MOVES

the shadow business that moves VTCs in Spain

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Before the boom of Uber and Cabify, the acronym VTC They were an enigma. Now they have become almost a popular nickname. In Madrid, it is enough to see the sticker of the red flag with stars of the autonomous community on a car to think “it is a VTC”. The urban center is littered with this type of vehicles. But the VTCs, which respond to “transport vehicles with driver“, existed for decades. They were cars intended for luxury transportation, the typical car that was rented with a driver. These actors are still in the market and operate in the tourism sector or as transportation for companies, but they are a minority. Apps changed everything. Cabify, Uber and Bolt have taken VTCs out of their niche to bring them to a mass audience. Thanks to the immediacy they allow, these cars with drivers have become so close to the taxi figure that they now constitute direct competition. But unlike taxi drivers, who tend to be small self-employed, a large part of the VTCs are in the hands of large companies. And they do not correspond exactly to the apps. “There are three large groups, which are Moove Cars, Auro and Vecttor,” says José María Cazallas, Secretary of Organization of the Free Transport Union, which represents around 80% of the workers in the VTC sector and also has significant representation in the taxi sector. “These three groups come together more or less around the 60% of licenses VTC in Madrid.” They are different entities from the applications that the user knows, although Cabify and Uber have participation in these companies. VTCs vs taxis The rise of VTCs in Spain cannot be understood without taxis and the framework in which they traditionally operated. “The model of one license for each taxi driver was followed. It was a very interventionist model. I’m talking about the beginning of the 20th century until the end of the 90s, in which they tried to distribute the business,” explains Alejandro Román, professor in the Department of Law at the University of Seville and author of the book The legal regime for the transport of passengers on demand in tourist vehicles (Taxis and VTC). Román affirms that for a long time the granting of licenses was contaminated by the clientelism. In times where well-paid work was scarce and there were many arduous jobs, a taxi license was a safe option. “These people had a guaranteed job, with a guaranteed profitability, because they had no competition,” says the professor from the University of Seville. “The number of operators in the market was calculated so that all license holders could live reasonably well.” (Unsplash) In a limited market, which barely issued new licenses, these became a scarce commodity. Their buying and selling occurred at astronomical prices. But the panorama changed completely with the arrival of Cabify and Uber. License prices fellalthough later it has come back. Now, in a look on Wallapop you can see taxi licenses for sale for between 180,000 and 210,000 euros for Madrid. In Barcelona they have a similar price, slightly less than 200,000, although some advertisements exceed them. It depends on the schedule for which the license is scheduled or if the car is included. The history of VTC licenses is different: their price has not stopped growing and they have reached almost the same level. Again taking Wallapop as a quick barometer, you can see that a VTC license in Madrid is available for around 180,000 euros. In Barcelona, ​​where the sector faces regulatory uncertainty, the price is much lower, around 75,000 euros. But the most important change that Cabify, Uber and Bolt have brought is technological mediation. “In the VTC the model is different. What happens is that over time it has become increasingly closer to the taxi model,” says Román. The VTCs could not take clients on the street or at taxi stops, while the contracting of their services had to be done in advance. This is established by law to guarantee a market reserve for taxis, which in return are obliged to perform certain public functions, such as not rejecting clients or providing transportation support in situations of health emergencies. “With the arrival of applications, this required pre-contracting is diluted. The technology itself makes it immediate. Because you open the application, you pre-contract the VTC, but you can start using it five minutes later,” concludes Román. In practice, the two models provide the same type of transportation service, although they have different regulations. A sector of large companies The similarity of the service they provide, however, differs in their back room. The exploitation of VTCs is dominated by large companies with hundreds or thousands of licenses in their name. These companies are intertwined with some of the platforms. “Cabify is the owner of Vecttor. And Moove Cars and the Auro Group are owned by Uber,” says Cazallas, from the Free Transport Union. “While the number of licenses that each taxi driver can have is limited, in the case of VTCs there is no limitation on the number of licenses per owner. That is why a market of large companies that request many licenses has emerged,” emphasizes Román. And the number continues to increase. Cabify has deployed in Madrid 800 new licensespart of a package of 8,500 requested in 2018 taking advantage of a legal loophole. (Unsplash) The Estonian platform Bolt, the only one of the three that does not have its own fleet and claims to work with freelancers and small businesses, criticized the granting of these licenses as a form of market concentration. According to their calculations, the addition of 8,500 licenses to the Cabify/Vecttor fleet would put 70% of the active VTCs in the autonomous community under the control of a single company. One of the main figures behind Vecttor has been the Sevillian businessman Rosauro Varofounder of PepePhone. He built a VTC company that accumulated 2,000 licenses for later sell it to Cabifybecoming part of its shareholders. … Read more

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”

They have a metamaterial that evolves and moves on its own

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The metamaterials They are exciting. By combining physics, chemistry and engineering, as well as making small variations in the composition or structure of a material, we can completely change its properties. They can be created from light armor, but more resistant that one steel sheet of several centimeters thick to other materials that come to life and change shape at will. And that is precisely what they have done at the University of Amsterdam. “Learn” and “leren” in English and German In short. The center has published an article in Nature called “Metamaterials that learn to change shape” in which they show how worm-shaped materials blur the border between objects and living systems. Each one of them is joined to the next by a motorized hinge that has a microcontroller. Thus, it measures parameters such as rotation, previous movements in a kind of memory and can send information to neighboring hinges. Depending on the information they send, the others adjust their rigidity and position, allowing each segment to “learn” new shapes without the need for a computer to control everything. The key here is “learn.” Training. The shapes and postures they achieve are not the result of chance, but rather the work of the researchers sending impulses so that the segments are organized in the desired configuration. Through different stages of this training, the microcontrollers update and optimize their orders until the chain “understands” that it must adopt a certain posture when a certain stimulus is sent. They can forget old forms, retain recent ones, and, as we say, learn new ones, as well as alternate between those forms. And the interesting thing about all this is that they can develop the ability to grasp objects or move. The researchers themselves refer to this with the term “evolution,” noting that “once the system begins to learn, the possibilities of when it will stop learning feel almost limitless. Future. That hasn’t come out of nowhere. Researchers from the Institute of Physics point out that the current research is based on previous findings in which achievement that objects would roll, crawl and move autonomously over different terrains. The difference is that they did it for the sake of it, while the new metamaterials can learn and memorize behaviors. The future idea is to make that behavior depend on learning time instead of changes in a static way. The team points out which, for example, seek to “allow metamaterials to learn different gaits of locomotion, such as crawling or rolling, depending on environmental stimuli. We also plan to investigate so-called stochastic scenarios, where learning occurs with noise and uncertainty. In such cases, the system would adapt probabilistically rather than by determinism, improving robustness and flexibility in complex environments.” Beyond the laboratory. After all the team’s explanation, perhaps the most complicated thing is to imagine the scenario in which this can be applied. One that they mention is soft robots, which are those that change the rigidity and shape of conventional robots for others with an adaptive structure that may have applications in the medical or aerospace industry. Also on devices programmable that are modulated in real time and “reprogrammed” depending on the situation. But, really, the possibilities of metamaterials feel infinite, as the Institute of Physics pointed out. Playing with these structural particularities of the materials, they can be used as shielding, as isolationin building structures located in areas of high seismic activity so that redirect the energy they receivewhen creating lenses for advanced photonics, in sensors or as active camouflage around a vehicle. Images | Institute of Physics, University of Amsterdam In Xataka | In our search for new metamaterials we have reached delirium: one capable of counting up to ten

a ship moves at the speed of a bicycle

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The war in Iran was supposed to blow up the world economy. However, as analyst Max Fisher points out in his recent explanatory videoIf we look out the window today, we do not see an apocalyptic landscape worthy of Mad Max. What we see is, simply, a somewhat battered economy. Were the catastrophic forecasts wrong? At all. The light we see through the window is “a mirage.” The war detonated like a distant bomb: we have seen the flash, but the shock wave has not yet reached us. To understand the reason for this delay, you have to look at the sea. A supertanker is a steel giant that measures four football fields long, carries millions of barrels and weighs more than a skyscraper. Due to its colossal dimensions, it travels at about 10 or 15 knots. That is, at the speed of a bicycle. Our global supply lines travel at the pace of a cycling peloton. When the conflict broke out and the tap was turned off in the Persian Gulf, There was still a huge amount of crude oil pedaling slowly and silently across the oceans towards Europe, Asia and America. This logistical inertia is what has created the false sense of normality that we experience today. A monumental traffic jam According to data from Bloombergthere are more than 800 vessels stuck in the Gulf, 70% of them loaded with crude oil and fuel. Guardian raises the number to 2,000 if we add freighters and cruise ships, with some 20,000 sailors on board trapped for almost a month and a half. The real impact on the numbers is scary. An investigation of Al Jazeera based on data from Kpler reveals that in just 40 days of conflict 206 million barrels have disappeared from the market. To give us an idea, that amount would fill 103 supertankers (VLCC), marine beasts that, when standing, would equal the height of the Eiffel Tower. Exports from Iraq have plummeted by 82%, and those from Kuwait and Qatar by more than 70%. So why are there no massive blackouts in the West? As Max Fisher explainsWestern governments, through the International Energy Agency (IEA)have released millions of barrels from their emergency reserves. This, added to financial speculators betting on peace, has kept prices artificially low. But these measures are “punctual tricks”, patches that will run out just when the last ships that left before the war reach their destinations. The ceasefire deception The announcement of a “two-week ceasefire” has given a small respite to the markets, but the reality is rather stubborn. In statements to Reutersthe director of the IEA, Fatih Birol, was blunt: the current crisis is “more serious than those of 1973, 1979 and 2022 combined.” Analysts agree that it is not enough to sign a piece of paper to get the machinery back on track. The column lex of Financial Times warns that the world has lost about 600 million barrels. Even producing an extra million barrels a day, it will take almost two years to recover pre-conflict inventories. Added to this is physical destruction. Iran and its adversaries have damaged vital infrastructure. As we have explained in XatakaQatar has lost 17% of its liquefied natural gas (LNG) capacity and could take three to five years to repair. The imminent result will be what economists call “demand destruction”which Fisher starkly illustrates: things won’t disappear, but there will be a lot fewer of them. We will see airlines canceling flights due to the prohibitive price of fuel, less fertilizers (which will make food more expensive), factories stopped and construction materials through the roof. Great collateral damage: debt This crisis does not only affect gasoline pumps. An analysis of Foreign Affairs alert of an invisible global threat: the debt. With energy prices rising, inflation will skyrocket, forcing the United States to raise interest rates. This could trigger a wave of massive defaults in developing countries, a tragic echo of the debt crisis of the 1980s. Unlike past crises, today rich countries also have no lifeline. Ruchir Sharma, in his opinion column for Financial Timespoints out that G7 governments carry debt levels greater than 100% of their GDP. They have literally “run out of political ammunition” to subsidize fuel for their citizens. So why not extract oil from somewhere else? Because, as the geologist interviewed by explains The Conversationthe Persian Gulf is a unique whim of nature. It concentrates half of the world’s oil and 40% of the gas in just 3% of the earth’s surface. It is irreplaceable in the short term. The Tehran toll: the lesser evil Faced with this impasse, a proposal that is as controversial as it is pragmatic has emerged: that Iran control the Strait and charge a toll of about 2 million dollars per ship. According to a report from think tank European BruegelAlthough this violates international law, it would make economic sense. The study shows that 85% of this toll would be absorbed by the Gulf producing countries themselves. For the average European or Asian consumer, it would only mean a few cents more per barrel. A lesser evil compared to a total blockade that enriches Russia with the rise in crude oil. The spring mirage in which we live has an expiration date. During these hot months, Europe and Asia should be filling their strategic reserves in the face of the cold. Instead, they are emptying them. As Max Fisher warns, when hundreds of millions of people turn on the heat in December and January, the real oil crisis will hit with full force. In the long term, we can see only one real way out: avoiding oil altogether. This war will make it clear to world leaders that depending on such a volatile region is an unaffordable risk, forcing a drastic acceleration towards electric vehicles and renewable energy. In the meantime, we will continue waiting. Because the hyperconnected and technological economy of the 21st century has just discovered, the hard way, that its heart … Read more

Russia’s elite GRU moves its war against Ukraine’s power grid to Polish soil

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Winter in Eastern Europe is not just a season; It’s a damage multiplier. As my colleague Miguel Jorge described wellwhat is emerging in the region is a ruthless reality dubbed “thermal terror.” In this scenario, extreme cold becomes a weapon of war designed to make civil infrastructure – heating, electricity, water – the cruelest target. The ultimate goal is not only to destroy military capacity, but to make daily life physically unviable. Under this logic of making daily life unviable to wear down the population, the Kremlin’s most feared cyberespionage group has decided to cross a dangerous border. 500,000 homes in the spotlight. As Poland prepared for the holidays, its security systems detected what Energy Minister Milosz Motyka called the “strongest attack against Polish energy infrastructure in years,” as reported by Reuters. The sabotage occurred on December 29 and 30 and was surgical. The targets were not chosen at random, but instead targeted two cogeneration plants and systems that connect renewable energy facilities — such as wind farms — to power grid operators. In other words, directly to the key nodes so that energy reaches homes. local media they collected the statements from Prime Minister Donald Tusk, who put figures at risk: if the attack had been successful, half a million people would have been left without heat in the middle of winter. Fortunately, as detailed in the press release of the Polish Governmentthe defenses worked. “At no time was critical infrastructure threatened,” said Tusk, although the incident has been treated with the utmost seriousness, mobilizing the special services to their full capacity. Sandworm’s signature. The attack took on an international dimension when the cybersecurity firm ESET announced the discovery of the weapon used: a destructive malware called DynoWiper. As reported by TechCrunchESET attributed this operation with “medium confidence” to the Sandworm groupan elite unit within the Russian military intelligence agency (GRU). The choice of dates does not seem coincidental. As investigative journalist Kim Zetter points outthis attempted blackout in Poland came almost exactly ten years after the first Sandworm cyberattack against Ukraine’s power grid in 2015, which left 230,000 homes in the dark. For experts, the use of a wiper on Polish soil is an unprecedented event, as it marks Russia’s move from simple espionage to destructive sabotage against a NATO member. Furthermore, this is not an isolated episode because since the beginning of the Ukrainian War, Poland has undergone a sustained increase of cyberattacks attributed to Russian actors. Nevertheless, according to the Ministry of Energy itselfthe December attempt was a turning point both in its intensity and in its objective: it was no longer about probing defenses, but rather about causing a real blackout. Anatomy of the attack. To understand the seriousness of the issue, it is necessary to break down the technology used. Unlike the ransomware commona wiper It is software designed exclusively to destroy. Your goal is not to ask for a ransom, but delete permanently information and leave equipment unusable. In this case, the attackers went directly to the ICS (Industrial Control Systems) systems since these systems are the ones that allow electric companies regulate the supply and monitor the network. So, Sandworm sought to break communication between renewable energy sources and distribution operators. When attacking these nodes, the technicians’ margin of action is minimal because the failures propagate in a chain. A conflict that expands. The Polish Prime Minister directly linked this attack to his country’s support for Ukraine. “We sell electricity there and, in critical situations, we receive it from them,” Tusk explained.. Attacking the Polish network is, by extension, attacking Ukraine’s energy rear. This Russian aggressiveness is not new for Western intelligence services. In fact, the United States government keeps a reward 10 million dollars for information about six GRU officers belonging to Sandworm, responsible for global attacks such as NotPetya, which caused losses of 1 billion dollars. According to Microsoft, Sandworm—whom they call Iridium— has launched nearly 40 destructive attacks against critical infrastructure since the beginning of the invasion of Ukraine, seeking to degrade not only military capacity, but the population’s trust in its leaders. From NATO’s point of view, attempted sabotage does not automatically activate collective defense mechanisms, but it does reinforce disturbing evidence: hybrid warfare makes it possible to strain the European system without formally crossing the red lines of an armed conflict. The next frontier is no longer territorial, but digital. Faced with the growing threat. The Polish Government is finalizing the Law on the National Cybersecurity System, a regulation that seeks the “autonomy and polonization” of security systems to reduce dependence on devices that facilitate foreign interference, according to official information. However, December’s failed sabotage is a reminder that in modern warfare, the front lines are on power plant servers. While in the trenches of Ukraine soldiers try to hide their thermal trace from drones, in cities like Warsaw or Krakow the battle is being fought so that the simple act of turning on the heating does not become an impossible luxury. For now, Poland has won this defensive battle, even achieving a historical record of energy production a few days after the attack. However, Sandworm’s shadow is still long. The hackers’ message is clear: “If we can’t turn off the light, at least we can scare you.” The war for control of the European switch has only just begun. Image | Unsplash and freepik Xataka | La Gomera has been suffering constant total blackouts for years. Now you have a solution: a cable that is unique in the world

The sale of a 22 million euro mansion moves the axis of luxury on the Andalusian coast: to Sotogrande

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The price of housing in Spain it doesn’t stop going upbut this unstoppable increase has not been a brake on closing the most expensive real estate sale in Andalusia. That the mansion protagonist of the unusual record have your own name It is already an indicator of the economic level to which this home points: Niwa, a mansion in Sotograndehas closed for more than 22 million euros. To put it in perspective, that price implies that its new owner has paid about 5,116 euros for each of the 4,300 meters built of this property. Taking into account that the average price in the province of Cádiz is about 2,249 euros/m2, places the operation at levels of the price of homes in premium areas of the big cities.​ Niwa: 4,300 m2 of sustainable luxury Niwa is located in The Seven, the most exclusive sector of the already exclusive luxury development The Sotogrande Reserve. The property occupies a 10,000 m2 plot on a hill overlooking the Mediterranean and facing Gibraltar, surrounded by the Los Alcornocales Natural Park.​ The mansion consists of 4,300 m2 built, distributed in nine suites, with an outdoor infinity pool, an indoor covered pool, spa, gym, cinema room, wine cellar and garage for eight cars. The project came from the pencils of Manuel Ruiz of ARK Architects and was carried out with construction techniques more advanced and sustainable with the environment since 95% of its structure was prefabricated in a factory and then assembled in the chosen location. This allowed us to reduce the impact on the environment and reduce emissions.​ Sotogrande began its development in the early 60’s as a private residential area with 24 hour security. It currently has five golf courses and is considered one of the most luxurious urbanizations and exclusive to southern Europe, which attracts foreign buyers for its designer mansions, its privacy and its proximity to exclusive services. In 2024, the average sales prices of their houses reached 1.9 million euros, with transactions reaching up to 17 million euros. Some of the new construction phases that were started were sold at 85% in phases such as Village Verde. Plots in the most exclusive areas of Sotogrande, such as The 15, start at three million euros, while in The Seven, where Niwa is located, they can exceed eight million euros per plot. “Over the last ten years, Sotogrande has invested in its facilities, maintaining its essence as a low-density, high-quality destination. It is very exciting to see how this positioning is increasingly relevant for our clients,” assured in statements to The Confidential Rita Jordão, Marketing Director of Sotogrande SA. Luxury moves south “The sale of NIWA marks the beginning of a new era for Sotogrande, where architecture and lifestyle multiply their value on the Costa del Sol and, I would dare say, on the entire Mediterranean coast. NIWA is a modern palace reinterpreted with a contemporary language that is situated halfway between the classic and the current, with a very special materiality,” confirmed its creator, pointing to a substantial change in the preferences of ultra-rich clients who seek to settle in Andalusia. Given the growth in popularity of these new luxury enclaveshistoric luxury areas, such as Marbella, are losing relevance after decades of urban pressure, and foreign buyers They have begun to set their sights on Sotogrande. “The record sale of NIWA firmly consolidates Sotogrande as a destination among the best in the world. What is happening is not a change of course, but a natural consequence of what Sotogrande offers is increasingly valued in the luxury market,” confirmed Jordão. In Xataka | A businessman built a mega mansion without permission: the neighbors have gotten the city council to demolish it Image | ARK Architects

More than 40,000 people were left in MOVES III limbo when the Auto+ Plan was presented. It has just been resolved

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The presentation of the Auto+ Planthe Government’s new direct aid program to encourage the purchase of electric vehicles, has come with more than just announcements of millionaire investments and promises for the sector. It has also raised doubts. Specifically, it has generated expectations about what will happen with the thousands of people who have been increasing the waiting list for the plan that is about to retire, the MOVES III. Logical. After all, it is calculated that there are tens of thousands of people who still They are waiting for your help. The Ministry of Industry already has confirmed that the Auto+ Plan will not cover the loose ends left by its predecessor. Their solution would be another: inject more funds into MOVES so that the autonomies attend to all the “pending requests”. In fact, it has already committed to mobilizing 400 million thinking about the users who were left in administrative limbo with the change of plan. What has happened? That the announcement of the new Auto+ Plan has generated expectation… and doubts, unknowns that can be explained for three reasons. The first is that the Auto+ Plan will arrive in 2026 to retire MOVES IIIapproved retroactively last spring to support electric purchases made between January 2 and December 31, 2025. The second reason is that, due to the design of MOVES III, its funds They didn’t take long to run out in several communities, generating a considerable waiting list. The third reason is that the Government itself has made clear since Auto+ will not cover the pool of pending payments that MOVES III applicants have made up. What is the difference between MOVES III and Auto+? Basically, they are two different plans, with notable differences in their approach and application. In spring the Government provided MOVES III with 400 million euros designed to support purchases made throughout 2025, an injection of funds that was managed with a peculiarity: although the plan comes from the central government and is carried out through the Institute for Energy Diversification and Saving (IDAE), its funds are distributed among the autonomous communities to process the applications. This bet allowed the system to be decentralized, but it was also focus of criticism due to delays and blockages. The Government seems to have taken note and on Wednesday announced “a new line of help” endowed with another 400 million euros by 2026, the Auto+ Plan, which will be carried out directly by the ministry. “This aid will be managed by the central government, not the Autonomous Communities, to guarantee greater speed and homogeneity in management,” confirm from La Moncloa. The new plan also differs from its predecessor, MOVES III, in other details, such as that it will not cover personal charging points and the aid will be delivered at the time of purchase. Although the program generated some doubts, there was one in particular that clouded its presentation… What the hell happens with the pending issues that MOVES III has pending once it retires? Is that important? Yes. And it is because of a revealed piece of information a few days ago by Europa Press: MOVES has 40,000 clients on a waiting list pending receipt of aid. Not only that. The agency assures, citing sector estimates, that the amount pending payment would be around 300 million euros. Such a figure is partly explained by how the plan was designed, with a distribution of resources based on the population and not on where the demand for electric vehicles is actually registered. This caused Madrid and Catalonia to exhaust their funds after just a few months, in July and September, respectively. And what is the situation now? At the end of November Europa Press assured that there were 10 autonomous communities that had already exhausted their funds. However, as MOVES III did not expire until December 31, 2025, it continued to add applicants who piled up on a waiting list. The same one that was surrounded by doubts after the presentation of the new plan. If Auto+ centralizes management and creates a single fund for the entire country, this will prevent buyers who request aid from depending on whether or not their regions have exhausted the allocated amounts in the future. The problem is the past: the approximately 40,000 clients who, according to the news agency, are keeping an eye on the MOVES piggy bank and see how the plan is about to expire. Has the Government said anything? Yes. The waiting list has generated so much expectation that the Ministry of Industry and Tourism has had to come out to clarify some keys. Yesterday, during a visit to Valencia, Jordi Hereu confirmed that the new Pan Auto+ direct aid plan will focus “on present and future demand”, which will not cover the pool of users carried by MOVES III. Does that mean that the Government will leave lying to those thousands of buyers waiting for your help? On Thursday Hereu did not go into details, but he did say that the Executive will look for a way to shorten the waiting list of the previous plan. “(Everything that) has been done and managed in 2025 with MOVES III, which has been a success, is an element that we will surely address in due course,” guaranteed. And how will he do it? The answer has arrived today. Just 48 hours after announcing its new program, the Government has committed to mobilizing an extra 400 million euros in 2025 to meet pending MOVES III requests. The news is spread by economic media, such as The Economist and Expansionthat assures that the IDEA contacted the CCAA yesterday to confirm that the funds have been expanded so that they can cover the users who were left in limbo. The injection is added to that of Auto+. Images | Precious Madubuike (Unsplash) and Pool Moncloa/José Manuel Álvarez In Xataka | The European Union decided that our future involved the electric car no matter what. Until Germany realized something

a star that moves like it’s drunk

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Astronomers love mysteries, and Kepler-56 has been one of the great puzzles of our galaxy for years. This red giant, located about 3,000 light years from Earth, rotates too fast and with its internal structure literally twisted. Now, we have an explanation. A star that spins wrong. To understand why Kepler-56 is so strange, just compare it with any similar star in its old age. When a star like the Sun runs out of fuel, it expands and becomes a red giant. Typically, as it increases in size, its rotation slows down, like a skater extending his arms. However, Kepler-56 does the opposite: its outer shell rotates at an absurd speed, 10 times faster than normal for a red giant of its type. And the strangest thing is that the core of the star and its outer envelope rotate with axes inclined in different directions. Something didn’t add up. Kepler-56 has two confirmed planets orbiting it (Kepler-56 by Kepler-56 c), gas giants that orbit very close to their host star. Until now, the theory trying to make sense of Kepler-56’s strange movements was that these two planets pulled on the star using tidal forces, accelerating its spin. But Takato Tokuno, a researcher at the University of Tokyo, He realized that this explanation did not hold up.. For those planets to be responsible, the tidal efficiency would have to be orders of magnitude higher than what physics dictates. Another actor was needed in this crime scene. It was bad digestion. He study led by Tokuno seems to have reconstructed what happened: the Kepler-56 system had a third planet, but the star ate it. This third planet, a hot Jupiter, orbited dangerously close to the star, closer than the two planets we see today. So much so that, when the star began to age and expand, it was absorbed. It was not a smooth process. Tokuno explains the effect with a clear analogy: like a giant meteorite hitting the Earth glancingly. The planet would absorb the energy of the impact and accelerate its rotation. As it was engulfed, the planet transferred its angular momentum to the star’s atmosphere, causing it to spin at full speed. When hit at an odd angle, the star’s outer shell ended up spinning on a different axis than its core. The planetary life cycle. According to mathematics, the engulfed planet must have had a mass between 0.5 and 2 times that of Jupiter, and a frenetic orbital period of between one and six days. Its end was not unusual for a planet. We know that stars devour planets. In fact, our own Sun is expected to engulf Mercury, Venus and probably Earth within about 5 billion years. But catching a star still digesting is extremely difficult. And that’s what we’re apparently seeing. Image | David A. Aguilar (CfA) In Xataka | What is the Fermi paradox and why the architect of the atomic bomb gave a twist to the search for extraterrestrial life

After the demonstration of China’s force, the US moves a card sending its new missile platform to Japan

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China is celebrating. The country commemorates the 80th anniversary of victory over Japan and the end of the Second World War. Within that framework, on September 3, Beijing converted the Tiananmen Square In the center of a demonstration from outside as few have seen to date. More than 10,000 military personnel participated in a parade that lasted about 70 minutes and that the authorities themselves announced as something unpublished for a reason: they were going to present armament that the world had not seen until now. At least in his possession. On the margin of ballistic missiles, the vision of Chinese defense passes through drones, directed energy weapons, New generation combat fighters, Purtive aircraft and A great maritime power which served as a message to the world about the military self -sufficiency from the country and how They can change order in the Pacific. And so without taking into account what we have not seen. Being an extremely sensitive area, especially for Recent encounters with Japan And above all, TaiwanIt is something to take seriously. The United States response has not taken long to arrive: They have confirmed that they will deploy their avant -garde Typhon missile system on Japanese soil within exercises Resolute Dragon. And it is something that China has liked anything, but neither does Russia. Resolute Dragon and the Typhon missiles in Japan Allied forces perform joint exercises. In them they focus on the coordination for the defense of areas in the event of an open war, and those that the United States and Japan do jointly are called Dragon Resolute. The 2025 exercises will be held from September 11 to 25 and will focus on the defense of remote islands of the Japanese archipelago. Thus, the terrestrial self -defense forces of Japan and the United States marines will test their response capacity to an attack, and The great contribution of the United States for the year Resolute Dragon This year is the Typhon missile platform. Also called MID-RANGE CAPABILITY, or MRC, it is a mobile shuttle in standard containers, but that is able to shoot so much Tomahawk missiles like the SM-6. The Tomahawk are subsonic missiles with a flush flight profile capable of conducting precision attacks against terrestrial or naval objectives in a range of between 1,500 to 2,400 kilometers. SM-6 are less striking, since they have a range of 240 kilometers and are more focused on aerial defense, anti-man-and defense against ballistic missiles. The Typhon system can be deployed in heavy vehicles and can be transported by land, sea and air, and although it is not planned that any missile will be launched, its presence alone It has been taken as an attack by China. As we read in Reutersit was a spokesman for the Japanese forces who confirmed that the US will deploy Typhon during the exercises, and the response has arrived by Guo Xiaobing, director of the Center for Weapons Control Studies of China. In a releasesays that, although Japan and the US affirm that the deployment is temporary and will be removed after exercise, you must not trust. The reason? The same said when Typhon deployed In similar exercises in the Philippines during the past year and, according to China, the system has remained there since then. “These movements not only increase the surveillance of neighboring countries, but also represent hidden dangers for Japan’s own security – Guo Xiaobing The manager considers that it is a movement that “directly undermines the legitimate security interests of other countries and raises a real threat to regional strategic stability.” In addition, he affirms that, if a war against the United States explodes, it is likely that “The system becomes a tool that drags Japan towards turbulent waters”and he has not lost the opportunity to remember that “this year 80 years of the end of World War II, something that should cause a deep reflection and a good neighborhood policy, but Tokyo seems anxious to break the armament policy exclusively oriented to the defense.” This, by the way, is not new, since in 2023 we count how JApon broke with seven decades of demilitarization by considerably increasing your military budget. That China has not fun this announcement is a fact, but as we read in Business InsiderRussia does not see it with good eyes either. Maria Zakharova, spokesman for the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, described the maneuver as “another destabilizing step within Washington’s strategy to increase the potential of short and medium -sized land missile missiles”, adding that Typhon’s presence in Japan “It represents a threat direct strategy for Russia”. Until now, as we say, Typhon had only been deployed in logistics maneuvers in the Philippines in April last year, as well as in Australia in July of this 2025. The particularity of the deployment in Australia is that Yes, a shot was done Real of an SM-6 against a maritime objective, demonstrating the anti-mock capacity of the system from the mainland. In Xataka | Something unprecedented in Ukraine is happening: combat drones do not need humans to coordinate and attack

In the center of Africa a race for minerals that moves the world is fought. And China is winning it

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Lithium, cobalt, nickel, copper and, above all, Rare earth. These are some of the minerals and metals that dominate the world today because they are key to current and future industries. Revolutions such as renewable energies or that of the electric cars They go hand in hand with these materials, but they are also key to medical, aerospace and military industries. China It has advantage because Master the extraction and processing of key raw materials, but also for its enormous influence on the great world mine: Africa. Treasury search. We are talking about a key territory not only as a business opportunity, but as fountain of critical strategic minerals for the development of technologies that move the world and, also, the future of industries such as that of renewable energies or the electric cars. This is something that has encouraged several countries to want to invest in Africa, since ensuring certain resources is to cement that future. What countries are key? Congo Democratic Republic – It’s about the great world mine when we talk about copper, gold or cobalt. It is estimated that 70% of the world cobalt is extracted only in this country, but it is also crucial for coltan, tungsten, lithium or bauxite. The technology industry cannot work without them. Gabon – Another prominent territory when we talk about gold, but it is also an important source of manganese, iron and other essential minerals. China strategy. China and Western countries are very interested In those two countries in particular, but there are others, such as Zambia, of which they extract more lithium, metals of the platinum or nickel group. But China’s strategy is something that attracts attention throughout this panorama. The Asian giant has been doing years investments Of more than 10,000 million dollars to exploit the mines, extract the materials, process them and send them to China. They control the entire supply chain of these key minerals and esteem that import about 4,000 million dollars in minerals and metals every month. Central Africa is a priority area for China’s supply, but that is also an opportunity for the African countries involved. Investments and opportunity. Within China’s strategy, there is something that is very important: politics. Summits and bilateral agreements are held to ensure access to resources by China, but African countries also remain with their part. Within that interested investment in China, we see that ports, roads and railway lines are being developed. Jobs are also created, joint laboratories and training centers are created to strengthen scientific and technological cooperation. Geopolitics and debt. But, as is usually the case, there is a dark side in this story. On the one hand, competition between China and other global actors. That growing influence of the Asian country in central Africa is not something that makes the United States or European countries. It is something that generates more tension between them, but can also contribute to the tense political and economic stability of the African regions involved. There is studies that point in lack of transparency in contracts and the possible cooperation with authoritarian regimes to extract those resources. And they have also observed some risks of over -indebtedness by African countries. Arms. In all that geopolitical, commercial and collaboration context, and taking into account that we talk about territories with political instability and several armed groups, we cannot overlook another lucrative business for China: the sale of weapons. As we read in South China Morning Posta report by the Rand Corporation prepared in 2023 placed China as the main arms supplier for sub -Saharan Africa. Between 2019 and 2023, at least 21 African countries received great deliveries from Chinese weapons that includes weapons, ammunition, artillery, rockets, drones, missiles, armored and electronic warfare systems. It is also estimated that 70% of African armies use Chinese armored armored extended Its presence in countries such as Senegal, Ivory or Mali coast with new offices. This goes far beyond armament, since China also exports military and private security forces to protect the country’s mining interests. And this occurs because Chinese military exports are usually cheaper and with lower political conditions than Western alternatives, which is very sweet to those African states with a geopolitical context that is not stable. An asymmetric relationship. It must be added that China promised an investment of 50,000 million dollars in three years in the region and that it has pledged to train police and military in the area, but as already pointsall this investment in Africa is generating is an asymmetric relationship between countries. It seems that Africa is receiving much more than China because the former let them exploit their mines and the latter invest in infrastructure, employment, safety and sell manufactured products, but in the end what is achieved is that Chinese influence is huge in Africa. This rapid expansion in recent years causes sovereignty to be questioned and reinforce the idea of ​​what will happen in the area when strategic minerals have been extracted, since many depend on those Chinese investments, seeing how their local economic and political autonomy can stagger. And it must also be said that what we now see with China is something that, traditionally, have carried out other countries in those same territories, and it is something that they are in competing With its great adversary right now: the United States. Images | Hansueli Krapf, Africraigs, Steve Jurvetson In Xataka | In its particular underground war with Europe, China has found a new weapon: to monopolize copper

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