only was his own missing. Taking a look at the rest of the cemetery he found that the same thing was happening in five other tombs. In one, in fact, the Christ had been torn off and only preserved part of one arm, as if someone had burst it by using force with a lever. The case would not have made it out of the local press if it were not for the fact that it was not the only cemetery in Ourense in which the neighbors found that image. What has happened? That in the rural cemeteries of Galicia, more specifically in Ourense, dozens and dozens of Christs are disappearing. It takes a look at the regional press to see that it is more than a simple anecdote: March 16 Vigo Lighthouse informed of the disappearance of figures in two cemeteries in Celanova, days after The Voice of Galicia spoke already of 40 Christs torn from graves and Europa Press raised the total count to more than 50 crucifixes. One of the last media outlets to take stock has been Galicia Press, which on Wednesday the 18th reported the lack of more than 70 Christs in at least five different cemeteries. But… And why is that? Cemeteries are spaces of mourning and meditation, so it is not common (at least not in Spain of the 21st century) encounter cases of missing Christs like the one that shakes rural Ourense. There are a few theories to explain it. It could be acts of vandalism. Or some practice related to esoteric rituals. The Galician authorities are not inclined towards one or the other. For them the mystery is much simpler: the Civil Guard is investigating it like robberies, beatings carried out by criminals who are not interested in crucifixes and their artistic or spiritual value, but in something much more prosaic. What interests them is brass, stainless steel and above all copper with which these pieces were manufactured, a metal that recently reached a record price. ‘Red gold’ thieves? Exact. Recently the Civil Guard recognized to Europa Press who works “without ruling out” any possibility, but the starting hypothesis is quite simple: criminals sneak into cemeteries at night, especially in winter, steal figures that are often made of metal and then melt them down and sell them. Its objective focuses above all on copper, ‘red gold’whose price has been shot after the revaluation of recent years. The idea is that the material reaches the scrap market without raising suspicions and is reused in the industry. The Region even talks about the “band of the christs” and slips that they could be traveling professional criminals. Where have they stolen? The thefts seem to focus on a specific area, in the province of Ourense. Galicia Press point basically to rural cemeteries in the Celanova region and nearby towns, which includes cemeteries such as Santa María de Pontefechas, San Xoán de Viveiro, San Breixo de Celanova or Santo Eusebio de A Peroxa. There are those who expand the affected area in the province and speaks of assaults in cemeteries in the towns of Maside, Verea or Allariz. Thieves do not hesitate either take rings or resorting to force to extract the metal pieces, which has already led them to break crosses or some Christ, as in Pontefechas, where in one of the attacked tombs only part of an arm remained fixed to the stone head. Some parish priests of the archpriest have put on alert to their parishioners to be alert to theft. Why copper? For its value. It’s nothing new. Although its price has fallen slightly in recent days, the price of ‘red gold’ has escalated notably during the last year, reaching spikes historic at the beginning of 2026. The Region specifies that a kilo of this metal can be sold at between eight and ten euroswhich explains why it has been on the bands’ radar for some time now. The interest of criminals is not limited to cemeteries. Not long ago the Civil Guard dismantled a group that was dedicated to stealing copper cables in part of Asturias and the province of Lugo. The authorities estimate that a total of 24,000 kilos valued at 115,000 euros. In 2025 it has already fallen a similar band in Ourense and at the end of 2023 the arrest of other criminals dedicated to the same activity in the border area with Portugal. Does it only happen in Galicia? No. A quick Google search arrives to find news about copper theft in other communities in Spain. Since the bands are interested in the material, it is worth as much wind farm wiring and industrial coils as telephone infrastructure, rail transport either lighting. Proof of how juicy the business is is that at the end of 2025, the Interior reported the arrest of 18 people accused of more than thirty copper thefts worth 1.7 million euros. And what happens in cemeteries? Galicia is not the only place where cemeteries (and their metallic decoration) have whetted the appetite of criminal gangs. Last fall the National Police counted around 200 tombstones from the Torrero de Zaragoza cemetery that had suffered damage. Most for the same reason: tearing off bronze figures and other ornaments. More or less similar episodes have been experienced in the Community of Madrid, Castile and León or the Region of Murcia, where in 2023 the authorities arrested several people for allegedly carrying out more than 80 robberies in a municipal cemetery. The objective is the same: to loot copper, bronze and brass for resale. Images | M. Peinado (Flickr) and Home Office In Xataka | Twenty years ago, 45% of Galician families saved money thanks to the garden: … Read more

cooling AI is the new gold mine

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The gaming market is a cruel ecosystem, where many brands that once dominated the overclocking forums are today just a vague memory in the memory of more veterans. However, there are exceptions of companies that, far from sinking, knew how to read market signals and pivot in time. This is the case of CoolIT, a brand that manufactured liquid cooling for gaming and that today it is a key piece in the gear that moves artificial intelligence, one that is worth billions. 3,000 million. This is what CoolIT is worth today, or rather it is the value at which KKR is trying to sell it. The controversial investment fund bought the company in 2023 for 270 million dollars and now, just three years later, they aspire to multiply their initial investment tenfold, according to Financial Times. CoolIT is no longer in the business of cooling gaming PCs, its business is now focused on the data centers that power AI. The beginnings. The company was founded by two Canadian gaming enthusiasts in 2001, when the concept of gaming PCs was beginning to take shape. To better understand the moment, it was the time of Windows 98, the most cutting-edge graphics card was the NVIDIA GeForce 3, the processors were Pentium 4 and RAM was measured in megabytes. In this context, CoolIT launched itself into the manufacture of liquid cooling systems and, although it was not one of the top brands (it worked more as OEM for others like Corsair), had several important milestones. One of them was the launch of Domino ALC which was much lighter than other similar systems and hardly required maintenance. In 2009 they patented their SplitFlow cooling plate technologywhich represented an important leap in the sector. From PC to data centers. 2012 marked the turning point for the company. Its focus shifted to data centers, creating direct liquid cooling systems for servers. In 2015 they started a collaboration with Hewlett Packardproviding cooling to its HPE Cray supercomputers and HPE Apollo servers. They also put the cooling of the Dell servers since 2017. CoolIT in the age of AI. At the moment The construction of data centers is at an unstoppable pace and faces various problems. Energy is the most seriousbut refrigeration is not far behind and even has been the subject of controversy due to water consumption. Against this backdrop, CoolIT was in the perfect position to ride the AI ​​wave and currently has a catalog of high-end solutions, such as its distribution solutions (CDU) capable of supplying up to 2,000 kW of liquid cooling capacity for large AI and high-performance computing server farms. The future. At the moment the sale of CoolIT is in an early phase, but KKR would already have several possible buyers. According to the Financial Times, there are around 3,000 data centers under construction in the US alone, which for companies like CoolIT is a very important moment of growth. There have already been other billion-dollar transactions by companies dedicated to refrigeration, such as Boyd Thermal (9.5 billion) either PurgeRite (1 billion). The case of these companies does not remember that AI is not only about OpenAI, Anthropic or Google DeepMind, there is a whole ecosystem of companies making money with this. In Xataka | Jensen Huang has taken a look at the idea of ​​putting data centers in space and has come to one conclusion: let’s not freak out Image | Wikipedia, Microsoft

While the world fights for the most advanced chips, there is a company making gold with the ones that go inside your washing machine

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If you have walked through an industrial estate, you have surely come across the typical warehouse with the sign “Spare Parts and Bearings (Insert name)”. And it’s easy for you, at that moment, to wonder what the hell a bearing is and how the rest of the businesses are closing, except for ‘Rodamientos Paco’. Well, in the world of technology there is also a ‘Paco Bearings’. Is called Texas Instruments and, in full era of sophisticated chips, artificial intelligence and quantum computingis breaking it with something very specific. Boring chips. In short. Companies are in the middle of the results presentation period. In this round, the managers inform their shareholders about the direction of the company, while allowing us to learn about data on upcoming devices or business plans. Texas Instruments usually goes unnoticed in these more ‘techie’ times, but they are finishing up a fiscal year with very positive numbers. The fourth quarter they closed with 4,420 million and anticipate increasing to 4,680 million in the first quarter. In the last three months, its share value has increased by 18%. Its shares are among the highest among companies in the same sector and, as we said before, the curious thing is that it is doing all this almost silently. Live outside the hype. You can constantly read information about cutting-edge chips on Xataka. It is true that the current nature of components is marked by the current RAM memory crisis either of SSDsbut the snapdragonthe Apple Silicon, the latest from NVIDIA or AMD It is what usually marks the conversation. They are the most sophisticated and interesting chips, but a coffee maker does not need a chip like that. That’s where Texas Instruments comes into play. Because calling their chips “boring” is not an exaggeration. They are outside the AI ​​hype, the data centers and the most exciting features because its market is different: sensors, connectivity, controllers. Where are Texas Instruments chips? In routers, smart refrigerators, washing machines, air conditioners, as secondary chips in televisions, in remote controls, in calculators or in smart smoke detectors. But they not only make chips, but also another series of integrated circuits for wireless communications, signal processing in all types of devices and even sensors that detect tire pressure, engine temperatures or the air conditioning system. Texas Instruments chips and sensors are in… everything. Even in weapons. An example of a tiny sophisticated chip in the headphone stick… with only 16 KB of RAM. Because you don’t need more Huge investment. And the company is not sitting idly by with the huge amount of money it is making with its ubiquity strategy. a few days ago, Bloomberg reported on the agreement that Texas Instruments had reached to buy Silicon Labs. Also American, also with ‘boring’ chips that They are inside ‘things’ of all kinds. The operation is not closed, but the smell of it caused Silicon Labs shares to increase 51% to more than $206. The curious thing? That Texas Instruments is willing to pay more: up to $231 per share to investors. The operation has not been closed, but there is talk of a purchase of 7.5 billion dollars, well above the 4.5 billion that Silicon Labs is “worth.” Great year ≠ perfect year. All of this is… outrageous, but it indicates something very specific: they are spending a lot of money to reinforce a huge, stable market that goes unnoticed in a time when everything revolves around artificial intelligence and sophisticated technology. The purchase of Silicon Labs, paying such a high premium per share, shows that they know very well what they are getting into and the value of a market in which they are a key player. But one thing must also be noted: although revenues rose, annual profits did not increase at the same rate. He total invoiced increased by 13%, but as they have also invested more, this increase in costs reduced the profit margin, which “barely” increased by 4.2%, with some quarters being worse than others (in Q4 they fell by 3.5%). They haven’t had a perfect fiscal year, but there is one thing that is undeniable: they are still the kings of their niche. If we can describe being everywhere as a “niche”. In Xataka | While half the world looks for an alternative to Taiwan, Jensen Huang is very clear about the harsh reality: there is no

literally, it will bathe its streets in gold

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Architecture and urban planning have flirted many times with extreme materialssymbols of wealth or technical bets at the limitalmost always to send a message of power, modernity or exceptionality. Some came forward and today they are iconsbut others ended up becoming warnings. Dubai has just opposed the list, although it still does not know which of the two. The saying becomes literal. Yes, Dubai has decided to turn into reality one of the most repeated phrases about the city, that of the streets paved with goldannouncing the construction of a road literally made with this precious metal in the future Dubai Gold District. The project, presented at the end of January, deliberately plays with the symbolism of gold as a sign of the economic, cultural and tourist identity of the emirate, although for now it is not clear How far The material will be used in a structural, decorative or symbolic way, a key detail that remains unspecified, and one that is not trivial if we turn to the history of architecture. Bathing cities in “gold”. In Antiquity and the Modern Age, the equivalent of “urban gold” was massive use of noble materials for public spaces. In Rome, imperial avenues and squares paved with imported marbles throughout the Mediterranean, and not out of functional necessity, but to exhibit economic and logistical dominance. In the baroque eralarge urban axes such as those of Paris or Madrid incorporated high quality stone and excessive ornamentation to turn the city into a permanent scene of power. It wasn’t literal gold, of course, but it was deliberate material display. Brasilia pilot plane Technical madness and futuristic city. In the 19th century the fever of “impossible” materials arrived. The Crystal Palacebuilt almost entirely of iron and glass, seemed like a technical madness for its time: gigantic, fragile to look at and completely new in its concept. It worked, but also showed riskssuch as its very high vulnerability to fire, which would end up destroying it decades later. It was a symbolic success and a long-term practical failure. The 20th century is also full of even more ambitious bets. We remain as an example that of Brasiliawhich was conceived as a futuristic city built from scratch, with monumental avenues designed for automobiles and sculptural concrete buildings. The result was impressive from the air, but a chaos for everyday life: enormous distances, total dependence on the car and inhumane spaces. It didn’t collapse, but it did show that grandiosity can clash with actual use. Another example we count recently, with the John Hancock Tower opting for a glass façade. The result It was terrifying. Part of the Neom project And Neom. Of course, few more hyperbolic projects in recent times like Neomthe futuristic city that aims to stay on the plansperhaps so that they can be used in a movie. An example of a project that is too bold and hyperbolic compared to the logistical, economic and practical limits of reality. Gold as an economic identity. Be that as it may, the new Dubai street will be integrated into the reconversion of the historic Deira Gold Soukan area that already concentrates around a thousand merchants specialized in gold and jewelry. The advertisement it is not coincidental: The United Arab Emirates is one of the largest global nodes of physical gold trade, with tens of billions dollars in annual exports, and Dubai has been exploiting that position for years as part of its narrative of prosperity, stability and economic opportunity without direct taxes on wages. Dubai Skyline Architecture as a claim. The “street of gold” fits into a broader strategy, the same one that already we saw in Neom based on creating extreme milestones that ensure global headlines and a constant flow of visitors. Record-breaking skyscrapers, giant Ferris wheels, abyssal pools, artificial islands and air-conditioned streets are part of clear logic: offer experiences that are impossible or difficult to replicate in other places, even when their daily usefulness is secondary to their value as an urban spectacle. Between icon and excess. As we said, this type of project is not without risks. The recent history of architecture in the Middle East demonstrates that excessive ambition can collide with technical, financial or simply practical limits, turning some ideas into reduced versions of what was promised or directly into symbols of overexpectation. The key, as in other extreme urban experiments, will be whether the street of gold It ends up being a functional and durable element or whether it remains a striking gesture designed more to reinforce the Dubai brand than to transform urban life. The message. Beyond the material, the golden way It is a declaration of intentions: Dubai continues to bet on that architecture hyperbolic as a language of power, wealth and uniqueness. It is not just about building, but about telling a story in which the excess is part of the appeal. And as has happened other times in history, it remains to be seen if the bet can become a lasting icon, or another example of how far a city can go when the symbol outweighs urban logic. Image | Ahmed Aldaie via Unsplash, אורי ר.Neom, Norlando Pobre In Xataka | Matalascañas is an example of a major architectural failure: thinking that the beach of your childhood was going to be how you remember it. In Xataka | More than 2,000 people had committed suicide at the Golden Gate. The solution has been as simple as it is shocking for those who throw

Reed Hastings became a millionaire by conquering the couch with Netflix. Now he wants to turn the snow into a gold mine

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Reed Hastings is the co-founder and CEO of Netflix, one of the largest entertainment platforms in the world. If Hastings knows anything it’s how to have fun. The enterprising businessman started a project in 2023 designed for a handful of millionaires looking to have fun skiing on virgin snow through some private tracks that can only be used by a handful of members of a exclusive ski club in the mountains of Utah. ​An exclusive ski club for millionaires. Hastings has become the main investor and architect of an exclusive access ski community for high-net-worth individuals in Powder Mountain, northern Utah (USA). That private community is called Powder Haven and is conceived as a private ski resort reserved for the exclusive enjoyment of approximately 650 families, who ski in a highly controlled environment within a domain that covers approximately 4,860 hectares. high mountain. The private Hastings ski resort is planned as a kind of “VIP space” with access to the ski area that already exists at Powder Mountain and is still open as a public resort. The result is a hybrid model in which the fee of a few very rich people helps finance infrastructure that is also used by skiers who buy a conventional ski pass. Fees and millionaire houses. According to published Forbes, Hastings has already invested more than $100 million in the acquisition and improvement of the Powder Mountain private space, assuming debt equivalent to that of the previous owners. This new capital has been used to renew the lifts and to install new lines to other areas of the resort to expand the ski area. OK to what was published by The Wall Street JournalHastings is reportedly planning to invest $200 million more to improve services for wealthy homeowners. The station’s annual membership fee is $25,000, which is added to an initial contribution and, above all, to the purchase of a home within the community, a necessary condition to be part of the private club. The houses that make up the private ski complex start at 2 million dollars and the first phase, with 39 plots at an average price equivalent to about 2.4 million euros per unit, were sold out in just a few months. Arclodge and a new mountain neighborhood The project is not limited to building luxury villas. In the heart of Powder Haven, Arclodge is being designed, a large Swiss-style social and sports club with futuristic lines that aspires to become the center of the resort’s community life. As seen in the resort pagethe new 6,800 m2 building plans to include all the luxury services to which its millionaire members are accustomed: haute cuisine restaurants, thermal and sports pools, spa and treatment rooms, gym and spaces for cultural and sports activities. New neighborhoods have been planned around this new social nucleus to luxury homes of different sizesranging from large multi-hectare plots to turnkey luxury villas designed by high-profile architecture studios. Of course, all of them with direct access to the private ski slopes. There are only three private stations like this. The Powder Haven model that the Netflix founder is developing is not a pioneering project. In fact, it is the third private ski complex that exists in the US: Yellowstone Club in Montana, and Wasatch Peaks Ranchalso in Utah. In these three enclaves, access to the slopes does not depend on a ski pass open to the general public, but rather requires being a member-owner of a property in their luxury real estate complex. Reed Hastings is the only one that has been able to take advantage of this business model based on the exclusivity of private ski services for millionaires with almost total absence of queues and a certain coexistence with the public domain of Powder Mountain, so that the extension of its slopes is expanded at a very low cost. In Xataka | Ski resorts without snow at the end of the century: the most pessimistic models show what could happen in our high mountains Image | Unsplash (Republic GmbH), Powder Haven

the suppliers you are making gold

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If there is a recipe to succeed in the retailMercadona seems to have found her. In 2024, Juan Roig’s company invoiced more than 38.8 billion euros and increased its net profit by 37%. That’s not new. What is curious is to what extent this push is making gold to the company’s main suppliers. In recent months we have seen invest millionaire sums to expand its facilities and boast an EBIDTA (earnings before taxes) that grows at double digitbut an overall image was missing. At last we have it. An “industrial cluster”. Mercadona is not just any supermarket chain. And it is not for several reasons. The main one is that it is the one that Spanish families go to most. Your market share (at least in terms of value) around 30%significantly above other rivals established in the sector such as Carrefour or Lidl. There are those who even gives you a weight elderly. The other reason why Mercadona stands out is its strategy, based on a formula in which the “short assortment”the commitment to ready-made dishes and the white label. The success of the Valencian chain can hardly be understood without brands such as Hacendado, Deliplus or Bosque Verde, which finished a large part of its shelves. The suppliers that help sustain this offer are so relevant that Mercadona itself speaks of a “industrial cluster”. One question: How much do they earn? Recently Five Days An interesting question was asked: do we know how they evolve the income from Mercadona, but… And what about its suppliers? How are its “specialist suppliers”, the firms that allow the chain to offer a catalog dominated by its own brands, doing? It is an interesting question because between both, Mercadona and suppliers, suppliers and Mercadona, such a close relationship has been created that many of the supply companies generate more than 50% of their business through the Valencian firm. That is to say, Mercadona is not only its main client but 50, 60, 70 or even (in some cases) more than 80% of its cash depends on it. To clear up doubts Five Days consulted the 2024 financial reports deposited in the Commercial Registry by Mercadona’s 20 main suppliers. They are only a small part of the more than 2,000 “specialist suppliers and inter-suppliers” of the chain, but the weight they have in their offer is fundamental. The catalog of products that are marketed under banners such as Hacendado, Bosque Verde or Deliplus is largely indebted to them. A percentage: 20%. The Commercial Registry leaves something curious to say: in 2024 the sales figure of Mercadona’s 20 largest suppliers exceeded 12,000 million euros, 18% more than in 2022. Not only that. Its aggregate profits also grew by 5% to exceed 360 million. During the same period, Mercadona saw its turnover soar by 25%, a percentage that can be explained by price increases, but also by the opening of premisesthe increase in sales and your business share. Going down to detail. Of course, not all of them have grown at the same pace nor do they manage the same levels of income from product sales. At the top are Casa Tarradellas, Incarlopsa, J García Carrión and Covap, with turnover that has exceeded 1,000 million euros. The four also saw their sales grow between 2022 and 2024 at a rate of between 12 and 29%. The list continues (at least in terms of net turnover) Profand, Importaco, Jealsa, Entrepinares, Virto, Cerealto, Schreiber Foods, Delisano, Huevos Guillén, RNB Cosmticos, Alacant, SPB, Laboratorios Maverick and Hijos de Juan Pujante. The list is closed by Arrocería Pons, which registered 135 million euros. “Very significant part”. The reports deposited by those twenty signatures in the Commercial Registry are interesting for another reason. Many not only report high volumes of income and an increase in billing in recent years (between 2022 and 2024). It is also made clear that a considerable part of these companies depend largely on Mercadona. Not all of them provide the data, but among those that do, there are firms that recognize that 53, 69, 73, 85 or 94% of their sales are linked to the Valencian chain. Others do not go into detail, but slip that “a significant part” or “most” of their turnover comes from their relationship with Mercadona. Surprise (half). These are interesting percentages because of what they tell us about Mercadona’s expansion and the effects it has within its business ecosystem, but the truth is that few will be surprised. A few months ago Familia Martínez, a strategic supplier of Mercadona specialized especially in prepared food, it was news for your decision to invest 150 million of euros to reinforce its facilities. That gave a first clue about the business that is heating up in the heat of the expansion of the Roig chain. Images | Mercadona Via | Five Days In Xataka | Three chains are devouring the supermarket business in Spain year after year: Mercadona, Lidl and Aldi

While the whole world looks at oil, Venezuela’s true treasure is hidden in the basements of London: its gold

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Perhaps the great treasure of Venezuela not oil. In fact, since the United States attacked Caracasa series of theories have begun to be heard loudly that have a common denominator: the greatest Venezuelan loot is thousands of kilometers from the nation, under the soil of the capital of the United Kingdom. The gold trapped in London. Yes, under the streets of the cityin the vaults of the Bank of England, remain immobilized about 31 tons of gold belonging to Venezuela, an asset that in 2020 was valued around 1.4 billion pounds and that today it is worth much more after the strong rebound of the metal price. The capture of Nicolás Maduro for the United States has returned This issue is brought to the international forefront, reopening a question that has been without a clear answer for years: who really has the right to control these reserves. Although global attention often focuses on Venezuelan oil, gold represents about 15% of the country’s foreign reserves and has become a key piece of a political, legal and geopolitical pulse that far transcends Caracas. Recognition and blocking. The origin of the blockage dates back to 2018after a disputed presidential election and the tightening of sanctions promoted by Trump during his first term. The United Kingdom, along with dozens of countries, stopped recognizing Maduro as legitimate president and, under pressure from the Venezuelan opposition, refused to authorize the repatriation of the gold, alleging the risk that it would be used to prop up an authoritarian regime or directly diverted. Added to this, as later revealed former national security advisor John Bolton, an express request from Washington for London to maintain the blockade, which placed the British central bank and the Government at the center of a battle that mixed international law, sanctions and diplomacy. Bank of England A judicial labyrinth. In 2020, Caracas went to court British to claim the gold, arguing that they needed those funds to deal with the pandemic. However, the process became complicated when Juan Guaidó, then recognized by London As interim president, he also claimed ownership of the reserves. The litigation led to a legal tangle about who the Bank of England should obey, a question that remains unresolved even after Guaidó lost international recognition. The result is a legal limbo in which the gold remains immobilized, without any of the parties being able to dispose of it. Piracy accusations. From the Chavista environment, the retention of gold was denounced as an act of “piracy”an accusation made at the time by Delcy Rodríguez, which was later marred by the scandal known as Delcygate following his alleged secret trip to Madrid in 2020 despite an EU entry ban and the alleged sale of Venezuelan bullion. Although Rodríguez has adopted a more conciliatory tone After the fall of Maduro, offering cooperation to the United States, the British position remains firm: Foreign Minister Yvette Cooper has reiterated that London maintains political pressure because it considers it key to force a democratic transition, even underlining the formal independence of the Bank of England in the management of assets. The dangerous precedent. The Venezuelan case is not an exception, but rather part of a trend increasingly controversial: the immobilization of sovereign reserves in a context of growing geopolitical confrontation. We have told it: after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Western countries froze about 300,000 million of dollars from the Russian central bank, largely deposited in Eurocleara measure that has generated tensions with Moscow and has revived the debate about the security of keeping assets abroad. Historically, these sanctions have been rare but not unprecedented, from the Soviet confiscation of Romanian gold in 1918 to blockades of countries like Iran or North Korea in the second half of the 20th century. Global distrust. Thus, the climate of uncertainty is leading many countries to rethink where do you keep your reservesdriving repatriation movements and fueling the recent gold rally as an active refuge. For analysts and central banks, the Venezuelan episode is a clear warning of how politics can interfere with assets that were traditionally considered untouchable. While the Bank of England remains officially silent (and many ingots), Venezuelan gold remains buried under London, converted into a symbol of an increasingly international financial order. more fragile and politicized. Image | Bank of England, Eluveitie In Xataka | The mission in Caracas revealed that the best kept secret in the US is not a drone: it is called DAP and you will not see it in the movies In Xataka | The attack on Venezuela has recovered an uncomfortable truth: that it would not have happened to North Korea for a very simple reason

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