problem

We have a problem with cardboard recycling. In the United Kingdom they believe that the solution is to use it in a power plant

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Every day, millions of cardboard boxes leave our homes heading to the blue container. They are the last link in an accelerated consumption cycle in online commerce. However, this material, so everyday that we don’t even look at it twice, could be on the verge of an unexpected second life: becoming fuel to generate electricity on a large scale. A residue that enters the energy map. A team of engineers from Nottingham University has shown for the first time that used cardboard can be used as an effective source of biomass in power plants. The investigation, published in the journal Biomass and Bioenergycompares cardboard with a common reference for industrial biomass: eucalyptus. The engineers didn’t just watch the cardboard burn. They crushed it, studied its shape, broke down its chemistry and analyzed how it reacted to heat and what type of carbon it left behind. They even developed their own method—based on thermogravimetric analysis—to measure exactly how much calcium carbonate each sample contains. This component, common in printed cardboard, gives rigidity to the material but also conditions its behavior when burning. Thanks to this procedure, they can predict which type of cardboard will work well in an industrial boiler and which could cause problems. The science behind cardboard that burns “better.” The study did not stop at theories. He tested the combustion of cardboard in two types of systems equivalent to those used in power plants: Drop Tube Furnace: Simulates the rapid combustion of pulverized biomass.Here, the researchers observed that cardboard particles develop chars (the carbonaceous remains that remain after the first combustion phase) highly reactive, with a predominance of fine and porous structures that favor a burnout accelerated. Muffle Furnace: Simulates fluidized bed or grate systems. Even with longer residence times, the paperboard maintained its excellent combustion profile. In addition, the size and shape of the particles were characterized through an analysis with more than one million particles per sample; The tendency of cardboard to form “spongy aggregates” during grinding was observed—a challenge for its industrial handling—and characteristics such as sphericity and aspect ratio were correlated, something that could improve future combustion models. As the academic study explains, this detailed analysis allows predicting combustion efficiency and designing industrial strategies to integrate cardboard into the fuel flow. The result was very favorable. Thanks to this experiment, the engineers managed to demonstrate that cardboard has less carbon (38%) than eucalyptus (46.7%) and its calorific value is also lower (15.9–16.5 MJ/kg versus 21 MJ/kg). However, its chars are finer, porous and reactive, which accelerates combustion; In addition, it contains much more ash (8.9–10.6%, compared to 0.6% for eucalyptus), a critical aspect for boilers. What remains to be resolved? Although the technical potential is evident, the study makes it clear that cardboard is not ready to enter the boilers of a power plant tomorrow. There are three fundamental challenges that must be addressed: Management and processing problems. When ground, cardboard does not behave like wood: it forms spongy lumps of very low density that make internal transport difficult, complicate the continuous feeding of boilers and can increase the risk of blockages and accumulations. The study warns that it will be essential to adapt the grinding and feeding systems to guarantee a stable and safe flow. The behavior of calcium. Cardboard contains very high levels of CaCO₃, especially when printed. This calcium can behave in different ways depending on the temperature and type of boiler. In certain cases it raises the fusion temperature of the ashes – which is positive -; In others it can favor the formation of slag or alter the quality of the fuel. The study recommends analyzing the behavior of cardboard according to the type of plant, because not all technologies tolerate these variations in the same way. Large-scale industrial validation. Laboratory tests are promising, but the decisive step is missing: testing the cardboard in real operating conditions. According to the researchers, the industry will have to carry out tests on different technologies in boilers, evaluate emissions, study the accumulation and composition of ash and check their compatibility with existing biomass mixtures. Only then can it be determined whether the cardboard can be safely and stably integrated into the mix of biomass. An everyday material with an unexpected future. Cardboard protects pizzas, televisions, books and appliances. We recycle it without thinking too much about it. But this research from Nottingham suggests that this everyday waste could become another piece of the energy transition, helping to diversify fuels and take advantage of an abundant and local resource. Today we see it as garbage. Tomorrow it could help produce electricity. The spark has already been lit: now we need to know if the industry wants – and can – convert it into real energy. Image | Unsplash and Geograph Xataka | Selling smoke is now a business in Soria: it purifies it and sells it as CO2 to make soft drinks

A Chinese startup claims to have created its own TPU to compete with NVIDIA. The only problem is that it is three years late

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A Chinese startup called Zhonghao Xinying (known internationally as CL Tech) has come to the fore with a bold promise. The company claims to have developed an AI chip that not only circumvents Western intellectual property restrictions, but also outperforms NVIDIA’s A100 chip. Which is very good, but also a little bad. Chana arrives. The chip in question has been named “Chana”, and according to SCMP we are dealing with a GPTPU (General Purpose Tensor Processing Unit). Unlike NVIDIA GPUs, aimed at accelerating AI workloads, this is an ASIC, that is, an application-specific integrated circuit designed from the ground up for neural network workloads. promise. According to Zhonghao Xinying Chana, it offers up to 1.5 times the performance of the NVIDIA A100 based on the Ampere architecture. Not only that: it achieves that performance with 30% lower consumption. The startup highlights that the computational cost per unit would therefore be less than half of that offered by the A100 chips. A little history of the company. Behind Zhonghao Xinying is Yanggong Yifan, an engineer formed at Stanford and the University of Michigan. He worked on the development of several generations of Google TPUs and also on the development of Oracle chips, and in 2018 founded this startup in Hangzhou together with Hanxun Zhengan engineer who worked at Samsung for several years. They were joined by other engineers from Microsoft, Oracle, NVIDIA, Amazon and Facebook, they indicate. on Baidu. We are therefore faced with several of those cases of “boomerang talent” with Chinese engineers who are forged in the US and then return to China to create solutions for their own industry. Solutions that do not depend on the West. Yanggong affirms that its chip features “fully self-controlled IP cores, a custom instruction set, and a fully in-house computing platform. Our chips do not rely on foreign technology licenses, ensuring long-term security and sustainability from an architectural perspective.” But. Although the achievement is striking, it is necessary to put it in perspective. The NVIDIA A100 is a 2020 AI GPU, and even with the improvements that this Chinese startup promises, its performance is, for example, far from H100 chips with Hopper architecture that appeared in 2022. Not to mention of the latest Blackwell Ultra chipswhich are currently NVIDIA’s greatest exponent in terms of AI chips. There are also no details about who makes the chip, and one of the candidates it would be SMICwhich has 7nm technology. They are very far away, and they have another problem. The technical achievement of these engineers is certainly notable, but everything indicates that they are still far from what NVIDIA and its competitors are achieving. like AMD or Google with its recent TPU Ironwood. There is another element that works against them: Chinese manufacturers continue without having direct access to the most advanced photolithography on the market, and although it also there is progress from Chinese manufacturers in that sense, competing is certainly complicated without access to the most advanced technologies. Pressure. In 2024 the company achievement revenues of 598 million yuan (73 million euros) with a net profit of 85.9 million yuan, but in the first half of the year the income was only 102 million yuan and had losses of 144 million yuan. The firm has reached an agreement with its investors by which it will have to go public at the end of 2026, or else it will be forced to buy back shares. The financial pressure is therefore notable for the company, which must demonstrate in the coming months that its roadmap is truly competitive. In Xataka | China was no longer supposed to be able to get its hands on NVIDIA’s most advanced chips. Until he found a shortcut in Indonesia

‘Stranger Things’ changed everything for Netflix. Your problem now is finding another brand just as powerful.

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The expectation is through the roof: Netflix has just taken the first steps of the final season of ‘Stranger Things’‘, which will run throughout December with several episodes, many of them feature-length. In fact, the desire of the fans is such that Netflix even saw its servers falter. A (very possibly) triumphant culmination that, however, leaves a few unknowns in the air. Netflix flashes. Netflix experienced a service outage that in some cases It lasted about twenty minutes. (although the thing did not exceed about five, according to the platform’s official statement) with the premiere of the fifth season of ‘Stranger Things’. The incident occurred despite the fact that the series co-creator, Ross Duffer, had shared that Netflix would increase its bandwidth by 30% to avoid precisely this type of incident. All in all, thousands of users reported NSEZ-403 errors that prevented them from accessing the content, or accessed it with problems, which worked as a perfect thermometer of the expectation generated by the series. ‘Stranger Things’ continues to be a phenomenon capable of collapsing digital infrastructures three years after its previous season. Devastating figures. The fourth season accumulated 140.7 million viewsestablishing itself as the third most watched series in English on the platform, only behind ‘Wednesday’ and ‘Adolescence’. Of course, it is the only series with all seasons in the Top 10an unprecedented milestone on the platform. The impact on subscribers is more difficult to quantify: the third season, for example, contributed to add 520,000 subscribers in the United States. The cultural impact. The impact that ‘Stranger Things’ has had on modern pop culture is enough for a book, but let’s stick with some figures that will give us a rough idea. First, the economy: Netflix, for example, closed agreements with approximately 75 brands to promote the third season. Coca-Cola relaunched New Coke, generating 1.2 billion dollars in media value; Similarly, Nike obtained $178 million in media coverage with their Hawkins High collection. But this goes far beyond benefits for some brands: Butts County in Georgia, where the series is set, reported a 12% increase in tourism during the years the series was broadcast. And the small city of Jackson, with barely five thousand inhabitants and a per capita income of less than $30,000, revitalized its economy thanks to thematic tours. And of course, there is the strong role that the series has had in the recovery of the aesthetics and fashions of the eighties. It is no longer just that they have been revitalized Stephen King’s books and John Carpenter’s films: platforms like LTK registered increases of 3,000% in searches for clothing similar to those worn by the characters. What can we expect? For now, Netflix has planned very well to divide this final season into three: 4 episodes on November 27, 3 on December 26 and a final one on January 1. That is, coinciding with Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Eve, and thus, contrary to what is usual on the platform, stretching the cultural conversation for two months. As for audience expectations, as expected, they are very high: analysts predict new viewing records given the three years of waiting until this end. Of course, the critics have spoken and they point to the signs of exhaustion that were already seen in previous seasons: 87% on Rotten Tomatoesthe lowest rating of the series so far, although the audience rises to 92%. It is not easy to maintain narrative quality after so many years, with obstacles such as the age of the protagonists. The future. The really interesting thing about the phenomenon is wondering what Netflix has ahead. Or to put it more awkwardly: can the platform replicate the phenomenon? It has certainly had successful series in its catalogue, such as ‘Wednesday‘, ‘The Squid Game’ or ‘The Bridgertons’, but except for the first, all of them have finished or are about to do so. It is true that Netflix has the ability to generate new hits like ‘Wednesday’, which also, although it came as a bit of a surprise to everyone, could be well exploited by the platform. Now, Netflix is ​​in a phase of prioritize quantity over qualitymercilessly canceling what does not interest you and attesting that we are in a different moment than the initial success of ‘Stranger Things’: the competition has multiplied and it is more difficult to get noticed among multiple offers. Netflix has all the space in the world before it to compete, but perhaps its main rival is its own legacy: how to make ‘Stranger Things’ forgotten. The series was perhaps, before the almost infinite atomization of the offer of the streamingthe medium’s latest great global success. And that is very difficult to overcome. In Xataka | Netflix loved movie theaters. Then he hated them. Now you have reached a very beneficial middle ground

In 1982 Seiko created a watch for making calls and watching television. His only problem was arriving too early

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History is full of devices that were ahead of their time. I am not referring to literary or cinematographic machines like the tablet by Kubrick or the multiple predictions from Verne, but to other devices that were put on sale decades ago and now we realize that they are very similar to some of the latest gadgets on the market. One of these inventions was Seiko TV Watch. In its day this rarity was considered and recognized as the smallest television in the worldand even made appearances in some movies, but today no one can miss its striking resemblance to current smart watches, and in a way we could say that we are facing a distant relative. The history of this device began in 1972, but the first step was not taken by Seiko but by another North American company called Hamilton. They were the creators of Press P1the first digital wrist watch in history. The Japanese they acquired to Americans, and they embarked on their own path into the digital age by launching their first watch of this type in 1973. At that time it was said that society was moving towards a revolution in visual information, and to join it with its new range of watches the japanese company started to work on the research and development of liquid crystal panels (LCD) with active matrix that were capable of reproducing moving images. Over the following years, these efforts helped their watches become increasingly smaller and thinner, with higher component density and more energy efficient. They were also implementing new functions such as stopwatches and calculators. After three years of development and hundreds of millions of yen invested, the summer of 1982 Seiko advertisement in Tokyo a new watch. It was about TV Watchthe first to finally allow us to watch television on our wrist. This was Seiko’s TV Watch A watch that you can watch television on. Today this concept seems simple, but back then being able to carry it out was a little more complicated. The TV Watch was made up of three different elements that had to be connected together for it to work. The result was a science fiction product, yes, but a little uncomfortable to wear. On the one hand we had the clock, but we had to connect it to a radio and television receiver the size of a walkman. We also needed headphones, and these also had to be connected to the signal receiver. And how could you carry so much cable with you in a fairly comfortable way? Well, very simple, pay attention to this drawing that appeared in your manual. As you can see, the trick was to put the receiver cable under the sleeve to connect it to the watch. But in case we didn’t want to complicate our lives, the TV Watch also had a function to listen only to the audio of television broadcasts. The watch itself had dimensions of 40 x 49 x 10 millimeters and a weight of 80 grams, and all its magic was concentrated in its innovative 1.2-inch white and blue LCD screen with a resolution of 32k pixels and 10 shades of gray. I also had a second smallest screen in which we could see the time, set the alarm and use the stopwatch as with any other digital watch. During the presentation of the device, its creators had to give certain explanations about how they had achieved such ingenuity. They said their new panels controlled the molecular arrangement of liquid crystal within an electric field, and that this made it possible to create miniature images with very low power consumption. Especially when compared to the cathode ray tubes of conventional televisions. The receiver measured 74.5 x 125 x 19 millimeters and weighed 140 grams. This made it too big to carry in a back pocket, but perfect for the inside jacket pocket. Its battery consisted of two AA batteries that gave it a range of five hours, and it tuned both FM radio and television on VHF & UHF channels. What could have been and was not The TV Watch arrived on the Japanese market in December 1982 with a single DXA001 model that cost 108,000 yen, although a second, cheaper DXA002 model was later released. The difference between the two was that the second included a hearing aid instead of headphones, and its price dropped to 98,000 yen. In exchange, these two models today would be worth around 600 and 500 euros respectively. The presentation of the device managed to generate a lot of interest, and the watch made front pages of newspapers and headlines on television. It was considered an innovative product for allowing us access a large amount of information in real timeand it attracted so much attention that a year later it also ended up reaching the US market. Errr, okay? During its launch in Japan, Seiko managed to sell 2,200 units, and the president of the company’s North American subsidiary said that the reception from the American media had been so good that he believed he could sell all the ones they manufactured. This optimism translated into the production of between 15,000 and 20,000 units ready for export. But not everyone saw the TV Watch as an invention destined to revolutionize the market. In fact, it is known that at Sony they came to say that their laboratories had the capacity to develop a similar product, but that They didn’t think there was a big enough market. for this type of devices. In the end it turns out that they were right, and the watch did not end up becoming a successful product. In the TV Watch curriculum we find several dates indicated. In 1982 he won the Nikkei Award for Superior Quality Products and Services, and a year later he made an appearance in Octopussythe new James Bond movie. The watch culminated its career in 1984 by entering the Guinness Book of Records as … Read more

China is sending drones to an island 100 km from Taiwan. The problem is that Japan and the US are filling it with missiles

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The small Japanese island by Yonagunilocated just over 100 kilometers away from Taiwan, has gone in a matter of months from being a remote enclave with a modest self-defense detachment to becoming one of the most sensitive points of the strategic balance in Asia. The United States, China and Japan itself are carrying their disputes to the small enclave. An island as a front. The intensification of chinese drone flights over the island and the strait, intercepted on two consecutive occasions by Japanese fighters, has reinforced the perception in Tokyo that the first island chain is entering a phase of chronic instability. Japan, aware of the real possibility of a conflict around Taiwan, has decided to turn Yonaguni into a defensive node fully integrated: a place where operates a FARP American that extends the range of Marine Corps helicopters, where capabilities are consolidated electronic surveillance and where the installation of air defense missiles is progressing like the Type 03 Chu-SAM. Weapons and more weapons. This system, capable of tracking one hundred simultaneous targets and shooting down twelve of them with Mach 2.5 missilesimplies that Japan is beginning to give teeth to a position whose mere proximity to the democratic island makes it an advanced platform to detect, deter or even respond to a possible Chinese attack. For Tokyo, reinforcing Yonaguni is not a provocation but a life policy national: any attack on Taiwan, as as stated the new Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, would constitute an existential threat to the archipelago. Yonaguni Beijing’s reaction. China, which interprets any Japanese defensive measure as one more step in a strategic siege promoted by the United States, has reacted with increasing hardness. From historical comparisons to veiled threats, including the summoning of the Japanese ambassador and the suspension of economic exchanges, Beijing frames the installation of missiles in Yonaguni as an “offensive act” that violates the spirit of the bilateral normalization of 1972. The rhetoric has gone in crescendo after Takaichi’s words about the possibility of Japan intervening militarily in the event of an attack on Taiwan, something that China considers a space invasion diplomat reserved for Washington. The climate has deteriorated to such a level that a Chinese diplomat even published (and removed) a direct threat against the prime minister, while the central government canceled meetings, stopped imports and called for boycott trips to Japansinking the influx of Chinese tourists who represented almost a third of foreign visitors. In parallel, China has intensified its military demonstrations, spreading videos YKJ-1000 hypersonic missile destroying Japanese targets, a message designed to emphasize that any expansion of the Japanese military footprint will be met with a response. The strategic dilemma. Far from backing down, Japan has adopted a tone unusually firm. Under the leadership of Takaichi, the political heir to Shinzo Abe’s strategic nationalism, Tokyo has made Yonaguni the tangible manifestation of a doctrinal turn: accept that Japanese stability requires preventing China from dominating the Taiwan Strait. from there the proliferation of radar installations, electronic warfare capabilities and additional plans that contemplate systems such as US Patriots, US Army Typhon, HIMARS and the NMESIS equipped with NSM missiles, capable of denying access to Chinese ships around the Taiwanese eastern coast. USA discreetly supports this redesign: approved sales of NASAMS and spare parts to the Taiwan Air Force, deployed CH-53E helicopters in Yonaguni (an unprecedented milestone) and coordinates with Japan a doctrine that assumes that, in the event of an outbreak of hostilities, the Marines must operate from the lethality zone itself of Chinese missiles. All of this positions Yonaguni not only as an advanced observatory, but as a critical point whose defense and survival would determine the first stages of any crisis in the strait. Yonaguni Taiwan’s hardening. While Japan reinforces the front line, Taiwan assumes that time to prepare is running out. President Lai Ching-te has announced a massive increase in military spending, raising it by $40 billion until 2033, with a roadmap that will place it at 3.3% of GDP in 2026 and with the declared ambition of reaching 5% before 2030. What Taipei is proposing is not a simple rearmament, but a comprehensive redesign: new missiles and drones, integrating AI into existing systems, protecting against infiltration operations, dramatically improving procurement (often delayed in the United States), and measures against transnational Chinese repression targeting Taiwanese abroad. For Lai, the most dangerous threat is not a Chinese landing but internal erosion: that Taiwan “gives up” due to psychological or economic pressure. It flatly rejects the “one country, two systems” model and affirms that the only way to maintain peace is to make an invasion too costly for Beijing. The United States, through its de facto representation, has described the decision as a crucial step to strengthen deterrence. A strategic powder keg. The juxtaposition of Japanese military movements, Chinese threats and unprecedented rearmament of Taiwan produces a “traffic” that raises the risk of calculation errors. The experts warn that a poorly calibrated comment, a overflight unreported or a maritime incident could accelerate a spiral that is difficult to contain, especially when Beijing tries to use its contacts with Washington to simultaneously pressure Tokyo and Taipei. In this context, Yonaguni becomes symbol and detonator: too close to Taiwan to be irrelevant, too exposed to be invulnerable, and too strategic for either side to relinquish control or influence. Plus: the island is both within immediate range of Chinese missiles and within the American concept of advanced distributed operationsmeaning it could be both a multiplier of Allied defense and a priority objective in the first minute of a war. A fragile balance. In short, China hardens his stanceJapan resignation definitely to ambiguity, Taiwan accelerate the shielding of its sovereignty and the United States consolidates its role as operational guarantor. In the midst of all this, Yonaguni emerges as a microcosm where the resistance of that regional order is tested. An enclave of barely 1,700 inhabitants that, due to its geographical positionhas become a thermometer, border and barrier. Its immediate … Read more

It is surely the best model for programming, but it still has a big problem

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Anthropic has announced Claude Opus 4.5, its most advanced AI model to date. The company claims it is the best in the world for programming, intelligent agents and computing usage, beating OpenAI’s GPT-5.1 Codex-Max and Google’s Gemini 3 Pro. It has also arrived a few days after both as well as Grok 4.1. The general overview. The new model has achieved 80.9% accuracy in SWE-Bench Verified, the benchmark reference to evaluate software engineering capabilities. Anthropic has also put it through its own hiring test for engineers – notably difficult, with a two-hour limit – and the model has outperformed every human candidate who took it. Why is it important. This release solidifies Anthropic as a leader in AI tools for programming. Even Meta uses Claude for its internal Devmate code assistantdespite competing directly with the company in other areas. The improvements are not limited to the code. Opus 4.5 stands out in: Creation of documents, spreadsheets and professional presentations. Deep research tasks with multiple sources. Advanced visual and mathematical reasoning. Management of subagent teams for complex multi-agent systems. In figures. Additionally, Anthropic has drastically reduced the price of its API: from $15/75 per million tokens entrance/exit at 5/25 dollars. And the model is more efficient than its predecessors: In medium effort mode, it equals the performance of Sonnet 4.5 but consumes 76% less tokens. In high mode, it beats Sonnet 4.5 by 4.3 percentage points using 48% less tokens. The context. The company has introduced that “effort” parameter (low, medium, high) that allows developers to control how long and tokens invests the model in solving a problem. It is a trend that OpenAI has also adopted in its latest modelsseeking efficiency without sacrificing quality. In detail. Along with the model, Anthropic has updated its development platform and consumer applications: Claude Code Improves your planning mode: Asks clarifying questions before creating an editable execution plan file. As seen with the Deep Research on duty. Claude for Chrome is now available to all Max users (around $100-$200 per month depending on limits), allowing AI to manage tasks across multiple browser tabs. Claude for Excel opens to Max, Team, and Enterprise users, with support for charts, pivot tables, and file uploads. Endless conversations– Long conversations no longer run into context window limits thanks to automatic summaries. Yes, but. The big problem with Opus 4.5 and Claude in general is its usage limit. Even for Pro and Max subscribers of the first levelthe tokens They sell out quickly. They take five hours to restart from the first message sent. The Opus model, being the most powerful, is also the one that consumes the quotas the fastest. This is the main source of frustration for users who pay $20 or even $100 a month. Anthropic has slightly increased the limits for Max and Team Premium, but the experience is still far from what is expected in a service of this category. Between the lines. The release of Opus 4.5 restores balance to the Anthropic model family. For the past two months, Sonnet 4.5 was outperforming the older Opus 4.1, leaving little reason to use the more expensive model. Now, with three clearly differentiated models (Haiku, Sonnet and Opus), each one has a specific purpose in terms of cost, speed and capacity. And now what. Anthropic follows a clear strategy: position itself as the premium provider for knowledge professionals and developers, competing directly with OpenAI and Google in the field where accuracy and reliability matter most. But if you don’t solve the problem of usage limits, you risk frustrating the very users who could get the most value from the model. In Xataka | AI is transforming the relationship we have with our own ideas: we no longer create, we just “edit” ourselves Featured image | Anthropic

A 28-page US document has brought peace in Ukraine closer than ever. The problem is that it is the translation of a Russian text

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And suddenly a 28 page document unpublished to date has suddenly entered as a missile in the negotiations of the war in Ukraine. Promoted by Washington, it has unleashed a diplomatic storm in Europe and in kyiv because, far from having been prepared with the main parties involved, it had been conceived in discreet negotiations between the American businessman Steve Witkoff and the Russian envoy Kirill Dmitriev, with the participation of Jared Kushner and the late endorsement of Trump. The origin of a plan. The result of these meetings was a text that Europe and Ukraine had not seen and that, to further alarm (according to one Bloomberg exclusive), preserved the linguistic structures typical of an original written in Russian, confirming the suspicions that Moscow had achieved filter your vision of the war in a document presented as a US initiative. The pressure exerted by Dan Driscoll (a close ally of JD Vance) on European and Ukrainian diplomats, urging them to accept territorial concessions in a matter of days, ended up setting off all the alarm signals. For European governments, which considered themselves central partners in any peace negotiations, the origin of the plan became a strategic question: they needed to know who had written it and with what objectives before sitting down to discuss. This information gap triggered a race against time to stop the imposition of a text that, in its initial form, was not only surprising for its demands, but also for its obvious alignment with Moscow’s interests. Territory, legitimization and a threat. The most explosive section of the American plan required that Ukraine will withdraw of the fortified urban centers that it still maintains in Donetsk, breaking the “belt of fortresses” that has slowed the Russian advance since 2014. This withdrawal would not only imply the displacement of tens of thousands of Ukrainian citizens, but it would open a corridor that would leave exposed to key cities like Dnipro and Zaporizhzhia. To make matters worse, the document proposed that the occupied areas be recognized as “de facto Russian”a more favorable formula for Moscow than the already problematic “de facto under Russian control”, and which, in practice, brought the international community closer to accept territorial changes achieved by force. Added to this was the idea of ​​converting the evacuated territories into a demilitarized zone whose violation by Russia (not an implausible scenario given recent history) would allow Moscow to open a new, even deeper offensive in the future. From the Ukrainian perspective, accepting this point would be sowing the conditions for a future war in worse terms, reinforcing the impression that the document did not seek a stable peace, but rather formalized a strategic result that Russia has not been able to obtain through military operations. Security cut and promises broken. The security guarantees included in the plan were vague to the point of irrelevance: they promised “reliable protection” without detailing mechanisms, but simultaneously prohibited Ukraine from entering never in NATOprevented the stationing of allied troops in its territory and forced kyiv to modify its Constitution to renounce accession. For a country marked by the experience of Budapest Memorandum (formal guarantees that prevented neither the annexation of Crimea nor the 2022 invasion), accepting an even more ambiguous framework would amount to to be left helpless facing an aggressor who has systematically broken all previous agreements. Red lines. The absence of a commitment type Article 5 and the refusal to allow training missions or deterrence forces on Ukrainian territory reinforced the conviction that Ukraine would be trapped between a strengthened Russia and a West that would reserve the right to “diplomatically support,” but not to intervene. This component fueled rejection in European capitals, which consider it essential that Ukraine keep an army strong as a land barrier that protects the continent. Limit to 600,000 troops to the only country in Europe at war, without imposing a similar restriction on Russia, was perceived as covert disarmament and a prelude to a future Russian offensive. Amnesty and frozen assets. One of the most shocking elements of the plan was the proposal of a general amnesty and Ukraine’s renunciation of any legal claim about war crimes, deportations or deliberate destruction of infrastructure. For an exposed population to documented atrocitiesthis clause meant not only the denial of justice, but also the elimination of the legal basis that allows Europe to advance the reparations loan backed by frozen Russian assets. That loan, of 140,000 million of euros, is considered by the EU as the more solid path and less expensive to sustain Ukraine during the postwar period. The US plan not only made it unviable, but also redistributed those funds in an unusual way: 100 billion would go to a US investment vehicle that would deliver half of its profits to Washington, another 100 billion would be contributed by Europe and the rest would go to a joint fund with Russia. For Berlin, Paris or Warsaw, the message was clear: Russia would obtain indirect financial relief while the Europeans would see their most effective tool of strategic pressure weakened. The attempt to force kyiv to renounce all moral and legal responsibility for the aggressor reinforced the perception that the plan sought to resolve the war “quickly,” not “fairly.” The Russian strategy. Since the beginning of the invasion, Moscow has not changed their fundamental demands: more territory in the east, military neutralization of Ukraine and permanent veto on its accession to NATO. This strategic immobility, together with gradual advances on the front, has allowed it to capitalize on Western fatigue, the political fractures in kyiv and transatlantic tensions. For the Kremlin, the leaked plan demonstrates that its commitment to prolonged resistance, military pressure and the erosion of Western will is bearing fruit. Putin openly celebrated it, affirming that the document could serve as a basis and that rejecting it would only lead to new Ukrainian defeats. Likewise, Moscow has hinted that even a signed agreement could be used as leverage to resume the … Read more

many times the problem is another

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In recent years, the use of the word ‘depression’ the truth is that has been expanding to refer to practically any type of state of being a little sadder than normal. This is precisely what you wanted highlight the psychologist Marian Rojas, who points out that “many people don’t have depression, what they have is an empty life”a phenomenon that deserves a careful approach from medicine to avoid diagnostic confusion and inadequate treatment. In this way, when there is an existential voidyou may even think that what you are suffering from is depression. But the reality is very different, and the treatment may be useless (beyond the placebo effect). What is existential emptiness? It is described as a feeling of lack of meaning, purpose or satisfaction in the life one is having. In this way, it is not a mental disorder per se, but rather a human state that can generate anguish, hopelessness and disconnection with oneself and the environment. According to Viktor Frankl, a pioneer in logotherapy, existential emptiness occurs when the individual does not find reasons that give meaning to their existence, generating deep vital frustration and a feeling of “being empty inside”. existential void. In this way, scientific studies support that existential emptiness is associated with feelings of hopelessness and apathy, and may be a risk factor for develop an anxiety problem or depression if not addressed in time. But it is not that existential emptiness is a synonym for suffering from depression; it is a mental disorder that alters, in a very basic way, the chemistry of our brain. What is certain is that this lack of meaning is also linked to a greater risk of suicide, mainly when the person feels useless or disoriented in their life purpose. What is clinical depression. On the other hand, we have this mental disorder that can be diagnosed by a doctor and is characterized by a persistent combination of symptoms such as deep sadness, loss of interest or pleasure, fatigue, changes in appetite and sleep. This is a condition that requires a combination of psychological therapy along with drugs that can partially reverse this situation. It is important to note that although depression can lead to feelings of emptiness, sadness and hopelessness, existential emptiness can appear without the clinical signs that allow depression to be diagnosed. Therefore, not all discomfort related to life dissatisfaction should automatically be labeled as depression. Key differences. The first thing to understand in this case is that depression manifests itself with persistent symptoms for at least two weeks and that it affects multiple areas of life. But experimental emptiness can be a less intense discomfort that is limited to more temporary situations. Furthermore, depression presents clear physical symptoms such as fatigue or sleep disturbance, something that does not match the existential emptiness that is related to a lack of purpose and meaning in life. But a more important point is that in depression there is a biochemical alteration in the brain related to serotonin and other neurotransmitters. And that is why we give specific drugs to increase the concentration of these molecules that are altered in this mental disorder. But in the existential void this does not happen. Why it is important. Differentiating them is essential to provide the best possible help, because treating a person with depression is not the same as treating a person with an experimental void. As we have said before, clinical depression may require pharmacological treatment, cognitive therapy or even both at the same time. But on the other hand, the experimental void only needs psychotherapeutic interventions aimed at finding meaning and personal values. Because basically giving an antidepressant to someone who does not have depression is like giving them candy, since if there is no alteration in the level of neurotransmitters in the brain, the effect is null. It is the same as giving antidepressants to someone who does not have this disease, since it will not cause any effect or even greater euphoria. Regain control of the narrative. What Marian Rojas puts on the table It is not a denial of depression.a serious and real illness that requires rigorous treatment, but a warning about how we are interpreting our own discomfort. In a hyperconnected but socially atomized world, it is easy to feel that emptiness. The easy solution is to ask for a medical diagnosis that validates our pain. The difficult solution, but often the necessary one according to modern psychology, is to accept that sometimes being unwell does not mean being sick, but rather it is a warning signal from our brain to make structural changes in how we live, what we work at, and who we love. As studies on quality of life and mental health suggest, the cure for the “empty life” is not in the pharmacy, but in the reorientation of values ​​and reconnection with a purpose, something that, unfortunately, no algorithm or prescription can do for us. Images | Sydney Latham Nik Shuliahin In Xataka | We’ve found a clue to depression in an unexpected place: vinegar

Italy has been importing its famous “Italian” tomato paste from China for years. And now China has a problem

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The powerful tomato sector Chinese faces turbulence. After achieving a prominent position in the global market and becoming the largest tomato orchard in the world, the Asian giant has encountered a drop in sales in a strategic market: the European market. More specifically in Italy, where the demand for vegetables from Xinjiang has deflated at the stroke of controversies. The data is quite eloquent. Only during the third quarter of 2025 did sales of Chinese tomato paste in Italy decrease about 80%. Tomato ‘made in China’? It comes with taking a look at the maps from World Population Review to understand the enormous weight that China has achieved in the world tomato market. According to its latest data, in 2023 the nation produced about 70.1 million tons. This places it considerably above India, which occupies second place with 20.4 million tons, Turkey (13.3 million), the US (12.4 million) or Egypt (6.2 million), which complete the ‘TOP 5’. Also from Spain, which occupies ninth place, with nearly four million. Extremaduran farmers warned about the growing threat from China a few months ago, who recognize that the competition exerted by the Asian tomato is already their “biggest problem”. It’s not just that China harvests tons and tons of vegetables, it’s that it does so at such low costs that they make its tomato paste (a fundamental product for the food industry) unbeatable. Click on the image to go to the tweet. Is he that attractive? Yes. And it is not something that is observed only in Extremadura. Just a year ago Francesco Mutti, CEO of the sauce manufacturer that bears his last name, recognized that much of the cheap tomato paste coming from China is produced in the Xinjiang region with “very, very low labor costs.” something similar they slid in 2016 from Las Marismas (Andalusia): “They ask us for European quality at the price of Chinese tomatoes, something impossible taking into account the costs.” In practice this means that China exports every year tons and tons of tomato to the European market, which in turn generates a lucrative business. OEC calculate That last year the Asian giant exported processed tomatoes worth 1.21 billion dollars. If we look at its main destinations, Italy occupied a priority place, with a value of 83.8 million dollars. And what has happened? That although China is a gigantic exporter and has managed to differentiate itself in prices, its product has been compromised by an unexpected factor?: controversy. I told it a few days ago Financial Times. News about the use of forced labor in Xinjiang (a region that has attracted attention of the UN for alleged human rights violations against the Uyghur minority) and the lack of clarity The labeling with which some Italian companies identify the origin of their products has conditioned Chinese pasta exports, in which large state companies play a crucial role. Result? Against this backdrop, to which is added the campaign of the Italian agricultural association Coldiretti, China has encountered a problem: a ‘pinch’ in exports that has left it with a huge stock of processed tomatoes. Financial Times assuresciting data from the platform Tomato News, that the Asian giant has a reserve of between 600,000 and 700,000 tons of tomato paste. To understand its scope, it is equivalent to six months of exports. Has demand dropped that much? Yes. The data shows that the Western market seems to want to move away from the doubts that shadow the Chinese product. In general, Chinese tomato paste exports decreased by 9% year-on-year during the third quarter of 2025, but if we focus specifically on sales to Western EU countries, that percentage rises to 67%. In the specific case of Italy, purchases plummeted by 76%. “It is clear that Europe has become a difficult place to export,” recognize to Financial Times Martin Stilwell, head of Tomate News, the source of the data. Do we handle more data? Yes. There are two other reveals. The first has to do with the value of processed tomato exports to Italy. If between January and September 2024, Chinese customs recorded about 75 million dollars, this year, during the same period, it did not even reach 13. The other data has to do with the volume of fresh tomato processed to turn it into pasta: 4.8 million tons in 2021, 11 million in 2024 and 3.7 this year (estimate). For Stilwell, the reading is clear: faced with the difficulties of selling, China chooses to cut expenses instead of increasing its stock. What does China say? That accusations about the use of forced labor in Xinjuang are “a lie” created and propagated by “anti-Chinese forces” to harm the country. The truth is that years ago the US decided to turn its back on imports of tomato paste from that region of the Asian giant and in the case of Italy they weigh somewhat more than the suspicions of the UN. In 2021 the Caribineri ‘hunted’ a company that labeled its canned tomato as “100% Italian” when in reality it included product from China. “If we assume that Italy has 80 companies related to tomato processing, three, four or five have committed dishonest practices,” Mutti assureswho regrets the damage this does to the reputation of the Italian sector. Images | Tom Hermans (Unsplash) and Arthur Wang (Unsplash) In Xataka | Four nations are fighting over a fruit that smells like rotten eggs. China has turned it into its gastronomic phenomenon

In 1995, the first product in eBay history was sold. The only problem is that it was broken

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In 1995 the Internet was not what it is now. Many of the great companies and sites related to the network were born then. AuctionWeb was the first official name of what we now know as eBay. Its creator, Pierre Omidyar, gave that name to a personal project that he wrote from his home in Silicon Valley taking advantage of one of the classic long weekends in the US, Labor Day. How do they count in The Perfect Store: Inside eBayfaced with the need to test whether that personal auction website worked, Omidyar grabbed the first thing he had on hand: a laser pointer. The choice was not random. Two weeks after buying it, it had broken, so he thought that if he managed to sell it, he wouldn’t lose anything if they gave him very little money for it. For a week that laser pointer that had cost him 30 dollars He failed to receive a single offer. Pierre Omidyar had not lied and admitted in the description of the item on AuctionWeb that it was indeed broken. There was no way to make it work. A week after being published on the Internet, that AuctionWeb object received the first offer for it. Pierre Omidyar asked for one dollar but the auction ended up closing at $14.83. What was his surprise that, even though he had already warned it in the advertisement, he preferred to make sure that it was clear to the buyer that the object purchased was broken and wrote him an email. Despite everything, the buyer kept it because it was just what he was looking for. This was eBay in 1995, when it was a personal project called AuctionWeb Mark Fraser I had seen some of those pointers and wanted one. But they were still quite expensive, on the order of $100 in those years, so he relied on his skill as electrical engineer to build yours. And he needed a part that he thought he would get from the broken pointer that was being sold on a new online site that he had found out about through a referral in the forums and information exchange places that he frequented on the Internet. Today, and as he confessed in a funny video that could be seen at eBay’s 20th anniversary party, the pointer still doesn’t work but he still has it. In Xataka |

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