pig

a pig flying on a drone

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The date of the lunar new year in China changes every year, but always falls between January 21 and February 21. And like in any home, whether from the east or the west, the custom is to celebrate it. So a farmer from Sichuan had the idea of bring down some pigs from their mountain farm to sacrifice them. The normal thing would be to use a truck, but this farmer chose a way that on paper seemed more comfortable (for him, of course, but not for the animal): use a drone. Their experiment did not last long: the first pig became trapped in a power line, causing a blackout that left thousands of the village’s inhabitants without electricity. Early in the morning of Saturday, January 24, a villager in Tiefu, Tongjiang County, Bazhong City, Sichuan, had that happy idea. It was so early that there was little visibility, as reported by the South China Morning Postso the rope got tangled in a high tension cable, leaving the drone and the pig suspended in the air and causing a short circuit. And among the risks involved in carrying such a load in the event of possible falls on people and objects, it seems like the least of the problems. It is true that if we talk about drones, China plays in another league as we have already seen in practically any self-respecting celebration and also in war scenarios. Without going any further, have developed models capable of shooting at 100 meters away with surgical precision. And that a farmer has a drone at home capable of lifting a pig and the confidence of being able to bring this adventure to a successful conclusion is another test that would probably occur to few farmers in Spain. “Until pigs fly” does not apply in China Tap to go to the X/Twitter post The villager and those helping him tried to control the situation and carry out a rescue without success, until finally the authorities had to intervene. Up to 12 workers were needed to restore electricity at five in the afternoon, after carrying out emergency repairs with a cost of 10,000 yuan (about 1,200 euros) and 10 hours of blackout. According to the Hong Kong mediathe authorities are investigating the event because it would be an unauthorized flight as it is a no-fly zone. As explains Sinahe Regulation on the Protection of Electrical Installations prohibits people from flying kites, balloons or other floating objects within a radius of 300 meters on either side of overhead power lines. And if you do so, you must have the express authorization of the county energy department and apply relevant security measures. In case of non-compliance, you face civil and even criminal liability charges. Furthermore, although there are agricultural drones that are already used in agricultural facilities, with their loading restrictions and restricted areas, their use to transport live animals It is not allowed either: Of course, carrying a large animal moving does not seem like the safest thing in the world for the stability of a drone. And if we talk about animal ethics, even worse. However, China does not have a comprehensive national animal welfare and protection law: its current regulations It focuses more on health and biosafety than on ethics of well-being. The Asian media does not report on the condition of the unfortunate pig after the air incident, but given its tragic fate, the omens are not good. The drone accidents are the order of the day in China. The Sing Tao echoes the data of the Sichuan Provincial Agricultural Mechanization Association and these events are quite common: in 2024 alone and in that province alone there were more than 40 safety accidents caused by illegal operations that ended with injuries, property damage and electrical failures. In Xataka | China’s new futuristic drone is already flying alongside the J-20 fighters. And Beijing has shown it without saying a word In Xataka | China plays in another league in drone shows: what it is doing in 2026 we have never seen before Cover | Dan Renco and NEXT TV

We thought this bug was a pig. Now we know that it was two meters tall, weighed a thousand kilos and was a killing machine related to whales.

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Almost 200 years ago, a paleontologist found some completely improbable bones. They thought about it a thousand times, tried to find some sense in it; but everything ended in the same delirious image: that of a huge pig with the capacity to destroy everything in front of it. And that’s what we called him for decades: the ‘pig from hell’. What we have just discovered, two centuries later, is that we know almost nothing about them. Now they are even more terrible. But what really is a ‘hell pig’? It is the popular nickname by which entelodonts are known; an extinct family of large prehistoric mammals that lived about 30 million years ago. The bug was described for the first time in the 1840sbut it was in the early 20th century that paleontologists assumed it was closely related to pigs or peccaries. It was not something irrational: on a strictly physical level, entelodonts looked very similar to modern-day pigs. Two meters tall, weighing more than a thousand kilos and jaws capable of crushing bones, but pigs nonetheless. With “crushing bones” we are falling short. Recently, a team from Vanderbilt University could examine in detail the teeth of these animals and, thanks to three-dimensional models of dental microwear, they have managed to turn around everything we thought we knew about the role of these animals in North American ecosystems 30 million years ago. Your conclusions they leave no room for doubt: “the largest specimens were capable of crushing bones with an efficiency similar to or even greater than that of lions and hyenas.” Luckily, they weren’t very smart; And, according to the researchers, “it has a brain-body relationship similar to that of reptiles, so they were very unintelligent creatures.” A complex story. At first, experts thought that this monstrous animal was a born hunter. Then, partly because of this familiarity with pigs, they came to the conclusion that they were omnivorous animals, capable of eating small animals and carrion. Now, thanks to this team, we know that they were most likely at the top of the food chain of their ecosystems. This, in fact, raises the possibility that different species (or subspecies) occupied different ecological niches. However, there are curious things. To begin with, entelodonts have nothing to do with pigs. In fact, they are closer to whales and hippos than anything else. But, above all, it shows us the difficulties we continue to have in understanding our past. Little by little, we are understanding that if our way of looking at the past conditions the futureour ability to understand what the world was like 30 million years ago will radically change many things we think we are. And the best thing is that, even though I get melancholic and retrospective, everything we know makes it clear that the “pig from hell” is more infernal than ever. Image | Carnegie Museum of Natural History In Xataka | The deaths of cows, reindeer or rhinos are not a mystery: they are the consequences of a curse, that of “large animals”

There are people buying land, farms and pig farms in Spain. And those people are investment funds

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If this were not an article by Xataka, if it were a novel by Michael Ende: the story would begin with a top-down shot of the Segrià fields. We would see farms and more farms, cereal fields, irrigated orchards, roads, the Segre winding through the plain. And, as we got closer to the ground, we would see a flood of little gray men with briefcases full of money. The argument would be obvious: the field is for sale and the funds have gone out to buy. 34 million pig heads. That is Spain: the undisputed leader of European pork, the third producer worldwide. A giant, no matter how hackneyed the metaphor may be, with feet of clay. And the Spanish countryside has many problems, but the most worrying (because it has no solution — neither easy nor difficult) is its exasperating lack of generational change. Thousands of farms are on the brink of disappearance simply because no one wants to take charge of them once the owner retires. And that “nobody” doesn’t include the funds? Not until very recently. Agriculture was an unsexy sector for financial capital, but now the situation has changed. We have seen it with agriculture: aggressive field management can generate a lot of income (even if it is at the cost of large negative externalities). Now, in addition, today two great factors have joined the celebration of capital: the first is that the mass of exploitations without relief is enormous. The second is that the processes of integration of farms with the meat industry have reached a point of no return — “the field” and “the industry” are now almost synonymous. A sea full of sharks. But, if that were not enough, the pressure on aquifers and international volatility are turning the agricultural world into a difficult place for small farms. Only large corporations have the lungs to dive into such tough markets. Is this bad news? If we look at the Spanish movements from a more international perspective, I’m afraid so. The Californian case is a warning for sailors: large funds are buying properties solely and exclusively for your water rights. And so, as seen in the last droughtit’s a huge problem. A problem that adds to environmental conflictsto rent captureto agricultural changesto the industrial dismantling of emptied Spain. A strange future. As I said before, Spain is the great agricultural power of the continent. In fact, little by little, it has become one of the great world powers in the marketing of agricultural products. But it will not be easy to stay there, the financial funds They are the best example and the problem is that everything seems to indicate that, along the way, the Spain we know will not be recognized by “not even the mother who gave birth to it.” Image | Annie Spratt | Markus Winkler In Xataka | The great paradox of Spanish olive oil: although it grows 15% a year, more than 500 olive oil mills will close in the next decade

The US has seized $15 billion in bitcoin. This is how the terrifying “pig slaughter” crypto scam works

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The US Department of Justice (DoJ) has confiscated about 15 billion dollars in the form of bitcoin. This fortune was in the hands of an alleged fraudster named Chen Zhi who supervised a gigantic crypto scam. One that sadly is becoming more and more frequent and is now known as the “pig slaughter” or the “pig fattening.” The name is a no-brainer. what has happened. We are facing the largest asset seizure in the history of the DoJ. The action focuses on the founder and president of an international conglomerate called Prince Holding Group based in Cambodia. Chen Zhi, 38, also known as “Vincent,” has been charged with wire fraud conspiracy and money laundering. The scam used has many peculiarities. The “pig slaughter”. In English they use the name “pig butchering” for this type of crypto scam, and here we could translate it as “pig slaughter” or “pig fattening.” The process that scammers follow to deceive their victims is as follows: Search and contact: Scammers contact victims (the “pigs”) through social media, dating apps, or direct messages. To do this, they use fake and attractive profiles. Fattening (trust building): for weeks a personal, friendly or romantic relationship is builtand the scammer gains the trust of the victim. This scammer usually presents himself as a successful person with “secret” knowledge in the world of investments. You invest, you will earn a lot of money: once trust is gained, the scammer presents the victim with a “guaranteed” and very lucrative investment opportunity, usually in cryptocurrencies. And indeed, it seems that you win: after a small investment and to reinforce hope and confidence, the scammer allows the victim to withdraw a small profit. The victim becomes even more confident. Invest more, this works– With the victim now encouraged, he is persuaded to invest much larger amounts, often emptying his savings or even taking out loans The slaughter: When the scammer determines that the victim has invested all they can, they execute the fraud. It blocks the victim’s withdrawal of funds and denies access to that account. Excuses (taxes, verification fees) are made to try to request even more money Disappearance: The scammer cuts off all communication, the fraudulent platform disappears and the victim’s money has been stolen and laundered by the criminal network. A multinational scam. According to prosecutors in the case, Prince Group operates in more than 30 countries and secretly grew to become “one of the largest transnational criminal organizations in Asia.” The company presented itself as a legitimate real estate development and financial services company. Dumb with studies. Although it may seem incredible, this scam manages to deceive people with advanced training. Grace Yuen of Gaso—an international anti-scam organization— explained on BBC that this type of fraud affects all types of profiles, even those that we would think would be somewhat more protected: “About 80% or more of the victims have university degrees and a large percentage of them have a master’s or doctorate. They are victims of all branches: from nurses and lawyers to computer scientists or telecommunications engineers. They are all highly educated people, usually between the ages of 24 and the end of 40. Although now we are also seeing older victims.” human trafficking. The organization allegedly operated forced labor camps in Cambodia. According to the indictment, Prince Group operated at least 10 complexes of this type in which hundreds of people were forced to work under threat of violence executing this scam with victims from all over the world. Two of the facilities were equipped with 1,250 mobile phones that controlled 76,000 accounts on a popular social media platform. Bribes. According to the investigation, Zhi and his network of managers managed to use their political influence in several countries to protect their criminal network. Thus, they are accused of paying bribes to public officials to prevent law enforcement from dismantling these operations. The stolen money was laundered through online gambling or cryptocurrency mining platforms, as well as spent on trips on private jets or yachts and also on works of art. On the run. The accusation of the DoJ has been added to that of the US Department of the Treasury. Said organism has imposed sanctions against Zhi and more than 100 associated individuals and entities. Chen Zhi, of Chinese origin, has become a fugitive, and faces up to 40 years in prison if convicted and arrested. Image | Kanchanara In Xataka | The founder of WhatsApp spared no expense when decorating his mansions and yachts with very expensive furniture. Most were fake.

Russia is trying to conquer the Chinese pig market. Beijing has just provided it with rates of up to 62% to the EU

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Beijing has decided to strengthen its pressure on the European pig sector in an evening retaliation to The rates applied By Brussels to the electric cars ‘Made in China’. And plan to do it big, adding tariffs of up to 62.4% to EU meat exports. In Spain the employer already He has nuanced That their companies will pay only 20% (some less), but if there is a country that can look with satisfaction, China’s decision is not Spain, but Russia. After all, Moscow has been wanting to win Market share in Asia. What happened? That the European pig has started September with turbulence. Turbulence that also affect one of its large markets: China. On Friday the Ministry of Commerce of the Asian Giant advertisement that since Wednesday will impose provisional tariffs of up to 62.4% To a series of pig products and by -products, a whole malazo for the community sector, which every year sells in China thousands and thousands of tons of pork. According to the Pig333 specialized platform, only during the first quarter of 2025 the EU exported more than 1.1 million tons to countries located outside the community club. Among the nations that contributed the most to that figure are Spain, with 35% of exports, followed by Netherlands, Denmark and Poland. At the other end of the chain, the fate of the meat is China, which was made with 296,500 tons, almost 27% of the total. It is followed by the United Kingdom and the Philippines. What does that rate of 62.4%mean? The figure is overwhelming, but Beijing’s tariff policy will not affect all EU countries equally. In an interporp fact, the agri -food interprofessional organization of the white -layer Portio, stands out that the Spanish industry will be the best standing in Europe. Although the rate will effectively reach 62.4% for the company of other countries in the region, the employer clarifies that for local firms that penalty will be quite lower: 20%or even lower in some specific case. And what is the reason? EFE Precise That the largest tariffs, up to 62.4%, will apply to companies that do not collaborate with Chinese authorities. Those who do will see how that low rate at 20%, the percentage that the well, Noel, Campofrío, Cárnicas Five Villas, Fiselva or Sánchez Romero Cavajal must face. The general photo is however more complex: China plans to do certain exceptions with the companies that his delegation has taken by way of sample for his investigation. Among them are the Dutch Vion, which will face a tariff of 32.7%; Danish Danish Crown, who will assume a rate of 31.3%; and the Spanish Litera Meat, based in Huesca, the most favored with 15.6%. Why those rates? Largely for the automotive. Perhaps the meat and automobile industry do not have much to do, but if we talk about economic policy, commercial flow and tariffs things change. When Brussels decided Upload your rates To the electric cars ‘Made in China’, Beijing reacted pointing to one of the European sectors that depends most on the Asian giant, the pig. As? The Xi Jinping government began an investigation ‘Antidumping’ Focused on EU’s pig imports, a process with which, China alleges wants to avoid the alleged unfair competition that affects its own companies. These investigations began in 2024, but In June Beijing decided to expand the investigation until at least mid -December. Once the process ends, the government will announce the permanent tariffs, but until then it has opted for temporary rates. As remember The Ministry of Commerce, its preliminary study identified a case of dumping Related to pork from the EU, which would have caused “important damage” to Chinese companies. Is it so serious? It is no accident that Beijing has set just in that sector. China is a Important producer of pigs, but also a enormous gigantic market that matters every year hundreds of thousands of tons of meat, a flow that generates in turn thousands of millions of dollars. And that market the EU (and especially countries with broad livestock cabins, such as Spain) plays a key role. Despite having slightly reduced its purchases, in 2024 the Asian giant remained the main destination of community pork, with a flow of 1.12 million of tons. In 2020, when the sector of the country was affected by the African swine plague, that data came to 3.34 million. In the specific case of Spain, which together with Germany and France plays A fundamental role In the European pig industry, the figures are equally eloquent. “China is the main destination market for the meat and by -products of the Spanish pig. In 2024 exports to this country reached 540,000 t, with a value greater than 1,097 million euros, which represents almost 20% of the total exported volume and 12.5% ​​of the value of sales,” remember Interporc. Is it bad for everyone? No. There is a country that probably see with expectation commercial tensions between China and Europe, especially if we talk about the pig sector: Russia. Moscow was set out from the appetizing (and millionaire) Chinese market for about A decade and a half Due to the health restrictions applied by Beijing in 2008 to protect from the African pig plague. That veto was broken in March 2024, when Russia managed to send a first game of 27 tons of pig to the Asian giant. It was a modest amount, true, but a success for Russia, which had been trying to open a hole in the Chinese market for years. Last July, Russian pork exports to China already reached 12.4 million dollars, According to Echemiwhich ensures that this figure represents a 22% increase compared to June. It is not the only sign that Moscow is managing to recover land in the Asian market. Just a few days ago the Intefax agency revealed That Kremlin expects Beijing to increase the number of Russian companies authorized to export meat to China, a possibility that looks with optimism. “We are communicating … Read more

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