intervene

Light and gas have become luxury items. Europe’s plan is to intervene in prices no matter what the cost

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Turning on the heating, running a washing machine or keeping a factory blind up has become, overnight, a luxury. Faced with the economic asphyxiation that threatens citizens and companies, the European Union has crossed the Rubicon: the free energy market, as we knew it, cannot sustain this crisis, and Brussels is preparing a drastic intervention to lower the bill at any cost. ORn global market on fire. The epicenter of this new financial earthquake is in the Middle East, as we have been counting these days in Xataka. The price of oil in international markets continues to suffer shocks; as the firm points out Sparta Commodities to EUobserverit is the “largest daily movement since 1988.” Investors assume that the blockage in the region will cause real cuts in the global supply of crude oil, leaving behind the idea of ​​​​a simple logistical delay in ships. Gas has not been left behind. As detailed BloombergEuropean natural gas futures—the Dutch benchmark—soared 30% in a single day, reaching €64/MWh. Europe emerges from the winter with its reserves depleted and is now facing an all-out war with Asia to obtain the scarce shipments of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) available for the summer. The daily roller coaster of the bill. To understand why this crisis punishes the consumer so much, we must look at how the price of electricity is formed hour by hour. An analysis of Finance Times shows how prices in Europe now suffer wild volatility. The example of last March 4 is devastating: at the height of the solar peak (2:00 p.m.), a megawatt hour in Denmark cost just 26 euros; Just three hours later, after the sun set and the gas plants came into play, the price catapulted to 430 euros. This “roller coaster”, with jumps of up to 1,700% in one afternoon, has been replicated with the same harshness in the Netherlands, Germany and Belgium. Gas thus imposes a “law of luxury” every time the sun disappears, preventing the industry from planning its production. Intervene “whatever the cost.” With a heavy industry (steel, chemicals, aluminum) on the brink of the abyss – it is worth remembering that, according to a document from the European Commission cited by Euronewsindustrial electricity in the EU was already twice as expensive as in the US and China before this crisis—Europe has decided to act. According to the documents discussed by the European leaders to whom has had access Euronewsthe emergency plan seeks quick relief by putting the scissors directly into the bill in three ways: National tax cuts: Which currently vary enormously and can amount to up to 22% of the electricity bill. Cap on tolls and network charges: Which represent 18% of the bill for large industrial consumers. Review of carbon emission costs: Which add 11% to the cost of electricity generation. The intervention beyond of tax cuts. The Prime Minister of Italy, Giorgia Meloni, has toughened her tone towards companies. In statements cited by Euronewswarned: “We will do everything possible to stop speculation. I am ready to react, if necessary, including by increasing taxes on companies that speculate on prices through energy bills.” Furthermore, the panic button for strategic reserves has been activated. As explained Reutersthe finance ministers of the G7 and the EU are negotiating to release part of the 1.4 billion barrels of strategic reserves that Europe keeps to flood the market and artificially sink prices. The impact of not intervening in time. Bloomberg details the case of Domo Chemicalsa plant in the German industrial city of Leuna, which has had to declare insolvency consumed by energy costs. This erosion of the industrial fabric also coincides with a delicate political moment in Germany, where the conservative party (CDU) of Chancellor Friedrich Merz has just suffered an electoral setback against the Greens in the regional elections in Baden-Wuerttemberg. The Spanish shield. Despite the urgency, the overall European response is being fragmented. EUobserver points out that Ursula von der Leyen has proposed as a patch to expand the Caspian Sea oil and gas corridor. Ironically, the only royal coat of arms right now is Spain. As highlighted by this same medium, the Spanish market has registered the lowest and most stable prices this week thanks to its gigantic previous investment in renewable energies, partly isolating its system from fossil volatility. Finally, the markets have experienced a slight respite thanks to geopolitics. According to the latest update of BloombergEuropean bonds rebounded and gas fell 17% on Tuesday after US President Donald Trump predicted the conflict with Iran would be resolved “very soon.” However, investors assume that if the war drags on, prices will remain high for a long time. Waking up to reality. With 67% of its consumption still tied to imported fossil fuels, the bloc is aware that depending on Middle Eastern trade routes is a huge risk for its economy. Until now, the European Union trusted that the free market would solve consumer problems and guarantee the best prices. This energy crisis has shown that this is not always the case. The authorities now assume that, in extreme situations, intervening in bills, capping profits and emptying state reserves is the only viable solution. Whatever the cost, Europe has decided to take control to ensure that turning on the lights is not a privilege reserved for times of peace. Image | freepik and Haydn on Unsplash Xataka | Neither oil nor gas: if a total war breaks out between the US and Iran, the definitive weapon will be desalination plants

Jaguar Land Rover continues in crisis for a cyber attack. The magnitude is such that the British government has had to intervene

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August 31Jaguar Land Rover was forced to make a drastic decision: off the majority of its systems to stop a cyber attack. The gesture had immediate consequences. Its factories in the United Kingdom were paralyzed and the interruption also extended to other production centers abroad. Thousands of employees were forced to stay at home in the middle of a global break that lasted almost a month. Now, The company is planning A staggered return of his activity, although not without challenges. September 2, The company spread Your first official statement. He talked about a “cybercormer,” defended the decision to disconnect systems and wanted to reassure customers indicating that there was no data filtration tests. At that time it was thought that the interruption would be brief, just a few days. However, the reality was another: the break continued until September 24 And then one more week was extendedwith October 1 marked as the minimum date to initiate a gradual and phase recovery. The attack that has put Jaguar Land Rover in check Preventive disconnection not only stopped production, much of the internal systems of Jaguar Land Rover also knocked down. Design and management tools They were out of service and engineering processes were interrupted For weeks. The commercial network also suffered: retail and logistics were blocked, forced to operate with manual methods. In spite of everything, the company managed to keep its dealers open and established alternative procedures to process payments, deliver already finished vehicles and ensure the supply of replacement pieces. The blow was global. In addition to British plants, production was interrupted in other international centers, such as Slovakia, Brazil and India. The epicenter was in West Midlands, where Jaguar Land Rover concentrates its headquarters and key factories, surrounded by hundreds of suppliers. The break unleashed a domino effect that left many of those companies without orders. The company itself acknowledged that the impact extended to the entire supply chain, both in the United Kingdom and in other countries. Forensic research has not yet concluded, But the indications suggest a ransomware attack. Shortly after the crisis exploded, a self -denominated group “Scattered Laps $ Hunters” appeared on Telegram that published images of internal systems of Jaguar Land Rover. The denomination points to a collaboration between groups such as Scatrtered Spider, Lapse $ and Shinyhunters, all with history in attacks against large companies. Internal data filtration reinforces the extortion hypothesis, although the company has avoided confirming the authorship and has not revealed whether it received a specific rescue request. Attack management involves multiple actors beyond Jaguar Land Rover. ANDThe National Cybersecurity Center leaders Together with private specialists, the analysis of what happened, while the government receives regular information about the progress of recovery. Company managers They have attended meetings with ministers And they have explained that the lap should be done step by step. From there arises the restart strategy in phases: first critical systems proven in controlled environments, then a progressive resumption of production. It is a process still underway, with the priority set to run more risks. The cost of the break is measured in tens of millions. Every week without production was for Jaguar Land Rover losses close to 50 million pounds (about 59 million euros), a blow that forced the Moody’s A agency lower your perspective positive to negative financial. The interruption not only affected the company: Hundreds of suppliers They saw their orders frozen and some smaller companies began to cut template. To contain the crisis, the British government offered a loan guarantee for 1.5 billion pounds (about 1,790 million euros), to which Jlr added one Own financing line with commercial banking of 2,000 million pounds (about 2,360 million euros). The crisis has not only evidenced the fragility of Jaguar Land Rover, it has also lit the alarms throughout the automotive. A manufacturer of this size, with global resources and experience, has needed almost a month to try to start back after a computer attack. This vulnerability forces to review cybersecurity strategies in the industry, from network segmentation to continuity plans. The case will serve as a reference for other manufacturers: the question is no longer whether there will be new attacks, but how to minimize its effects when they arrive. Images | Robin Mee him | Jaguar Land Rover In Xataka | 200 people paid to see a drone show in Valencia. The problem is that the event did not exist

China did not intervene in the war to protect Iranian oil. Because your plan is longer than the conflict

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For years, the relationship between China and Iran has been underpinned by a constant oil flow. However, the recent conflict between Iran and Israel caused Beijing He ordered his ships to turn in the Ormuz Strait. A seemingly technical gesture revealed something deeper: the limits of Chinese energy diplomacy. From partner to spectator. The recent climb between Iran and Israel, which included direct attacks and cross reprisalshe tested the link between China and the Islamic Republic. Although a truce promoted by Washington was declared, these weeks the gaze was set on this part of the planet. In that context, the international community looked towards Beijing, waiting for a clear gesture of support or at least mediation. But China opted for a prudent position: verbal sentences, called to dialogue, routine statements in the UN, According to Apnews. No military support, technical assistance, or real involvement. And that caught the attention, especially for what is at stake: between 80% and 90% of the oil that will export ends in Chinese refineries, which represents approximately 1.2 million barrels per day, According to France 24. Even so, Beijing chose diplomatic silence before the conflict. China is not the United States. And it does not intend to be either. While the United States maintains a network of military basesnaval fleets and strategic alliances in the Middle East, China has no comparable presence. Your only regional base It is in Yibutiand his attempts to expand to Oman or the Arab Emirates have been stopped, in part, by Washington’s pressure. As He explained The Interpreter, China has opted for a non -intervention policy. Its diplomacy in the region is pragmatic, transactional, guided by commercial interests rather than ideological affinities. “China’s footprint in the Gulf is commercial, it is not ready for combat,” said Craig Singleton, of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. For his part, William Figueroa, expert in China-Iran of the University of Groningen, It has been overwhelming In The Washington Post: “China has no capacity to militarily influence this conflict. Nor does it benefit from a broader war.” Although it is a matter of pragmatism. From Beijing, Zhu Feng, Dean of International Relations at Nanjing University, He has remarked In AP News that volatility in the Middle East “directly affects China’s economic security.” However, that does not mean that it will be absent. His greater diplomatic letter In the region was the 2023 agreement between Iran and Saudi Arabia, negotiated in Beijing. Although he was read as a Chinese geopolitical triumph, The Interpretter He has nuanced: “The distension had already been brewing with the help of Kuwait, Iraq and Oman. China simply gave him the final touch.” That discreet presence in the diplomatic field contrasts with its constancy in another key front: the energy. China has continued buying Iranian raw at reduced prices, Taking advantage of Tehran isolation For US sanctions. As has reported on their networks The journalist, Bachar el Halabi after the recent US bombings against Iranian nuclear facilities, oil exports to China did not stop, and in fact, they reached record levels. However, the relationship is fragile. In 2020, Iranian president Mahmud Ahmadineyad criticized the agreement of 25 -year cooperation between the two countries for considering it opaque and suspicious. Rumors about alleged Chinese military bases in Iran They circulated in the local pressfeeding distrust. When there is a dependency. This week, Reuters He has revealed that Washington has authorized that ethane cargoes – a key natural gas for the petrochemical industry – are loaded in US ports to China, as long as they do not end in Iranian territory. The operation, according to the letter released by the Office of Industry and Security of the Department of Commerce, is approved under the condition that the product is not discharged or redirected towards Iran. It may seem a bureaucratic technicalism, but it really says much more. This type of movements exposes how the United States continues to set the rules of the global energy game, even when it comes to exchanges between its two main strategic rivals. For China, the message is clear: its energy trade with Iran is still under surveillance. And for Iran, the warning is even more evident: Any attempt to avoid economic isolation, even indirectly, can be blocked from afar. The dragon rhetoric. Beijing wants to be a global referee, but he is behaving as a spectator. A recent example is the Defense Summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (OCS), held in Qingdao, where Chinese Minister Dong Jun spoke of a world in “chaos and instability,” According to Deutsche Welle. The meeting was attended by their counterparts from Russia, Iran, Pakistan and Belarus. China projected symbolic power, but did not offer concrete solutions. In fact, even when they will threatened to close the Ormuz Strait – where 20% of the world crude, vital for China – pekin transits only the diplomatic tone, without major consequences. And, as multiple analysts explain, China has little appetite for risk. It is not yet willing to “risk the neck” in others. As It has concluded Craig Singleton in AP News, “When missiles fly, the so promoted ‘Strategic Association’ of China with Iran is reduced to communications. Beijing wants Iranian Iranian oil and headlines as a peacemaker, but let Washington load with the risks of hard power.” A strategic patience. China remains a key actor of the global economic order, but its energy diplomacy does not obey improvisation or shyness. On the contrary, its caution in the Middle East can be a symptom of a deeper strategy: observe, resist external pressure and prepare the terrain before intervening seriously. Beijing is not dragged by the logic of immediate power. He knows that in regions as volatile as Middle East, the cost of acting too soon may be greater than waiting. His silence, far from being absence, can be part of a longer play. Because oil unites, yes, but it also marks the rhythm of a power that is not in a hurry, … Read more

When Spacex suffered his worst incident, Elon Musk blamed a sniper of the competition. The FBI had to intervene

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On the morning of September 1, 2016, Spacex suffered one of the most cautious and controversial incidents in its history. A Falcon 9 rocket that was vertical on the launch platform Suddenly exploded With the Israeli satellite A Amos-6 aboard. Elon Musk accused the competition. A violent explosion. It was one of the first times that Spacex operated the Falcon 9 rocket with cryogenic propelants, a technique that consists in superfrging the fuel and oxidant to maximize its performance. Before the launch, Spacex had planned a static ignition test, a routine procedure in which engines are tested with the rocket anchored to the platform, but everything was twisted eight minutes before ignition. A violent explosion transformed what was a rocket into a huge fireball. The payload was shot. Mark Zuckerberg’s anger. The AMOS-6 satellite was not any load. With a cost of 200 million dollars, he had a powerful customer: Mark Zuckerberg. Goal, then Facebook, had reached an agreement to provide Free Internet Access in Africa Thanks to the satellite. After the explosion, Zuck He publicly expressed A “deep disappointment” for the rocket explosion, comments that did not sit well in Spacex, where morality was on the ground. According to Ars Techcnicathis incident was one of the points of origin of the bad relationship between Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg, which years later would lead the first to eliminate Spacex and Tesla’s Facebook pages. The theory of the sniper. The most trospid of the incident was, however, the theory promoted by Elon Musk about the possible intervention of a sniper. Theory in which Spacex insisted throughout the official investigation of the incident, According to documentation that has just become public. Although Spacex engineers shuffled hundreds of hypotheses, Elon Musk promoted the idea of ​​an external sabotage: the shot of a sniper. It sounds crazy, but Musk saw the two main indications convincing: the break began about 60 meters high, on the side of the rocket that looked towards a building leased by its main competitor, United Launch Alliance. An alleged ULA shot. The ULA building, a joint business of Boeing and Lockheed Martin, was a kilometer and a half of the Spacex launch platform, a reasonable distance for a sniper. Put to believe, even seemed to see a flash on the roof of the building, coinciding with the time it would take a projectile to reach the rocket. The rivalry between SpaceX and ULA had then reached its peak. Ul still dominated the market of military and government launches, the most lucrative, but Spacex had just won a battle in the courts to compete for these contracts. However, accusing a sabotage competitor without evidence was a serious accusation. The FBI came to intervene. Azuzados by Musk, Spacex engineers thoroughly investigated the sniper theory. They tried to access the ULA roof and performed shooting against pressurized helium tanks to see if they exploited similarly to Falcon 9. The insistence was such that the Federal Aviation Administration had to intervene with a letter that denied the involvement of third parties. There was no sniper, although, as the documentation of the journalist Eric Berger has revealed For your book Recentryeven the FBI investigated the case. The federal agents reviewed the Spacex analysis and the video material, but they concluded that “there were no indications that suggested that sabotage or any other criminal activity played a role in the explosion of Falcon 9”. With this, FAA considered the closed matter. What happened then. The real cause of the rocket explosion and, with it, of the AMOS-6 satellite, was the process of loading propellents. In its eagerness to accelerate the refueling process with super -refrained liquid oxygen, the Spacex equipment filled the helium tanks too fast, heating the aluminum coating of the rocket and causing its deformation and rupture. Spacex would put the hair of Punta to the NASA security office for its procedure “Load and Go”, which proposed to raise astronauts to the rocket before loading fuel. Over time, not only would demonstrate the reliability of Falcon 9 (Last year he completed 137 launches against the five of ULA), but would become the main supplier of NASA manned releases to the International Space Station. Images | And combinator, Uslaunchreport, CNN Money (YouTube) In Xataka | Texas has a new city. Until a few days ago, it was only Spacex’s base in Boca Chica

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