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In the middle of the war, Israel’s underground parking lots have begun to fill with something: tents

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On the fourth floor of the underground parking lot of the Dizengoff Centerone of the most popular shopping centers in Tel Aviv, the difficult thing these days is seeing cars. There are also not many motorcycles, vans or any other type of vehicle. What has occupied the squares painted on the ground for weeks are dozens of tents, the ‘home’ improvised by Israelis looking for a place to protect themselves from the attacks with which Iran has responded to ‘Operation Epic Fury’ that on February 28 ended the life of its leader, Ali Khamenei. While on the surface the sirens sound warning of the arrival of missiles, there, on the -4 floor, life goes on among removable tents. “Look where I am”. With that phrase I started a few days ago tiktoker Andrea Bisso (@Latinaenisrael96) a video in which it shows the parking lot of a shopping center in Israel. The curious thing is that as you walk through its corridors you don’t see cars or people with shopping carts, but rather tents, an improvised table on pallets where food is distributed, handwritten posters hanging from the columns, clothes hanging from cables… The landscape that marks the daily life of the dozens of families who take refuge there. “People are living here now, in times of war. This is where they have moved. It’s incredible how people started to live in a parking lot. These are people who have small children, can’t run to a shelter, don’t have one nearby or are elderly who can’t go down the stairs… They prefer to live here,” relates Andrea as she walks through the parking lot. “Alternate reality”. The tiktoker is not the only one that has shown how the war has transformed some unexpected places in Israel. A few days ago Zeb Stub also did it on an extensive report for The Times of Israel in which it affects the same idea. In fact, he talks about the “alternative reality” that has been created on the -4th floor of the Dizengoff Center parking lot, where “a city” basically made up of dozens of tents has been deployed. Curiously, life activates beneath the surface while it decays in commercial areas. Stub explains for example that in the Azrieli Centeralso in Tel Aviv, some businesses estimate that activity has fallen by 20% or even 50% in recent weeks. “Many people come simply to get out of the house,” they say from a shoe store. “The normal thing before Passover is that people come to buy new clothes, but this year they are not thinking about that.” Life goes on underground. Gal, a teacher who teaches remotely, explained to the Israeli newspaper that she decided to move to the Dixengoff shelter last week among other reasons because she had to constantly interrupt her work in her apartment. “I teach online classes and having to stop every time the siren sounds is making my work more complicated,” recognize the woman In the shelter you don’t just see people eating, sleeping, working or simply hanging out. a chronicle from the Associated Press (AP) talks about much more casual scenes, such as a bride posing with her family for a wedding photo session or young people dressed up for celebrate the holiday Purim Jewish… There are also spaces for attend to medical emergencieslike the improvised one in a parking lot under the Sheba Medical Center, in Ramant Gan. Are there no conventional shelters? Yes. Israel has public shelters. It is also not unusual to find private spaces designed precisely so that people can take shelter during emergencies. When the alarms sound, people barricade themselves in them, usually for fifteen minutes, half an hour… however long the alert lasts from when the sirens sound. However, there are those who, for one reason or another, choose to put their belongings in a suitcase and temporarily settle in spaces where they feel safer than in their homes, such as parking lots. The Dizengoff Center is an example, but there is more. Under the Tel Aviv bus station there are dozens of families, especially immigrants, who have settled in tents. Crossover attacks. Noah Efron, from the Tel Aviv-Jaffa municipal council, claimed these days that the underground shelters in Tel Aviv are designed to house families at times like the current one, when the Middle East is convulsed by the offensive launched by Israel itself and the US on Iran. Over the last few weeks, cities like Tel Aviv have received attacks of the Islamist regime, damaging buildings and causing injuries and even fatalities. Israel is not the only one living under the threat of missiles. His army has also been hitting Iran and Lebanon for weeks. In fact, in cities like Tehran or Kfar Rumman there are a significant balance of wounded and dead. Images | TikTok and Wikipedia In Xataka | Iran has just crossed the great energy red line: Türkiye is the first victim of a blackout that is already looking to Europe

sending personalized Ferraris to millionaires in the Middle East

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When the conflict between the United States, Israel and Iranthe Strait of Hormuz was closed to commercial traffic and the skies of the Persian Gulf They became a high-risk area. Freighters transporting luxury cars to Dubai, Riyadh or Doha encountered a Strait of Hormuz blocked and no alternative route plan. Any customer in that situation has little room for maneuver other than resigning themselves to waiting for their shipment like someone waiting for an Amazon courier, but a type of client who does not resign easily: he who has enough money to open your own delivery route. While hundreds of Lamborghinis, Bentleys and Ferraris were immobilized in intermediate ports due to the maritime blockade, their future owners found the most million-dollar solution possible: paying for “first class” flights so that their supercars They will arrive by plane. Cars blocked in the middle of the conflict. When the Strait of Hormuz was closed to commercial traffic, large cargo ships were unable to reach their destinations in Persian Gulf ports. One of the most striking cases was the one documented Reuters of a shipment with more than 500 cars that were blocked at sea. 50 of those cars They were luxury models of brands such as Rolls-Royce, Lamborghini and Ferrari and had to be provisionally unloaded at the port of Hambantota (Sri Lanka) pending resolution of their fate. The same problem affected Porsche and Audi, whose managers in the Volkswagen group they warned that the war would directly hit their sales in the region. OK to what was published by BloombergFerrari suspended shipments to the Persian Gulf for weeks. A wall between brands and millionaires. Faced with the blockade, each manufacturer adopted a different strategy, although they could not prevent some of the luxury cars that were already on the route from being trapped in nearby ports. Bentley chose to exhaust the inventory that dealers in the region already had to meet pre-conflict orders, avoiding shipments of new units. Ferrari, on the other hand, opted for a combination of longer and more complex alternative routes: more than 4,000 luxury vehicles bound for Dubai had to be diverted to Lamu Island port as an alternative entry point. Meanwhile, some millionaires impatient to drive the cars for which they have been waiting for no less than two years, did not want to wait a single minute longer and paid the extra cost of shipping with air transport to receive their cars as soon as possible. A decision that turned out to be more expensive than expected. The price of millionaire impatience. Air transport was already an import route that existed before the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, but it tripled the cost of shipping. With the war blocking the only access route, that difference shot up to five times more. The average cost of transporting a kilogram of air cargo from Europe to the Middle East has increased by two-thirds since the start of the conflict, reaching $2.96 per kilogram of cargo. as he collected he Financial Times. Some routes recorded increases of up to 100% in rates, with an additional fuel surcharge of between 0.3 and 0.4 euros per kilo transported. Ian Arroyo, director of strategy at Freightos, a logistics information service, pointed out that there were only two options for assuming this price increase: “It all depends on whether manufacturers are reducing their own profit margin due to their relationship with the customer, or if the customer has offered to pay for the transportation on their own.” What is clear is that the final bill for the car was going to rise considerably. Money was not going to be a problem in this case. Ferrari does not lose a single order. In statements to Gulf NewsGiorgio Turri, Ferrari’s general director for the Middle East, assured that the brand had managed to overcome logistics problems without canceling any orders in the area. “We are not experiencing cancellations. (A Ferrari) is not a need, it is a dream. You don’t make decisions based on the mood of the day. Dreams are never a short-term decision.” The data proves him right. Between 30 and 40% of the Italian brand’s new supercar deliveries in the region go to customers who have never owned a Ferrari before. The Middle East is not the largest market in the world in unit volume, but it is one of the most profitable for the “Il Cavallino” brand. Customization and accessories account for a fifth of Ferrari’s revenue, and the region’s wealthy customers don’t just buy the car: they turn it into a unique piece doubling the car bill with customizations . To understand the dimension of the business that was at stake, it is enough to know a fact that Turri pointed out, “our clients in the Middle East are between five and seven years old. younger than the world average.” That for Ferrari is not a simple anecdote, it is decades of guaranteed sales if customers are satisfied, whether there is war or not. In Xataka | In Dubai they don’t know what to do with so many abandoned luxury supercars: the less shiny side of getting rich Image | freepik

Mitsubishi built a remote, car-free city in the middle of the sea with one goal: mining coal

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About 15 kilometers off the coast of Nagasaki, in the East China Sea, there is a small island that houses blocks of concrete and semi-ruined buildings, surrounded by a retaining wall that protects them from the Pacific. The island is called Hashimaalthough it is also known as “Gunkanjima”which in Japanese means “battleship island.” and its history It is fascinating and dark in equal parts.. An island that was born from coal. All infrastructure was built for one reason: coal. The mineral was detected on the seabed beneath the island around 1810, but its systematic exploitation did not begin until 1887. In 1890, the Mitsubishi Goshi Kaisha company purchased the island and took control of the underwater mines. Extracting coal from the bottom of the sea was extraordinarily complicated, as the miners worked in tunnels that went up to a kilometer below the surface, with temperatures of 30 degrees and very high humidity. Between 1891 and 1974, the island produced some 15.7 million tons of coal. A decision that changed everything. Moving workers daily from Nagasaki was expensive and inefficient, which is why Mitsubishi made the decision to build an entire city on the island. In 1916, the company erected the first concrete building armed of large dimensions in the history of Japan, and it was precisely on this same island. These types of buildings were the only way for the buildings to withstand the typhoons that hit the region every autumn. A compressed city. During the following decades, Hashima grew upwards because he could not grow sideways. The island measures just 480 meters long and 160 meters wide. And yet, at its peak, in 1959, It housed 5,259 peoplemaking it the most densely populated place on the planet at that time. On that small piece of land there were apartments, schools, a hospital, shops, a cinema, public baths, a swimming pool, rooftop gardens, a pachinko parlor and even a cemetery. Of course, there were no cars, since there was neither space for them nor did it make much sense. a hidden face. Hashima’s story has, however, a deep shadow that for decades tried to ignore. From the 1930s until the end of World War II, Mitsubishi used forced labor at its facilities on the island. There, both Korean conscript civilians and Chinese prisoners of war were forced to work in extreme conditions. According to an academic article published on Tandfonline, around 1,000 Koreans were taken to Hashima between 1939 and 1945. Estimates of the death toll vary. On the one hand, in the book “Life in Gunkanjima 1952-1970: Report of the investigation into the Hashima homes”, by academic Uzō Nishiyama, the death toll is estimated at 137; other non-Japanese sources raise that figure to more than 1,300. The workers descended into the mines during extreme hours, and any resistance was punished brutally. They were not workers, they were slaves, and escape was practically impossible, since the nearest coast was more than 18 kilometers away by open swim. Abandonment. In the 1960s, oil began to displace coal as an energy source in Japan. Mines across the country were closing one after another. Hashima’s was no exception. Mitsubishi officially closed the mine in January 1974. and the residents left the island on April 20 of that same year. The exodus was so rapid that many left behind furniture, clothing, photographs and all kinds of personal belongings. In a matter of weeks, a city of more than five thousand people was turned into a ghost scene. For the next thirty years, Hashima remained closed to the public and was slowly devoured by typhoons and sea salt. movie set. In 2002, Swedish filmmaker Thomas Nordanstad visited the island accompanied by Doutoku Sakamoto, a man who had grown up there as a child, and filmed a short documentary. Years later, Nordanstad met Daniel Craig in Stockholm, while he was filming ‘The men who didn’t love women‘. He told him the story of Hashima. According to collect world, Nordanstad thought for a time that the actor wanted to buy the rights to the documentary, but that was not the case. Two years later it was released skyfall (2012). In the film, the abandoned island serves as the lair of the villain Raoul Silva, played by Javier Bardem. The producers traveled to Hashima to consider filming there, but concluded that the buildings were too unstable and dangerous. Therefore, they ended up building a replica at Pinewood Studios in the United Kingdom. The exterior images of the island that appear in the film are the only ones shot on location. World Heritage with controversy. In 2015, the island It was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO, within the category “Sites of Japan’s Meiji Industrial Revolution”. However, this designation came accompanied by diplomatic problems. South Korea initially objected because Japan did not recognize the use of forced labor on the island. In the end they reached an agreement: Japan agreed to include that part of the story in its materials, but they didn’t do their part. In 2021, the UNESCO Committee issued a resolution in which they expressed regret that Japan had not provided sufficient information on forced laborers. In fact, the Industrial Heritage Information Center, opened in Tokyo in 2020 to lend credibility to that narrative, was criticized for including testimonies that denied the existence of slavery conditions on the island. As of today, the debate has not yet been closed. A tourist destination with scars. Since 2009, Hashima can be visited in small groups organized from the port of Nagasaki. The tour lasts approximately one hour and is strictly delimited for safety reasons. In fact, 95% of the island remains restricted to visitors. Images | Wikimedia Commons In Xataka | The most extreme symbol of the touristification of Madrid are the TukTuk. And there is already an initiative to ban them

His marines are sleeping on the ground in the middle of the war with Iran

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To give us an idea, a nuclear aircraft carrier can generate enough electricity to supply a small city and house thousands of people for months without touching land. Inside there are everything from bakeries to hospitals, but also systems that work tirelessly and that, if they failcan completely alter life on board. For example, a small fire can turn into a nightmare. The limit of a super aircraft carrier. He USS Gerald R. Ford, the nuclear aircraft carrier more advanced and expensive from the United States, is designed to operate as a floating city capable of sustaining continuous air operations for months. Its prolonged deployment, which already breaks record numbers after almost ten months at sea, also reflects the increasing operating pressure in the war with Iran. This extreme pace has led the ship to chain missions with hardly any margin for maintenance, accumulating wear and tear on both its systems and its crew. Which reveals a minor fire. The incident that triggered it all began in a seemingly secondary place: the ship’s laundry. According to the new york timesa failure in a dryer or the accumulation of waste caused a fire that spread and forced an intervention that has already lasted more than 30 hours. In a closed, highly flammable environment like an aircraft carrier, even these everyday incidents become critical threats. The fact that it was contained without affecting key systems demonstrates the preparation of the crew, but also demonstrates the delicate operational balance in these floating masses. Hundreds on the ground. It turns out that the most shocking consequence has not been technical, but human, because more than 600 marines and crew members they have lost their beds after the fire. Since then, most are sleeping on the floor or on improvised tables, all in the middle of an active military operation in the war with Iran. If you like, the image of the troops sleeping on the ground breaks with the idea of ​​technological invulnerability and shows everyday reality of sustained combat. A failure in an auxiliary system ends up directly affecting the rest, morale and operational capacity of hundreds of troops. Fatigue, wear and tear and the invisible limit. The episode fits into a broader context of accumulated fatigue after months of continuous deployment. In fact, the Times reported that previous problems in basic systems such as healthcare or deferred maintenance already pointed to progressive wear. many experts warn that these failures usually appear first in everyday services, not so much in combat systems. When these incidents begin to chain together, they usually indicate that both the crew and the ship’s structure are being pushed to the limit. The fragility of the “giants of the sea”. The truth is that the history of aircraft carriers has been full of episodes that show that even these platforms can be compromised in critical situations: in 1967, a rocket accidentally fired caused a brutal fire. on the USS Forrestal against Vietnam, causing 134 deaths and forcing security protocols to be rethought. Two years later, in 1969, the USS Enterprise suffered another explosion on deck due to the detonation of ammunition exposed to the heat of the reactors, with 27 deaths and serious damage. In the new millennium, in 2008, the USS George Washington was out of service for months after a fire caused by a simple poorly extinguished cigarette which caused million-dollar losses, and more recently, in 2020, the USS Bonhomme Richard burned for days in San Diego until it became unusable and was permanently removed, all due to a fire that showed failures in the supervision and initial response. Cases widely documented which reflect that beyond their military power, aircraft carriers remain extremely vulnerable environments where small errors or incidents can quickly escalate into large-scale crises. The paradox of modern war. Be that as it may, the Ford case reveals a key contradiction: the fact that one of the most advanced war machines on the planet can launch planes relentlessly, but also remains dependent on thousands of human routines and basic systems that cannot fail. If you like, modern warfare not only requires technological power, but also sustained resistance. And it is precisely in these everyday details where the problems begin to appear. cracks of a prolonged effort. Image | US Navy In Xataka | The US has asked all its allies in Hormuz for help. The answer he received was anticipated by Spain before anyone else: “no” In Xataka | The world is desperately asking Ukraine for its antidote to the Shahed. And Ukraine has decided to keep them for its war

What do the kids who have decided to believe in something believe in in the middle of 2026?

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If social media and pop culture are anything to go by, it might seem like religion crosses a second coming among young people. Several signs would point in that direction: the success of ‘The Sundays’Rosalía with her continuous Christian referencesphenomena like Hakuna Group Music capable of fill venues with thousands of people thanks to his Catholic pop… Apparently, all this sends signals: something is happening with religion, the long and inevitable path towards secularization has stopped. However, beyond the headlines and TikTok, it is the data that sheds light on what is really happening and, despite all the noise of full stadiums and online bustle, we come across the loneliness of the chapels. The truth is that the secularization has not slowed down, according to the barometer on religion and beliefs in Spain, carried out by the Pluralism and Coexistence Foundation. Approximately one in three young Spaniards is defined as spiritualbut 61% do not practice any official religion. Among 18-24 year olds, only 15% say that religion gives a lot or quite a bit of meaning to their life, far below factors such as family or friends. And, within the 54% of the population that does identify with a religion, only 17% maintain a regular practice. What is clear in this study is that growing interest in the spiritualbut not institutionally: 31% of young people believe in some type of spiritual reality or vital force, 29% say they believe a lot or quite a lot in astrology and 23% in clairvoyance. So there is not a massive return to faith, but rather a cultural visibility of the religious that is in full effervescence. Religion on demand We can say that the religious identity of Gen Z is a totum revolutum. More than a specific doctrine or religion, what many young people are looking for is that spiritual or even mystical experience. For them, the lines that separate Christian traditions – Protestant, Evangelical, Orthodox or Catholic – are blurred and give way directly to an emotional search and belonging in favor of a common religious experience. As an example, what was possible to experience at the beginning of the year at the Movistar Arena. “Let all of Spain hear it, let the name of Christ be heard!” It could be Nacho Cano opening a show in the middle of 2026 but no, we are talking about the opening of ‘Calls‘, a prayer meeting that brought together about 6000 people mixing music from evangelical groups like Hillsong, talks influencers Catholics and a final ceremony culminated with the prayer of the Lord’s Prayer. And a few days before, Catholic pop triumphed Hakuna Music Group in Vistalegre. There are also trends that are more in communion with what we know as traditional Catholicism adapted to modern times. For example: Eucharistic adoration and the prayer meeting focused on the real presence of Christ, something very Catholic and that distances itself from that evangelical approach where the power of the Bible takes center stage. Likewise, retreats and spiritual camps with renewed music and aesthetics but that follow traditional meditation and confession practices; or the prayer of the rosary that today are also reinterpreted through TikTok, YouTube or apps of prayer. All this clearly shows the hybrid nature of this youthful spirituality and its distance from religious traditions. But if young people do not go en masse to church and the data do not show the rise of Catholicism, how then is this new impulse for a transversal spirituality explained? Full stadiums, music, shared Christian symbols… Signs of a religiosity that moves in the cultural space more than in the parish. We have the answer on our phone One hypothesis is that most young people discover Christianity on TikTok before in church. On platforms like Instagram or YouTube you can follow homilies, songs of faith or prayers. They are the new modern temples, adapted to the pace of digital life. And the imaginary of the sacred has always had great cultural force, although religious practice decreases. Religious aesthetics have not appeared in recent years thanks to Rosalía, Los Javis or Alauda Ruíz de Azúa; Centuries ago it was already used as a tool of the Church to communicate and move. The ultimate end of baroque art It was to materialize the divine in images. It is true that in a dramatic way, with that dark and solemn aura to transmit the transcendent dimension of Catholicism, but in reality it was still pedagogical, a tool to reinforce the Catholic faith. In the Renaissance these Christian symbols were also used, but there they sought to humanize the divine and escape from the dark; or even in Surrealism, artists opted more for the dreamlike nature and the exploration of the subconscious. @juanvy12xd Response to @Erik Pastor MY FAVORITE BIBLE QUOTE ♬ original sound – Juan Manasa And now, in the digital age, the tools are different but the Christian symbology is still present. From Madonna to Lady Gaga, passing through the parade ‘Alta Sartoria’ by Dolce&Gabbana paying homage to ecclesiastical tailoring, Lux or the influencers Christians who circulate on social networks. Screens serve as a meeting place, algorithms determine the psalms, and the spiritual dictates our mood of the day. A generation that wants to believe in something An increasingly dissatisfied and exhausted generation Z finds in those videos of influencers Christians and in Hakuna music something exotic, something that gives them a feeling of togetherness and community. The sacred is the new Valencia filter and when faith is not only commercialized by the Church, phenomena such as Christiancore ―turning Christian symbols, such as robes or crosses, into visual language that seeks to offer meaning― find in this jaded and lonely your perfect niche. In the midst of this saturation of visual stimuli, to some young people it may seem demodé Palm Sunday mass, but his outfit with crucifix and T-shirt ‘God is Dope’ gives them the illusion of a new spirituality heterogeneous and digital. Generation Z tends to … Read more

The world needs to get oil out of the Middle East by any means possible. Their only hope is 30 giant ships queuing in Yanbu

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The landscape off the coast of Yanbu on the Red Sea has completely changed in a matter of days. The area is now taken over by VLCCs (Very Large Crude Carriers), colossal supertankers capable of swallowing two million barrels of crude oil. They are not there just passing through; Its massive concentration responds to a single objective: to carry out the largest and most urgent evacuation of oil in recent times. A fleet to the rescue of the market. To understand the magnitude of this rescue operation, just look at the figures that provides Financial Times: What is happening is a real “flotilla of supertankers” sailing against the clock. About 30 of these giants head to Yanbu, when the usual thing is that only two arrive a month. The reason is that traffic in the Persian Gulf has come to a “stalemate” following the Iranian attacks. The maritime tracking data it handles Bloomberg give an idea of ​​the urgency: In just 48 hours, at least 25 of these giants have headed to the Saudi port. We are talking about a fleet with room to load some 50 million barrels that, otherwise, would have no outlet. It is an essential escape valve right now. The blockade has already caused world production to fall by 6% and the plug is so big that neighbors like Iraq and Kuwait they have had to start closing wells because, simply, they have run out of room in their tanks to store the oil. The “sea bridge” to avoid Iran. How do these ships load oil if they do not enter the Gulf? The answer is in the desert, but the result is seen in the port. Saudi Arabia is using your pipeline East-West like a turnstile. The crude oil travels overland 1,200 kilometers to Yanbu, where the “army” of ships awaits it to distribute it to the world, especially China and India. According to Wall Street Journal, This infrastructure has become “one of the most critical pieces of the world economy” overnight. The CEO of Saudi Aramco, Amin Nasser, confirmed in this medium that they are reaching their maximum capacity: 7 million barrels per day flowing westward. Of them, 5 million are destined directly to be loaded on these supertankers for global markets. The risk does not disappear, it just changes coordinates. But sailing to Yanbu is not a safe ride. As he warns Financial Times, The ships must now “challenge the notorious hotspot of Houthi attacks.” To leave for Asia, these supertankers have to cross the Bab al-Mandab Strait. Although the Yemeni group had signaled a pause in its attacks, experts from EOS Risk They assure that the tankers continue to assume an “enormous risk”, since the area is within reach of Iranian missiles. Even the port of Fujairah in the Emirates, which is also trying to act as an escape route, is already has suffered damage from drone attacks last week. The message is clear: the alternative is less dangerous than Hormuz, but it is not immune to war. The limits of the plan. The big question for markets is whether this armada of ships and desert pipelines can prevent economic collapse. The closure of Hormuz has taken 20 million barrels per day off the board and physical reality imposes its limits on the alternative route. On the one hand, there is a critical funnel in the port itself. According to data from the Argus Media agencyalthough the Saudi pipeline manages to transport up to 7 million barrels, the Yanbu terminals only have real capacity to load between 4 and 4.5 million a day on ships. Inevitably, supertankers will have to queue. On the other hand, the distillate crisis looms. As experts cited by Middle East Eyethe East-West pipeline transports crude oil, not refined products. No matter how many ships fill up in Yanbu, markets like Europe are left without their vital supply of diesel and aviation fuel, which is usually processed in the unreachable refineries of the Middle East. According to Sparta Commodities in statements for WSJwith this route only half of the problem has been “solved.” There are another 10 million barrels that are still trapped with no possible way out. Therefore, it is no longer “crazy” for a barrel to reach $200. The demand for oil is “inelastic”; the economy cannot stop consuming it from one day to the next, which generates brutal upward pressure. The geopolitics of “the worse the better” While ships maneuver in the Red Sea, in Washington the focus is purely strategic. Donald Trump has made it clear that stopping Iran is the priority, even above the price of gasoline. “We make a lot of money when prices rise,” the president even published on his social networks, emphasizing that the US, as a large producer, can afford a resistance that other countries do not have. For its part, the historic opening of the IEA’s strategic reserves (400 million barrels) attempts to “buy time,” but as analyst Javier Blas says, nothing replaces to the actual opening of the Strait of Hormuz. Image | Photo by Khristina Sergeychik on Unsplash Xataka | China has just found a hole in the US’s quietest weapon: an algorithm has hacked its B-2s in Iran

Strangely enough, Iran is exporting more oil now in the middle of the war than before the conflict

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The global crude oil market is experiencing “the largest supply disruption in history,” as the International Energy Agency warns. But the almost total blockade of the Strait of Hormuz hides a brutal irony: the same waters that are closed to the rest of the world are being used by Iran to export more oil than it sold before the war. The incessant flow. Far from paralyzing, the Iranian export machinery has accelerated. According to data from Kpler, In recent days, ships have loaded a daily average of 2.1 million barrels of Iranian crude oil, surpassing the barrier of the 2 million daily they exported in February. The big question is where all this crude oil is going. The answer is unanimous: towards China. A graph of Statista illustrates that the Asian giant It is, by an overwhelming margin, Iran’s largest buyer, accounting for 90.8% of its oil exports in 2024. Since the war began in late February, at least 11.7 to 12 million barrels have crossed the strait bound for China, according to estimates from TankerTrackers and Kpler collected by CNBC. In fact, how to detail Wall Street Journal, There is an anecdote that borders on the surreal to illustrate this situation: small Chinese tankers navigate the strait communicating by shortwave radio with the Revolutionary Guard. “We are a Chinese ship. We are going to pass; we are friendly,” they announce in English to ensure safe passage. A question of survival. As an expert explains consulted by Deutsche WelleChina has become the “indispensable lifeline” for Iranian exports in a context of harsh Western sanctions. This has created a “parallel market” where independent Chinese refiners buy discounted crude oil by operating outside the US financial system, according to the agency Anadolu. However, global panic is evident. The crisis promptly shot up oil prices close to $120 per barrel, levels not seen in four years. The impact has been such that, how to explain BloombergBeijing has ordered its refineries to cancel export shipments of refined fuel to ensure domestic supply in the face of the volatility of the conflict. The dilemma of Kharg Island. Although the United States and Israel have bombed thousands of military and strategic targets in Iranian territory, there is one enclave that remains mysteriously intact: Kharg Island. This small piece of land, just about 20 square kilometers, is the true jewel in the energy crown, channeling 90% of the country’s crude oil exports. According to analysts Guardian and France 24the answer is economic terror: an attack on Kharg could catapult the price of a barrel to $150, sending global markets into a “nose dive.” Also, how my colleague Carlos Prego explains in Xatakadestroying the facilities would deprive a hypothetical successor government of the main source of income necessary to rebuild the country once the war ends. Iranian evasion tactics. Iran’s export success is not based only on military intimidation, but on complex sanctions evasion engineering. According to The Wall Street Journalthe regime uses a “shadow fleet” made up of old oil tankers that sail without tracking systems and under false flags, such as those of Comoros or Guyana. On a financial level, the sophistication is just as high. Intelligence documents revealed by Euractiv show that Iran uses shell companies in China to carry out euro-denominated transactions, moving hundreds of millions through accounts at European banks such as Deutsche Bank and BNP Paribas. Simultaneously, a report of ACAMS exposes how the Revolutionary Guard uses the cryptocurrency ecosystem (with multi-million dollar transactions in stablecoins such as USDT) to launder money and finance their affinity groups without going through traditional banking. Finally, although Iran is trying to diversify its departures using the Jask terminal in the Gulf of Oman – thus avoiding the Strait of Hormuz -, CNBC warns of its extreme inefficiency: Loading a supertanker there can take up to 10 days, compared to the one or two days it takes in Kharg. Triumph in the midst of chaos. The conflict in the Middle East has drawn a counterintuitive scenario. While the large producers of the Persian Gulf are bleeding economically due to the paralysis of trade routes, Iran has capitalized on the chaos. The panic of a global energy collapse acts as an invisible shield that protects the island of Kharg from Western bombing. Under this umbrella of armed immunity, war has not suffocated the Islamic Republic; On the contrary, it has given it a maritime monopoly that allows its ghost fleet to continue feeding insatiable Chinese demand in broad daylight. Image | Photo by Fredrick F. on Unsplash Xataka | China just found a hole in the US’s quietest weapon: an algorithm has hacked its B-2s in Iran, and they have the audio

Building data centers in the Middle East seemed like a great deal. Until Iran arrived

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A few days ago we said that Iran had attacked two data centers in the United Arab Emirates and one in Bahrain. It is the first deliberate attack on a data center and proof that it has become critical infrastructure at the level of power plants. The question is who thought it was a good idea to build data centers in one of the most unstable areas on the planet. A plan that comes from afar. In a trip to Saudi Arabia last yearTrump was accompanied by an entourage of technological leaders among whom were Elon Musk, Jensen Huang, Sam Altman or Sundar Pichai among others. At this meeting, massive investments were announced in the region with the construction of a massive data center complex. However, although it has been strengthened by this administration, the previous one was the one that started the path. In September 2024, Biden met with the leader of the Emirates to seek a strategic alliance that would allow them to develop their AI ecosystem. The reason. What has led technology companies to build in the Middle East is evident: saving. They count in Financial Times that the Gulf countries offered very interesting incentives, such as subsidies and cheaper energy. Furthermore, in this way all the problems they are having at home with the electrical gridpermits and resistance from many communities. The business seemed good. The map of AI in the Middle East. Emirates and Saudi Arabia are the countries with the most data centers, with 57 and 61 facilities respectively, according to Data Center Map. Of all of them, many are from American companies. Amazon alone has nine in the area, including those in the Emirates, Bahrain and also Saudi Arabia. Microsoft has data centers in the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and is building one in Saudi Arabia. Oracle, OpenAI and other partners are building a mega data center in Abu Dhabi which they expect to reach 5GW. The damage. Although the Middle East has gained presence on the map of big tech data centers, the concentration of infrastructure is still ridiculous compared to that of the United States itself, which has more than 4,000 installations. All in all, build a data center It’s not exactly cheap. Jensen Huang, CEO of NVIDIA, said a few months ago that Each gigawatt costs about $50 billion.. The irony. The same leaders who posed for a photo with Trump on that trip now see how their infrastructure is threatened and suffering the consequences of the conflict caused by the president himself. The idea of ​​investing in so much digital infrastructure in an unstable area was not such a good idea. The war against Iran It looks like it’s going to get longer. and nothing prevents Tehran from continuing to attack energy and technological facilities in the region. They were looking to reduce costs and it may end up being expensive, although seeing the projected capex for this yearthey can afford it. Image | Data Center Map (edited) In Xataka | The US is beginning to realize something worrying: AI data centers are skyrocketing its electricity bill

While Europe fears for its pocket after gas cuts in the Middle East, France has a plan: its nuclear power

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Europe holds its breath in the face of the threat of a new energy crisis. The escalation of war in the Middle East has caused a real earthquake in the markets. The de facto blockade in the vital Strait of Hormuz puts in check the arrival of liquefied natural gas (LNG) ships from Qatar, forcing cargo ships to deviate towards Asia. With European gas reserves below 30% after an unusually cold winter, panic relives the nightmare of 2022 it is palpable. However, in the midst of this continental chaos, France observes the situation with an apparent and calculated calm. The French country believes it has an ace up its sleeve to avoid blackouts and industrial ruin: its imposing, and recently resurrected, nuclear fleet. A historical export record. While northern Europe trembles over gas, the French electricity grid operator, RTE, has just put figures on the table that support the Elysée’s optimism. According to the Bilan electric 2025Last year, France broke its historical record by exporting 92.3 terawatt-hours (TWh) of electricity. To put it in perspective, RTE’s Director General of Economics, Thomas Veyrenc, explained to the Revue Générale Nucléaire that this volume exceeds the annual electricity consumption of an entire country like Belgium. This milestone has returned France to its traditional role as Europe’s “electric battery”, a status that it had resoundingly lost in 2022. The secret of this success lies in the recovery of its nuclear park, which produced 373 TWh in 2025 (3.1% more than the previous year) thanks to better availability of its reactors. As pointed out by Financial Timesthis French nuclear fleet is precisely the energy lever that Europe was missing after the invasion of Ukraine, and could be the key to not having to turn on polluting coal plants again in the face of the current gas cut in the Middle East. The paradox: they export because they do not consume. Economically, the move is round. According to Le Mondethese exports have earned France 5.4 billion euros. By having so much low-cost electricity production (nuclear and hydroelectric), the country manages to maintain very competitive wholesale prices, situated at an average of €61/MWh in 2025, well below the suffocating prices suffered by neighbors such as Germany or Italy. But this “miracle” has some worrying fine print. As the specialized media warns Le Monde de l’EnergieFrance exports so much electricity mainly because its domestic consumption is stagnant. The country’s electricity demand remained at 451 TWh in 2025, 6% below pre-crisis levels. The reality is that France is far behind in the electrification of its own economy. Paradoxically, 56% of the final energy consumed by the country continues to depend on fossil fuels, especially in sectors such as transportation and heating. The energy clamp to Spain. The French master plan to establish itself as the energy savior of Europe has a clear loser: the Iberian Peninsula. As we explained in Xatakawhile Germany pays more than 100 euros for electricity and France pays 13 euros, in Spain and Portugal renewable overproduction sinks prices until they reach zero or negative values. Why doesn’t that cheap and clean Iberian energy flow to a thirsty Europe? Because France acts as a protective wall. The country maintains Spain as an “energy island” with only 2.8% interconnection, deliberately blocking vital projects in Aragon and Navarra in its network plan for 2025-2035. ANDThe eternal France-Spain conflict. The motivation is not technical, but pure geostrategy and economic survival. Paris needs urgently make profitable a pharaonic investment of 300,000 million euros in its atomic sector. Allowing the massive entry of competitive Spanish solar and wind energy would sink the prices and profitability of its nuclear plants. In fact, President Emmanuel Macron has come to attack the Spanish energy model in the international press, calling it unstable, arguing that a network does not support a 100% renewable model, and describing the urgency of interconnections as a “false debate.” However, the data dismantles the Elysée story. On the one hand, there is the “Danish mirror”: Denmark operates with more than 80% wind generation and does not suffer blackouts because it is ultra-interconnected with its neighbors to balance the load. On the other hand, the flagrant French amnesia regarding 2022 stands out, the year in which the French reactors failed massively due to corrosion problems and it was Spain that had to export electricity to rescue France from the blackouts. Because of this current plug, Spain is forced to throw it away (what is known as technical discharges or curtailment) around 7% of its clean energy because it literally “does not fit” into the grid. All this is part of a strategy of total domination by the Elysée: Macron not only seeks civil energy hegemony, but, how to collect CNBChas put a doctrine of “advance deterrence” on the table, offering the protection of its nuclear weapons to Europe in the face of the withdrawal of the United States. The Achilles heel: the uranium crisis. However, Macron’s nuclear fortress could have feet of clay. The chain RFI (Radio France International) warns that this “nuclear renaissance” faces great uncertainty over uranium supply. Historically, France obtained 20% of its uranium from Niger. But following the recent military coup, the ruling junta revoked the permits of the French company Orano, nationalized the mines and blocked exports, leaving Paris with a gaping supply hole. Now, France is desperately trying to look for new sources in countries like Kazakhstan (the world’s largest producer) or Mongolia, but there it comes face to face with the overwhelming geopolitical, business and infrastructure influence of Russia and China. A castle with a drawbridge. France has managed to build an energy strength that, in the short term, allows it to weather the Middle East storm better than its European neighbors, selling its surpluses at a gold price. But it does so at the cost of isolating the Iberian Peninsula and betting everything on a mineral, uranium, whose control is increasingly slipping out of its hands on the global chessboard. Time will … Read more

In the middle of Valentine’s week, strawberries have reached figures never seen before in half of Europe. The problem is not love, it is Spain

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Hearts, chocolate, bouquets of flowers and pink decorations everywhere: Valentine’s week is synonymous with many things, but above all with crazy prices. What was not expected in half of Europe is that strawberries were going to rise so much. And when I say ‘so much’, it’s ‘so much’. What happened to the strawberries? The peak in demand is predictable: every year, coinciding with Valentine’s week, the demand for strawberries skyrockets. And, furthermore, it is a very inelastic demand: since it is a “special” day, people continue buying them “almost” independently of the price. That has not changed in 2026: what has changed is that the supply has suffered a huge shock. A shock called Spain and Portugal: And more specifically its meteorology. If the frosts of a few years ago caused the shortage of red peppers throughout the European continentthe historic rainfall in recent months has reduced strawberry production, its quality and shelf life to almost historic lows. To give us an idea of ​​the collapse: in Huelva, production has fallen by half compared to 2025. And despite efforts to catch up, production is 38% below from that of the 24/25 campaign. This has meant that strawberries are arriving in the Netherlands at 5.83 per kilo and in France at 6.44. The problem naked. In this case, the problem is that Europe depends completely on Huelva and, in recent decades, it has not been able to do anything to avoid it. Huelva producers have demonstrated an impressive capacity to produce with very high quality at very low prices. That (and the constant rise in production) has meant that no one can build a parallel agribusiness. The problem is that the climate becomes increasingly volatile, the ‘security’ of the Andalusian countryside decreases. and this episode has only confirmed it. What’s behind the story. So what is hidden behind the strawberries at seven euros per kilo in a market in Alicante is the story of the loss of hegemony of one of the most solid and refined economic pillars in southern Europe. That is to say, while strawberries are on their way to becoming an ‘ultra-luxury’ product, Andalusia’s competitive advantage is fading. Are a giant with feet of clay. Image | Alba Otero In Xataka | Spain’s problem with its supermarkets: Huelva strawberries are now cheaper in Germany

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