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Anthropic has red lines for its AI. The Pentagon just demanded that you delete them all

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The pentagon just gave to Anthropic until this Friday at 5:01 p.m. to accept its unrestricted use of its AI models for all types of applications, including espionage and military applications. The company has so far refused, but the Trump administration is threatening to invoke a 75-year-old rule to “appropriate” Anthropic’s AI technology. red lines. The conflict has its origin in the red lines imposed by Anthropic’s ethical standards. The company, led by Dario Amodei, refuses to have its models used for mass surveillance of American citizens – it says nothing about others – or in the development and use of lethal autonomous weapons controlled entirely by AI. The Pentagon wants to use AI (almost) without limits. These types of safeguards clash head-on with the Pentagon’s position, which demands that its technology providers open the use of their software and hardware solutions for any legal purpose defined by the military, without external vetoes. As long as the US constitution and laws allow it, a private company should not be able to impose limits on the use of its technology, the US Government indicates. Tension after the Maduro incident. Things began to go wrong when it was learned that the Claude model was used in a US special forces operation in January to capture the former Venezuelan presidentNicolás Maduro. The incident put the army’s dependence on Claude under the microscope: Anthropic is currently the only AI company that operates in the Pentagon’s classified systems, which gives it a notable position of power that now wants to be broken by the US government. This smells bad. The Pentagon’s strategy is disturbing from a legal point of view. There are three main possibilities for action: Cancel the Anthropic contract and start working with another (or other) AI companies willing to accept their terms. Yesterday we knew that xAI has already signed an agreement so that the DoD can use its Grok model, in classified systems. Google seems to be also an option they are working with. Identify Anthropic as a risk to your supply chain. That is very dangerous, because it would mean that a huge number of companies in the US would not be able to work with Anthropic. It would be a kind of veto like the one the US imposed on Huawei, but applied to a national company. The impact for Anthropic and its investors (Amazon and Google among them) would be catastrophic. Activate Title 1 of the Defense Production Act of 1950, a special law theoretically designed to control the economy during wars and emergencies. It was used, for example, during the COVID-19 pandemic to boost the production of medical supplies and accelerate the production of vaccines. It seems unlikely that they can do something like that. How did this whole mess start?. The Biden administration promoted measures and ethical limits to restrict the application of AI, but everything changed with the mandate of Donald Trump. In June 2025 Anthropic released Claude Gova specialized series of AI models specifically designed for use by US national agencies in security, defense and intelligence. AI with military and intelligence applications. These models were prepared to operate in environments with classified information. Anthropic also offered them for a symbolic price of 1 dollar to ensure that the Government would prefer them over those of other competitors. Shortly thereafter, the DoD granted the company a contract worth $200 million, and the company has since gone integrating with the Palantir systems used in US government agencies. Two opposing positions. Anthropic therefore positions itself as a defender of certain limits for the use of its AI models. The Department of Defense (DoD) disagrees, arguing that military use of any technology should only adhere to the US Constitution or laws. The company maintains that seeks to support the national security missionbut only within what their models can do reliably and responsibly. The dilemma. If the Pentagon carries out its threat, a precedent will be set where the State can intervene in the intellectual property of a software company under the argument of national emergency. This would force all Big Tech to decide if they are willing to cede full control of their technological developments to the military… or risk being intervened by an almost 80-year-old law. Image | Ben White | Anthropic In Xataka | IBM has been living for decades that no one could kill COBOL. Anthropic has other plans

China has just crossed a red line in Taiwan. They are no longer drones, they are their fighters shooting “attached” to the Taiwanese F-16s

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China has been tightening the siege on Taiwan for years with pressure constant and calculated: increasingly frequent air raids, naval exercises large scalesymbolic crosses of the midline of the strait and military deployments designed to rememberwithout firing a single shot, that the island lives under permanent surveillance. This strategy of attrition, made of demonstrations of force and controlled ambiguity, has marked the relationship between Beijing and Taipei long before the current pulse reached disturbing levels. One (another) red line. If a few weeks ago we said that China had taken a qualitative step in its military pressure on Taiwan by crossing the island’s airspace with a military dronehas now redoubled its efforts, going from intimidating maneuvers to direct aerial encounters with manned fighters flying meters away and firing flares near Taiwanese planes, an escalation that multiplies the risk of accident and turns intimidation into something much closer to a deliberate clash. during exercises “Justice Mission”J-16 planes of the People’s Liberation Army not only came dangerously close to Taiwanese F-16s when they came to intercept them near the middle line of the strait, but they also arrived to launch flares at close range, a maneuver considered unsafe even by demanding military standards and that marks a before and after in the face of previous, more indirect provocations. From symbolic pressure to physical risk. In just 24 hours, dozens of Chinese aircraft crossed the midline of the strait and penetrated the airspace controlled by Taiwan, showing a pattern of behavior that no longer seems to seek only to saturate radars or send political messages, but rather to put enemy pilots in extreme situations. Unlike radar jamming or the presence of military drones, these encounters centimeters away introduce a human and physical factor. much more dangerouswhere a mistake, turbulence, or knee-jerk reaction can trigger an immediate crisis between China and Taiwan. One of the Chinese J-16 fighters photographed during Chinese People’s Liberation Army military exercises while being monitored by a Taiwanese F-16V aircraft Intimidating maneuvers. The actions were not limited to direct harassment: Chinese fighters used concealment tactics flying close to H-6K bombers to evade radars, revealing itself, according to local Taiwanese media, “ostentatiously” by displaying missiles at close range, in maneuvers compared by observers to historical tricks of military infiltration. They remembered in the Financial Times That this behavior, described by some sources as more typical of a “thug” than a professional pilot, reinforces the feeling that Beijing is testing new risk thresholds to measure the Taiwanese and allied response. A regional pattern. What happened around Taiwan is not an isolated event, but part of a incident sequence in which the Chinese air force has raised the tone towards neighbors like Japan and the Philippinesincluding blocking radar and firing flares against patrol aircraft. In fact, analysts warn that the next logical step in this escalation could be to operate regularly within the 12 nautical miles of Taiwanese territorial airspace, a scenario that would then exponentially increase the risk of collision or armed confrontation. Political pressure and risk of lack of control. If you like, this increase in boldness coincides with those publicized changes in the chain of command China and with political pressure from Xi Jinping for the armed forces to demonstrate their preparation for an eventual conflict, which could be pushing pilots and commanders to take risks that were previously avoided. Under that prism, Beijing would not only have crossed another red line against Taiwan, but would have entered a phase in which aerial intimidation ceases to be a calculated game and becomes a much more dangerous gamble, one with potentially explosive consequences for regional stability and security. appearance of “third parties” on the board. Image | 日本防衛省・統合幕僚監部, Ministry of National Defense In Xataka | China already has drones capable of shooting with surgical precision at 100 meters. Not good news for Taiwan In Xataka | The biggest geopolitical risk on the planet is not Greenland. It’s a smaller island with a disturbing neighbor: Taiwan

We know it as “the red planet”, but 3.37 billion years ago Mars was almost as blue as Earth

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The mystery of Mars and water has a new chapter. The missions like Curiosity in the Gale crater they show clear evidence for the existence of liquid water lakes for thousands or millions of years. That climate models show that the early Mars It was a cold place. with temperatures significantly below the freezing point, it was elucidated with seasonal ice shields. However, among the pending subjects of Mars astronomy is knowing how much there was water and when was there. Mars was (half) blue. A recent study published in the scientific journal npj Space Exploration echoes the discovery of a “tide line” that explains that there was once an interconnected water system. Ignatius Argadestya, the lead author of the study, explains that although today Mars is a dry and reddish planet: “our results show that in the past it was a blue planet similar to Earth.” In fact, they have been able to demonstrate the existence of the deepest and most extensive ocean that has existed on Mars to date, account the scientist that half the red planet was once blue: “an ocean that extended across the planet’s northern hemisphere.” Valles Marineris in Hi-Res The “deltas” of Mars. More specifically, they have investigated geological formations called deposits with steep front located in the region of Valles Marineristhe largest canyon system in the solar system. Using very high resolution images from Cassis of the European Space Agency and the CTX and HiRISE from NASA (the latter provides a maximum resolution of about 25 to 30 centimeters per pixel), have been able to identify these deposits with identical morphology to the river deltas that we see in rivers such as the Ebro or the Danube when they flow into the sea. Thus, on Mars there was a time when water flowed from the mountains through branching channels until it reached a kind of lake or sea, where sediments were deposited. These deltas end in an abrupt step that is located at exactly the same altitude at different points on the planet, between -3750 and -3650 meters with respect to the reference level of Mars. About 3.37 billion years ago. This is not a geological coincidence, it is that at one time there was a body of water like a sea that maintained a stable level for a long time: it is a mark of the shore of a primeval Mars, since these deposits were formed between the Late Hesperian and Early Amazonian periods. According to the research team, that was the time in the history of Mars with the greatest availability of liquid water on its surface. Why is it important. Already had applied previously the existence and size of this Martian ocean, but its conclusions come with more precise and direct evidence. In addition, they have been able to determine when the water peak occurred on Mars. The deltas found constitute a magnificent base to study their sediments in depth in search of traces of life because where there is water, there could be life. On the other hand, among the next steps is to understand how Mars went from having an ocean that occupied half the planet to being a frozen desert. In fact, there are already clues: the research team detected desiccation cracks and dunes on these channels, which indicates that after this aquatic period, there was a progressive drying until they became arid. In Xataka | Mars has just entered the exclusive club of planets with rays. This is discouraging news for NASA. In Xataka | We had been wondering for decades how Mars could have water, cold and life. Today we finally have an answer Cover | Javier Miranda

a 32 kilometer megastructure over the Red Sea

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The Straits of Tiran are only 13 kilometers long, a distance so short that you can even see the people on the beach on the other side or take a walk to cross it. Well, if there was something to cross it. So in practice that very small distance between that tip of the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt to the other end in Saudi Arabia means driving 1,600 kilometers. The other option is to take a ferry and face a trip that would also take a few hours. Saudi Arabia has a plan to link both countries in Africa and Asia: the “King Salman Causeway”, named after the Saudi monarch Salman bin Abdulaziz. An impressive mega infrastructure for crossing the Red Sea, evoking the biblical story of Moses. As? Combining a road and a railway with a length of 32 kilometers that links the straits from Ras El Sheikh Hamid (Saudi Arabia) to Sharm el-Sheikh (Egypt). Also known as the “Moses Bridge” for obvious reasons, the 4,000 million estimated for its construction are provided entirely by Saudi Arabia. The awarding company in charge to materialize it is China Civil Engineering Construction Corp., which has an enormous challenge on its hands. Because beyond the symbolism, this transcontinental land bridge has great strategic value for the economy of the parties involved. But it won’t be easy. Why is it important. Integrated within the Vision 2030 plan of Saudi Arabia to promote tourism, infrastructure and economic diversification, this megastructure would completely change regional geopolitics: an enclave is an area that connects Asia, Africa and indirectly Europe. With its construction, a new corridor would be opened between Asia and Europe through North Africa that would turn Saudi Arabia into a logistics and goods transportation hub. Tourism would also benefit: initial estimates they point to a rise in Egyptian tourism, going from 300,000 people a year to 1.2 million. And the other way around: it would be an agile way to reach the northwest of Saudi Arabia where the futuristic $500 billion megacity called NEOMwith a constellation of resorts on the Red Sea to attract tourism. Furthermore, the “Moses Bridge” would also be a passage area to the pilgrimage to Mecca. So Saudi Arabia (for now) is working out: new income from tolls and businesses, development of regions and the generation of thousands of jobs. In fact, planning estimates a recovery of the investment in about 10 years, as collects Global Business Outlook. A technically pharaonic work. With more than 30 kilometers long on the sea, the ends and the island of Tiran in the middle, will count with roads and a railway line that will allow transporting both goods and people on high-speed trains. Thus, the King Salman Causeway will be one of the longest maritime crossings ever built in the form of a hybrid construction that combines a mixture of bridges and submerged tunnels, which will allow the passage of deeper areas and allow the passage of heavy air traffic. For ships to pass underneath, it will have sections up to 75 meters high. For the bridge part you will use a type of piles called caissonshuge steel tubes placed on the seabed. For its installation it will be necessary to pump the water, so that dry foundations can be built. For the tunnel they will combine tunnel boring machines with the sinking of prefabricated segments with a technique similar to the link Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao. According to initial estimates, the work could last almost a decade. Scheme of a caisson. Yk Times – Wikimedia Hellish engineering. As we will see later, the Red Sea is a sea with a particular ecosystem, but also a terrifying topography for a work of this magnitude as it houses the Red Sea Trench, a rift where the African and Arabian plates separate, generating sudden drops: the areas close to the thing are shallow, but according to the bathymetry The passage area of ​​the King Salman Causeway registers a depth that “only” only touches 300 meters (the only thing is because it has an average depth of 500 meters and a maximum depth of 2,730 meters). At that depth, using traditional seabed-founded pillars is useless. The use of the adjective infernal has not been coincidental: the temperature in the area comfortably exceeds 40°C. Working there is like being in an oven, but it also takes its toll on the materials: the water in the concrete evaporates before it sets properly, losing structural resistance, as explained by Victor Yepes, engineer of Roads, Canals and Ports and professor at the Polytechnic University of Valencia. on your blog. So the concrete must be cooled during setting to avoid cracks. Steel also suffers: you have to deal with its thermal expansion, the accelerated corrosion of a high salinity environment and the thermal fatigue of day and night cycles. So we must resort to the use of high corrosion resistance alloys, a design of expansion joints capable of absorbing metric movements produced by thermal expansion in a structure more than 30 kilometers long, cathodic protection and even paints with reflective colors to reduce radiation absorption. The natural challenges of the Red Sea. The sea that bathes the coasts of the Straits of Tiran is a true garden: it is home to coral reefs, a great marine diversity with endangered species such as the dugong and it is a nesting area for turtles and seabirds. Obviously the construction of such a megastructure results in annoying noise pollution for fauna, but also the appearance of sediments, which are lethal for the coral as it suffocates it, modifying currents and affecting water quality. Egypt Independent echoes The warning from the environmental NGO HEPCA has given the go-ahead to the work, as long as there are rigorous environmental studies and the most sensitive reef area is avoided. Otherwise, he will take the project to court. Nothing new diplomatic challenges. The first time a bridge between Egypt and Saudi Arabia was formally proposed data 1988 at the … Read more

In 2024 a package bomb arrived on a plane. It was the beginning of the great threat to Europe: that of a “ghost” crossing the red lines

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Europe lives a strategic transformation that few had imagined possible in such a short time. What began as a series of “flats” (intermittent blackouts, suspicious fires, minor incursions) has become a coherent pattern: a campaign of directed hybrid war that is no longer limited to destabilizing, but rather deliberately explore the thresholds of what it can inflict without provoking a direct military response. It all started a year ago. The silent climb. The plot is explained more clearly from July 2024when several DHL packages exploded in centers logistics from the United Kingdom, Poland and Germany, devices powerful enough to shoot down a plane if they had detonated in mid-flight. The episode, an infiltrated bomb at the heart of the European air system, marked a before and after, because it showed to what extent Moscow was willing to strain continental security and because it exposed the fragility of an Old Continent trapped between an increasingly aggressive Russia and a United States whose commitment has stopped being reliableand. Since then, Europe no longer sees hybrid warfare as a peripheral nuisance, but as a structural threat which targets critical infrastructures, social cohesion and the European institutional framework itself. In Xataka Mercadona has found a vein to grow beyond its white label and prepared food: tourism The Russian laboratory. I counted this week the financial times that the Russian campaign has been refined in breadth and depth. European intelligence services have disabled plots to derail trains full of passengers, set fire to shopping malls, damage dams or contaminate water in urban areas. The attacks are not isolated improvisations: they respond to a “gig economy” model of sabotage in which young recruited by Telegramlocal criminals or foreigners with residence permits act as expendable pawns for unknown objectives. Plus: they are difficult to detect, impossible to anticipate and legally ambiguous, since they rarely there is a direct connection with Russian intelligence that allows them to be accused of espionage. The case of frustrated railway sabotage in Poland (an explosive planted on the Warsaw-Lublin line that came within seconds of causing a massacre) exposed that pattern in its clearest form: unimpeded entry and exit, cryptocurrency financingfalse identities issued by Moscow and a diffuse chain of command that leads to intermediaries as Mikhail Mirgorodsky or even networks managed by former Wagner members. And there is more. Yes, because each cell discovered suggests others not yet detected, and what is worrying is not the errors of saboteurs (sometimes incapable to delete videos of its own attacks) but the scale that this model offers to a Russia resentful of decades of diplomatic expulsions and doctrinally rearmed to a pre-war period. The doctrine that returns. The ISS analysts They recently reported that the archives of the KGB and the StB (Czechoslovak intelligence) reveal parallels disturbing differences between the sabotage manuals of the Cold War and what Europe witnesses today. The objectives listed decades ago (military bases, energy infrastructures, dams, communication systems, transportation) match almost exactly with the whites of the last two years. Equally revealing is the doctrinal sequencing: during times of peace, minor attacks with the appearance of accidents, in pre-war phases, massive sabotage, increased risk tolerated and increasing willingness to cause civilian casualties, and in open war, total activation of clandestine networks for lethal operations. The prelude to something more fat. It we count very recently. If you will, Europe seems to have entered fully into a intermediate stage: a pre-war phase where each incident also functions as offensive reconnaissance, a permanent exercise by razvedka boyem to measure Western reaction capacity, locate vulnerabilities and exploit any weaknesses. The episode of the unidentified drones airports and military bases European operations illustrate this dynamic: cheap raids, of uncertain origin, that revealed systemic failures in the continental air defense and that, due to their replicator effect (copies, jokes, hysteria, false alarms) multiply the psychological and financial wear and tear. A continent without a network. I remembered the new york times This morning an added problem for Europe: that if the Russian threat escalates, the other half of the problem is the growing disconnection with the United States. For the first time since 1945, Europe perceives that Washington is not unequivocally on your side in a matter of war and peace. The Trump administration is not only pressuring kyiv to accept an agreement In Moscow’s terms, it also redefines Europe as a suspicious actor, criticizes the democratic integrity of its governments and promises to openly support the European extreme right. The result is an unprecedented scenario: a Russia that intensifies its hybrid campaign, a Ukraine that depends almost entirely on continental support and a Europe that must finance your own safety while compensating for the withdrawal of US capabilities (satellites, long-range missiles, command and control) that it cannot replace before 2029the year that NATO considers the limit to have a credible deterrent. European leaders also face depleted budgets, electorates hostile to increased military spending, and a rising far-right that Moscow sees as a strategic multiplier. {“videoId”:”x8j6422″,”autoplay”:false,”title”:”Declassified video of the clash between Russian fighters and the American drone”, “tag”:”united states”, “duration”:”42″} The battle of money. The internal European debate on how to finance the resistance Ukrainian reflects the magnitude of the challenge. To support kyiv for the next two years, about $200 billion is needed, an unaffordable figure without activating the 210,000 million euros on Russian assets frozen in Europe. The problem? Right now it takes the name of Belgiumwhich guards the majority through Euroclear, and which fears retaliation from Moscow and the possible erosion of the credibility of the euro as a safe haven. Washington, despite its strategic ambiguity, is also pressing for these funds to be don’t touch each othersince its eventual return is part of the US scheme for a peace agreement favorable to Russia. One more thing. And yet, without that money, Europe would have to coordinate (outside the EU framework) a colossal loan and politically explosive. The crossroads are so profound that in Berlin and Paris they are … Read more

Google hit the red button when ChatGPT came upon it. Now it is OpenAI who has pressed it, according to WSJ

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Sam Altman has activated high alert on OpenAI. Just like share From Wall Street Journal, the company’s CEO announced this Monday in an internal memo that the company enters “code red” to improve ChatGPTthe tool that has catapulted the company to stardom but that now sees its rivals closing the gap at breakneck speed. what’s happening. OpenAI is postponing several important projects to focus all its resources on improving the daily ChatGPT experience, according to the internal memo to which WSJ has had access. According to Altman, the chatbot urgently needs advances in personalization, speed, reliability and the ability to answer a broader range of questions. Among the postponed projects are initiatives to include advertising in the free version of ChatGPT, AI agents for health and purchases (the latter was announced very recently), and Pressa personal assistant in development. why now. The pressure comes mainly from Google. Your model Gemini 3released last month, has outperformed OpenAI in industry benchmarks and sent the Mountain View giant’s stock soaring. Just like assures In the middle, Gemini’s monthly active users went from 450 million in July to 650 million in October, a meteoric growth that sets off all the alarms at OpenAI. Although ChatGPT maintains the lead with approximately more than 800 million weekly users, the speed at which Google is gaining ground is worrying. The underlying problem. OpenAI is in a delicate position. The company it is not profitable and it needs constant rounds of financing to survive, which puts it at a disadvantage compared to Google and other technology companies that can finance their investments with their own income. It’s also spending more aggressively than its main startup rival, Anthropic. According to their own financial projectionsOpenAI will need to reach revenues of approximately $200 billion to be profitable in 2030. All while being committed to investments of hundreds of billions in data centers. The last setbacks. The company has had a difficult time lately balancing the security of its chatbot with making it more attractive to users. The GPT-5 model Launched in August, it disappointed some users, who complained about its colder tone and problems answering simple math and geography questions. OpenAI had to update the model last month to make it warmer and better able to follow user instructions. OpenAI’s response. According to point In the middle, Altman has established daily calls for those responsible for improving ChatGPT and has encouraged temporary team transfers. WSJ assures that the company uses three color codes: yellow, orange and red, to describe the different levels of urgency necessary to address problems. According to the outlet, prior to this “code red”, OpenAI had declared a “code orange” in its effort to improve the chatbot. Nick Turley, Head of ChatGPT at OpenAI, stated in X that ChatGPT represents 70% of global AI-assisted activities and 10% of search activities. An unexpected script twist. This represents a radical change compared to three years ago, when it was Google who declared its own code red in response to the threat posed by ChatGPT. And after a groundbreaking Google I/O Last May, those from Mountain View have witnessed brutal growth in all the directions in which the AI ​​race is currently pointing, with improvements in their chatbot, the deployment of countless AI agents, improvements in their applications and more. Now it seems that it is OpenAI who must defend its position. And now what. Altman advertisement that next week OpenAI will launch a new reasoning model that, according to internal evaluations, surpasses Google’s Gemini 3. However, he acknowledges that there is still a lot of work to be done in the everyday chatbot experience. Cover image | OpenAI and Xataka Android In Xataka | China already has an army of 5.8 million engineers. His new plan involves accelerating doctorates

Half of Spain is on alert due to snow and yet AEMET has not issued a single red notice: what is happening here?

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“Historical Polar Beast“, “New Philomena“, “the polar storm that threatens Spain“: Much has been written about the intrusion of cold air that is causing drops in temperatures, snowfall and trouble throughout the north of the country. And not always without reason. In fact, the Junta de Castilla y León has declared the alert for snowfall in the provinces of Burgos, León, Palencia and Soria. And yet, AEMET has not issued a red weather warning. What is happening here? QTo start: everything is working normally. And we must not forget that AEMET and Civil Protection do not do the same work. The State Meteorological Agency is limited to issuing weather warnings that are based on physical and objective thresholds. Civil Protection, on the other hand, declares the alert based on the expected impact (on the population and/or infrastructure). In this sense, they are not things that can be linked directly. And what is happening these days is a textbook example. AEMET has not activated red warnings, simply because snowfall exceeding the highest thresholds is not expected. Yes, the snow level had dropped a lot… but in reality, no one expected a lot of snow to fall. This does not mean, as is evident, that it is not an important episode; Only it is not an extreme episode in purely meteorological terms. In social terms, it is different. Because as Víctor Gonzalez explained There are a series of factors that make this relatively small winter storm something to take into account. To begin with, it is the first episode of snowfall at low levels of the season. As with heat waves in summer, the first ‘episodes’ are always more dangerous because they ‘catch’ the population unprepared. Especially when (as is happening now) that episode comes earlier than usual, when winter hasn’t even started yet. In addition, it coincides with very busy days (because we are talking about a very busy weekend). An important lesson: When we talk about meteorology, it doesn’t just matter how much snow falls, how hot it is going to be, or how much water a storm will dump. What really matters is when, where and on whom it falls. As Víctor González said“If this same episode occurred on a Tuesday in February, perhaps the alert would not have been declared.” Image | ECMWF | Alev Takil In Xataka | AEMET is clear about what we can expect from the polar storm that threatens Spain: the question is whether we are prepared

The war in Ukraine has crossed a red line in Europe. They are no longer drones violating airspace, they are nuclear plants

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Ukraine has once again placed the nuclear alarm at the center of the European conflict after denouncing that Russia is deliberately attacking the electrical substations that feed the Khmelnitsky and Rivne power plants. According to Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha, drone attacks are not isolated incidents, but planned operations to endanger continental nuclear security. It happens that drones are reaching European power plants. The drone offensive. Over the past weekend, Moscow launched more than 450 drones and 45 missiles against various regions of Ukraine, causing at least seven dead and damage to critical infrastructure. In Dnipro, a drone hit a residential building, killing three people, while other attacks occurred in Kharkiv and Zaporizhzhia. kyiv accuses Russia of instrumentalizing the atomic risk as a psychological weapon and trying to cause an accident in plants that still depend on external electricity supply to avoid a collapse of the cooling system. Nuclear risk. In parallel, Moscow is advancing with its own nuclear agenda: the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, confirmed that the Kremlin is working on proposals for a possible nuclear test on the direct order of Vladimir Putin, a response to US President Donald Trump’s recent statement that Washington could resume their own tests. The atomic stress between both powers, exacerbated by the war in Ukraine, has plunged Europe into a scenario of unprecedented vulnerability since the Cold War. The epicenter of the threat: Belgium. While Ukraine try to contain the Russian offensive on its own territory, Western Europe has begun to feel the echoes of a hybrid war that expands beyond the front. In Belgium, one of the countries with the highest density of critical infrastructure on the continent, there has been a wave of raids of drones over strategic installations. The most alarming took place at the Doel nuclear power plant, located next to the port of Antwerp, when three drones were initially detected at dusk on November 9, which were later confirmed as five different devices flying over the complex for almost an hour. The energy company Engie, which manages the plant, assured that operations were not affected, but authorities activated the National Crisis Center and reinforced security in the area. Belgium nuclear plant near Doel And more. Hours before, air traffic at Liège airport was had suspended briefly after multiple reports of drones, and in the previous days both Brussels airport and the Kleine Brogel air base (where NATO nuclear weapons are stored) had been targeted of similar sightings. Research points to a coordinated pattern affecting several northern European countries, including Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands, where unidentified aerial intrusions have also been reported. Suspicions of espionage. Belgian Defense Minister Theo Francken has linked sightings with possible foreign espionage operations and pointed to Russia as the most plausible suspect, although without conclusive evidence. The country’s intelligence services consider that drones could be part of a recognition strategy aimed at evaluating the European response capacity to combined attacks on critical infrastructure. The accumulation of incidents led the Belgian government to convene a National Security Council, after which the Minister of the Interior, Bernard Quintin, assured that the situation was “under control”although he recognized the seriousness of the incursions. The United Kingdom, France and Germany announced sending specialized personnel and equipment to assist Belgium in the detection and neutralization of hostile drones, a gesture that underlines the shared fear that the border between visible war and covert war is becoming dangerously blurred. Technological epicenter. Faced with this new dimension of the conflict, Ukraine has positioned itself as a key actor in the technological response. President Volodymyr Zelensky advertisement the upcoming opening of defense production offices in Berlin and Copenhagen before the end of the year, with the aim of strengthening industrial cooperation on drones and electronic weapons. These “export capitals”, according to his wordsthey will finance the domestic production of scarce equipment and help European allies build their own defensive systems. kyiv, which has made the use of drones one of the pillars of its military strategy, now offers your experience to countries that are beginning to suffer firsthand the effects of the Russian hybrid war. Ukraine as a test. In parallel, Ukrainian creativity in the improvised field of defense is reflected even in unusual solutions: old fishing nets French drones, made from horse hair, are being reused to create tunnels where the propellers of Russian drones become trapped. In contemporary warfare, technology intersects with craftsmanship, and ingenuity has become a form of national survival. Nuclear vulnerability. The incidents in Belgium and Ukraine reveal the same constant: the European nuclear infrastructure (plant, wiring, energy, logistics) has become a target symbolic and strategic. The attacks on Ukrainian substations that feed power plants and the drones that fly over Belgian reactors expose the fragility of a continent that depends on complex systems where any sabotage can multiply its effects. The threat no longer comes only from missiles, but from invisible swarms of drones, of disinformation, of political and technological engineering that undermines stability from within. Russia, faced with isolation and with a still powerful military industry, seems willing to use this asymmetry as an instrument of prolonged pressure. The European responsestill fragmentary, is beginning to be articulated between military cooperation, technological innovation and civil defense. Plus: the lesson left by this sequence of attacks and suspicions seems clear. In the Europe of 2025, the border between energy security and military security has fadedand the future of continental stability could depend less on the size of armies than on how quickly a drone is detected on radar before reaching a nuclear power plant. Image | Trougnouf, Wwuyts In Xataka | The latest tactic of the Russians in Ukraine breaks with the previous one: they have gone from appearing “out of nowhere” to directly disappearing In Xataka | Orion was the Russian version of the US’s most lethal drone. Ukraine can’t believe it when it opens: it’s not a version, it’s the work of the US

If when you think of a farm you visualize a red building with white corners, it’s the Swedes’ fault.

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5040-Y80R. That is the approximate designation according to the Natural Color System chart for color ‘red falu‘. It is a registered trademark and It goes beyond being a simple color: implies that a very specific pigment comes into play in its production that gives it that reddish tone and has transcended to the point of being part of the identity of an entire country thanks to its properties. That country is Sweden, and it all started as a waste product from a copper mine. By-product. Dalarna is a region located in the heart of Sweden, and it is home to the Falun Great Copper Mountain. The Vikings They were already exploiting this mine in 850, but the history of color dates back to the 16th century. It was then that they discovered that one of the mining byproducts could be turned into a useful pigment. Leaf From the production of copper they obtained what they called Falu rödfärgor “red mulch,” and was basically a unique mixture of over 20 different minerals. The reddish color was thanks to iron oxide, silica, zinc and copper itself. They started to mix it up with water, but also with other elements such as oils, tar or rye flour, and they discovered that they could obtain a paint with very interesting properties. better than paint. This red mulch mixed with the appropriate ingredients not only gave color to the wood, primary raw material in Sweden for both ships and infrastructure, but also acted especially well as a material protector. It was like an insulating layer, a shield that protected against the elementsprolonging its useful life, making repairs less frequent and, in addition, it was cheaper than importing wood treatments from other countries. The industry soon exploded. HE esteem that, by mid-1760, production was about 25 tons, but by 1930, that annual production exceeded 2,000 tons. Status. Now, it wasn’t cheap. Everyone wanted to paint their house that copper red color, but it turns out that it was a luxury reserved for the highest classes. When the pigment was discovered, and perhaps motivated only by its color, King John III ordered paint the ceilings of his palace with ‘falu red’, imitating the copper of the ceilings of other European palaces. Since then, those with the most power who could get hold of the pigment began to paint their houses. However, as production began to scale and gain traction, the product became cheaper and more people were able to access it, painting, if not all of their houses, the façade that faced the roads (which was what everyone passing by could see). Swedish edges of the 19th century contributed to popularize the image of the red houses of Sweden, immortalizing the idea of ​​rural life in red houses with white corners. One of Carl Larsson’s works The color of a nation. The color 5040-Y80R became the symbol of Sweden to the point that migrants who sought better luck in North America after the dissolution of the norwegian swedish union In 1905 they began to build their farms using this color. The image that many of us have of the red farm was created there. And it became so important to Swedish popular culture that there is a saying that symbolizes that simple life and harmonious in contact with the earth: den röda stugan och potatislandet (the red house and the potato garden). Today, the ‘Falu rödfärg’ is not as vital as it was years ago if we talk about production. The same has descended a lot because there is greater competition and synthetic products for paint the facadesbut it is still an example of “banal nationalism”, a symbol that exists without the need for flags and anthems, since its mere presence evokes belonging. Images| Xauxa Håkan Svensson, FrDr, HCa, Wigulf~commonswiki In Xataka | The world’s technology industry practically depends on a single road: the one that leads to the Spruce Prine mine

Correos is desperate to find the business that will save it from the red numbers. And that has led her to selling insurance

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There was a time (not so long ago) when Correos was basically an intermediary, a company you went to to send letters, postcards or packages. That’s how it grew. And thus he strengthened his brand for decades. The changes in demand and fierce competition in the logistics sector have, however, forced the public company to reinvent yourselfan endeavor in which he has been engaged for years without this having allowed him to abandon the red numbers that weigh down their accounts. What has altered is its relationship with users. The last (and most revealing) example is left the decision of Correos to market insurance taking advantage of its vast network of offices and postmen, which has already earned it the union reproach. What has happened? That Correos has led a curious movement in its efforts to diversify income and leave behind the red numbers. a few months ago reached an agreement with the company AXA to market its private insurance. The alliance was announced in spring, when it was applied in 32 offices with a view to expanding to more than 800 branches throughout the country over the months. At that time, the Post Office detailed which would initially be dedicated to distributing policies for vehicles, homes, health and life and death insurance, although without closing the doors to expanding that offering to “any product” from AXA. Why is it news now? The agreement It closed in February and Correos began to market AXA insurance in mayupon registration as exclusive agent. The initiative has now made headlines again for a reason that has more to do with form than substance, although it gives an idea of ​​the extent to which the public company is committed to diversifying its services. CCOO has denounced that the company is entrusting postmen in rural areas with the task of selling policies, “a function completely unrelated to their traditional delivery work.” “Instead of strengthening the public service and hiring more staff, the management is dedicated to improvising and diverting work towards commercial tasks that have nothing to do with Correos’ mission,” ditch CCOO, which warns from its office in Castilla y León: “The viability of the company cannot be reduced to the sale of insurance by rural postmen. Correos cannot become a network of street vendors. Its function is to communicate, connect territories and guarantee rights, not do business with private insurance.” Why is it important? Because of the context, which is as or even more important than the measure itself. Insurance is not the public company’s first bet to strengthen its accounts in a challenging context, marked by the collapse in postal demand and an increasingly disputed parcel sector, in which it has to compete with multinationals and is losing market share. It’s nothing new. Years ago the company already launched one of its bets more ambitious: Post Marketa space of its own e-commerce who aspired to become ‘Amazon Post Office’. The objective: to take advantage of the boom in online commerce with a differentiated commitment to mark distances from giants such as Amazon or eBay, a “market for local products in which national producers and artisans (…) come together with online buyers.” In the presentation of the platform, in 2020, in fact focused on those two concepts, “local” and “artisan”. Today in Post Market It can be found from food and drinks to beauty, home, toys, fashion and pharmacy items. Have there been more initiatives? Yes. A few. In an attempt to find its place again, the company has opted for prepaid cardsthe telephony and fiber or the marketing of O2 servicesfrom Telefónica. In recent years he has also experimented with such ambitious projects as Correos Cargoan air parcel transport service in the Latin America-Europe-Asia axis, and even studied launching to commercial rail transport with the help of Renfe. Why this effort? Because Corres is very big. A lot. And the scenario in which he has to deal has changed. A lot too. With more than 50,000 employees and 2,000 offices it is usually said which is the largest public company in Spain. And how recently recognized to elDiario its strategy director, José Miguel Moreno, the company has been faced with the delicate situation of reinventing itself or disappearing. “Society is transforming and postal operators either do it or die.” It’s not just theory. According to the data revealed a few months ago by ABCLast year, Correos recorded losses worth 95 million euros, a hole that widens the carryover in previous years and that even has taken its toll to the accounts of the State Industrial Participation Company, to which it is linked. And how to turn it around? The million dollar question. That is what Correos has sought in part with its Strategic Plan 2024-2028, validated a little over a year ago by SEPI and that aspires to “transform, recover and reposition” the company to “change its business model.” With this purpose, it aims to reinforce its weight in the postal sector, give a boost to parcel delivery and “increase and diversify income” through “new activities, such as financial services, administrative procedures, insurance marketing or logistics services.” If in 2023 the postal business represented around 66% of income of the public company, followed by 24% from parcel delivery and 10% from “diversification” (“new lines of business”), the idea for 2028 is to turn the tables by making these quotas represent (respectively) 49, 35 and 16%. The goal: “Reverse the losses to end the period with an Ebitda margin of 6%, a consolidated profit situation and a healthy financial position.” Are they all challenges? No. The scenario may be complicated, as demonstrated by the fact that Correos can’t quite find the key to gain market share or the challenges it has encountered in its commitment to insurance marketing, but the company still has two good assets. Both closely interconnected. The first is its geographic penetration and vast network of operators and offices. The second, its focus as a “provider of essential services.” … Read more

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