reach

This does not reach two euros per month and comes with three extra months

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After Black Friday, this pre-Christmas season we are in is one of the times of the year when we most often buy online. The search for the perfect gift is not easy, but having the Internet It allows us to access many different stores to find even original gifts with which to truly surprise. Buying online (like any other online activity) can carry certain risks, especially if it involves stores that we don’t know much about or if we do it on a WiFi network about which we don’t have much information, such as that of a hotel. The simplest way to protect ourselves is by using a VPN and we have quality like Surfshark for very little: only 1.99 euros per month. Surfshark Starter Subscription – monthly The price could vary. We earn commission from these links A VPN is one of the best tools there is to protect ourselves on the Internet As we usually tell you, a VPN is a very useful tool that never hurts to have installed on our devices (be it a PC, mobile phone or tablet, among others). Maybe at this moment you are wondering if it is worth paying for one if there are free ones and the truth is that yes. Although there are free options, these are not recommended in the long run because They are not as safe as they say they are.. Now, is it worth using it when shopping online? When using a VPN, what we do is pass all our Internet traffic through a secure and encrypted tunnel, so that no one can see what we are doing. Thus, we will protect our transactions and purchases by keeping things like, for example, our credit or debit card safe. The fact of encrypting our Internet traffic is also ideal when using a public WiFi network or some type of establishment, such as a hotel or a shopping center. Plus, with a VPN too we will keep our IP address safewhich can fall into the wrong hands and be used, among many other things, to impersonate our identity. Now let’s talk about Surfshark, which is with its Winter Sale active. Thanks to them, as we said above, we can get hold of it for 1.99 euros per month if we opt for its two-year modality. With it, in addition, we will take three extra months (same as with the rest of the plans). In this way, to sum it up, we would have 27 months of VPN for a total of 47.46 euros. If we are looking for a tool that offers more and we have a larger budget, then we can opt for the plan Surfshark One. This one, which has a price of 2.29 euros per month in its two-year modality, it comes with VPN and other additional tools such as antivirus or an alert system that notifies us if our data is leaked on the Internet. Surfshark One Subscription – monthly The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Finally, we have to talk about the most powerful plan that this company has, called Surfshark One+. This one, what does it cost? 4.19 euros per month in its two-year modality, includes everything from the previous plan and an exclusive tool called Incogni, thanks to which we have the possibility of delete personal information from databases. Regardless of the plan we choose, we will have more Internet security at a very good price. Some of the links in this article are affiliated and may provide a benefit to Xataka. In case of non-availability, offers may vary. Image | Money Knack, Arun Kuchibhotla In Xataka | Why it is dangerous to connect to public Wi-Fi and what you should do to protect yourself In Xataka | Free VPN and security: what’s the problem, why you should be careful

The Madrid-Barcelona AVE will reach a peak speed of 350 km/h. And it will do so thanks to new sleepers of Spanish design

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While in China they are already thinking about trains that reach 4,000 km/hIn Spain we are looking for an AVE that reaches 350 km/h that could be reached without problems if it were not for one detail: the tracks. And for something much more specific: the sleepers. The solution is a new design called “aerotraviesa” that will increase the speed of the BIRD. The problem is that theory is one thing, and practice another. a physical problem. Spain plays in the high speed major league and, in it, Renfe opera four types of trains. The Alvia and Avant reach 250 km/h. The Avlo and the AVE reach 300 km/h. However, the machines are prepared to reach higher speeds, the aforementioned 350 km/h. The problem is in physics. When a train exceeds a certain speed, 300 km/h, a phenomenon called ‘ballast flight’ occurs. This implies that the underside of the train generates turbulence that creates areas of low pressure on the track. This causes the passage of the train to vibrate the stones, the ballast, lifting them and causing them to collide against the underside of the train or settle on the tracks and sleepers themselves. Furthermore, at more than 300 km/h, the possible bumps on the journey increase. Air traverses. That’s where a new sleeper design comes into play that the company itself Adif presented a few years ago. Instead of a flat crossbar, a traditional rectangle, the central part of it has a more rounded design. Adif affirms This modifies the velocity field on the ballast in the area between the sleepers, minimizing the presence of ballast particles, and the key points are: Reduces 21% of the aerodynamic load in the space immediately above the ballast bed. The design allows increasing the distance between the ballast level and the upper face of the sleeper. It has no higher manufacturing or handling costs (they are still molds). And most importantly: the aerodynamic load generated by a train at 330 km/h on a track with current sleepers is equivalent to that generated by the same train at 370 km/h, but with aero sleepers. AV350 Plan. In short, the aerocrossers improve the aerodynamic performance of the infrastructure and there is another important fact: their use allows an increase of 12% in the operating speed of the train. And it is not just theory, since Spain wants to start installing overhead traverses to improve the speed of the AVE. A few weeks ago, Óscar Puente, Minister of Transport and Sustainable Mobility, advertisement that the Madrid-Barcelona line will be the first to have these overhead traverses. The result? Reach the maximum speed of the original design of the infrastructure, which is 350 km/h. Currently, the AVE reaches those 300 km/h due to the physical limitations mentioned above. This will allow us to go from the two hours and 37 minutes of the AVE that currently takes the least time to less than two hours. Puente highlighted that the design of the aerocrosses is pioneer in the world. The Polytechnic University of Madrid, Adif and SENER constituted a consortium to develop this technology and obtained the patent in March 2014, achieving international protection in Europe, Saudi Arabia and the United States. There are countries that have faced the ballast problem in other ways, Germany covering the ballast with concrete, for example. Arching an eyebrow. Increasing the speed of the train by changing the sleepers sounds great. The problem is that there are some aspects to consider. On the one hand, the cost-benefit debate not only because of what the investment will mean in changing all the sleepers, but also because of the maintenance of certain train materials that will suffer more than now. Driving at 350 km/h exponentially increases the wear of both the wheels and the catenary, regardless of whether the ballast causes no damage to the train, or causes less. On the other hand, not only the sleepers come into play, but also the own land. A bump at 300 km/h can be annoying, at 350 km/h it can be something more. Or two. And, beyond whether it is worth the investment to gain half an hour or what will happen with those possible technical problems, the big question is what happens with the rest of Spain. It is estimated that the Madrid-Barcelona section in which these air crossings begin to be applied will take about two years to complete. At a rate of 800 sleepers changed per day and 1,666 sleepers per kilometer, the work is of great magnitude. And it is clear that it is a congested route and that it is seeing a boom in the number of travelers, but while that line is reinforced, the connection with other parts of the peninsula remains neglectedlike the train to Soria, Teruel or the perennial case of Extremadura. Images | Xataka, Adif In Xataka | AVLO’s departure from Madrid-Barcelona seemed like another problem for Renfe. He has left us an unexpected winner

The elite of the open models spoke in Chinese. Mistral has just placed Europe at a level that not even the US managed to reach

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Over the last year, the elite of open models for assisted programming, at least in benchmarks as SWE-Bench Verifiedhas spoken with a Chinese accent. Names like DeepSeek, Kimi either qwen They had settled into the top positions in testing and were setting the pace in complex software engineering tasks, while Europe was still searching for its position. The arrival of Devstral 2 alters that distribution. It does not displace those who were already at the top, but it places Mistral at the same level of demand and turns a European company into a real contender in a field that until now seemed reserved for others. League change: the technical leap that had been brewing for some time. During recent months, the open models developed in Europe and the United States had shown constant evolution, although still without the performance necessary to compete in the most demanding tests. The progress was evident, but there was a lack of a project capable of consolidating it at a higher level and demonstrating that this path could give results comparable to those of the sector. Devstral 2 in data: performance, size and licenses. The new Mistral model reaches 123B parameters in a dense architecture and offers an expanded context of 256K tokens, accompanied by a modified MIT license that facilitates its adoption in open environments. Its compact version, Devstral Small 2, reduces the model to 24B licensed parameters Apache 2.0. In the SWE-Bench Verified figures published by the companyDevstral 2 obtains 72.2%, a mark that places it in the most competitive section of the open models evaluated and that confirms its presence among the most advanced alternatives in the segment. It is reflected by a panorama concentrated in the upper part of the benchmark. Among the open models, DeepSeek V3.2 leads the group with 73.1%, followed by Kimi K2 Thinking with 71.3% and for proposals such as Qwen 3 Coder Plus and Minimax M2, which are around 69 points. At lower levels GLM 4.6, GPT-OSS-120B, CWM and DeepSWE appear, with more moderate results. In the closed commercial environment (proprietary models), the graph incorporates higher scores: Gemini 3 Pro reaches 76.2%, GPT 5.1 Codex Max rises to 77.9% and Claude Sonnet 4.5 scores 77.2%, all of them above the best brands registered for open models. What SWE-Bench Verified Really Measures and Why It Matters. SWE-Bench Verified is a test designed to evaluate whether a model can solve real programming tasks, not synthetic exercises. Each case presents a bug in an open source repository and requires a patch to pass the previously failed tests. The evaluation seeks to measure whether the system understands the structure of the project, identifies the cause of the problem and proposes a coherent solution. It is a useful and demanding metric, although limited to Python repositories and a specific set of situations that do not cover the full breadth of software work. From co-pilots to agents who act on the project. The arrival of Devstral 2 coincides with a broader change in the way of working with programming tools. It is no longer just about receiving suggestions in the editor, but about having agents capable of exploring an entire repository, interpreting its structure and proposing changes consistent with its real state. In this context, Vibe CLI appears, a tool that allows Devstral to analyze files, modify parts of the code and execute actions directly from the terminal, bringing these capabilities closer to the daily workflow of developers. Cost and deployment: what each type of user can do with Devstral. The model will be available for free for an initial period and will then cost $0.40 per million tokens for input and $2.00 per million for output, while the Small 2 version will be priced lower. Its deployment also makes a difference: Devstral 2 requires at least four H100-class GPUs, aimed at data centers, while Devstral Small 2 is intended to run on a single GPU and, according to Mistral documentation, the Devstral Small family can also run in CPU-only configurations, without a dedicated GPU. This variety allows both companies and individual developers to find a suitable entry point. The appearance of Devstral 2 introduces an unexpected element in a space where Chinese companies set the pace and where not even the United States, despite its leadership in artificial intelligence, had an open model in this high performance range in SWE-Bench Verified. Mistral does not displace those who were already at the top, but it does broaden the conversation and shows that Europe can compete in a field where it did not appear until now. It is a movement that does not alter the general hierarchy, although it does open a new margin for the evolution of assisted programming tools. Images | Xataka with Gemini 3 In Xataka | OpenAI and Google deny that they are going to put ads in ChatGPT and Gemini. The reality is that accounts do not come only with subscriptions

That the US authorizes Nvidia’s H200 to reach China is not a concession, but a plan. They prefer money to competition

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The chip war between China and the US has mutated from a blockade to a commercial transaction. Donald Trump has announced that he will allow Nvidia export its high-performance H200 chips to China. The authorization carries an unprecedented condition: the US government will receive a 25% commission about these sales. This “reverse tariff” transforms China containment into a source of income, breaking with the strategy of total suffocation and offering a lifeline to Nvidia in its most critical market. End of free blocking. The decision is a direct result of a meeting last week between Trump and Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia. The White House’s logic has changed: it argues that this measure is carried out under strict national security conditions, extending the model to competitors such as Intel and AMD. It is a movement that formalizes what was already intuited a few months ago, when Nvidia managed, after a first meeting with Trump, lift veto on bottom H20 chip. At that time, a precedent was already established of transferring 15% of income to the country, a figure that now scales to 25% for the most powerful hardware. Tap on the image to go to the original post A dose for China. That they chose this chip is no coincidence: the H200 is significantly more powerful than the H20—the trimmed model that China had started to boycott— but it is still behind the cutting-edge Blackwell architecturewhich is still banned. According to advisors such as David Sacks, the North American country seeks to keep China addicted to its technology: if they are denied all access, they are forced to look for alternatives of their own. In fact, Huawei has already admitted that it will take two years to match the performance of the H200, making this chip the perfect tool to slow down Chinese development while monetizing its need. Cracks and black market. The reality is that the total blockade was failing. Recent investigations showed how Chinese companies used shortcuts through Indonesia to access the power of banned chips. Furthermore, the second-hand market had become the main avenue for China get H100 and A100 GPUs off the radar. By allowing the sale of the H200, the US is trying to regain control over a flow that already existed, but in the shadows. At the same time, the Department of Justice announced “Operation Gatekeeper” to dismantle smuggling networks in countries like Hong Kong. China’s response. The great unknown is precisely this, the reception of the news in Beijing. Although Trump claims that Xi responded “positively,” the reality on the ground seems different. China has been for months banning your local businesses buy Nvidia chips to promote its domestic industry. The CAC (Cyberspace Administration of China) came to investigate the H20 looking for rear doorssomething that generated a climate of mistrust that not even the previous July agreement managed to completely dissipate. Jensen Huang, who warned about the danger of an “AI silk road” If the US continued to block sales, with this pact it gets a golden opportunity to not lose a market that represents 13% of its income, although its Chinese clients must now pay the price of American geopolitics. Cover image | Composition with images from Nvidia and RawPixel In Xataka | China has just redrawn the map of strategic minerals: its new rules on rare earths target the United States

In the search for a supersonic train, China tests a Maglev that will reach 4,000 km/h. The problem will be maintaining it

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China’s conquest of the high-speed train field is impressive. In the 2008 Beijing Olympicsthe country had just 120 kilometers of high speed between Beijing and Tianjin. 17 years latermanage more high-speed kilometers than any other countrya very long distance from Spain or Japan. They are not only building kilometers to unite the entire country: they are developing technologies so that the plane is no longer necessary. As? With Maglev trains at speeds of 1,000 km/h. And a specific model, the T-Flight, which dreams of 4,000 km/h. Maglev + Hyperloop. China is one of the countries, along with Japan, that is investing a lot of money in the development of the magnetic levitation trainsor Maglev. This technology allows trains not to rest their wheels on the rails, but rather to float thanks to a series of powerful magnets and an electromagnetic field. This allows us to exceed the 250 km/h that has been set as a standard for high speed and, for example, China has the fastest Maglev in the worldone that reaches 431 km/h. It is already operational between Beijing and Shanghai, but in Japan is testing one that will exceed 600 km/h. It’s a speed that will seem slow compared to what CASIC is preparing. It stands for “China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation,” a state-owned tactical missile company that announced the T-Flight project in August 2017. The idea? Combine magnetic levitation trains with Hyperloop-style vacuum tubes. T-Flight. In short, it is putting a Maglev in a vacuum tube, eliminating air pressure and resistance as much as possible, but there is much more. For example, the idea of CASIC is that magnetic levitation is enhanced thanks to superconductors that will raise the train up to 100 mm above the rail. Conventional Maglevs are raised by about 10 mm, and the idea is that the higher the train is, the more stability it will have at extreme speeds. On the other hand, the tube itself, with a system that extracts air from it to create a low pressure environment, reducing aerodynamic resistance to the maximum. This partial vacuum and levitation that eliminates the physical resistance of the wheel and track is what will allow unprecedented speeds to be achieved. Achievements. In 2024 they already achieved one first validated test as a world record by reaching 623 km/h, but in the summer of this year, in a low pressure environment, The train reached 650 km/h in seven seconds in its laboratory. They were strange tests, since the track was a kilometer long when the usual thing is much longer, but that also gives us a clue of what brutal which is both the acceleration and braking of the train. That is, think that, in seven seconds and in just one kilometer, the train accelerated to 650 km/h and stopped. The team’s idea is to reach 800 km/h as the top speed this year, but the ambition goes much further. Ambition. Currently, the team is in Phase 1, which is the one that aims aim that speed of 1,000 km/h. To do this, and to validate the speed in real conditions, they want to extend the test track to 60 kilometers. However, the thing does not stop there and, when the project was born, it was already said that Phase 2 and Phase 3 would have as aim 2,000 km/h (almost double the cruising speed of a traditional commercial airplane) and 4,000 km/hsupersonic speeds that would compete with the fastest planes in the world. This would allow large urban centers in China to be linked in a few minutes, leaving aside the need to take planes to cover long distances. In fact, this high speed is already showing in Europe that short flights do not make sense if we combine the waiting time at the airport with the flight itself and compare it with the comfort of access to the train. A major challenge. Now, the goal will not be easy. Maglev technology works and is proven, but what they want to achieve with this T-Flight not only complicates things because, in addition to a track, a tube must be built. And, of course, maintain it. Extending this partial vacuum over hundreds of kilometers of tube represents an enormous technical challenge because it implies that the joints must be perfectly sealed, without the cold and heat dilating them so that there are no leaks. It is estimated that a 600 km pipe requires an expansion joint every 100 meters, and each one of them represents a potential point of failure. Furthermore, at 300 km/h appreciate vibrations in the seats. Air system to reduce pressure inside the tubes Furthermore, any decompression would be catastrophic and perhaps most importantly: there is no certification standard or safety protocols for something like this. In any case, T-Flight continues to take steps at a good pace and, although it seems difficult to see it working in the short term, if a country can achieve it right now… it is China. Images | Geely In Xataka | After 20 years, the definitive one arrives: Brazil prepares the first high-speed train in South America

that the Russian hypersonic missiles do not reach the target believing that they are in Peru

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He Kinzhalpresented by the Kremlin as a hypersonic missile “invincible” capable of overcoming any Western defense, has experienced a series of technical improvements designed to further increase their lethality and reduce the possibilities of interception. In fact, until three months ago it was a real toothache for Ukrainian defenses. Until they have come up with an idea… and a song. Evolution of a missile. Derived from Iskander-M and launched from aerial platforms such as MiG-31K or the Tu-22M3the missile combines speeds that can approach Mach 10 with a deeply maneuvered terminal profile, capable of executing abrupt descents, sudden lateral changes and trajectories designed to break the radar lock of Ukrainian Patriots. Its ability to hide within mixed salvos, blending in with slower missiles, has drastically reduced interception rates: from 37% in August to just one 6% in September. This has made, in theory, previously interceptable missiles become threats that are very difficult to stop, especially when they are used in massive attacks that combine hundreds of drones and dozens of ballistic or cruise missiles. The hidden weakness. However, despite its speed and maneuverability, the Kinzhal has a technical Achilles’ heel: it depends on the navigation system. GLONASS satellite to correct the natural errors of the inertial system, whose precision tends to degrade over time. TO INS differencethe satellite link can be manipulatedinterfered with or supplanted. And here lies the Ukrainian advance. Although the missile incorporates controlled pattern receiving antennas (taking their number from 4 to 8, 12 and now 16 elements in a Russian attempt to counter interference), these electronic defenses have proven to be insufficient against systems designed specifically for front-line conditions. Ukrainian unity Night Watch has shown that, despite Russian improvements, the Kometa receivers They are still based on technology inherited from the Soviet era, unable to resist a spoofing well executed. This combination of high kinematic complexity and electronic vulnerability creates a tactical paradox: Russia’s fastest and theoretically most advanced missile can be diverted by manipulated digital signals if they manage to infiltrate its navigation cycle. A kind of electronic optical illusion. Music as a weapon of precision. Before the fall of the Patriot effectivenessUkraine has opted for a completely different weapon: Lima, a electronic warfare system which not only blocks the Kinzhal’s satellite communications, but also replaces its navigation stream with false data. This system creates a large zone of electronic denial in which missiles lose their spatial reference, but does so with sufficient precision to induce highly controlled errors. Their spoofing technique is more sophisticated than simple jamming: it does not turn off navigation, but rather manipulates it. Lima sends a signal in binary format that can include any content, but operators have chosen to embed the ukrainian anthem “Our Father Is Flag”both for technical and symbolic reasons. This deceptive signal, once accepted by the missile’s receivers, allows it to believe that it is thousands of kilometers to the west, specifically in Lima (Peru), forcing it to abruptly correct its trajectory. At speeds above Mach 5, these changes generate structural stresses that overcome the resistance of the fuselage, causing the missile to break up in flight or crash without detonating. In this way, Ukraine has managed to divert or destroy more than about twenty Kinzhales in a few weeks, a much more significant achievement given its scarcity and its cost to Russia. The controlled diversion. The results of the Lima system are visible in the impact patterns: craters that appear in dozens or even hundreds of kilometers of the planned objectives, sometimes up to 200 km off course. The change in accuracy is drastic. Although Russia claims that the Kinzhal’s CEP is around 10 meters, leaked images by military analysts show missiles falling with errors of more than 140 meters even in recent attacks. There is no doubt, when a weapon designed to penetrate underground bunkers ends up hitting an open field, the effectiveness of spoofing is demonstrated. In many cases, the missile does not even activate the explosive charge because the impact sequence depends on parameters that are altered by the confusion generated in the guidance system. Night Watch Operators they underline that Lima does not act on a single receiver, but on all of them simultaneously, which nullifies the Russian strategy of multiplying antennas to “jump” between signal sources. Each missile receiver, upon entering the affected area, interprets the false data as valid, which turns spoofing into a kind of “enveloping trap” that is impossible to avoid. A constant evolution. This confrontation between hypersonic missile and spoofing techniques illustrates the character of “cat and mouse” that defines contemporary electronic warfare. Russia adjusts software, redesigns terminal profiles and multiplies antennas, and Ukraine responds by creating systems that replace the entire satellite data constellation by a corrupt flow impossible to filter. In fact, the United States and Western companies are already working on technologies capable of detecting or neutralizing spoofing, as Russia explores more robust guidance systems. For now, however, the electronic advantage is Ukrainian: the weapon that Putin called as “invincible” and “capable of overcoming any Western defense” is falling into empty fields, breaking up in mid-flight, or drifting harmlessly away. At the same time, the technique also affects other russian missiles that transit through the interference zone, expanding the defensive range without the need to intercept one by one. The strategic lesson is clear: in a conflict where Russian industry produces only between 10 and 15 Kinzhales a month, losing them to electronic manipulation is a disproportionate blow to the Kremlin’s offensive capacity. Speed ​​vs information. In short, the confrontation between the Kinzhal and the Lima EW system is a reminder that military superiority no longer depends only on speed, armor or explosive power, but on who controls the flow of information. The missile can fly at Mach 10 and be almost impossible physically intercept, but if its guidance system interprets that it has been “teleported” to Peruall its kinetic energy turns against itself. For Ukraine, this achievement represents the opening of … Read more

Your VPN comes with three extra months and does not reach 2 euros

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Nowadays, we all spend many hours of the day on the Internet. Obviously, nothing has to happen to us, but it is undeniable that it also Cyber ​​attacks are becoming more common or the presence of certain spyware. Among all the tools that we can use to protect ourselves while browsing the Internet, one of the most useful and effective is a VPN. If we are looking for an economical and quality one, Surfshark offers for Black Friday may interest us: we can get one of your plans from 1.99 euros per month. Surfshark Starter Subscription – monthly The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Surfshark is not only a VPN: it has antivirus and many more tools A VPN is one of those tools that is always good to have installed on your PC or mobile. It is true that there are free options that can get us out of trouble, but the reality is that they are not recommended at all. for two very specific reasons: they are usually slower and, above all, They are not as safe as they promise. That is exactly why it is so interesting to have a paid one like Surfshark, which in addition to working great, will allow us to level up our Internet security. So what does Surfshark Black Friday offer? The best thing about this promotion, available until the first days of December, is that put all your plans on offer. The cheapest plan of all is called Surfshark Starter and its 24-month subscription costs 1.99 euros per month. It includes two tools (VPN and Alternative ID), it can help us prevent Spam and it also comes with three extra months. What do we want to have even more tools? So perhaps it is more interesting that we jump to Surfshark One. This subscription, whose 24-month plan is priced at 2.19 euros per month right now, includes everything that the Starter plan has, but it goes much further (also including 3 extra months, of course). This is all it brings: VPN. Antivirus. Real-time alerts on email breaches, credit card and ID data theft. Private search tools. Personal data security reports. Webcam protection. Anti-spyware and malware protection. Surfshark One Subscription – monthly The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Finally, we have the latest of this company’s plans: Surfshark One+. This, in essence, is an improved version of the previous one. It includes exactly the same thing to which we must add Incogni, a solution designed to eliminate our data from databases. Its price for the 24-month plan is 4.19 euros per month and, as with the previous ones, it also comes with 3 extra months. Some of the links in this article are affiliated and may provide a benefit to Xataka. In case of non-availability, offers may vary. Images | surfshark In Xataka | Why it is dangerous to connect to public Wi-Fi and what you should do to protect yourself In Xataka | The best solutions to protect your data and your company’s IT equipment

China has always dreamed of a “Polar Silk Road” so that its ships reach Europe sooner. It is already a reality

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Monday was an important day in Felixstoweone of the largest container ports in the United Kingdom. Towards the end of the afternoon, their workers saw the silhouette of the Istanbul Bridgea container ship loaded with lithium batteries and parts for the photovoltaic industry. In itself, the appearance of the Istambul did not represent anything new, the curious thing was where it came from or (more precisely) where it arrived: with its arrival at the docks of Felixstowe the ship completed a historic voyage of 20 days through the Arctic Ocean. Its journey to the British coast has allowed China to take a key step in achieving one of his big dreams: a ‘Polar Silk Road’ with Europe. What has happened? That China has achieved a milestone in maritime trade. Perhaps more symbolic than decisive, but still important. Late on Monday the container ship Istanbul Bridge arrived in the United Kingdom after a trip that had started 20 days before in Ningbo-Zhoushana very important port hub on the coast of the East China Sea. So far nothing strange. The key is that the Istanbul Bridge did not reach Felixtowe in the usual way, after detouring south to cross the Suez Canal and advance through the Mediterranean and the Atlantic towards Europe. No. He did it on the voyage that took the ship through northern waters, through the icy Arctic Ocean and the North Sea. AND that is relevant. Why is it important? The Istanbul, a ship with capacity for 4900 containers standard (TEU), 299 meters in length and flag of liberia (although in reality it has operated bound to the Chinese Sea Legend and Haijie Shipping) it is not the first ship that sails along what is known as the Northern Sea Route, but its voyage has had a special meaning. As remember CNNthe first ships loaded with containers began sailing through the Arctic more than a decade ago, but it is normal for them to do so on special and specific trips. The Istanbul Bridge has another approach. Since his departure from Ningbo-Zhoushan has been presented as proof that the northern route can be used as “a traditional line service”, with commercial stops. “It’s something we haven’t seen in the Arctic until now,” recognize Malte Humper, from the Arctic Institute. The ship took 20 days to complete its journey between China and the United Kingdom loaded with about 4,000 containers and its objective, beyond Felixstowe, is to unload merchandise in other ports in Germany, Poland and the Netherlands. As required According to the Chinese agency Xinhua, the ship was mainly transporting lithium-ion batteries and parts for the photovoltaic industry, goods that are sensitive to heat and in which delivery times are a strategic factor. And why this interest? Because the ultimate objective is not to stop at the feat of the Istanbul Bridge, but to promote the trade route known as “China-Europe Arctic Express”, an itinerary that connects first-class ports such as Ningbo, Shanghai, Qingdao, Dalian, Felixtowe, Rotterdam, Hamburg and Ganks. In fact even Ningbo Customs has referred to the expedition as “the official opening of the first China-Europe Arctic Express container route.” State broadcaster CCTV it is very clear in fact when referring to the voyage of the ship. In his opinion, “it represents the maiden voyage of the first Arctic express container route between China and Europe and demonstrates the commercial viability of the Northwest Passage.” High North News precise that at least for now the route will be seasonal and the shipping company Haijie Shipping plans a single sailing in 2025 (the navigation window is still limited and lasts a few months), but the company seems to have noted the interest of manufacturers and shipping platforms. e-commerce. Is it that interesting? Yes. And it is because its main advantage is speed. The container ship has taken only 20 days to complete its journey, two more than those initially planned. The reason for the delay was a storm passing through the Norwegian Sea that forced him to slow down. Despite this, it represents a notable time saving on China-Europe trips when compared to other much more established alternatives in the sector. As remember Xinhuathe China-Europe Express Railway requires 25 days of travel, transporting goods through the Suez Canal route requires 40 and doing so through the Cape of Good Hope 50. “Trade between China and the European Union has remained strong despite the volatility of the global trade landscape and having a third route, in addition to the traditional shipping corridors and the China-Europe rail service, will bring stability and inject new vitality into bilateral trade,” highlights Cui Hongjianfrom the China Institute of International Studies in Global Times. The Asian newspaper (linked to the Government) does not leave much room for doubt in its report on the Istanbul Bridge: “It represents an emerging international shipping artery of great value to optimize the global supply chain.” Why right now? For several reasons. The main one, because the Arctic of 2025 is not the same as the one of three, four or five decades ago. And it probably won’t be the same in the future either. As climate change progresses and ice fractures and melts, the Arctic is gaining interest as a navigable space. Nikkei assures that its loss has caused the number of ships accessing Arctic waters to have increased by nearly 37% while the total distance traveled has doubled. All in the last 10 years, according to the data managed by WWF. More factors come into play, the reinforced interest that the European market has gained for China in the midst of a tariff war with the United States or the challenges that maritime traffic has encountered in other latitudes, such as the Suez Canala key logistics point that has demonstrated its vulnerability. The northern route also offers extra advantages, such as considerable time savings for shipments destined for Christmas shopping in Europe and low temperatures. Are they all advantages? At all. Perhaps the Arctic has changed, … Read more

reach three million resignations at the end of the year

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In 2022 a turning point in the labor market in Spain was reached with a phenomenon known as the “Great resignation“, in which thousands of employees left their jobs and changed to other options with better salary conditions or conciliation. Since then, the number of voluntary casualties or resignations has not stopped growing in Spain. OK To what is published by The newspaper2025 will mark a Historic record in resignationsbreaking the roof of the three million volunteers. Do not say goodbye, I’m leaving. The official data From the General Social Security Regime reflect this reality: in 2024, 2,886,670 voluntary casualties were registered due to resignations in indefinite and temporary contracts. These figures represent a growth of 4.4% compared to 2023 and more than double the resignations registered a decade ago, with 1,224,534 resignations. According to Provisional data Collected by the General Treasury of Social Security, in the first eight months of 2025, the barrier of the two million resignations have already been exceeded, and the forecasts suggest that the three million resignations could be exceeded at the end of the year, a historical record for the country. “To better behavior of the economy, greater propensity to change jobs”, He slipped to the newspaper Levant Yésika Aguilar, director of Labor Relations at Treball. The labor market has changed. This unprecedented figure is the reflection of the cultural and economic change that the country is experiencing. Workers are increasingly looking for a balance between life and work, stability and well -being in the workplace. On the other hand, companies are in a situation of shortage of qualified workers, so they cannot afford to lose those who are already trained. The successive economic crises caused companies to apply strict cuts in terms of seniority and incentives for those employees who had more time. In the same way, Labor precariousness has forced employees to jump from employment in employment looking for better working and salary conditions. That cultivation broth, cooked over low heat during several economic crises, has transformed the Spanish labor market making employees They no longer feel attachment For your job. Precariousness and Labor Conciliation. The growth in resignations is closely linked to work precariousness, but not strictly to temporality. As can be seen in the graph, the workers who renounce They are those that have an indefinite contract. “There is a greater rejection of the toxic part of work and people value reconciliation and this explains greater rotation until they find proper employment,” declared to The newspaper Oriol Cremades, UAB Labor Law professor. On the side of workers with a temporary contract, low wages, minimum increases and temporary contracts of very short duration make many workers abandon the uncertainty of a temporary position for other more stable jobs or with better compensation. On the other hand, the elimination of incentives such as seniority or performance bonds has made employees with indefinite contracts do not feel to remain in the company compensates for it, which increases voluntary casualties. In parallel, the deterioration of the work environmentwith the elimination of teleworking as main friction pointand lack of care towards mental health have also been able to influence the increase in resignations. The Z generation and its relationship with employment. Another aspect to take into account is the emergence of generation Z in the workplace and its Change of values Regarding work. This generation places conciliation and respect for mental well -being above antiquity or traditional economic incentives. A report Alan of 2025 reveals that 40% of Spanish employees contemplate renouncing their work this year motivated by exhaustion and stresslooking for work environments that offer them labor flexibility, conciliation and quality of life. In Xataka | “On Monday you do not count on me”: the involuntary resignation and by WhatsApp from a worker endorsed by the Supreme Image | Unspash (Yolk Coworking – Krakow)

The price of extra virgin olive oil is rising again. The question is how far that climb will reach

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They run times convulsive moved in the oil market of Spanish olive. For both consumers who go to the supermarket in search of bottles and for farmers who sell their crops. After the increases and Down Price lived by one and the other in recent years, the oil mills have just encountered a surprise: the price of the extra virgin in origin has just exceeded the psychological barrier of the four euros per kiloan important ‘red line’ for the producers that had been touching for several months. The big question is how far that climb will reach. What happened? That the price at the origin of extra virgin olive oil has exceeded the psychological barrier of four euros per kilo. We know it thanks to the data of the last week (August 18-24) Disclosed By Asaja-Jaén, which has had access to updated information of the Poolred system. To be more precise, the Aove marks € 4,001/kg, the Virgin 3.53 and in Lampanant 3.29. Their values ​​are in tune with those of the Price and Markets Observatory of the Junta de Andalucía, which also places the extra virgin at source above four euros. With regard to consumption prices, for now, CPI boards show that the cost of olive oil in general has fallen 3.1% in June And it remains sensibly below of the values ​​a year ago. Why is it important? For several reasons. The main is that the Aove had been located below that value for months, as reflected The Andalusian Observatory or the platform Infaolivewhich shows that the extra virgin remained below four euros since practically beginning of 2025. Since then its graph shows that it has been oscillating around € 3.5/kg. Other sources They assure that the Aove does not reach four euros since December 2024. Are there more reasons? Yes. The second reason why this milestone is so important is that it has a symbolic background for oil producers. In the sector there are who considers that the four euros per kilo mark the ‘barrier’ that maintains the profitability of the farms. Others They hold that the minimum that covers production expenses is higher and set at € 5/kg. In any case, the truth is that the sector had been under that ‘red line’ for months. In May, for example, the Coordinator of Agricultural and Livestock Organizations (COAG) warned That while consumers paid about six euros per liter, the producers received less than 3.5 for the extra virgin, far from the between 5.55 and € 6.14/kg that, according to their calculations, had to mark the price of Aove the 2024/25 campaign. “It is a situation that cannot be maintained over time.” Why does the price upload? For several reasons. The main is the drift of the harvest. Although initially the farmers had a great campaign, driven by spring rains, which even led the government to endow a ‘nuclear button’ that the case would allow you to remove oil from the market to guarantee your “stability”, everything indicates that the campaign will be less prolific of the expected. So much so that a month ago the farmers launched A message to reduce optimism and emphasize the expectations of the sector. What can we expect then? “The current situation in the main autonomous producing community, Andalusia, leads us to think that the euphoria that reigned among the great market operators about a historical harvest is collapsing,” They warned in July from the union of small farmers and ranchers (UPA). Its production estimates for Andalusia then pointed to between 950,000 and 1.15 million tons, a figure holds the meteorology drift of the coming months. “That is, at best we would be in a situation similar to the 2024/2025 campaign”, They needed. Behind that lower production there is a cluster of factorsincluding high temperatures during flowering, the influence of pests, the impact of the latest heat waves on the size of the fruit or the plantation’s own veracular. UPA’s global estimate is that the production fork of the next campaign will move between 1.2 and 1.4 million of tons, a figure that responds to the cutting of forecasts in Andalusia and Castilla-La Mancha. And how does the market leave? That is the other key that explains the drift of prices. Poolred data or the Andalusian Observatory show an increase in prices at source throughout recent weeks, but still sales have advanced at a good pace: a few weeks ago Asaja Córdoba celebrated that olive oil outlets reached last month the 147,000 t“the highest figures of the last ten years in a month of July at the national level.” The link, which reflects the stocks of merchandise that will remain between campaigns, is also promised short, with 270,000 tonsas required The economist. Another of the keys to the campaign is the behavior of the US market. The newspaper slides that between January and May the sales of Spanish olive oil in the US grew by 31.25%, although that rebound was not even to the value of sales. The big question is how tariffs will affect. July exports data (still free of fees) already show A fallalthough in the sector there are Optimistic voices They remember that there are faithful customers who already paid for Spanish oil when their price at source was much higher than the current one. Images | Wikipedia and Iloveaceite (Flickr) 1 and 2 In Xataka | More and more giants get into the Andalusian field and in the olive oil industry. The last: Pepsico

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