treasure Archives - usatoday24

In the 70s Álava left an entire town under its airport. What I didn’t know was that it was hiding a treasure of 5,000 medieval coins.

February 26, 2026 by usatoday24

He Vitoria airport It may not be the largest, the best connected or the busiest in the country, but it stands out for the volume of merchandise it moves. Last month it exceeded 5,400 tonswhich consolidates it as Aena’s fourth busiest aerodrome, only behind Barajas, El Prat and Zaragoza. If the Alava terminal works, moving cargo, planes and hundreds of thousands of passengers, it is thanks to an old village that ended up buried in the 70s: Otaza. The most curious thing is that he did it with a hidden medieval treasure. The price of growing. In the 1970s, Álava businessmen found themselves with a dilemma. If they wanted to continue growing, they needed better connections, regular flights that would allow them to reach the rest of the metropolises in Spain and Europe. They had the Salburua airfieldinaugurated in 1935, but it did not seem like the best solution, so the technicians had to look for alternatives. And they found her. After evaluating several locations in the region, such as Ullibarri Arrazua. Salvatierra or Zurbano concluded that the best solution was to set up a new aircraft facility on the land of the town of Foronda. A work in record time. The project had the support of the Provincial Council and moved forward with astonishing speed. At least for the deadlines that infrastructures the size of an airport usually handle today. The construction of the aerodrome was approved in 1972 and in 1976 Civil Aviation gave its OK to the first phase. The works, remember The Mailinvolved the construction of a 2,200 x 45 m flight runway, in addition to the operating systems. The work (and procedures) continued to advance at a good pace during the following years. In 1978, the institutional machinery was launched to contract the control tower, accesses and urbanization and just two years later (the January 30, 1980) the ministry officially opened Vitoria Airport to national and international passenger traffic. In April of that same year Iberia inaugurated one of its most important lines, the one that exalts it with Madrid. Sew and sing, right? Not at all. The construction of the terminal encountered a problem: the proximity of a small village that ended up being located 370 meters from the runway. His name: Otaza. The population had a long history and it even had its own church, but it was not what is said to be very populous. It is estimated that at the beginning of the 19th century it hosted only about thirty of people, more or less what there were in 1974, when according to The Mail 26 neighbors lived there. The Álava authorities were therefore faced with a dilemma: What should take priority, the new airfield or a village with a handful of families? And the pickaxe arrived. The expropriation was not what is called simple. Not all the neighbors willingly agreed to leave their homes and in fact there were a few ‘numantinos’ (not many, it is true) who did not leave until the end. Their efforts did not prevent the bulldozers from taking Otaza away. In October 1979, the regional press reported how, after a break and despite not yet having reached a total agreement with the neighbors, the authorities had resumed the demolition work. The Bishopric had fewer objections, which reached an agreement that allowed the village temple to be demolished. The pickaxe had to work little. A few days later, on November 2, the demolition was completed. A town to remember. That was the end of Otaza. Although in its day the town had welcomed dozens of people, had a church and services, the expropriation of the land and the demolition works sealed its fate. Shortly after completing the works, the authorities agreed the disappearance of the council, which is now part of Astegieta. However, as EITB recalls, it was not the only town affected by the works on the new terminal. Antezana of Foronda He also paid a ‘toll’ for Álava to have its own flights. One last surprise. Otaza’s story could have ended there if it weren’t for the fact that shortly after his ‘death’, in April 1980, a family decided to take a walk through the grounds. During the walk, as they passed near the church of San Emeterio and San Celedonio, they found a jar with coins. The piece caught their attention enough to report it to the authorities, who confirmed that it was a curious treasure: more than 5,000 coins of copper and silver minted during the reigns of Alfonso I of Aragon and Alfonso VIIIbetween the 12th and 13th centuries. Today it is known as “the treasure of Otaza”. Images | WikipediaGoogle Earth and Mikelo (Flickr) In Xataka | Barajas needed to improve its roads but a baroque hermitage made it complicated. Solution: put it in a roundabout

Mexico has a gigantic energy treasure under its feet. The plan to extract it is called fracking

February 13, 2026 by usatoday24

Mexico is walking on a treasure and, at the same time, on a political minefield. Under the land of states like Coahuila, Tamaulipas and Veracruz, an energy giant sleeps: the sixth world reserves of unconventional gas. Waking him up was the great taboo of López Obrador’s six-year term, a red line drawn with the promise of “no to fracking“However, reality has knocked on the door of the National Palace. In a turn that redefines the new mandate, President Claudia Sheinbaum has faced an iron dilemma: staying true to the campaign promise of not using hydraulic fracturing or pursuing “energy sovereignty”, one of the almost mythical aspirations of the Mexican left, to stop depending on US gas. The president has already made a decision: she is willing to pay the political cost. What began as a rumor has become a budgetary and contractual reality in 2026. The data is compelling and leaves no room for doubt about the change in course. Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex) has increased its investment for this year in the “Gulf Tertiary Oil” program by 66%, going from 2,423 million pesos in 2025 to 4,016 million pesos in 2026, according to Treasury data obtained via transparency collected by The Universal. The machinery is already in motion. Pemex’s Strategic Plan (2025-2035) schedules the start of these operations after last year’s pilots. Pemex has awarded the first “mixed contracts” to private companies such as C5M, Geolis, CESIGSA and Petrolera Miahuapan. Although the state company retains the majority shareholding and control, it is the private parties who will provide the capital and technology, an urgent need for an oil company with a debt of more than 100 billion dollars. However, this injection of capital has raised alarm bells due to its opacity. The Mexican Alliance against Fracking denounces that in the 2026 Budget there are more than 245,000 million pesos allocated to gas projects that involve hydraulic fracturing, hidden under items that lack public breakdown and transparency, just as collected The Impartial. The semantics of dissimulation If he fracking was a “cursed word” in the previous six-year term, the new government has found a creative solution: change the dictionary. To avoid the political cost of openly announcing the use of fracking, the administration has chosen by a series of technical euphemisms. Rather frackingofficial documents speak of “reservoirs with complex geology” or “reservoir stimulation.” The general director of Pemex, Víctor Rodríguez Padilla, was blunt before the Senate: “We are not going to do frackingwe are taking advantage of technological development in evaluations of existing deposits.” But operational reality belies the rhetoric and breaks the discipline of official discourse. While euphemisms are used in the capital, on the ground urgency rules. The Undersecretary of Hydrocarbons of Tamaulipas, cited by The Countryrecently broke the taboo by declaring: “We talk it like it is here…hydraulic fracturing.” However, to understand the magnitude of the challenge, you have to look at the map. Pemex’s hopes are concentrated in three main basins: Burgos, Tampico-Misantla and Sabinas-Burro Picachos. The Burgos Basin is particularly relevant for being the natural extension towards the south of Eagle Ford in Texas, one of the deposits of shale most prolific of the American boom. If there is wealth north of the border, geology suggests there is wealth to the south as well. However, extracting this oil is not easy. The expert Miriam Grunstein illustrates the technical challenge starkly: the soil in these areas is a clayey “dump” and the crude oil has the density of “toothpaste.” This makes their exploitation extremely difficult, expensive and technologically demanding. Why go back to these complicated areas now? The answer is exhaustion. Pemex is pivoting toward the “unconventional” because its large conventional fields are drying up. It’s a portfolio decision to try to sustain the production platform in the face of the natural decline of traditional fields. If you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu Behind Sheinbaum’s turn is a real geopolitical fear. Mexico imports 70% of the gas it consumes from the United States. “If the United States closes the valve, Mexico will be left in the dark,” recognized the head of Pemex himself. But the scenario is even more complex with the neighbor above led by Donald Trump and his vision of natural resources as national security. Recently, Washington has deployed the Project Vaulta strategy to secure critical minerals and counter China, which includes “geological mapping” of Mexican resources. The pressure is such that the Mexican government has had to give in to the harshest pragmatism. It was the Secretary of Economy, Marcelo Ebrard, who summarized Mexico’s position regarding the US energy integration demands with a lapidary phrase: “If you are not at the table participating, you are on the menu.” Mexico has decided to sit at the table fracking to avoid being devoured. Furthermore, the lack of liquidity forces this opening. Reactivating the identified wells requires immediate investments of more than $1 billion, money that will now come from private partners. The decision has been made, but the results will not be immediate. Although investment skyrockets in 2026, specialists warn that the launch of massive exploitation will take between three and four years to yield tangible results. The government’s optimistic projections suggest that, in their most developed phase, these fields could provide an additional 300,000 barrels per day. To achieve this, the “Mixed Contracts” model will be the norm: Pemex collect immediate bonuses for the award (almost 50 million dollars in the first round alone) and lets the private parties assume the operational and financial risk. A very high price The cost of this decision is already being paid in credibility with the bases. Organizations like Greenpeace and the Mexican Alliance against Fracking They have accused Sheinbaum of “betraying the people who elected her.” The most critical point is water. In a country hit by drought, the National Institute of Ecology and Climate Change (INECC) estimates that 5.7 million liters of water are required per well. Greenpeace raise the alert citing the … Read more

While the whole world looks at oil, Venezuela’s true treasure is hidden in the basements of London: its gold

January 7, 2026 by usatoday24

Perhaps the great treasure of Venezuela not oil. In fact, since the United States attacked Caracasa series of theories have begun to be heard loudly that have a common denominator: the greatest Venezuelan loot is thousands of kilometers from the nation, under the soil of the capital of the United Kingdom. The gold trapped in London. Yes, under the streets of the cityin the vaults of the Bank of England, remain immobilized about 31 tons of gold belonging to Venezuela, an asset that in 2020 was valued around 1.4 billion pounds and that today it is worth much more after the strong rebound of the metal price. The capture of Nicolás Maduro for the United States has returned This issue is brought to the international forefront, reopening a question that has been without a clear answer for years: who really has the right to control these reserves. Although global attention often focuses on Venezuelan oil, gold represents about 15% of the country’s foreign reserves and has become a key piece of a political, legal and geopolitical pulse that far transcends Caracas. Recognition and blocking. The origin of the blockage dates back to 2018after a disputed presidential election and the tightening of sanctions promoted by Trump during his first term. The United Kingdom, along with dozens of countries, stopped recognizing Maduro as legitimate president and, under pressure from the Venezuelan opposition, refused to authorize the repatriation of the gold, alleging the risk that it would be used to prop up an authoritarian regime or directly diverted. Added to this, as later revealed former national security advisor John Bolton, an express request from Washington for London to maintain the blockade, which placed the British central bank and the Government at the center of a battle that mixed international law, sanctions and diplomacy. Bank of England A judicial labyrinth. In 2020, Caracas went to court British to claim the gold, arguing that they needed those funds to deal with the pandemic. However, the process became complicated when Juan Guaidó, then recognized by London As interim president, he also claimed ownership of the reserves. The litigation led to a legal tangle about who the Bank of England should obey, a question that remains unresolved even after Guaidó lost international recognition. The result is a legal limbo in which the gold remains immobilized, without any of the parties being able to dispose of it. Piracy accusations. From the Chavista environment, the retention of gold was denounced as an act of “piracy”an accusation made at the time by Delcy Rodríguez, which was later marred by the scandal known as Delcygate following his alleged secret trip to Madrid in 2020 despite an EU entry ban and the alleged sale of Venezuelan bullion. Although Rodríguez has adopted a more conciliatory tone After the fall of Maduro, offering cooperation to the United States, the British position remains firm: Foreign Minister Yvette Cooper has reiterated that London maintains political pressure because it considers it key to force a democratic transition, even underlining the formal independence of the Bank of England in the management of assets. The dangerous precedent. The Venezuelan case is not an exception, but rather part of a trend increasingly controversial: the immobilization of sovereign reserves in a context of growing geopolitical confrontation. We have told it: after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Western countries froze about 300,000 million of dollars from the Russian central bank, largely deposited in Eurocleara measure that has generated tensions with Moscow and has revived the debate about the security of keeping assets abroad. Historically, these sanctions have been rare but not unprecedented, from the Soviet confiscation of Romanian gold in 1918 to blockades of countries like Iran or North Korea in the second half of the 20th century. Global distrust. Thus, the climate of uncertainty is leading many countries to rethink where do you keep your reservesdriving repatriation movements and fueling the recent gold rally as an active refuge. For analysts and central banks, the Venezuelan episode is a clear warning of how politics can interfere with assets that were traditionally considered untouchable. While the Bank of England remains officially silent (and many ingots), Venezuelan gold remains buried under London, converted into a symbol of an increasingly international financial order. more fragile and politicized. Image | Bank of England, Eluveitie In Xataka | The mission in Caracas revealed that the best kept secret in the US is not a drone: it is called DAP and you will not see it in the movies In Xataka | The attack on Venezuela has recovered an uncomfortable truth: that it would not have happened to North Korea for a very simple reason

In the 15th century Mallorca was a great manufacturer of nautical charts. Now that has allowed him to get hold of a treasure

December 26, 2025 by usatoday24

When almost six centuries ago the cartographer Pere Rossell created a detailed nautical chart of the Mediterranean, its purpose was to help sailors negotiate the winding coasts of North Africa and the Tyrrhenian, Ionian and Black Seas, a vast expanse of water crisscrossed with trade routes. What Rossell probably did not imagine is that in 2025 that Portulan letter full of annotations, lines and the occasional illustration would end up becoming a treasure in itself. One for which the Consell de Mallorca has paid 700,000 euros. The goal: bring him back home. A map, a treasure. That there are maps (and codices) that are worth more than many treasures is nothing new. He reminded us a few years ago an atlas supposedly consulted by Christopher Columbus on his first trip to America that ended up sold for several million euros. And we has remembered again now the Consell de Mallorca, although with a much more modest outlay. The island government has just paid 700,000 euros by a nautical chart prepared in the mid-15th century by one of the most important (and prolific) cartographers on the island at that time: Pere Rossellpart of the Mallorcan cartographic schoolwhich in turn connects with one of the eras of greatest splendor of the region in the preparation of nautical charts. From the workshops of Mallorca came plans so precious that they were in demand from Flanders to Alexandria. The Mediterranean on paper. The Majorcan press assures that the objective of the Consell is to expose the document in the Mallorca Museumbut the truth is that you don’t have to wait that long to enjoy its details, colors and annotations. At least if we don’t mind doing it through a screen. Sotheby’s, the firm in charge of the auction, includes a description and a detailed gallery of images on your websitewhich recalls that the plan was drawn up at the end of the 1440s, is written in Latin and Catalan and shows the Mediterranean and Black Seas in great detail. In the work Rossell reviewed dozens and dozens of place names and multiple navigation routes. As a cherry on top, it included shields, flags and details of nine cities with their fortifications. “Part of our identity”. Sotheby’s also stated that the plan has been valued by between 700,000 and one million of pounds. Mallorca Diary precise that the starting price was 600,000, around 687,000 euros, the amount that the island Government has decided to disburse through a direct purchase. The effort is more than justified for the Consell. Its head of Culture, Antònia Roca, celebrated a few days ago that portulano returns to Mallorca after spending several centuries outside the land where it was made, around the year 1447. “We acquired one of the most important jewels of maritime navigation and our historical heritage and we want to share it with the citizens.” A jewel that comes home. Roca is not the only one who thinks this way. A few weeks ago, prestigious historians such as María Barceló, emeritus professor of Medieval History, they claimed to local institutions to take advantage of the Sotheby’s auction to enrich the island’s heritage with a unique piece. Among other reasons, they alleged that no Majorcan public institution has one of the 15th century letters that came from the island’s School of Cartography. “They are the first who should act, they have the moral obligation to acquire it. We must recover the cultural heritage of this land dispersed throughout the world,” the expert insisted. Days later the Consell seemed to take note. Is it so valuable? Beyond its heritage value, Sotheby’s highlights the peculiarity of the nautical chart within Rossell’s legacy: the work that the Consell has just acquired is “the oldest of the ten navigation maps signed by Rossell”, one of the great exponents of the Mallorcan school. The plan was probably drawn up as a commission from the powerful Florentine Martelli family, in whose archive it was preserved for more than five centuries, until almost the 1970s, when it appears in the book dealer’s catalogue. Kenneth Nebenzahl. In the 80s it passed into the hands of the Pritzker couple and now (after a stop at the Sotheby’s auction house) it returns to Mallorca. Works of art…practical. Pere Rossell’s nautical chart is relevant for another reason. In his day there were ordinary plans in which practical criteria predominated and were basically designed for use on board ships, so they were sparse in decorations and ornaments. Then there were luxury portulans, meticulously decorated objects that usually ended up in palaces. As explains Ramón J. Pujadeshead of research at the Barcelona History Museum, The Worldthe work acquired by the Consell is halfway between both categories. They are premium nautical charts, designed for navigation but that do not give up aesthetics or becoming a status symbol. Images | Shoteby’s and Wikipedia In Xataka | Someone has created abstract works of art with one of the most unique forms of engineering: highway “knots”

Stephen Hawking left a hidden treasure that has just been discovered. The problem is that it is in the form of floppy disks

November 7, 2025 by usatoday24

The Cambridge University Library houses several historical treasures including letters from Isaac Newton and notebooks from Charles Darwin. Now they will take care also of manage 113 boxes with documents and memories of the physical Stephen Hawkingbut in those boxes they also found a surprise turned into a challenge: floppy disks. Lots of them. Computer pioneer. The famous physicist was an early user of those first computers in which data was stored on floppy disks. When he suffered from ALS this was a very important resource to be able to communicate and work, and now those disks that have just been discovered could contain all kinds of revealing data about Hawking’s life and work. Future Nostalgia. That’s what it’s called the project of the University of Cambridge and its library that precisely tries to safeguard all that information that in the past ended up being stored on floppy disks. Recovering such data is not easy when so much time has passed, and this project tries to educate about the best ways to preserve said information and transfer or recover it from those floppy disks. A format with an expiration date. Although one would think that floppy disks are a more secure way to store data than paper and ink, this physical medium also has clear disadvantages. The iron oxide covering the thin layer of plastic can degrade and lose its magnetic capabilities, meaning data could be lost forever. Each floppy disk is a world. With old books there are not too many problems when it comes to retrieving the information: you open them and read them (if you understand the language, of course). With floppy disks you need the hardware to be able to read them—a compatible disk drive—and also figure out how they are formatted. Leontien Talboom, responsible for this project, explained How to also clean those floppy disks was complex and there were various methods that they were exploring. These included the use of hand soap or isopropyl alcohol. Hawking used both a PC and a Mac. The disks arrived at the project in two batches. The first, with five and a quarter (5.25 inch) disks formatted on an MS-DOS based PC. The second, with three and a half disks, somewhat more recent and that were still used on an old Mac. According to Talboom, they are mainly talks that Hawking gave: “from a technical point of view they are really interesting because his talks were so big that he had to divide them into several floppy disks.” I wrote to speak. Hawking’s illness left him unable to speak for himself, so for years he used various voice synthesizers to express his ideas. Precisely for this reason he wrote so much on the computer and saved those documents on disk: this allowed him to use them later so that his synthesized voice could read said documents. Different discs, different readers. Although 5.25″ and especially 3.5″ discs were the most widespread, other formats were also seen such as eight inch discs which for example were used in the Churchill Archives Centre. Chris Knowles, one of the Future Nostalgia participants, explained how he bought a player for these discs on eBay. “It was a miracle that it worked,” but that allowed him to recover the information from those disks. Forgotten formats. They have also received some three-inch floppy disks, a much less widespread and peculiar format that had some success in the United Kingdom before the 3.5″ format was clearly imposed. To recover them, they ended up using an old reader manufactured by Amstrad that they had to modify to bring it back to life. And then there’s the software problem.. The information recovered from these disks can also pose another challenge: that it was created with software that was abandoned and even ended up disappearing. Some disks, for example, had documents written with a missing word processor called Diamond Word. That’s where a kind of “translation” comes into play to convert those files into something readable in the current era. Safeguarding our past. This work demonstrates how critical it is to try to protect and recover information from these old formats. Many of those floppy disks are 40 or 50 years old, and as Knowles says, “old emails and work calendars may not look like historical documents. They might seem banal. But they’re what Newton’s or Darwin’s letters would have looked like 200 years ago. Now they are fascinating documents that open a window to the past.” In Xataka | The 20 most important personal computers in the history of technology

Cover letters were a treasure for recruiters, until AI turned them into wet paper

November 5, 2025 by usatoday24

AI promised to speed up the processes of staff recruitmentbut after a period of intensive use of AI by both companies and candidates, it has been shown that It’s more broken than ever. Further proof of this degradation are cover letters which, although before the arrival of AI models were a clear differentiating factor, are currently worthless, as a study by Princeton University and Dartmouth College has shown. Cover letters made a difference. The study ‘Making Talk Cheap: generative AI and Labor Market Signaling‘ carried out by Princeton researchers analyzed more than 2.7 million proposals on the Freelancer.com platform before and after the implementation of the LLM text generation models to create these cover letters. Their conclusion is that, before using AI, attach a well-written and to show interest and knowledge of the position and the company to which one was applying, considerably increased the hiring options because the recruiters perceived that this was a very capable candidate. Now they are wet paper. However, as the use of AI tools to generate these cover letters has spread, the appreciation of quality has improved so that candidates in the top 20% of writing skills were 19% less likely to be hired, while those in the lowest 20% increased their chances by 14%. In other words, employers stopped associating a well-written letter with a competent candidate. This has meant that the differentiating factor that a well-written cover letter previously provided has disappeared, reducing the curve of possibilities between the best-trained candidates and those who are not so well-trained. Letters submitted before the LLM models had a better chance of being hired than those post-LLM AI makes hiring more difficult. The effect observed in cover letters has been extended to other areas of personnel selection, since AI distorts real capabilities of the candidates. It is true that its use increases the perception of quality of the candidates, but as the average quality of the group increased, companies began to trust less in the information provided by the applications. He study ‘Does AI devalue communication? Theory and evidence of entrepreneurship and contracting at a global level’ carried out by researchers at Columbia University and Yeshiva, found a similar pattern in selection and entrepreneurship processes: access to AI reduced the accuracy with which recruiters identified the best profiles to fill a given vacancy by between 4% and 9%. If everything is good, nothing is good. For decades, a letter well tailored to the offer served as proof of interest and commitment on the part of candidates. In labor economics, this is known as “signalling”: the candidate conveys their effort through the quality of the text. Generative models have thrown that signal to the ground. The meta-analysis ‘The role of artificial intelligence in personnel selection’ concluded that the automation of selection processes with AI is eroding the traditional signals of merit that were transmitted through cover letters, emails or applications received by the hiring and human resources departments. In that sense, while it is true that AI has democratized competition in the job search, it has also made genuine talent less visible. Who is behind the algorithm? The current degradation of those “clues” that allowed recruiters to locate the best talent, forces us to look for new ways to evaluate candidates. As and as they pointed From the technological employment platform Manfred, the use of AI has multiplied the number of applications, but the perceived quality has not improved at the same pace. For this reason, many companies are choosing to implement more practical tests and face-to-face interviews in their selection processes. That is, eliminate from the equation the presence of AI for the last stage of the selection process. The unknown of this practice is knowing how much talent has succumbed to AI resume filtering prior to that first face-to-face interview. In Xataka | Jeff Bezos assures that there is a type of employee who can never be replaced by an AI: inventors Image | Unsplash (Vitaly Gariev)

Cover letters were a treasure for recruiters, until AI turned them into wet paper

November 5, 2025 by usatoday24

Six secret locations hide a 200 megawatt treasure

October 7, 2025 by usatoday24

The battle for The electricity supply It has become an essential component of The hybrid war Modern, one where the line between civil infrastructure and military objective is blurred. To the Attack thermal plants Or transmission lines, Russia not only seeks to disable the network, but also sow panic, break morality and destabilize economic life. Now Ukraine has materialized an unpublished plan to combat winter in the war: a 200MEGAVATIOS hide and seek. Light as an act of resistance. Ukraine goes into his fourth winter of war after have survived to three seasons of forced blackouts For Russian bombings, with engineers repairing under -fire substations and millions of citizens supporting cold and darkness. However, this time the country is committed to An unpublished resource: A network of huge American design batteries, distributed in six secret and conceived locations to offer an energy mattress when the network is attacked. Its joint capacity of 200 megawatts It is equivalent to illuminating for two hours about six hundred thousand homes, enough to maintain urban life while the technicians restore the service. The heart of a war system. The Six battery parkslocated around kyiv and the Dnipropetrovsk region, are integrated directly into the national electrical system. They do not replace centrals, but allow to cover the sudden fall of thermal plants or substations achieved by missiles and drones. Its modularity is key: each block can be isolated and replaced without compromising the whole, which reduces vulnerability to direct attacks. Ukraine protects these enclaves with anti -aircraft defenses and the secrecy of its location, aware that a single Russian impact could cause a chain blackout. Energy storage systems in Ukraine Moscow’s offensive. From the beginning of the invasion, more than half Of the Ukrainian generating capacity it has been useless by bombing against thermal plants, coal mines and gas networks. Even nuclear energy, which previously supported most of the system, has been diminished: the largest central is under Russian control and out of operation. The Kremlin strategy seeks to bend the population leaving it without light or heating in the middle of winter. Last year failure Thanks to Technicians ingenuitybut the Mass production Shahed drones predicts attacks more intense and prolongedcapable of saturating Ukrainian defenses. Energy as a weapon. kyiv has also brought the war to the energy field. His drones have Beef Russian refineries And they left tens of thousands of citizens without supply In Belgorodas retaliation for the devastation of your electricity grid. In negotiations sponsored by Washington, he was talking about A non -aggression pact about energy infrastructure, but the ATaques have resumed As the cold approaches. In this pulse, electricity is not only a vital resource, but a strategic weapon that both sides use to erode the moral of the adversary. West as a support. The battery network is part of a 140 million dollar program funded by the Private energy DTEK and Ukrainian banks, with teams supplied by the American Fluence. Washington and Berlin reinforce in turn The air shield With patriot systems, although kyiv insists that protection remains insufficient. He Renewable development As wind and solar add resilience: its dispersion prevents a single attack from demolishing the entire generation, and batteries balance the natural intermittency of these sources. History lessons. If we expand the frame, the use of energy as a battlefield is not, much less, exclusive to Ukraine. In World War II, Allied bombings On German Ruhr hydroelectric plants, they sought to paralyze the industrial production of the third Reich, and in Iraq, both in 1991 and 2003, the coalition headed by the United States Deliberately destroyed electric plants to disorganize Sadam Husein’s forces. Even in Kosovo, in 1999, NATO used graphite bombs that disabled transmission networks without destroying the structures, a reminder that light can be extinguished for military purposes without spilling direct blood. In all cases, cutting electricity meant hitting the heart of the resistance of a country, weakening its productive capacity and, above all, its morals. In Ukraine, possibly aware of history, they prepare to resist what in other wars were decisive. Light as a symbol. If you want also, electricity in Ukraine has become a resistance metaphor. Keeping the lamps on kyiv, járkov or leopolis means demonstrating that neither missiles nor blackouts will break everyday life. In a conflict where entire cities are tried to turn off, the Ukrainians have made light an act of challenge and faith. Image | Ministry of Defense of UkraineDTEK / Facebook In Xataka | The greatest attack of Ukraine on Russian soil discovered a new threat with drones. China has just multiply it In Xataka | We had seen everything in Ukraine, but this is new. In front of the drones, Russia has taken out its “other” artillery: horses

It seems obvious, but at this time it had never been such a round business: who has gold, has a treasure

September 21, 2025 by usatoday24

In the month of August we met A story which reflected as few the state of one of the most precious materials on the planet. It turns out that in Stilfontein, an ancient mining town in South Africa, neighbors no longer fear the void of abandoned tunnels, but to strangers who arrive in cars loaded with rifles. Yes, these armed bands arrive to take an increasingly valuable booty. A few weeks later, buying gold is again the Century business. Historical boom of the shelter. Yes, gold is going through its largest annual escalation since 1979, with a 39% jump that has taken it to historical maximums above the $ 3,649and it does not for a classical financial collapse, but by the search for coverage before a political and macroeconomic environment perceived as unstable. He told the WSJ that the best stamp Encana Kenneth Pack, a snowfall retiree who first entered April to shield in the face of the disorder associated with the new Trump administration and that, even after the stock market bourse after the confusion of the “day of liberation”, has decided Keep 17% of its portfolio in metals and linked values. In Xataka Russia and the most fearsome weapon for Ukraine: it is called orbit and does not shoot, but turns its soldiers into “invisible” A return in style. The phenomenon transcends the retail investor and is perceived from The Costco halls to shaped vaults in London, where the metal is stored and negotiated without abandoning the building, and where the dominant expectation is that the price will continue to rise. The starting point, in reality, was created almost three years ago with sustained purchases of central banks and Chinese demand, but the 2025 engine It is also western: a selective risk aversion that coexists with a Stock market (extra) euphoric for the AI, and used by gold As sure in front of a weakened dollar and economic policy decisions difficult to anticipate. Commercial policy and the dollar. Plus: the attempt to reorder global trade to tariffs Changes in a matter of hours has contaminated inflation and growth forecasts, while a federal reserve pressure campaign Question independence of a key institutional pillar. In parallel, the dollar has had its worse first semester in more than half a century according to some metrics, deterioration that Improves attractiveness of assets not called in the American currency. The lack of tangible advances to close conflicts that periodically shake the markets, such as Ukraine, adds a geopolitical layer that reinforces the perception of fragility of the economic order, and that in the mind Energy shocks And the erosion of purchasing power made gold an escape Faced with uncertainty. Investment channels. This ascent is not just a sociological story: you can actually follow the money trail. The American ETF backed by physical gold have seen their heritage grow a 43% since Januarywith monthly tickets among the largest of the last decade, while the Hedge Funds have concentrated almost half of their net exhibition to raw materials in metalamplifying short -term movements. He August message In Washington of Jerome Powell, when insinuating the start of type cuts, he acted as a double catalyst: in short, he is less expensive to maintain an asset without coupon against public debt. Halfway, yes Types are trimmed With full employment and inflation still above the objective, the risk is to sow more persistent price pressures that support the upward thesis. The sensitivity of gold to the opportunity cost It is immediatebut its vigor depends on the background narrative: if the cut of types lived with a weak dollar and tozudas inflation expectations, the marginal flow would continue to favor metal. Refuge Psychology. It is inherent to the human being. In this climate, the psychology of the shelter spreads beyond professionals. As summarized the journalin London, those private vaults report a constant drip of assets that prefer the Tangible Safety of the Lagoteto the point of planning the duplication of their box capacity, while the number of people who sell jewels upload for casting because “the value is in the material”, displacing crafts due to the weight of the metal. The narrative is also filtered by political and commercial channels, with public figures promoting conversion Gold retirement accounts, a symptom that has ceased to be an instrument of niche to consolidate as a transverse symbol of heritage protection. The significant detail is that this boom lives with maximum stock market: There is no general escape from risk, but explicit coverage against adverse scenarios that the market does not end up ruling out. {“Videid”: “X89W5U6”, “Autoplay”: False, “Title”: “The most valuable mineral and thanks to which we have mobile phones we explain everything about the coltan”, “Tag”: “Webedia-prod”, “Duration”: “298”} Risks and counterweights. This week many US media They explained That the danger that golden fever feeds is a damn word of the seventies: stagflationthat is, the mixture of high inflation and weak growth that erodes benefits and makes financing more expensive. Several analysts They warn that its probability has increased and, if materialized, would offer an optimal macro -entry for gold. The counterweight: a restoration of confidence in the growth of the United States and in the role of the dollar as a reserve could puncture The impulse, but with live commercial tensions and a foreign policy perceived as more retracted, that hypothesis points fragile. Gold no Upload in a straight line and is sensitive to changes in real types and in risk appetite, but the Current forces balance (Structural purchases of central banks, financial flows towards ETF, geopolitical coverage and doubts about price discipline) explains why this 2025 remembers, in intensity, to the Last big shake of metal In Xataka Russia has launched its Zircon hypersonic missile at NATO doors. And he has accompanied him with a video so that there is no doubt SYo and not. If you want also, the gold boom works as a kind of silent referendum about three vectors: The credibility of … Read more

The “richest treasure in America” is not a pyramid, but the imposing collection of a Mixteca princess of 800 years ago

August 23, 2025 by usatoday24

Mexico is an inexhaustible source of pre -Hispanic treasures findings. We continue discovering vestiges of the past practically every week and it is something that He has shot with the Mayan train project and with the latest technology tools. Thanks to the latter, we have been able to find hidden pyramids, Underground areas And it is something that can give a push in the Study of old structures. However, there are pieces that, although we discover a few years ago, are still of great value. An example is the treasure of the tomb 7 of Monte Albán, which some continue to consider “the richest treasure in America.” Not only are hundred pieces, but they have a really enviable state of conservation. The Mixteca Treasure of Tomb 7 In January 1932, Dr. Alfonso Caso discovered at the archaeological site of Tomb 7 of Monte Albán one of the biggest pre -Hispanic treasures in history. At the time of its finding, a first restoration was carried out, but care was also carried out both in 1944 and a few years ago, with the objective not only of studying the pieces, but of restoring those that were precise and carrying out an adequate conservation process. In total, it is a set of more than 230 pieces made with sacred materials in the pre -Hispanic era, such as gold, silver, rock glass and precious stones such as turquoise, obsidian and green stone. The state of conservation of many of these objects is imposing. There are also less striking objects such as those made from bone or an alabaster pot. But … Where do these luxury objects come from? INAH researchers They offered context to the pieces, affirming that their origins date from the union of a lord of the dynasty of Zaachila and a Mixtec lady at some point between the 1,200 and 1,400 after Christ. Skull decorated with turquoise mosaics and shells Rock glass glass Locked bone with turquoise embedding Specifically, from the National Institute of Anthropology and History they comment that it was a union between “Mr. 5 Flor, of the Zaachila dynasty, with the princess of the Mixteco kingdom of Teoxacualco, Mrs. 4 Rabbit ‘Quetzal’”. The princess would have used the tomb 7 as a sanctuary to deposit the Tnaniwrappers in which the relics of the ancestors such as effigies of great value and other luxurious objects were kept. And, judging by the photos of the articles, the princess’s treasure was not small, precisely. Now, when these articles were found, they did not look as well as in the photographs that accompany these lines. According to INAH, it was necessary and meticulous restoration process so that we can admire the details of each of these pieces. Mask that represents the god Xipe Totec made in molten and soldier gold A pot with support manufactured in alabaster Bezote that represents the head of a jade stone foisan. The posterior plug is gold sheet This includes the recovery of the properties of its color, the polished finish of some objects and the reflective power of others. In whatever it may be, work was worth work, since the collection has an imposing presence and, beyond the photographs that INAH himself Share On its website (where we can see descriptions of each object), you can see live in room III of the Museum of Cultures of Oaxaca. And, in addition to admiring the goldsmithing of each piece, it is interesting to note that this treasure is important because it demonstrates not only how certain materials already worked on what they gave importance, but some of them were achieved thanks to the exchange and trade networks between different Mesoamerican sites. This is something extremely significant that, little by little, we are knowing and that tells us about the cultural wealth of some sites. A recent example is the study of Channels from Mexico City That, precisely, it was an imposing cultural center thanks to those commercial activities. Images | INAH In Xataka | The Maya played football. And now we know that under the courts they buried a hallucinogenic surprise *An earlier version of this article was published in August 2024

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