problems

Spain has more and more problems with the drought and criminal networks have begun to realize it

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This story begins with a civil guard couple in civilian clothes chasing a tanker truck. They have been following trucks for months, they have checked thousands of livestock farms and, finally, they are about to find something. With 50 million liters of something. The initial track. More than a hundred residents of a district of Lorca denounced last year that there was an entire network selling water tanks to supply agricultural operations. It is nothing new: the Civil Guard has numerous investigations underway into the inspection and control of water use. Therefore, SEPRONA started to investigate the matter. And what have they found? The surveillance device located the tanker truck filling point: it was a well without authorizations for use and without a volumetric counter or any other type of measuring instrument. It seemed difficult to know the number of liters extracted. However, as the company pretended to be legitimate, the Civil Guard has been able to document that, during the last 18 months, 56 million liters of water had been sold for a value of at least 275,000 euros. This is only in the last 18 months: the armed institute believes that the illegal use of the well may have lasted several decades. Just one case out of a million. Over the last few years We have been talking about dozens of people investigated, detained and convicted due to illegal irrigation: in 2023 alone, hundreds of millions of cubic meters of water have been extracted illegally. The problem is real: so real that the Malaga water company has even hired private detectives to monitor employees, suppliers and customers. However, the key to this is not what has already happened. The key is what is going to happen. The list of threats is enormous. Climate change, overexploitation of aquifers, intensive agriculture, inadequate water management, forest fires, deforestation and population growth… Spain has a problem with water and that problem is not going to stop growing and growing. In this context, robberies are going to become more frequent and common. And that’s saying a lot: according to WWFthere are more than 500,000 illegal wells. But no one can be surprised. After all, there is a high financial incentive and relatively low penalties. Most cases they end, in fact, in fines and that is an excellent breeding ground for a huge problem. Image | VD Photography | Elentir In Xataka | Spain is facing a brutal drought and there are farmers watering avocados irregularly. A prosecutor wants it to be a crime

Half a year after the blackout, Red Eléctrica still has problems stabilizing the voltage. And there is a geographical reason

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Just six months ago, Spain was left in the dark. The “electric zero” of April 28, 2025 was the most serious warning of a system that he believed himself invulnerable. Since then, Red Eléctrica (REE) operates in “reinforced mode”with dozens of gas plants turned on every day to prevent tension from skyrocketing. But, half a year later, the problem is still there: the Spanish grid is faltering not because of a lack of energy, but because the gas is in the north and the sun is in the south. How are the measurements now? At the beginning of October, the National Markets and Competition Commission (CNMC) approved, at the request of REE, an emergency resolution to introduce exceptional measures “in the event of sudden voltage variations” detected in the system. The document details changes to several operating procedures that affect the way the electrical grid is programmed and regulated. In practice, the rules of the game were tightened for everyone: from solar producers to gas plants. Among the most significant measures is the obligation for renewable plants to carry out their power transitions in a minimum of 15 minutes, when before they did so in two. The intention, have explained from REEis to avoid sudden changes that could destabilize the system and give the thermal power plants time to react. As explained in Cinco Díasthis instruction allows gas plants to “absorb” excess renewable energy without causing power surges. But for many expertsthe underlying diagnosis is different: the problem is not speed, but geography. Two electric Spains. The country is experiencing a geographic imbalance that we already saw it coming. On the one hand, the north and the Mediterranean coast concentrate the majority of thermal power plants and combined cycle plants – the only ones capable of providing the so-called “rotating mass”, that is, inertia and reactive power that stabilize the network. On the other hand, the south of the peninsula—Andalusia, Extremadura and Castilla-La Mancha—has been filled with solar plants and domestic self-consumption, technologies based on power electronics that do not generate natural inertia. “During peak radiation hours, the south produces more electricity than it consumes, the lines are discharged and the grid becomes extremely sensitive,” explains in his column Joaquín Coronado, president of Build to Zero. Under these conditions, starting a thermal power plant in Asturias to stabilize a voltage problem in Seville is as useless as trying to put out a fire in Andalusia with water pumped from Galicia. The tension starts from the local. The error of approach is in confusing frequency with tension. The electrical frequency is a global magnitude: it is the same throughout the synchronous network. But the voltage is a local variable, which depends on the reactive power flows in each area. Coronado sums it up clearly: reactive power “does not travel well.” On 400 kV lines, its radius of action is 30 to 80 km. In 220 kV networks, from 15 to 40 km. And at 132 kV or lower, just 5 to 20 km. This means that a turbine in the north cannot stabilize the voltage in the south, no matter how much power it has. The CNMC, in its resolutionrecognizes precisely that “rapid voltage variations” appear in periods of low demand and high solar production, aggravated by the growth of self-consumption that “reduces the observability of the system” and leaves the operator without control over thousands of small installations. In summary and how we have explained in Xataka: we have more sun than cables. This shows in the pocket. REE’s response has been to maintain lit every day between 20 and 30 combined cycles to ensure stability. This “reinforced operation” has cost more than 1 billion additional euros since April and could add 3 billion more with the new measures. Adjustment services – energy that is paid outside the daily market to keep the network stable – have gone from 240 million in 2019 to 4 billion in 2025, according to Cinco Días. The result is paradoxical: Spain has one of the lowest wholesale prices in Europe, but one of the highest electricity bills. Ember’s report explains why: the market price only covers half of the bill; The other half are fixed network costs, tolls, taxes and system stability, which do not go down even if energy is cheap. Slowing down is not stabilizing. The decisions adopted by REE and temporarily endorsed by the CNMC are “a defensive strategy” for Coronado. Furthermore, he points out that instead of providing the system with rapid response capacity, it is chosen to slow it down to give time to the thermals. The result is maintaining “a 21st century system operated with a 20th century mentality.” Slowing down the renewable ramps does not provide voltage control where it is needed, because the problem occurs in seconds and in specific places, not in the 15 minutes that these ramps last. The measures, therefore, gain time, but they do not gain effectiveness: they mitigate the frequency, not the tension. Is there any future perspective? The solution is to bring the control capacity closer to where the energy is produced. In fact, we have already discussed in Xataka some of those possible solutions that agree with what Joaquín Coronado says. Grid-forming inverters in solar and wind plants, able to behave as synchronous generators and stabilize the network in milliseconds. Batteries strategically distributed in the southern nodes, which provide instantaneous active and reactive power. Devices FACTS and synchronous compensators in critical substations (Guillena, Mérida, Puertollano…) to dampen local voltage changes. Flexible demand from large industries to modulate consumption in real time. And predictive algorithms based on artificial intelligence that anticipate local instabilities. Some of these solutions are already underway. Spain prepare the installation of eight synchronous compensators and 2,600 MW of batteries, with 340 MW already approved. These devices could save 200 million euros annually by reducing the use of gas for network services. A model that is exhausted. Beyond the technique, there is a structural dilemma: how … Read more

After imposing a peace agreement in Gaza, the US is heading to Ukraine to do the same. And that has two nuclear problems

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United States, in omnipresent figure of its president Donald Trump, seems willing to finish once and for all the invasion of Ukraine. It happens that trying to reproduce the same diplomatic “success” that is exhibited after the agreement in Gaza runs into two problems nuclear: on the one hand, the attempt to impose an agreement on Russia calls into question the sovereignty and legitimacy of the process and pushes Moscow to react. On the other hand, perhaps more dangerous, the pressure campaign that is articulated around the threat with long range missiles drastically increases the risk of an escalation that is difficult to control. From ambiguity to challenge. For a long time, Trump’s foreign policy toward Russia and Ukraine moved between deference and confusiona mix of praise for Putin, vague warnings and broken promises to kyiv. But in recent weeks, something has changed. trump has radically changed his speech, going from suggesting that Ukraine should accept territorial losses to presenting himself as the man capable of ending the war. What started as a rhetorical gesture before the UN has become a political process that seeks to consolidate the role of the United States as arbiter of the conflict, with a mix of military pressure, transactional diplomacy and calculated threat. Change and breakup. Trump, who had historically shown a almost personal indulgence towards Putin, surprised his allies and his critics with a speech in which rated Russia “paper tiger” and stated that Ukraine can recover all your territory with the support of Europe and NATO. This change, announced after his meeting with Zelensky and Macron, marks an abandonment of his traditional strategy of avoiding direct confrontations with Moscow. However, behind the turn there does not seem to be an articulated policy yet, but rather a combination of gestures: hints of sanctions, threats of retaliation and an explicit desire to reintroduce the idea of force as an instrument of negotiation. What was once indifference toward kyiv has become an instrumental interest, mixing rivalry with Putin and a desire to demonstrate international leadership. Tomahawks and ultimatums. The most visible symbol of this transformation is the word that has become recurrent in the communications from Washington: Tomahawk. Trump has openly threatened to supply Ukraine with long-range cruise missiles if Putin does not agree to reopen peace negotiations, an ultimatum which has put the Kremlin on alert. Moscow has responded calling the measure a “qualitatively new escalation” and warning that it could not distinguish whether the missiles carry nuclear warheads or not. For Trump, however, the announcement meets a double function: reinforces your image as a negotiator who commands respect and pressures Putin to prevent him from prolonging a war he can no longer win. Zelensky, for his part, sees the possibility of obtaining Tomahawks as not only a military instrument. but psychological: the threat of its use would be enough to push Russia to the negotiation table. The mere fact of discussing its delivery represents a break with the caution of the Biden erain which Washington rejected outright any action that could be considered direct aggression. From Gaza to Ukraine: export a model. The partial success of ceasefire in Gaza has offered Trump a narrative of diplomatic victory that he is now trying to convey on the European front. After freeing the Israeli hostages and achieving a temporary cessation of hostilities, the American president declared that his next objective was to “focus on Russia” and end the war in Ukraine. What is apparently a humanitarian movement also responds to a repositioning strategy global: demonstrate that Washington can impose order in both the Middle East and Europe without needing to deploy large military contingents. Trump has presented this new stage under a classic concept that has republished with pragmatism: “peace through strength.” It is the same logic that he seeks to apply with Putin (that is, not from conciliation, but from a credible threat). Ukraine, which for months feigned faith in some sterile negotiations to ingratiate himself with the White House, now perceives a window of opportunity: to replace the dialogue tables with the delivery of advanced weapons that change the balance of the battlefield. A military agreement. The visit of a Ukrainian delegation to Washington, led by Prime Minister Yuliia Svyrydenko, has sealed the new phase. The negotiators arrived with a list of valued acquisitions in 90,000 million of dollars, including Patriot anti-aircraft systemslong-range missiles and drone co-production agreements. Zelensky has learned to speak Trump’s language: that of transactions. It is no longer about asking for help out of solidarity, but rather offer “mega deals” that benefit both parties, presenting Ukraine as a profitable partner for the US military industry. The White House, in turn, has implicitly accepted that the talks with Moscow they are sold outand that only a substantial increase in military pressure will be able to force Putin to negotiate from weakness. The new strategic calculation. If you like, the Kremlin also crosses a point operational fatigue. Its territorial advances have become more marginal, and Zelensky himself has taken it upon himself to remember this in Washington with maps and figures: in a thousand days of war, Russia has barely conquered less than one percent of additional Ukrainian territory from 2022. The narrative of inevitable victory fades, and Trump seems to have understood. His speech on networks, in which stated that Ukraine is “in a position to recover his entire country in its original form,” was interpreted as confirmation of that change in perception. In other words: it is no longer about keeping a conflict frozen, but about precipitating its outcome through technological superiority and Russian economic collapse. The paradox. Paradoxically, the trump turn does not imply a return to the liberal idealism that defined US foreign policy for decades, but rather a pragmatism that mixes interests, spectacle and coercion. Washington does not seek to rebuild Ukraine, but rather to close a war that has stopped serving its image of power. From that perspective, the American president does not seem … Read more

Voltage problems have returned to the Spanish electrical system and the big question is what have we been doing these last six months

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The ghost of big blackout has returned to the fray: the Spanish electrical system has voltage problems. Serious problems, indeed. So serious that Red Eléctrica has had to ask for permission to take action on the matter. It goes without saying, but uncertainty spread like wildfire. Six months after the great blackout, Spain is living a little déjà vu. Are there reasons to be alert? What has happened? Electrical Network just notified to the CNMC which, for a couple of weeks, has observed sudden variations in voltage in the peninsular system. As he explained, this could compromise the security of supply and urgent measures would need to be taken to solve it. That includes temporarily modifying various operating procedures to stabilize the system while underlying problems are found. What do these modifications consist of? The proposals go from allowing technical adjustments to be applied directly during daily programming to giving the operator more room to act quickly if it detects a risk of instability, even before the operating day begins. In addition, it adopts stricter control of the automatic instantaneous balance mechanism and tightens the reactive voltage control. In summary, what has been notified is an express adjustment of the country’s electrical operations to contain the ups and downs in voltage that have been recorded. And all of this, to be implemented in five days. The big question is “now?” Because as Javier Blas pointed out“for months, the Spanish electricity grid operator (and the government) have been putting off the country’s electrical problems” and now, suddenly, a whole series of urgent measures are required. Red Eléctrica’s response. Given the concern generated by the request, the operator had to leave in passing, clarifying that there has been “no talk of a risk of imminent or widespread blackout”, that the voltage variations “have not posed a supply risk because they have been within the admissible limits”. However, the truth is that no one is too calm. As Blas said“The urgent request adds up to an additional $1 billion cost for Spanish customers as the grid operator is operating the system in what it calls a “boosted mode” since April 29 (in effect, operating gas-fired power plants more intensely and reducing solar and wind power).” If under these conditions the entire series of measures that have been requested are needed, there is some underlying problem. Or, at least, that’s what it seems: that the symptoms of stress in the system are clear and it is not at all clear that a handful of temporary measures are the solution we need. Image | Anton Dmitriev In Xataka | Harvest wheat or kilowatts? The new account that many farmers in Spain make

We are clogging the ocean’s carbon toilet and it is something that is only going to cause us problems

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The ocean right now is acting as a big ‘carbon toilet’. An essential natural system that removes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and locks him in the deep sea, helping regulate global climate. However, the recent heat waves we have experienced at sea are altering this critical process, which could have serious consequences for the climate of the entire planet. The ‘carbon toilet’. On the surface of the ocean we can now find organisms called phytoplanktonwhich have the ability to absorb CO₂ and produce oxygen through a simple photosynthesis mechanism with the help of sunlight. The problem is that we live in a life cycle that constantly advances, and that is why these organisms are food for small marine animals. called zooplanktonwhich generate feces in the form of small pellets that they sink to the seabed. This phenomenon, called the “biological carbon pump,” transports carbon from the atmosphere to the bottom of the sea, where it can remain isolated for centuries. In this way, the seabed can be seen as a large ‘cemetery’ of CO₂ stored in the feces of these animals. Something that in the long term is helping us clean the atmosphere and mitigate global warming. Heat waves. In the Pacific Northwest, two major episodes of marine heat waves that occurred in the periods 2013-2015 and 2019-2020 are changing everything. Temperature increases drastically altered the composition of phytoplankton and zooplankton, generating a “clogging” effect on the carbon toilet we have in the ocean. The lack of deep mixing and nutrients, caused by warming and stratification of the water, favored smaller species that produce feces that tend to float rather than sink, slowing the transport of carbon to the depths. A new layer. If the feces float, this simply means that the organic carbon now accumulates in the superficial layers of the water instead of reaching the deep areas where it was sequestered. This is also added to a greater bacterial proliferation in warm waters that decomposed more organic matter, releasing CO₂ again into the water and subsequently into the atmosphere itself. This is something that weakens the role of ‘buffer’ to try to compensate for the concentration of CO₂ in our atmosphere. Consequences. These changes not only affect the carbon cycle, but also the very base of the marine food chain. The decline in large phytoplankton reduces oxygen production and limits the feeding of larger marine species, including whales and commercial fish relevant to humanity. Zooplanktons are also responding to warming with changes in size and distribution, further impacting the efficiency of the carbon cycle since the smaller their size, the less CO2 they will capture and the less O2 they will produce. How it was done. In order to draw these conclusions, the research was based on a decade of data that was obtained through Argo biogeochemical floats. These are autonomous devices that have the ability to explore the ocean layers by measuring chemical and biological parameters without the need for constant human presence. This has allowed changes in marine ecosystems to be monitored in detail during extreme events, revealing hitherto invisible patterns and providing an essential tool for future studies and mitigation strategies. The future. These episodes of marine heat waves are increasingly frequent in our oceans due to global warming, as we are also experiencing in Spain. This means that if greenhouse gas emissions are not quickly reduced, the ocean could lose much of its ability to absorb atmospheric carbon. In Xataka | The question is not when it will stop raining, the question is how much more water will fall this fall

Japan has found the three most serious problems of the massive arrival of tourists. And none has to do with tourists

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Summer has confirmed two things around Japan’s tourist success: avalanche has been bigger than expected, and the nation I wasn’t so prepared As I believed. In fact, they have even had the idea of give away flights to foreigners to encourage them beyond the congested Tokyo. In contrast to tourist hordes, Japanese They barely travel To other countries. And that explains many of the evils that the country is finding quite well. The shadow of discomfort. Japan has passed in just two decades of being considered a expensive destination and reserved for a few to become one of the main tourist poles World Cups The number of foreign visitors has grown from 6.7 million in 2005 to almost 37 million in 2024with 2025 on the way to beat a new record. The government aspires to reach 60 million in 2030supported by the global manga popularity, anime and Japanese culture, as well as events such as Tokyo Olympic Games and Osaka’s Expo. The problem? That what I know promoted how A “Inbound Tourism Boom” has become qualified by many as “tourist”, with agglomeration scenes at famous crosses such as Kamakurakomoe’s or in Kyoto’s temples. The initial enthusiasm has given way To growing complaints On noise, strange manners, garbage and pressure on housing and hospitality prices. The weight of the economy and demography. However, when the nation has counted the evils of such discomfort, it has been found that the main problems He has them at homeit was not. Behind that discomfort underlies a psychological element linked to the relative decline of Japan. The strong devaluation of Yen It has made the country cheap for foreigners, but at the same time it has reduced the ability of Japanese young people to travel abroad. For a population that ages quickly (With 16% of over 75 years old) see tourists who marvel at how cheap it is everything A humiliating contrast With the eighties, when Japan was the most expensive country in the world and its own boomers they toured the planet with the latest generation cameras. He Hotel increase (more than double since 2021) and the pressure On rentals In cities such as Kyoto generate the feeling that the economic benefits of tourism do not translate into real improvements in the life of residents. Kyoto redefinition. If there is a place that embodies the debate, it is Kyoto. The old capital, famous for its temples and their geishas, ​​is so congested that many Japanese today consider it an awkward destination and even avoid traveling there. School excursions, once a passage rite, They deviate to cities such as Kanazawa or Nagasaki due to delays, agglomerations and increasing costs. For the inhabitants, the avalanche has raised rentals and Modified social fabricto the point that some experts ensure that the city already meets the definition of Overtourism: When the normal life of its residents is compromised. Historical memory and new tensions. It is not the first time that Japan faces a tourist saturation problem. In the sixties and seventies, internal prosperity generated OLADAS OF DOMESTIC TRAVELS that transformed cities such as Kyoto or Nara, with complaints similar to the current ones. Remembered the Financial Times that then There was talk of “Tourist pollution”, and some anthropologists warned that residents ran the risk of becoming “strangers of strangers” in their own land. Today that Speech resurfacesamplified by social networks with viral tourist videos chasing geishashanging of toriis or violating rules of coexistence. A new term has even coined, “Touristphobia”to describe the mixture of tiredness, irritation and rejection that generates the massification, sometimes dyed of a xenophobic background. Tourism as a political weapon. The issue has entered fully into Japanese politics. In full leadership election of the Democratic Liberal Party, figures as healthy takaichi They have turned the issue into a flag, linking the discomfort of tourists with the Immigration debates and the arrival of foreign workers, increasingly necessary for the shortage of labor. The rhetoric against the “tourist abuse” intermingles with warnings about an alleged threat to national identity. Thus, the debate on tourism ceases to be just a matter of urban management to become a symbol of deeper anxieties about the future of the country. The forgotten of the map. Meanwhile, they remembered In the Financial Times What regions like Fukui show the other face of the currency. With a recently extended bullet train from Tokyo, a world -class dinosaurs museum and outstanding cultural enclaves remains one of the prefectures less visited For foreigners. Their hotels and transport fail to attract enough travelers and their problem is not excess, but The lack of tourists. There, the mayor admits that they have not yet seen or a trace of the hordes. This contrast reflects a central dilemma: Japan needs to better distribute the benefits of tourism, encourage repeated visits and direct the flow to still non -saturated areas, but lacks the infrastructure and political vision necessary to achieve it. A nation mirror. The debate on tourism is ultimately a mirror of Japanese society. Talk about a country agingwho feels the pressure of A weak currencywhich recalls with nostalgia the times of its economic preeminence and that faces the Challenge of managing The massive arrival of foreigners in cities that are exceeded. The challenge is not only to limit agglomerations, but in redefining the relationship between residents and visitors, between their own economy and coexistence, between opening and identity protection. Thus, Japan, which in the past exported millions of tourists, is now seen in the difficult position of learning to manage their own attraction. Image | Pexels, Pexels In Xataka | While Japan is crowded with tourists, the Japanese barely travel to other countries. The reason: only 17% have a passport In Xataka | In Japan tourism has become a problem. So have an idea: give away flights to foreigners

two out of three kilos of cinnamon that are imported to the EU have problems

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In 2022, the European Commission He did a study about the most popular spices on the market. The radiography was bleak: the fraud was the order of the day. Moreover, it was something extremely common. We talk about pepper, cumin, turmeric the saffron or paprika. That was a huge scandal and the same commission asked the Member States to reinforce the controls. What happened next can not surprise anyone. Let’s talk about cinnamon. In 2023, cinnamon was the fifth most imported spice in La Unión. In recent months, the commission science and knowledge service (The Joint Research Center) analyzed more than a hundred samples of cinnamon marketed in a dozen countries of the European Union. The result? More than 66% of the samples analyzed They have problems. What happens to them? Either they violate the international quality regulations or the food security legislation of the European Union. Some present indications of fraud, others a high amount of lead and some more exceed the legal limits of coumarin (a substance that, although natural, is potentially toxic to the liver). That without having fraud, of course. Up to 9% of the samples labeled as Canela de Ceilán were totally or partially replaced By Canela de Cassia, “a cheaper and lower quality alternative, with a stronger flavor and that contains cumarina naturally.” What we can do. That is the worst. Judging by the results of the JRC, we can do little with the media we have right now. “The type of irregularities detected in cinnamon, including fraudulent practices, is diverse and cannot be addressed with a single analytical technique, so standardized methods are needed,” The commission says. Taking the problem seriously, leading to take action on the matter. Above all, because the high rate of irregular samples of cinnamon in the European market indicates that “all actors in the sector, from political leaders to control laboratories and manufacturers, must pay attention.” Image | Michael Collett In Xataka | It seems honey, it smells like honey, it knows honey, it is not honey: the fraud in the imports that it ravages to Europe

In case Spain did not have enough problems with sun and beach tourism, add a new business: wedding tourism

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There are those who travel to disconnect, to learn about new landscapes, cultures or traditions, to whom he guides his appetite or simply who wants to enjoy relaxing days on a distant beach with a soda in his hand. To all of them is now added a type of tourist difficult to classify and seeks something totally different: marry. Your trips feed the flourishing (and millionaire) Industry of Rinning Weddings And they are already The pillar of some balearic farms. The ‘yes I want’ as a new rising tourist asset. Two words: Rinning Weddings. The concept is not new, but a quick search on Google is enough to verify that little by little gains strength in Spain. The Rinning Weddings or ‘destination weddings’ are neither more nor less than what the term suggests: couples who, instead of getting married in the city in which they live or in which some of the bride and groom are sought, choose to give the ‘yes I want’ far away. In another city or region. It may even that in another country, including destinations as exotic as Las Vegas or some Greek island. The idea is very simple: that the wedding is more than a wedding for boyfriends and guests, that is also a getaway. A juicy business. It is not easy to provide precise (and updated) data on how many Spanish partners travel to other countries to marry and how many foreigners Spain choose as the scenario for their bodies. In any case something is clear: with Spanish tourism Breaking records and approaching the barrier of 100 million Of visitors, it is a juicy business. And clearly on the rise. In February, Future Marketin Sights consultant published A broad study that estimates that The global market The wedding tourism will be around 36,800 million dollars, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 6.4% throughout the next decade. They are high values, but above all they exceed those who handled only a few years ago. His Calculation for 2022for example, pointed to a business volume of ‘Solo’ 23,000 million. “The Rinning Weddings They are one of the most popular and most dynamic segments in the global wedding industry, in which couples opt for personalized experiences in exotic places around the world, ” The authors collect of the study. “More and more boyfriends choose to exchange their votes in picturesque and culturally rich places, often with a group of friends and family. The market covers a wide variety of services and destinations offers.” How does Spain affect? As Spain sits top of the world ranking of tourist destinations and even dreams of crowning it (something feasible already in 2040according to the estimates of Google and Deloitte), our country is also reinforced on the map of the Rinning Weddings. On the Internet they can be found A good number of websites in English dedicated to Organize weddings In Spain or what They promote the peninsula and the islands as “An ideal destination” so that the bride and groom exchange alliances. The Canary Islands, Malaga, Marbella or Mallorca usually appear on their list, although in reality the market is very wide. A few years ago Ciudad Rodrigo (Salamanca) launched a baptized initiative ‘Ciudad Rodrigo Wedding Friendly’ I was looking for precisely position the town on the map of wedding celebrations. As the main asset he used his rich historical heritage. A quick search in The Wedding Travel Company It shows in any case that couples determined to marry their city have an extensive list of alternatives in Spain, Greece, Cyprus, Italy, Portugal or the United States, to quote only some countries on their vast list. “We specialize”. To understand the phenomenon The confidential He has spoken With some representatives of the Mallorca sector, one of the hot points of national tourism. And their data and statements are striking. Finca is Cabàslocated just over 20 kilometers from the urban center of Palma, explains that practically 100% of the weddings they do are tourists. And the director of the farm They are brownlocated not much further from there, it agrees that about 98% of the links that host them also lead. “There is a lot of American, a lot of German, a lot of British,” Confirm Yesssi Morel, Wedding Plannerfor whom, beyond the attractiveness of Spain or the costs, the key of the island pull in the destination wedding market is the approach that the sector has adopted. “I think we put everything very easy to foreigners. We are specializing a lot. Every time weddings are perfected more.” As for costs, statista data Before the pandemic show that Spain is one of the countries where the most expensive weddings are celebrated ($ 23,400 on average in 2019), although in reality the data is not much higher than that of Italy and is below the $ 29,000 that were reached that same year in the US. “They seek to save and in Mallorca they have the same wedding with the same quality they could have in the US, but at a lower cost,” Morel clarifies. And how does Mallorquines affect? That is the other big question. In a market that looks at the foreign client and the American couples with a wide budget, what options do they have left? The topic is interesting because, as remember the Wedding Plannerforeigners who plan to marry their home usually follow certain patterns: they reserve well in advance and have no problem in celebrating their ceremonies any day of the week. That (of course) forces the locals to adapt. “The Mallorcan marries only on Saturday and usually prefer certain months, such as September. If they do not escape, they run out of dates,” Confirm The wedding organizer. “Farm owners believe they have a treasure in their hands. They have seen a reef.” Images | Carlo Buttinoni (UNSPLASH) and Camila Cordeiro (UNSPLASH) Via | The confidential In Xataka | The end of the open bar: how weddings are leaving behind their only ‘collective … Read more

One of the biggest problems in education in Spain is also the most ignored: teachers work too much

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Yesterday, the government announced that I was going to shield by law The reduction of school schedule in the classroom of children’s, primary, ESO and high school teachers. The idea is that the recommendations of the current educational law (the Lomloe, an impaished in 2020) become mandatory norms for autonomies. Thus, teachers would have a maximum of 23 hours per week and institute professors one of 18. In this context, “shielding for Lay” means gathering support in a greatly polarized congress and, of course, that has created a huge public debate. Not only about the government’s ability to realize the measure, but also about the measure itself. And skepticism is understandable. For years, many of the work improvements for teachers have not been exactly aligned with the well -being of students. The best example is continuous day in schools: although the available evidence says that The game is better, More and more Spanish schools implement it. And the pressure of the unions in this regard has been key. However, little by we start looking at the data, everything seems to indicate that the reduction of teaching hours is a good measure for students. The situation in Spain is not good. Especially in primary school, teachers They dedicate 20% more to direct teaching of time that the average European Union: 854 hours throughout the course against 703. This, in part, is an inheritance of the crisis. At that time, Rajoy’s government expanded the hours of direct teaching to 25 in primary school already 20 in the institutes. Over time, some communities have reduced those limits (in Galicia the teachers teach 23 hours and in Castilla La Mancha the teachers, 19), but the reality is that the Lomle recommendations have generally been ignored. And the evidence indicates that downloading to teachers is a good idea. To start because it has no negative effects on students. Almost all workload reduction initiatives report the same results: An improvement in the welfare of workers and no significant negative consequence. To continue, because it is a much more cost-effective measure than reducing the rat of the classes. In the background, although reducing the number of students per class is a good measure, there is a point where the cost of continuing to lower it (the facilities that need to be created for it) do not compensate. Reduce school load for teachers has a similar effect. And, to end, because this type of measure They help to resize The non -school work carried out by teachers. The school bureaucracy is getting bigger and so? Erosion quality of teaching. Classing is the most ‘intrinsically attractive’ task for teachers, but it is also the one that wears the most. Being able to balance the impact of each task on the final workload is key in the best teaching innovation programs. Is it enough? Beyond real viability of the proposal, It is inevitable to ask if it’s enough. Education is “a powerful tool to intervene in the problems of segregation, opportunities, performance and conflict.” But We continue giving bandages Without having any plan on the table. Image | Taylor Flowe In Xataka | Opening schools during non -school hours is a good idea. The problem is that we need much more

the problems of referring to the AI ​​as simple as recognizing a photo of Francoism

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An image of a humble Spanish family in the 50s has recently become the epicenter of a viral controversy in X. The photograph It ended up unleashing the hysteria of many users, a hysteria caused by blind trust towards the responses of artificial intelligence, in this case that of Grok. Another example of verifying historical information with AI has its things. What happened. It all started when the @kritikafull user public A black and white photograph of a family in poverty conditions, accompanied by the following phrase in an ironic tone: “We lived better.” The image generated thousands of visualizations, but also aroused the interest of many users who doubted that photography was taken in Spain and ended up resorting to Grok, as usually happens lately on the social network, to verify the information. The origin of the controversy. Image: Arenas Photographic Study A problematic answer. Grok I identified erroneously Photography as an image taken during the great American depression, attributing it to photographer Walker Evans and stating that he showed the Burroughs family. This answer He replied massively In dozens of publications that accumulated thousands of visualizations, making the error an apparent truth that served to discredit the original publication. A research work. The user @ropamuig37, who describes herself in her profile as a historian, decided to verify the facts by one Inverse image search on Google Lens. The result took it directly to the photographic file of the University of Malaga, where the image appears perfectly classified as “Housing, August 1952, Malaga, Spain”. Photography is part of a series of reports that includes Spanish housing of the time. If AI says no, I believe it. When the historian gave Grok the real documentation, artificial intelligence He was inflexible For hours, insisting that it was an “UMA error” and maintaining that it had “verified” the similarity with the American photo. Even after the historian gave him obvious visual direct and comparative links, Grok took almost two hours to recognize his mistake. The damage was already done, since the publications that took the verification of Grok ended up flooding the social network with thousands of visualizations. Meanwhile, the real verification of the historian (and other users such as @Remusokamias it reminds us in their thread) barely accumulated at the beginning a fraction of what the rest of the publications that viralized Grok’s wrong response achieved. A major problem. On the platform The use of Grok has been normalized To perform all kinds of checks before user publications. “Grok, explain this” or “Grok, is this right?”, They are increasingly common expressions in X, where millions of users have begun to delegate to the verification and understanding tasks that traditionally required to contrast diverse sources. And of course, at least today, blind trust in these tools can generate Large -scale misinformation. We have already lived it over the last years after the AI ​​boom, a consequence that, given the growing refinement of these tools, goes to adults. In polarized contexts when any information can be instrumentalized politically, AI can also become a dangerous tool. Especially for its ability to Generate quick and verify responses to contrast certain facts. Luckily, this case has not been serious, but reflects the massive adoption of AI tools and how much we begin to trust them. Cover image | Arenas photographic study and Walker Evans In Xataka | Microsoft opted everything to OpenAi to win the AI ​​race. Start realizing your mistake

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