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Ukraine has found Russia’s weak point in Crimea. And now there is a line of Russian trucks that cannot move forward

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During World War II, General George S. Patton It stopped its advance not because of a lack of tanks or ammunition, but because of something much more basic: gasoline. Their armored columns consumed so much fuel that logistics could not keep up. Since then, armies learned a brutally simple lesson: sometimes war is decided not by who fires the most, but by who keeps the tank full. The real Achilles heel. For months, the war in Crimea had been told in terms of missiles, air bases and attacks on the Black Sea Fleet. But Ukraine seems to have identified something much more vulnerable, the same thing we just saw with the US agreement with Iran to end the war: the fuel. It is not just about destroying military objectives, but about attacking the “blood” that makes the entire Russian machine work. Without gasoline, trucks do not move, projectiles do not arrive, drones do not fly, nor an offensive is sustained. And that’s exactly what kyiv is cutting. Hit the artery. I was counting this morning the financial times that the Ukrainian campaign has concentrated on the land corridor connecting continental Russia with Crimea, especially the “Novorossiya” highwaythe great logistics work inaugurated in 2023 and presented by Vladimir Putin as one of the great strategic successes of the war. It we counted recently. That road connects Rostov with the peninsula through occupied Mariupol and Melitopol, and has now become a shooting gallery: more than 375 documented attacks against trucks and vehicles since May, many of them precisely on that road. The message is clear: there is no need to destroy Crimea, enough is enough with disconnecting it. A peninsula that lives off what it enters. The problem for Moscow It is structural. Crimea neither produces oil nor has enough refining capacity to sustain itself. It has always depended on external supplies, before from Ukraine and now from Russia. This dependency turns each destroyed convoy into an immediate problem. The images of kilometric queuesdigital coupons and rationing at gas stations in Sevastopol show how the logistical impact translates almost instantly into social pressure. What at the front is a supply interruption, in the rear already seems like a siege. The Kerch bridge is no longer enough. For a long time, the bridge was the great russian lifeguard. But since the 2022 attack that damaged its stretches and set a fuel train on fire, Moscow has greatly reduced its use for sensitive shipments. Transporting fuel by road is much less efficient than by train, because a single rail convoy is equivalent to dozens and dozens of tanker trucks. And therein lies the problem: Ukraine is hitting both systems at the same time, forcing Russia to improvise floating bridges and much slower and more vulnerable secondary routes. The intermediate drone war. The most interesting thing is that this campaign is not being led by either small front-line drones or large strategic drones, but rather a new intermediate category that we have been explaining. We talk about systems like the FP-2, Behemoth or the Hornet that allow you to attack at distances of up to 200 kilometers with enough charge to destroy trucks, warehouses and bridges. They are cheap devices, difficult to intercept and operate with networks like Starlink that complicate Russian electronic warfare. It’s a major change, as Ukraine is turning logistics into its own front. Crimea is an island again. If you like, the great effect of this strategy It is psychological and military both. Crimea was conquered by Russia as a platform to project power, and now it is beginning to look an isolated enclave which needs to be fed daily to survive. If Ukraine keeps up the pace through the summer, the pressure will not only be on the southern front, but at full capacity Russian to sustain operations in the region. And there is the central idea: Moscow still has missiles, bases and soldiers in Crimea, but Ukraine has understood that the weak point was not so much in destroying them directly, it was in simply leaving them without gasoline. Image | Britannia In Xataka | We have to start thinking about the Ukrainian war in terms greater than those of the First World War. In Xataka | The drone war has left a clear lesson for Ukraine: you can’t leave home without a 100-year-old machine gun

In case there was not enough “gasoline” in 2026, the attack by a Russian drone has crossed a red line: that of Chernobyl

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In the early 1980s, a Soviet satellite detected what appeared to be the launch of several US nuclear missiles. The duty officer, Stanislav Petrov, suspected that something was wrong and decided not to report of an imminent attack. He was right: the sensors had mistaken reflections of the sun on the clouds for real missiles. That decision avoided a possible nuclear escalation during one of the most tense moments of the Cold War. Chernobyl, again. In a war where drones are already They attack strategic airfieldsmilitary bases and industrial centers located hundreds of kilometers from the front, it seemed difficult to find a new red line. However, a russian attack against a facility related to spent nuclear fuel near Chernobyl has revived one of Europe’s most persistent ghosts. There was no radioactive leak nor were safety limits exceeded, but the simple fact that a drone hit an infrastructure linked to the site of the worst nuclear accident of modern history was enough to generate international alarm. Almost forty years after the 1986 disaster, the name Chernobyl still have a unique ability to raise concern inside and outside Ukraine. Nuclear storage facility severely damaged in Chernobyl exclusion zone after Russian drone attacks The exclusion zone. According to Ukrainian authoritiesa Russian Shahed-type drone crashed into the reception building of the Centralized Spent Nuclear Fuel Storage Facility located in the Chernobyl exclusion zone at dawn. The explosion caused significant damage into the structure and sparked a fire that was quickly extinguished. There were no victims and the stored nuclear fuel was not directly affected, since the containers were not in the area hit by the attack. Even so, the installation is part of the infrastructure intended to store for decades waste from Ukrainian nuclear power plants, which made the incident a matter of great political and strategic sensitivity. Why worry? The concern did not arise because of the material damage, but because of what could have happened in a worse scenario. The International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed that very close to the building reached there is a large amount of nuclear material stored under strict security measures. Although radiation levels remained normal, the episode once again brought to the table an issue that accompanies the conflict. from 2022: the vulnerability of nuclear facilities in a war where drones, missiles and long-range attacks are part of the daily routine. Each incident forces us to remember that infrastructure designed to operate in peacetime now exists within a combat zone. A constant pressure. The attack is not an isolated event. Over the past few years, war has repeatedly placed nuclear facilities Ukrainians at the center of international concern. The best known example is Zaporizhia power stationthe largest in Europe, occupied by Russian forces since 2022 and a common scene of cross accusations about bombings, sabotage and security threats. Added to this is the precedent February 2025when another drone damaged the gigantic confinement arch built to cover reactor number 4 at Chernobyl. Although a radiological emergency did not occur then, the incident damaged part of the structure’s protection capabilities. A symbolic dimension. Beyond its physical effects, the attack seems to have an enormous symbolic weight. Ukraine presents it as a demonstration that Russia is willing to take risks related to nuclear security to increase pressure over kyiv. Moscow, for its part, has not acknowledged any responsibility. The truth is that the episode occurred in a moment of intensification of long-range attacks by both sides, with drones hitting increasingly deeper and more sensitive targets. In this context, reaching a facility linked to Chernobyl sends a message that transcends the battlefield and also seeks to impact international public perception. The return of European nuclear fear. we have been counting. The war in Ukraine has shown that the nuclear risks of the 21st century are not limited to atomic weapons. Power plants, spent fuel depots, energy supply lines and complex security infrastructures can become targets or get caught up in the conflict. That’s why he Chernobyl incident has had such an impact despite not causing immediate radiological consequences. In a Europe already marked by war, the arms race and tensions between great powers, the attack has served to remind us that the legacy of Chernobyl is still present. He 1986 accident It belongs to the past, but the fear it inspires continues to be one of the most powerful psychological tools on the continent. Image | IAEA ImagebankEnergoatom/Telegram In Xataka | We had been wondering for years why the Chernobyl wild boars were so radioactive. The answer was not in the accident In Xataka | Cartography of a nuclear disaster: the maps that 40 years later reveal the real magnitude of Chernobyl

The oldest train line in Spain is still running 180 years later. And it moves 40 million passengers

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It is very likely that you have also done the exercise but I don’t know if the subject fascinates you as much as it does me. Have you ever thought about how far and how close we are from our great-grandparents and our great-great-grandparents? The City of Wonders by Eduardo Mendoza explains wonderfully how Barcelona became a technological centrifuge at the end of the 19th century and the first decades of the 20th century. When Onofre Bouvila arrives in Barcelona, ​​the city is very different from the one in front of him when the book ends. A little before what the book tells, Barcelona had already begun to assimilate some technological advances that would be difficult for the average citizen to conceive. One of them was the railway. In 1848, the first train line on the Peninsula was inaugurated in Barcelona.. It’s Barcelona-Mataró. 30 kilometers in half an hour And, indeed, the Barcelona-Mataró is not the first Spanish train line but it is the first on the Iberian Peninsula. Actually, the first train line in Spain is the one known as Havana-Güines Since on November 19, 1837, the first service between these two towns was launched. The objective was to transport the sugar and honey that was produced in the first of these towns from Güines to the port of Havana. However, the first train on the Iberian Peninsula I would have to wait another decade. It was not until October 28, 1848 when the first train from Barcelona left towards Mataró surrounded by the music of the Artillery Corps and the curious who came to Doctor Aiguader Avenue. They explain in The Vanguard that the commotion was considerable to the south of the Parque de la Ciudadela and next to what is now the Estación de Francia, because the atmosphere vibrated with the excitement of witnessing a historical event in our country. The train had 24 cars and had capacity for 900 people. They had almost 30 kilometers ahead of them, which when the service was transformed into a regular line could be covered in 35 minutes without stops and an hour of travel if it stopped at intermediate stops, leaving far behind the five or six hours that had to be spent if traveling by stagecoach. The smoke, coal and soot did not deter those who, according to the Catalan newspaper, sneaked onto the train to be part of that first cap journey. Before, a few lucky They had already had the opportunity to travel between the two cities by train. And a few weeks before the big day, two rehearsals were carried out to check that everything was perfect and worked as it should. It was the result of the work of Miguel Biada. Miguel Biada i Buñol He was a merchant mariner who became a promoter of the first train line on peninsular soil. Although he was born in Mataró, he earned his living as a merchant in the Caribbean where, already in Havana, he had been part of the group of businessmen who promoted and carried out the first Spanish train line, the aforementioned Havana-Güines. Back in Spain, the businessman pushed to push ahead with that first train line that, according to some researchwas projected on the international gauge. These sources suggest that Madrid was required to opt for what It would later be known as Ancho Ibérico. A decision that condemned Spain to be isolated from the European railway network and that It still has its consequences today.. Finally, as we said, the first train line in mainland Spain started in 1848 and became a complete success. In the first year, 675,828 passengers boarded the train among whom, unfortunately, was not its promoter who had died that same year in April. Nor did the five people who, they say, have any good luck. The Vanguardwere run over and killed that first year. These deaths did not put a stop to the expansion plans. And the railway had come to stay in the Iberian Peninsula. It did so decades behind other European countries, but the expansion was so rapid that In 1866 Spain had already accumulated more than 5,000 kilometers of roads. Today, the Barcelona-Mataró has extended to the Massanet-Massanas station and is more than 70 kilometers long. Obviously, it is the first Rodalies line in Barcelona, ​​the one known as R1 that today starts from Molins de Rei and moves almost 40 million passengers a year. Photo | Illustration and photography collected on Wikimedia In Xataka | The Madrid Cercanías have become a nest of problems and delays: their solution is new “megatrains”

Japan has just crossed a line that it has not crossed since World War II. China has responded with supersonic missiles

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At the beginning of the 20th century, during the battle of tsushimathe Russian imperial fleet took more than seven months to circle half the planet to confront Japan. The result was so disastrous and fast that several powers suddenly understood an idea: in the Asia-Pacific, controlling the sea could decide the global balance long before a total war began. Supersonic missiles off the US and Japan. It we count last week. The South China Sea is becoming a huge military board where Beijing wants to make it clear that it is willing to answer directly to any attempt to surround its area of ​​influence. While the United States, the Philippines and Japan develop the largest Balikatan maneuvers of recent years, China has now responded by sending H-6 bombers armed with YJ-12 supersonic missilesJ-16 fighters equipped with anti-ship missiles and several naval groups around Luzon and Scarborough Shoal. The message is difficult to ignore: Beijing wants to show that it can deploy air and naval force heavy right in front of a military bloc led by Washington and Tokyo without abandoning the initiative in the region. Already looks like a war rehearsal around Taiwan. The Balikatan maneuvers have changed enormously in recent years. What were once relatively conventional exercises between the United States and the Philippines have morphed into focused simulations in maritime settingsattacks against major adversaries and possible conflicts around Taiwan and the South China Sea. The full participation of Japanese forces and the presence of ships from Australia and Canada reflect the extent to which Washington is trying to build a regional network capable of responding to China in the event of a crisis. Beijing interprets it as a direct threatespecially since several of these maneuvers take place near routes and positions that China considers essential to protect its access to the Pacific. Japan has crossed a symbolic line. A few hours ago one of the movements that most irritated Beijing during the maneuvers took place, and it was not only the American presence, but the increasingly active role of Japan. for the first time since World War IIJapanese forces launched abroad a Type 88 anti-ship missile during military exercises in the Philippines, something that China interprets as a clear sign of Japanese “remilitarization.” Although the missile can be used for defensive purposesBeijing considers that deploying this type of weaponry outside Japanese territory breaks part of pacifist logic that Tokyo maintained for decades after 1945. Furthermore, the context further aggravates the tension: Washington also fired Tomahawk missiles from the Philippines using the Typhon systemcapable of hitting targets hundreds or even thousands of kilometers away, potentially including mainland China itself. For Beijing, the image is disturbing because it reflects how Japan, the Philippines and the United States are beginning to rehearse together a scenario where the Pacific island chains could be transformed into advanced attack platforms and military containment against China. Two armed H-6 bombers fly over Scarborough Reef in an attempt by Beijing to show its superiority to Manila and its allies amid the Balikatan maneuvers and territorial disputes H-6 bombers are no longer simple propaganda. Chinese bomber flights over Scarborough Shoal have become relatively commonbut this time the important detail was the weapons. The H-6 appeared with a greater load of YJ-12 supersonic missiles, specifically designed to attack large ships and naval groups. At the same time, J-16 fighters They escorted the deployment while Chinese ships closely followed the multinational flotilla led by the United States and the Philippines. In other words, Beijing is using these exercises to show something very concrete: in a hypothetical regional conflict, it would try saturate and keep away US naval forces using massive quantities of anti-ship missiles launched from land, aircraft and ships. China is surrounding the Philippines with layers of military pressure. Beyond the bombers, China deployed the combat group of the Liaoning aircraft carrier and various armed surface groups with Type 055 destroyersconsidered some of the most powerful ships in the Chinese Navy. One of these groups carried out live fire exercises east of Luzon, precisely in areas that the United States and the Philippines are studying as possible reinforcement routes in the event of war. The Chinese strategic idea is increasingly evident: convert the Philippine maritime environment into a extremely dangerous area for any US attempt to move troops, supplies or reinforcements towards Taiwan or the South China Sea. Naval warfare is changing because of drones. While showcasing bombers and aircraft carriers, China is also accelerating the adaptation of its navy to a threat that has transformed recent conflicts such as Ukraine or attacks in the Middle East: the drones. In fact, Beijing has just presented a new naval antidrone system capable of intercepting stealth and very low altitude attacks in complex electronic warfare environments. The tests carried out in the Bohai Sea show the extent to which the Chinese Navy assumes that future naval confrontations will not depend only on large ships and missiles, but also on enormous swarms of drones capable of harassing or destroying much more expensive ships. The China Sea is filling with signs. The bomber combination with supersonic missilesnext-generation destroyers, aircraft carriers, artificial bases and anti-drone systems reflects something deeper than simple military exercises. China is preparing an environment where any US intervention around Taiwan or the Philippines would be extremely complexsaturated with aerial, maritime and electronic threats. And the most significant thing is that it is no longer just about propaganda displays: Beijing is testing in the field how to coordinate all those capabilities against real forces from the United States, Japan and their allies in one of the most tense regions on the planet. Image | CCTV In Xataka | The YJ-20 has just entered the scene at the most delicate moment: China has launched its hypersonic missile against the US and Japan In Xataka | China is beating the US with a simple strategy: manufacturing hypersonic missiles at the price of a Tesla

Japan has crossed a red line in the Pacific with the US. China just responded with warships closer than ever

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When in 2013 two Russian strategic bombers They flew over without warning airspace near Japan, forced Tokyo to deploy interception fighters in a matter of minutes in one of the most tense responses in its recent history. The episode, almost forgotten outside military circles, made clear the extent to which there are movements in the Pacific that, even if they last just hours, can change the way countries look at each other for years. A crossing of lines. Japan has taken a step that for decades it carefully avoided: integrating for the first time with combat troops in maneuvers led by the United States in the Indo-Pacific, de facto breaking a political and strategic barrier inherited from the postwar. This movement is not symbolic, because involves deploying soldiers, ships, aircraft and missiles in a real conflict simulation scenario, which brings Tokyo closer to a much more active role within the US military apparatus. The decision, furthermore, occurs in a context of growing concern about Taiwan and for him balance of power in the region, which makes this gesture more than just cooperation: it is a clear sign of strategic alignment. China’s response: closer than ever. Beijing’s reaction has been immediate and measured in kilometers: the deployment of warships on routes much closer to Japanese territory than usual, including transit through waters that it rarely used to access the Pacific. Although China insists that these are routine exercises, the pattern reveals a willingness to press and demonstrate operational capacity in sensitive areas, bringing its military presence closer to points that it previously avoided. Not only that. This movement fits in a trend wider than greater naval aggressiveness around Japan, where each maneuver not only tests capabilities, but also political limits. Everything revolves around an island. The background of this escalation is the Taiwan issuewhich acts as the axis of tension between China and Japan since Tokyo left open the possibility of intervening if a conflict breaks out on the island. Beijing has interpreted these statements as a red lineand has since responded with diplomatic protests, economic pressure and military demonstrations. Every Japanese step in or around the strait is seen as a provocation, and every Chinese move seeks to recalibrate that balance without openly crossing the threshold of direct confrontation. Balikatan: from exercise to message. It is another of the crystal clear readings. The Balikatan maneuvers have ceased to be a simple bilateral exercise to become a multinational display of forceone with more than 17,000 troops and the participation of countries such as Australia, France or Canada. The active incorporation of Japan changes its nature, because it introduces a key actor in the so-called “first island chain”, a geographical and military barrier. designed to contain Chinese expansion in the Pacific. The deployment of anti-ship missiles and live-fire exercises, including the destruction of naval targets, reinforces the idea that rehearsing a scenario of high intensity maritime conflict. The battle for the islands. Also we have talked on several occasions in this chain of territories (which goes from Japan to the Philippines passing through Taiwan) that has become the axis of the US strategy to limit Chinese naval projection. Japan, by integrating more deeply into this system, contributes to the creation of a species of distributed “fortress” that seeks to hinder any Chinese advance towards the open Pacific. For Beijing, however, breaking or surrounding that barrier is a strategic prioritywhich explains the increase in its activity beyond that line and its insistence on operating in waters increasingly distant from its coast. An increasingly fragile balance. The result of all this is a scenario where each movement has a double reading: what some present as routine trainingothers interpret it as a climbing sign. Japan has taken a step that redefines its role in regional security, and China has responded by bringing its naval power closer to a distance it previously avoided, creating an action-reaction dynamic that increases the risk of incidents. Thus, in a global context marked by many other conflicts that could divert American attention, the Indo-Pacific is positioned as the great board where the balance of power of the 21st century is played. Image | CCTV In Xataka | Japan has dozens of “forgotten” islands off the coast of China: it is now preparing for the worst scenario In Xataka | Satellite images leave no doubt: China has concentrated thousands of fishing boats off Japan, and its idea is not to fish

Iran has just crossed the great energy red line. Türkiye is the first victim of a blackout that is already looking at Europe

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We had been holding our breath for weeks, accepting the logistical tension in the Strait of Hormuz as the new normal. However, the war has crossed an irreversible red line. We have gone from a trade blockade to the physical destruction of the world’s energy engine, and the consequences are already being felt in the global economy. The impact was so immediate that the price of natural gas in Europe skyrocketed by 35%. Global interdependence has caused the first major domino to fall to be thousands of kilometers from the epicenter: Turkey has become the first country to suffer a gas supply cut, marking the beginning of a chain reaction. The blow to the energetic heart. It is not just any objective. As explained Deutsche Welle, South Pars is the largest natural gas reserve in the world – shared with Qatar, which calls its part North Dome – and contains enough gas to supply the world’s needs for 13 years. It is the basis of Iran’s energy survival. The response from Tehran was withering and expansive. As detailed in the Wall Street JournalIran did not limit itself to responding to Israel, but attacked vital infrastructure in neighboring countries, launching missiles against the gigantic Ras Laffan industrial complex in Qatar (the largest liquefied natural gas facility in the world) and refineries in Saudi Arabia. In the midst of this war chaos, Iran turned off the tap: Tehran suddenly paralyzed its natural gas exports to Türkiye. Türkiye in the eye of the hurricane. The cutoff to Türkiye is not an anecdote, it is the symptom of a systemic crisis. According to the data provided by BloombergLast year, Ankara imported around 13% or 14% of its total gas needs (about 7 billion cubic meters) from Iran. To the gallery, the Turkish government tries to project calm. How to collect ReutersTurkish Energy Minister Alparslan Bayraktar has categorically assured that “there are no supply problems” and that the country’s storage facilities are at 71% of their capacity. Furthermore, the minister insists that oil dependence of the Middle East is a “manageable 10%” and they are already accelerating diversification agreements with giants such as TotalEnergies, Exxon and Shell. The markets are not optimistic. The experts consulted by Middle East eye They point out that Turkey has alternatives – such as increasing the flow from Russia or Azerbaijan – but the closing of the Iranian tap will force Ankara to compete fiercely in the international market for emergency shipments of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG). Panic reaches Europe. And this is where the domino effect hits us directly. As Türkiye goes on a desperate hunt for LNG ships, the pressure on prices becomes unsustainable for the Old Continent. The day after the start of the conflict, the price of gas rose 55%. However, in the midst of this European chaos, one country is resisting the challenge much better than its neighbors: Spain. Thanks to a massive deployment of solar and wind energy, our country manages to cushion the initial blow by sinking prices during daylight hours. But the transition is painfully incomplete and we are not invulnerable. As analyst Antonio Aceituno, from Tempos Energía, warns, the Spanish balance is broken when evening falls. When the sun disappears, gas combined cycles begin to cover demand, returning tension to prices. It is empirical proof that, without massive batteries to guard the sun, at eight in the afternoon we are still at the mercy of what happens in the Strait of Hormuz. As the expert Gerard Reid reflects in Euronewsit is preferable to depend on China to import a solar panel once every 25 years, than to depend on gas from the Persian Gulf every day. Broken diplomacy. Arab governments are “furious” because they feel the US-Israeli strategy has put a target on their backs. For its part, Qatar has called the attacks on its facilities a “dangerous and irresponsible step” and a direct threat to its national security. In the midst of this powder keg, Washington’s role is erratic. President Donald Trump took to social media to deny prior knowledge of the Israeli attack on South Pars. However, Trump did not hesitate to issue a brutal ultimatum to Tehran: if it attacks Qatar again, the United States will “massively blow up the entire” Iranian oilfield. The scars of a systemic war. As my colleague Miguel Jorge analyzes well,the dynamic that has been activated is dangerously reminiscent of the 1991 Gulf War. It is no longer about destroying military capabilities or political pressure; We are facing a war against the very infrastructure that supports the states. The apparent lightness with which this conflict has developed has dragged us into a dead end. Iran has shown that it does not need to win a conventional military war; It is enough for him to set the energetic heart of the planet on fire. Even if a ceasefire were signed tomorrow, the material reality is inescapable. Charred refineries and dry pipelines to Türkiye are not rebuilt with signatures on a piece of paper. The scar on the world’s infrastructure will take years to heal, and the crisis that we had been avoiding for months has already detonated irreversibly. Image | Hamed Malekpour Xataka | The red lines are ceasing to exist: the fear of the US and Qatar in the face of Iran’s attacks on basic infrastructure

the Transport plan so that the most used Cercanías line in Spain stops being chaos

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The Ministry of Transport has finally decided to transform line C-5 of Cercanías de Madrid, which is, with some 72 million annual travelersthe most used in Spain. Won’t do it until they finish the underground works of the A-5but we already know all the details. It is the largest renovation of the line in decades and the heart of the change are 35 giant trains that are already being manufactured in Valencia. ORa line to the limit. As we said, the C-5 moves about 72 million passengers a year and absorbs 29% of all Cercanías Madrid trips. It is the public transport line with the most users in the entire country, and today it operates with trains that do not exceed 150 meters in length, platforms that do not allow larger vehicles and an outdated signaling system. With a demand that has grown by 10% between 2022 and 2024the margin has narrowed so much that it is time for a change. The protagonist of change: the Stadler Series 453. On March 4, the Ministry of Transportation presented the modernization plan of the C-5, endowed with 1,350 million euros, and confirmed that Renfe will allocate 600 million to the purchase of the 35 Series 453 trains manufactured by Stadler at its plant in Albuixech, Valencia. The service promises, since we are talking about trains that will measure almost 200 meters (specifically 191.16 meters) and will combine single-decker cars at the ends with double-decker cars inside. QWhat changes for the traveler. Where today about 1,565 people fit in the current trains, the new ones will accommodate up to 1,884 people (524 seated and 1,360 standing) in a single composition. Double-decker cars are designed for longer journeys and with a seat; those with one floor, wider at the entrances, for quick ascents and descents. Two-story interior cars According to they count in Trenvista, they will include areas for wheelchairs, multifunctional spaces for bicycles and strollers, a fully accessible toilet, WiFi and USB sockets. In addition, the middle points to greater padding than in other Cercanías trains, but without armrests. Why haven’t they arrived yet. Renfe put out to tender these trains in 2019 and the contract was awarded to Stadler in 2021. The Swiss firm had to expand its Albuixech factory to meet the order, which in 2022 was expanded with 20 additional 200-meter units, and began manufacturing in rented warehouses while the new facilities were ready, according to detailed at that time the medium. The first tests on the Spanish railway network began in the summer of 2024. The arrival at C-5, however, will still take some time. And the Ministry’s plan places the entry into service of these trains with automatic driving in April 2030. The problem that had to be solved before. For a 200-meter train to circulate on C-5, the infrastructure has to be prepared. Today it is not. The current platforms are too short, the LZB signaling system that regulates circulation has reached the end of its useful life, and there are no maintenance facilities capable of accommodating trains of that length. The good news is that in the 1,350 million plan is included the extension of platforms between 40 and 50 meters, the construction of a new maintenance base in Móstoles, the replacement of the signaling system with the European ERTMS Level 2 standard and the construction of a new station in Móstoles-El Soto. What’s coming now. The schedule foresees two service cutsin the summers of 2027 and 2028, to get to work with the most complex parts, and with free replacement buses and reinforcement in the Metro. Testing of the new signaling system will begin in April 2029, the first high-capacity trains will enter service in April 2030, and the project is expected to be completed in October 2031. The objective declared by the Ministry is to go from 72 to 100 million travelers annually, with a capacity 60% greater than the current one. It remains to be seen if the deadlines are met. Images | Snooze123 (Wikipedia) and Stadler In Xataka | In a region addicted to burials, a municipality wants to bury another 2.5 kilometers: Rivas’ plan for the Metro

AI is bringing back into fashion something that we thought was only for geeks: the command line

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At first it was the command line. It was 1982, maybe 1983, and I first saw a ZX Spectrum 48K. That fascinated me not only because of the noises and beeps and colors and crappy and wonderful games, but because you wrote something on the screen in text mode and suddenly things happened. I would end up having a C64, which of course was far better 😉 but that’s another story. Then, a couple of years later, a personal visit to the IT department of El Corte Inglés, which was one of the few places where one could no longer see computers, but touch them. That was like the Apple stores of today, and preteens and not so preteens came there not to see machines, but to feel them. Hello, old friend. There were PCs there, of course. Boring and gray and yet also wonderful. And the first thing they did when they turned on was ask the date and time to adjust their internal clocks, and I was amazed and thought in my innocence, “Oh my God, how clever is he that he asks the date and time to be super updated.” And immediately afterwards, of course, the MS-DOS logo appeared and that terrible and magical prompt at the same time (or a similar one, because I doubt they had a hard drive): C:\ I was little, but human-computer interaction had long been dominated by that technology: the command line. You wrote, the machine responded. The UNIX systems did it before, the “operating systems” of the Spectrum or the C64 later, and of course it was also done by that MS-DOS that seemed amazing because once again I, in my innocence, did not even know that there was already a brilliant crazy visionary out there who was selling some simply amazing little machines with a 7-inch screen that They greeted you with “Hello, I’m Macintosh”. Everything changed (quite) quickly and suddenly the command line became somewhat awkward, clunky, obsolete. Everything had to be visual. Windows and graphic elements evolved so that we wrote less and clicked (not to mention scrolled) much more. And in the last 30 years we have not stopped doing that and defending that the graphical interface was perfect for humans and for most scenarios in which we have to talk to our machines. And it was. And it is. But AI has changed that. Hello again, CLI The explosion of generative AI has turned this situation 180 degrees. It is true that in recent years we have used AI through (mostly) a browser or a mobile app that was actually an embedded browser, but over time we have seen that if we wanted AI to do things for us, there was a problem. Than to AI has a hard time seeing and working with a graphical user interface. But at the same time there were those who realized that what AI did like angels was work with a command line interpreter or CLI. It suddenly made sense to use the terminal again or our computer consolebecause the AI ​​felt at home with it. I didn’t have to recognize and interpret the screen: I just had to read it, and that was wonderful. That is why we have seen how Claude Code (or Codex, or Gemini CLI, or similar tools) has become an absolute marvel. One that suddenly returned us to the command line and a terminal in which we felt like we were in the ZX Spectrum that I saw when I was 9 or 10 years old. You wrote and the machine responded, and here it was the same, but of course, wildly. What seemed like something relegated to the realm of programming is slowly making sense for many other scenarios. You can actually use Claude Code or Codex like you use ChatGPT, for chatting, but it seemed like they could only be used for programming. And not. We are seeing how more and more solutions designed to take advantage of the power of generative AI are programmed with a text interface, for the command line. Those tools They are designed to be used much more by an AI than by a human. They also come in there the MCPs that connect AI models with tools and services like Slack, GitHub or AWS, and if those services have their own versions of themselves in text mode, the AI ​​will be able to use them much better and much more efficiently. We have the last example in Google Workspace CLIa platform that allows Drive, Gmail, or Calendar to be used from the command line. It is not designed for humans—although we can use it—but rather for AI models to take advantage of it. It’s a gift from Google to the machines, and one that is not at all generous: what the company wants here is to convince the machines to use its services. The humans have already won. btop, a system monitoring tool that makes use of a text-mode interface that is still wonderful. Source: Wikipedia. It’s just an example, because little by little we see how the command line is experiencing a second youth. We no longer only talk about the GUI (Graphical User Interface), but from the TUI (Text-based User Interface). It is something that has always had its place, especially in the Linux operating system, where tools like btop or Neofetch showed that text can be (very) pretty, but now. These are just two examples, because there are dozens of them. Hundreds. Probably thousands. Not necessarily beautiful, but efficient and functional, like mutt (mail client) or Midnight Commanderlegendary file explorer in text mode. For AI, these types of apps are wonderful, because I insist, it does not have to make an effort to understand what is happening: it reads text at full speed and understands and acts. And that is vital for those AI agents who are beginning to conquer everything and everyone. OpenClaw, for example, is showing us that potential … Read more

more than 600 km/h on a line that has accumulated years of delays

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In 2015, a seven-car prototype in Japan made us dream with the tremendous speeds that the trains of the future would have, with the Japanese country as the main standard bearer. The L0 Series train reached 603 km/h on the Yamanashi test line, becoming the fastest manned railway vehicle ever recorded at the time. More than a decade later, that record still standsalthough the promise of its commercial use has yet to materialize. And the line that is supposed to bring it to travelers accumulates years of delays. magnetic levitation. The L0 Series works via superconducting magnetic levitation, using powerful magnets along the track and in the train that interact to lift the vehicle on the track, completely eliminating physical contact with the tracks. Without friction, without mechanical noise, without wear, and with heart-stopping speeds. The system is known as SCMaglev and uses an electrodynamic suspension, different from that used in the Shanghai maglev. Japan National Railways began researching this type of propulsion in 1962 with a clear objective: to connect Tokyo and Osaka in one hour. They have had that dream for more than six decades. Chūō Shinkansen. This is the maglev line under construction between Tokyo and Nagoya, with plans to extend it to Osaka. The idea is that it will be established between Shinagawa and Nagoya stations, with stops in Sagamihara, Kōfu, Iida and Nakatsugawa. The line is not intended to replace the legendary Tokaido Shinkansen, but it will exist to offer travelers a much faster alternative. The line would connect Tokyo and Nagoya in 40 minutes and, later, Tokyo and Osaka in 67 minutes, at a maximum speed of 505 km/h. Today the fastest Nozomi (Japan’s fastest high-speed train service) takes around two and a half hours between the two cities. With Chūō Shinkansen, the idea is that approximately 90% of the 286-kilometer route to Nagoya passes through tunnels, instead of following the coast, as the Tokaido does. This decision is also the root of much of their problems. ORa prefecture and a river. The main obstacle was that the then governor of Shizuoka, Kawakatsu Heita, denied permission to drill one of the tunnels under the Japanese Southern Alps for environmental reasons. The argument was that the impact studies had been carried out with little rigor and that the excavations could affect the bed of the Oi River. The section in question affected just 8.9 kilometers of tunnel within Shizuoka, but it was enough to block the entire project for years. Without that section, the rest of the work could not be completed. However, the current governor of the region, Yasutomo Suzuki, authorized the geotechnical inspection prior, but the works are still in progress. A calendar full of delays. In 2024, JR Central president Shunsuke Niwa publicly ruled out opening in 2027 and targeted 2034 as the new minimum date. But the story doesn’t end there. Last October, JR Central postponed the arrival to 2035. Construction costs have already skyrocketed by more than 50% to 11 trillion yen (about 61 billion euros), according to RailTech. The section to Osaka, for its part, It would not arrive until 2037 at best. The threat from China. In July of last year, during the World High Speed ​​Congress held in Beijing, the state-owned CRRC presented a maglev prototype Designed to reach 600 km/h. The train runs on rubber wheels at low speed and switches to magnetic levitation when exceeding 150 km/h. The Asia Times shares that it will still take a long time to put it into commercial use, and that market demand, rather than technology, is the main obstacle. But there is more: the T-Flight project from the state company CASIC, which combines magnetic levitation with hyperloop-style vacuum tubes, has already reached 623 km/h in tests in 2024, with the goal of exceeding 1,000 km/h soon. China has also, for years, the only commercial maglev in the world that operates regularly: the Shanghai Maglev, which circulates at 430 km/h. Cover image | Maglev.net In Xataka | The Mayan Train has become a nightmare for Mexico: what seemed like a great plan has run into justice

China has just crossed a red line in Taiwan. They are no longer drones, they are their fighters shooting “attached” to the Taiwanese F-16s

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China has been tightening the siege on Taiwan for years with pressure constant and calculated: increasingly frequent air raids, naval exercises large scalesymbolic crosses of the midline of the strait and military deployments designed to rememberwithout firing a single shot, that the island lives under permanent surveillance. This strategy of attrition, made of demonstrations of force and controlled ambiguity, has marked the relationship between Beijing and Taipei long before the current pulse reached disturbing levels. One (another) red line. If a few weeks ago we said that China had taken a qualitative step in its military pressure on Taiwan by crossing the island’s airspace with a military dronehas now redoubled its efforts, going from intimidating maneuvers to direct aerial encounters with manned fighters flying meters away and firing flares near Taiwanese planes, an escalation that multiplies the risk of accident and turns intimidation into something much closer to a deliberate clash. during exercises “Justice Mission”J-16 planes of the People’s Liberation Army not only came dangerously close to Taiwanese F-16s when they came to intercept them near the middle line of the strait, but they also arrived to launch flares at close range, a maneuver considered unsafe even by demanding military standards and that marks a before and after in the face of previous, more indirect provocations. From symbolic pressure to physical risk. In just 24 hours, dozens of Chinese aircraft crossed the midline of the strait and penetrated the airspace controlled by Taiwan, showing a pattern of behavior that no longer seems to seek only to saturate radars or send political messages, but rather to put enemy pilots in extreme situations. Unlike radar jamming or the presence of military drones, these encounters centimeters away introduce a human and physical factor. much more dangerouswhere a mistake, turbulence, or knee-jerk reaction can trigger an immediate crisis between China and Taiwan. One of the Chinese J-16 fighters photographed during Chinese People’s Liberation Army military exercises while being monitored by a Taiwanese F-16V aircraft Intimidating maneuvers. The actions were not limited to direct harassment: Chinese fighters used concealment tactics flying close to H-6K bombers to evade radars, revealing itself, according to local Taiwanese media, “ostentatiously” by displaying missiles at close range, in maneuvers compared by observers to historical tricks of military infiltration. They remembered in the Financial Times That this behavior, described by some sources as more typical of a “thug” than a professional pilot, reinforces the feeling that Beijing is testing new risk thresholds to measure the Taiwanese and allied response. A regional pattern. What happened around Taiwan is not an isolated event, but part of a incident sequence in which the Chinese air force has raised the tone towards neighbors like Japan and the Philippinesincluding blocking radar and firing flares against patrol aircraft. In fact, analysts warn that the next logical step in this escalation could be to operate regularly within the 12 nautical miles of Taiwanese territorial airspace, a scenario that would then exponentially increase the risk of collision or armed confrontation. Political pressure and risk of lack of control. If you like, this increase in boldness coincides with those publicized changes in the chain of command China and with political pressure from Xi Jinping for the armed forces to demonstrate their preparation for an eventual conflict, which could be pushing pilots and commanders to take risks that were previously avoided. Under that prism, Beijing would not only have crossed another red line against Taiwan, but would have entered a phase in which aerial intimidation ceases to be a calculated game and becomes a much more dangerous gamble, one with potentially explosive consequences for regional stability and security. appearance of “third parties” on the board. Image | 日本防衛省・統合幕僚監部, Ministry of National Defense In Xataka | China already has drones capable of shooting with surgical precision at 100 meters. Not good news for Taiwan In Xataka | The biggest geopolitical risk on the planet is not Greenland. It’s a smaller island with a disturbing neighbor: Taiwan

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