war

For years Russia accustomed its citizens to a distant war. Thousands of gas stations have just broken that illusion

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Since the war between Russia and Ukraine began, the majority of Russians have been able to experience the war almost as background news, without much impact on their daily lives. However, that distance has been broken. And the fact is that queues of cars that stretch for hours, and even days, at thousands of gas stations in the country are forcing millions of people to feel, for the first time in such a direct way, the real cost of the conflict. What is happening. Ukraine has escalated since May their drone attacks against Russian refineriesand the result is a fuel crisis not seen since the last years of the Soviet Union. According to calculations According to the Financial Times, the shortage already directly affects some 50 million Russians, around 35% of the population. Almost 50 regions had imposed some type of restriction on gasoline sales by the end of June, and several of them have rationed the supply according to the vehicle’s license plate, alternating between even and odd days. Strain. Images circulating on social networks show waits of up to 36 hours in some areas, such as Chita, in the Transbaikalia region, according to collect Deutsche Welle. According to the media, there are those who spend the night in the car so as not to miss their turn, and some have even begun to sell their place in line for sums of up to 35,000 rubles (about 400 euros), according to testimonies cited by the same media. The tension has led to fights between drivers, and some regional authorities have had to improvise desperate measures, such as that of a Siberian governor who ordered hot food to be distributed to those waiting in line, while in the south of the country Cossacks with their traditional fur hats have been used to maintain order at gas stations, according to they claim from FT. Attacks. The origin of the problem lies in the pace and precision of Ukraine’s attacks. On July 6, a drone reached the Omsk refinery, the largest in the country, located 2,500 kilometers from the border, which gives an idea of ​​the reach that kyiv has gained. According to the Ukrainian General Staff, aforementioned By Kyiv Post, the attacks have already disabled 42.7% of Russia’s projected refining capacity, and a Bloomberg analysis places 24 of the country’s 34 large refineries that have been hit in about a hundred days. Consulting firm Energy Aspects estimates that Russian crude oil processing has fallen to its lowest level in 21 years. Despair. Moscow has chosen to downplay the crisis in public. Putin himself acknowledged on Sunday that there are “some shortcomings,” although he insisted that they are not “critical.” Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak attributed the queues to panic buying and speculation, not a structural supply problem, according to collect DW. However, the Kremlin itself has had to take measures that contradict this discourse, as it has banned exports of gasoline, diesel and kerosene, and has skyrocketed its fuel imports from Belarus, which in June were 141 times higher than a year earlier, according to share the Financial Times. The front also notices it. The shortage has even reached Russian troops deployed in Ukraine. And according to share Kyiv Post, some soldiers have seen their fuel supply reduced to just 20 liters per vehicle per day, when before they received what they needed to carry out their missions. In fact, a soldier stationed in the Zaporizhia sector claimed that his unit has gone from 20 liters to between 10 and 15, which forces them to travel up to 11 kilometers on foot to get water and supplies. Other soldiers say they buy gasoline from local residents at prices between 200 and 300 rubles per liter, well above the official price, according to share the middle. The impact is also noticeable beyond the gas stations, from taxi drivers raising fares, regional airlines warning of price increases, to even Russians who, in rural areas, are buying draft horses or bicycles as an alternative to the car, according to collect DW. Cover image | Reuters and Alexander Melekhov In Xataka | The men who closed the new Chernobyl hole: “Destiny gave us an opportunity to test ourselves to the limit”

China has a plan to win the AI ​​war against the US. And DeepSeek is its champion

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Liang Wenfeng is the most elusive person in the Chinese manufacturing industry. artificial intelligence (AI). The founder of DeepSeekwho also runs the hedge fund High-Flyer, recently held a four-hour video call with potential investors from Hangzhou, China, an unusual format in every sense: only two representatives per institution, and for most of the attendees it was the first time they had seen the founder. “We are a very normal group of people,” Wenfeng told them. And this apparent simplicity hides the company that, in just over a year, has rewritten the economic rules of generative AI. However, what began as a start-up reluctant to any outside investment has come full circle. DeepSeek recently closed a financing round of around $7 billion, with a valuation of $52 billion. The most revealing data, however, is provided by SCMP: This company is already negotiating a second round that is expected to raise that figure to $71 billion just weeks after closing the first. The power map of Chinese AI Reuters has confirmed that DeepSeek develops its own ASIC chip aimed at inference and not training. With it, it aims to reduce its dependence on Nvidia and Huawei, its two current suppliers. If the project succeeds, it would mark a huge strategic shift for a company that until now has built its entire reputation on software efficiency rather than hardware control. Be that as it may, this move would add additional pressure to Huawei, which competes for the same space within China. Huawei now integrates DeepSeek into its cloud services in sub-Saharan Africa In this scenario we are interested in focusing on the real magnitude of this phenomenon. According to FortuneChinese open source models (led by Qwen, MiniMax and DeepSeek) already represent a third of global use of large language models, compared to an almost non-existent presence at the end of 2024. Emerging companies in Silicon Valley and Southeast Asia adopt them due to their openness, transparency and a much lower operating cost than American alternatives. Huawei, in fact, already integrates DeepSeek into its cloud services in sub-Saharan Africa. As expected after such an escalation in valuation, several sources suggest that DeepSeek could present its IPO this year, following in the wake of other low-cost Chinese startups such as Zhipu AI and MiniMax, which are already listed on public markets. A successful placement would give DeepSeek the institutional capital necessary to scale its computing infrastructure and sustain its long-term price war against large American players. DeepSeek is no longer just the startup that sparked Nvidia’s biggest stock scare in a single day: it is the battering ram with which China tries impose its open and cheap AI model as a global standard. Image | Generated by Xataka with ChatGPT More information | Bloomberg In Xataka | While most oppose AI data centers, there is one group enthusiastic about them: merchandise thieves

Pedrerol leaves Atresmedia for Mediaset after 13 years, and his departure is the perfect reflection of the current war between private companies

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We have seen this before: Josep Pedrerol shows up at the door of a chain at just the worst moment for the one hosting him to lose him. Well it’s happened again. Only this time the chain where it lands is already waging an open judicial war with which it is saying goodbye. The hostilities embodied in lawsuits and (future) trials between Atresmedia and Mediaset find in Pedrerol’s escape almost a symbol of the tensions that plague Spanish television. What has happened? Atresmedia and Josep Pedrerol They announced last Tuesday that end their professional relationship. There is talk of mutual agreement and a very specific expiration date: the Catalan presenter’s contract expires on July 19, and ‘El Chiringuito’ says goodbye a day later with a special dedicated to the final of the 2026 World Cup. Pedrerol summarized the balance by saying that “they have been thirteen fantastic years in which we have worked with absolute freedom.” On behalf of the chain, the general director of Atresmedia Audiovisual, José Antonio Antón, thanked in a statement the professionalism of the team and the achievements achieved. The outing is not limited to the evening program. Also closing is ‘Jugones’, the desktop news program that Pedrerol has presented on laSexta since 2013 and which, according to the statement itself, has remained a “reference for sports news at that time.” This is how Pedrerol says goodbye. The story has an almost identical precedent. Pedrerol directed ‘Punto Pelota’ on Intereconomía when the chain, in the midst of a default crisis, He terminated his contract on December 4, 2013.. By then he had already presented “Jugones” on laSexta, since September of that same year, which allowed him to land on Atresmedia shortly after: the heir to “Punto Pelota” debuted as “El Chiringuito de Jugones” on January 6, 2014 on the now defunct channel Nitro, before going through laSexta and Neox and settling on Mega since 2015. This time there are no defaults or termination, but a contract that has not been renewed after months of stalled talks. The piggyback format. For a presenter to change channels is normal on Spanish television, but it is not so normal for him to carry an entire format on his back, with equipment and production company included. The precedent most cited is that of Pablo Motos, who moved ‘El Hormiguero’ from Cuatro to Antena 3 in 2011 maintaining program and collaborators. Pedrerol starts from a similar position: ‘El Chiringuito’ is produced by Radio Sport Plus, its own production company, and according to Digital Journalist Citing sources in the sector, Mediaset is also negotiating to incorporate a good part of its usual team to transfer the format almost entirely, although under a different name. Mediaset is in a hurry. Telecinco closed the 2025-2026 season with an 8.9% average share, its worst historical record and the fifth consecutive season with a decline, while Atresmedia led the group with a 25.6% share. sharethe greatest advantage it has ever taken from Mediaset. Coinciding with the World Cup semi-finals on La 1, Telecinco signed the worst day in 36 years of history. A format with a low production cost and an already formed community of followers fits with what Mediaset needs before La Liga starts on August 15. It is still ironic, of course, that the same sport that is giving Telecinco so many headaches could serve as a rescue raft in the near future. War on. Mediaset and Atresmedia have been in litigation for years over ‘Pasapalabra’ and its final test, the Rosco: the Supreme Court forced Antena 3 to withdraw the Rosco in May, Atresmedia replaced it with a new test called AlaZ on June 19 (which has continued to triumph in hearings), and the Dutch production company MC&F and Mediaset They have announced that they will sue her considering that the new test is too similar to the original. Taking away one of its most profitable sports brands from Atresmedia would have something symbolic. No confirmation at the moment. Neither of the two networks has confirmed the signing, and there are still many pending details: whether the new program will land on Telecinco or Cuatro, with how many historical collaborators it will do so and what it will be called (a possible clue: on April 13, Radio Sport Plus record before the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office the name “Chiringuito Gol TV”). Again, August 15 and the start of La Liga can be a key date so that, around it, we know more things. In Xataka | Netflix users love to watch the first season of a series. Then they love to stop seeing it completely

China closes the helium tap and the US becomes the great beneficiary of the Iran war

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The US has become the main supplier of helium to Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, and its market share will likely continue to grow. This is the conclusion of the analysis of customs data that has been done Nikkei Asiawhich places Washington as the great beneficiary of a crisis that combines the war of USA and Israel against Iran and the export restrictions imposed by Beijing. Be that as it may, it is not a minor trend. Helium is an irreplaceable gas during the chip manufacturing process because it is necessary for cooling wafers and in plasma etching or photolithography. In this context Japan, South Korea and Taiwan are three of semiconductor ecosystems most important on the planet, with TSMC, Samsung and SK hynix at the helm, all of them redirecting part of their supply towards the United States. The trigger has been twofold. On the one hand, the crisis in the Middle East has cast doubt on the Asian supply chain amid fears that a de facto closure of the Strait of Hormuz further complicate access to helium and liquefied natural gas. And on this already unstable ground, China has decided to tighten the screws as much as possible. China has turned off the tap at a very delicate moment The Chinese Government announced on July 10 a temporary veto with immediate effect to helium exportsrelying on its Foreign Trade Law and without giving further explanations. The Ministry of Commerce and the Chinese Customs Administration frame this measure in the escalation of the conflict in the Middle East, which threatens to cause new bottlenecks in a gas essential for manufacturing integrated circuits. China only produces domestically around 15% or less of the helium it consumes However, at this juncture we are interested in specifying China’s real weight in this market. This country only produces internally around 15% or less of the helium it consumes, so depends on imports from Qatarwhich generates approximately a third of the world’s supply. For this reason, its dependence on the outside borders on critical levels, with estimates that range between 80% and 90%. A quick note before moving forward: Helium is irreplaceable in semiconductor manufacturing because it cannot be synthesized industrially. It is extracted from natural gas deposits with unusually high concentrations of this element, and is used in wafer cooling, plasma etching, chemical and atomic layer deposition, lithography support, and leak detection. Japan and South Korea, exposed in a very different way The exposure of each country to this scenario varies significantly. In 2025, Japan was already obtaining around 60% of its helium imports from the US and 37% from Qatar, which has allowed it to pivot relatively quickly. South Korea, on the other hand, depended on Qatar for 64.7% of its importsa fact that has forced Samsung and SK hynix to move urgently and accept higher prices in new long-term contracts with Linde and Air Products. Helium now joins the rare earths, gallium, germanium and graphite as another chapter in the geopolitical struggle The manufacturing of memory chips is very demanding with the consumption of this gas due to the repeated high-temperature etching and deposition processes required by advanced 3D stacking. Many semiconductor industry analysts expect that American industrial supplierssuch as Air Products, Linde or ExxonMobil, are the big beneficiaries of the tightening of global supply. Be that as it may, helium now joins the rare earths, gallium, germanium and graphite as another chapter in the geopolitical struggle for the resources that support the semiconductor industry. Image | Yuri Shkoda More information | Nikkei Asia In Xataka | Yttrium is another of the many “rare” metals that only China exports. The US just found out the hard way

The US war to save bees from the invasion of a murderous creature

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South Carolina bee inspectors describe America’s battle against a tiny but devastating invader with biblical quotes. We talk about Asian yellow-legged horneta predator that, in just three years, has gone from arriving hidden in a freighter to forcing deploy thousands of trapselectronic trackers and specialized equipment to prevent it from turning one of the regions with the largest bee population in the country into an immense buffet. The silent invasion. Jackie Currie told to the New York Times who had been keeping bees in South Carolina for more than a decade when he observed behavior he had never seen before. Instead of leaving the hive to search for pollen, hundreds of them remained motionless at the entrance, crowded together like bathers who refuse to return to the water after seeing a shark. In front of them floated two Asian yellow-legged hornets. The bees knew that going out meant risking their lives, but staying inside meant slowly condemning the entire colony due to lack of food. “The saddest thing is that my bees don’t know how to defend themselves. The ones that know how to deal with these hornets live in Asia, not here,” summarizes the beekeeper. Turn beehives into slaughterhouses. The Asian yellow-legged hornet measures less than a clipbut it is one of the most effective insect hunters in the world. It hovers in front of the hive like a hummingbird until a bee ventures out. Then the catch in full flight and the pieces with disturbing precision, removing its head, legs and wings to leave only the abdomen, the most nutritious part. Unlike Asian bees, which have developed collective strategies to surround and suffocate these predators by raising the temperature, European bees introduced to the United States They lack those defenses natural. For them, the hornet represents a completely new enemy. The invader’s paradise. Native to Southeast Asia, this hornet first appeared in the United States in 2023, probably after arriving hidden on a freight ship which docked in the port of Savannah. From there it quickly crossed into South Carolina and found a perfect setting to multiply. Georgia is the third honey producer of the country and South Carolina is home to tens of thousands of bee colonies, a true feast for an insect that, furthermore, does not disdain practically any food. It can feed on bees, other insects, deer remains, abandoned shrimp heads, oyster shells and even alligator carcasses. The warm climate and abundance of prey have made the coastal region known like Lowcountry in it equivalent to a resort for this invasive species. Evil personified. The person who best summarizes the seriousness of the situation is Brad Cavinthe state’s chief bee inspector and one of the people leading the response against the invasion. The son of a pastor, he often describes his work with biblical references that reflect the extent to which he considers the mission transcendental. “This is the Garden of Eden and we are fighting Satan,” tells the NYT explaining why he spends a good part of the year traveling hundreds of kilometers looking for nests hidden among trees, buildings and gardens. The comparison may sound exaggerated, but just look at the figures to understand it: in 2024 his team located 16 nests; before the end of June 2026 already had eliminated 345. Each of them can host thousands of hornets capable of spreading the invasion even further. Thousands of liters of juice to find the enemy. Yes, because the war against the hornet is being fought with unconventional tools. The researchers have deployed more than 4,300 traps made with buckets and plastic jugs hanging from trees. The bait is also nothing sophisticated: a mixture of grape juice and brown sugar syrup named like “Georgia Juice”as irresistible to hornets as it is harmless to bees. Only during the first half of 2026 had the team used more than 15,000 liters of juice and more than four tons of sugar. When the traps capture numerous specimens, the real research begins: scientists place new baits, triangulate flight routes and even mark some insects with colored paint to follow them among the vegetation. Small electronic “spies”. The next step seems like something out of a spy movie. Some captured hornets are anesthetized on ice and equipped with tiny transmitters of radius, just a little larger than a grain of rice and with a weight similar to that of a quarter of a raisin. Subject to the body using Kevlar thread and fed honey before being released, these insects instinctively return to their nest while researchers follow them with receivers that emit increasingly intense beeps the closer they are to the target. The system allows you to locate hidden colonies tens of meters high between the treetops, where they would otherwise go completely unnoticed. Eliminating a nest requires precision. Once the hiding place is located, they go into action specialized teams of exterminators. Equipped with beekeeping suits and ladders or lifting platforms, they face swarms that react extremely aggressively when they perceive a threat. To reduce the use of pesticides, operators first plug the entrance of the nest with a small sponge, turning it into a closed chamber where the treatment is much more effective. They then carefully detach the structure, place it in a plastic bag and transfer it to a laboratory, where it is frozen to eliminate any survivors and later preserved as study material. Some of these nests reach the size of a beach ball and house thousands of individuals. Saving bees is much more than protecting production. If you also want, the fight against the Asian hornet goes far beyond avoiding losses for beekeepers. The bees play an essential role in the pollination of crops and entire ecosystems, so that its disappearance would have enormously far-reaching economic and environmental consequences. That is why the battle that is being fought today in South Carolina It is closely followed throughout the United States. What began with a beekeeper seeing her bees paralyzed by fear has … Read more

Wanting to avoid fires in Oviedo, the cleaners have encountered another problem: the Civil War

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If we believed that Spain had already cataloged every last vestige of the Civil War, bad news. Artillery corners still pop up like mushrooms in autumn. Scars of a territory that reminds us of a broken country. Imagine the look on the faces of the city hall’s cleaning professionals when they put the brushcutter where it didn’t belong. Imagine the face of the municipal crew of Oviedo: cleaning any path in the municipality of El Campón in the middle of July, the machine trips over reinforced concrete and an embrasure from 1937, hidden under the ferns for 89 years. Anyone who knows Mount Naranco is not surprised. Those who only follow guided routes, tourist plates and school manuals, will be amazed. A front under the bushes. The archives say that Oviedo endured a republican siege in 1936 which ended up breaking towards October. So, Naranco was filled with trenches to watch the steps towards Grado. In El Rebollal they counted thirteen positions: two for machine gun, eleven for rifle. Campo Cimero has thirty-one, distributed in four arches towards the northwest, the largest defensive complex in Asturias. To cite an example, in Ayones the nest preserves its original geometry: seven sides on the outside, cylinder on the inside, built in 1937 by the Republicans. And of course, the undergrowth does not erase these structures, rather it preserves and contours them. And except for the nationalist constructions of Pando, almost everything preserved in this area—Rebollal, Campo Cimero, Fitoria, Ayones—is republican. Spain’s wounds. Although no one has the exact figure, the BunkerAtlas portal has registered and geolocated 192 positions. It is more of a sample than an official census, of course. Madrid concentrates almost 19% of what is catalogued; Catalonia is around 16%; Navarra 12%; Aragon 11%. And almost six out of every ten registered structures were built during the Civil War, by both sides. Only in Madrid have they documented more than 2,000 fortifications in a hundred municipalities, about 500 concrete; The capital already has 531 inventory tokens between Casa de Campo, El Pardo and Ciudad Universitaria. In the Pyrenees, the Franco regime designed Line P: ten thousand bunkers planned along 500 kilometers of border. Luckily the work stopped with less than half built, about 4,000, and became obsolete around 1980. Multiply that by each front—Ebro, Jarama, the Oviedo fence itself—and the real figure is surely around tens of thousands. Most remain under brambles, awaiting clearing. Who decides what is saved. Spain catalogs this heritage since the Historical Memory Law of 2007, expanded by the Democratic Memory Law 2022—revised March 2026—. Both require identifying and protecting these remains, and in some cases opening them to the public. The problem, as always, is one of resources: inventorying thousands of kilometers of trench costs money that does not always arrive, and each recovered nest depends on a city council, a memory association or a forestry crew that stumbles upon it. Present over past, as always. Let’s think about The Carmen of the Martyrsthe most beautiful garden around the Alhambra, which stands above the old Corral de los Cautivos, where Christian prisoners spent the night in Arab dungeons. After the Civil War it served as a residence for young people. In 1970, a hotel project razed a good part of the historic forest, until neighborhood protests stopped the work. Or the Turó de la Rovira. Everyone knows it as the Carmel Bunkers, although the name is a historical error: there was never a bunker or underground shelter there. What the Republic installed in 1938 was an open-air anti-aircraft battery, four 105 mm Vickers cannons, to stop the bombing by Italian aviation over Barcelona. When the war ended, the Republican army disabled the pieces and withdrew, leaving the concrete empty. Today is the most photographed sunset in Barcelona, ​​a nest of tiktokers. The other urgency: summer rules. The reality is that the vestige found in El Campón responds to a key action and none of this should stop the clearing. On the contrary. The summer of 2026 is already the worst start in the historical series: June closed with 90% more burned area than the average of the last twenty years, and quadrupled the data for the same month in 2025. The Almería fire devastated nearly 6,600 hectares, with projections that are close to 7,000. The European Union launched its largest historical firefighting deployment and it is not easy to suspect that it is still insufficient. Perimeter clearing responds to the law. Although the hoax that environmental regulations prohibit cleaning the mountain circulates every July; Neither the 2030 Agenda, nor the European Green Deal, nor the Forestry Law prohibit clearing. They demand it, with an annual plan. Memory and prevention do not compete. All you have to do is notify Heritage, let the nest breathe for a while in the sun and then decide what to do with it. The Civil War remains buried in half of Spain; chainsaw is just what is needed to clear brush and clean up against the spread of fires. Image | Flickr (Diego Valera) In Xataka | In 1938 Spain was divided in two. So two “Gordos” were delivered from the Christmas Lottery

Due to the lack of steel, World War II ships began to be built with an unusual material: concrete

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Close your eyes and think about the main material of a boat. Very possibly wood be first that comes to mind, and it’s normal: we have been sailing in wooden boats for millennia, and we continue to do so. But it is also logical that the steel that dominated the 19th and 20th century shipsand the current sea monstersideas haunt you. And most likely you have not thought about another material: the concrete. But yes, for 150 years we were creating concrete boats, and far from being crazy, it was the most logical idea. And they were even used in the First and Second World War. a french. One fine day in the mid-19th century, a French gentleman named Joseph-Louis Lambot It occurred to him to build a boat. Not just any one: a reinforced concrete one. There was one problem: in 1848, they had no idea what reinforced concrete was. This material, basically, is the mixture between concrete and steel. Both combine to create something with much greater structural resistance and have been the basis of the most imposing skyscrapers, dams and almost any construction of the last century since its invention. Well, it was Joseph-Louis who came up with the idea of ​​combining the two materials. At least, it attributes the invention of reinforced concrete to this man. As always, there is controversy over the dates, who patented reinforced concrete, who built the first slab, etc. But anyway: Lambot wanted to test his invention and built a small boat of less than four meters with the aim of exhibiting it at the Universal Exhibition in Paris in 1855. Quite a few advantages. Basically, the interior was wire mesh covered by cement and Lambot’s idea was to completely replace wood. The invention was liked, but it did not really attract the attention of boat manufacturers. Some barges were created for European canals, but little else. Everything changed when the Italian engineer Carlo Gabellini built the Liguria in 1896. It is what we consider to be the first reinforced concrete ship designed to sail on the high seas. And, really, it made sense to create reinforced concrete ships. It is a material that has great resistance to corrosion, so the marine environment does not damage the hull, reducing maintenance (which also has it) and extending its useful life. It offered good thermal insulation, so perishable resources could be transported in better conditions and there were no fire problems. The Namsenfjord In the absence of bread… A few years later, the construction of these concrete ships expanded and other countries began to build them, especially cargo ships. But of course, we are in 1914 and that means that something happened: the World War I. And beyond the advantages of concrete over other materials, the world was forced to create concrete boats for a very simple reason: there was no steel. The militarization and industrialization of the belligerent forces caused a situation of steel shortage. The ships were important, since the naval supremacy It has always been a determining factor in a conflict, but with the steel necessary for a destroyer many other things could be created. And the problem is that they had to continue building ships because there were resources to move worldwide. The First World War. The revolution came with Namsenfjorda Norwegian ship that, in 1917, demonstrated that self-propelled concrete boats could be made. It was 26 meters long and weighed a whopping 400 tons and most importantly: the United States saw that there was potential in these ships beyond serving as freighters powered by an auxiliary ship. Thus, they created the Emergency Fleet Corporation program with the objective of producing 24 concrete vessels. It was a failure: those that were completed were done after the war, so they had to be used for other things. One was the SS Faithwhich was going to serve in the war, but in the end it was left to be used in transportation work in the United States. It was launched in 1919, was in service until 1921 when it was sold to Cuba and had a length of 97.54 meters. A year after Faith, the SS Selmaan enormous mass of reinforced concrete measuring 129.54 meters in length that was launched just the day Germany signed the Treaty of Versaillesending the First World War. It ended up being used as an oil tanker in the Gulf of Mexico. With sails and a secondary support engine Devastating disadvantages. With the war over, interest in concrete shipbuilding waned. It still had advantages, since building them was much cheaper than making them in steel or iron, but if we mentioned a series of advantages before, it is important to now know the disadvantages (which outweigh them, and by far). To match the strength of a steel hull, a concrete hull is thicker, which has several limitations. On the one hand, it weighs more, so it also has a greater draft, the ship’s movement is slower and more fuel is needed. Being thicker means that there is less interior space for cargo, since the useful volume is reduced. This weight means that the engines must be more powerful and the fuel tanks must also be larger, so the investment in this part is greater. The dam to build it must also be monstrous because parts cannot be welded, as in a steel one, and then there is the impact resistance. Second World War. Metal breaks, yes, but it has greater elasticity than concrete. This material, however, is much more fragile when faced with impacts. A collision causes a crack in the hull, and this in a boat that weighs so much is a condemnation. That is why, after the Great War, the concrete ship project was abandoned, leaving its construction practically limited to cargo barges, but then the Second World War arrived, and the steel needs of the previous one were repeated. However, the US program was not as ambitious as the one they started … Read more

The fried pizza looks like something filthy from the US. It was actually “invented” to save Naples after the Second World War

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I love to cook, even though someone wants to banish the kitchensand I love to see cooking videos. However, the algorithm sometimes gets confused and shows me videos of people putting raw pasta with tomato sauce into a container and baking everything, or a lot of fried things. They are videos of Americans cooking, of course, but when I see someone frying a pizza, it doesn’t offend me for one simple reason: it’s almost as old as the Neapolitan pizza and played a fundamental historical role in post-war Italy. Feeding a city in which the ovens had been destroyed. Because Neapolitan pizza may be a UNESCO World Heritage Site, but fried pizza is the lifeblood of the city of Naples. The statutes of pizza. Italians are very particular about food. I have shared many trips with great Italian colleagues and they are very wonderful when they defend what is theirs. It’s great, but they are the first to burn the coffee (although we Spaniards are not here to give lessons on this, of course). Now, don’t let a Neapolitan get the pizza. He ‘I will discipline‘is the bible, the table of commandments which includes everything you need to know to make a Napoletana pizza. What types of ingredients, quantities and heart that should be put inside and on top of the dough. On a recent trip, talking about pizza and after eating in a fairly competent Parisian pizzeria, the topic of fried pizza came up. What would clearly be an affront to the pride of that Neapolitan boy caused a smile to appear on his face. And, as we say in Xataka, it makes sense. Zeppole. Long before Disciplinare and baked pizza, in Naples there was already an important tradition of fried dough. In it freedom from coquina from the 13th century describe fermented doughs, fried in oil and served with honey, but if there is a predecessor of fried pizza, it is the zeppole. They are like fritters that date back to sometime between the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century and have some variants, but a well-known one is filled with pastry cream and decorated with cherries in syrup. Although this is a dessert, there are also salty varieties to which other ingredients such as anchovies are added. Although they were eaten in several Italian cities such as Rome or Calabria, in Naples they caught on well and, when the more formal pizza began to appear, they became popular. started to differentiate between the pizzaiuolo (the one who makes baked pizzas) and the zeppolaiolo (the one who makes the fried foods, including fried doughs). Emergency. During the 19th century, texts began to appear that included recipes for stuffed and fried calzoncini as a more satiating product than the sweet variant and an explicit distinction began to be made between “pizza al forno” and “pizza fritta di cicoli.” Fried pizza was already establishing itself in the Neapolitan language before the 20th century as a street food to take advantage of leftover meat and fish, but then came the Second World War. The conflict devastated Naples and the postwar period was no better. The situation of extreme poverty and the destruction of the kilns by Allied bombings combined with a lack of wood. The city had to be rebuilt or the furnaces fueled, and the priority was clear. Furthermore, even if they wanted to make some pizzas, everything was missing and the ingredients were expensive due to the shortage. So, many Neapolitan families began to look at the zeppole and were occurred that they could make large disks of pizza dough, fill them with cheap ingredients like ricotta, vegetables and leftover meat if there were any, fry them and… that’s it. Fried dough with the ingredients on top “A ogge a otto“. Workers could take this as a filling lunch for breaks, it was economical and became a symbol. In the absence of “real” pizza, the new “pizza del popolo” was the one that helped in the reconstruction of the city and became a symbol. coined the “a ogge a otto”, which came to mean “eat today, pay eight days later”, reinforcing that role as a symbol of poor post-war Naples. American Coffee. Therefore, fried pizza was not invented in the postwar period, since there was a previous context of fried doughs, but it was the time of the popular explosion due to necessity. This Neapolitan boy was particularly proud when telling me the story because, although less known, Neapolitan fries are also a traditional dish, but the one that lifted the city after the war was… pizza. And it’s funny how my first impulse was to think that fried pizza was just another thing about Americans determined to fry things, when really it’s even something cultural for certain people. These types of stories are always fascinating to me, like the one about American coffee that we can think was invented in the United States when, in reality, it was an invention of the Italian baristas of the Second World War who they added water to the coffee because the American soldiers did not like the concentrated flavor. In Xataka | The pizza that is successful in China does not have pepperoni or pineapple: it has a fruit that smells like rotten eggs and sewage

A town in Italy has declared war on tourists who walk around half naked

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Summer not only warm up the thermometers. The coming and going of tourists also increases, filling hotels, triggering activity in airports and tightening the rope in those destinations unable to balance the routine of their neighbors and the flow of visitors. It is something that they know well in Barcelona, ​​Malaga, Ibiza, or Tenerife and also in many cities in Italy, such as Florence either Venice. Varenna, a small town in Lombardy, is not so crowded, but it receives enough tourists that its mayor has done something: impose rules of decorum. And these include the prohibition of walking around the town bare-chested and in a bathing suit, under penalty of fines of up to 200 euros. In a place in Lombardy… Varenna is neither Florence nor Rome, but it knows well what mass tourism entails. I remembered it recently its mayor, Mauro Mazoni: although they live in the town only 650 peopleeach year it receives “hundreds of thousands of visitors from all over the world”, people attracted by its idyllic landscapes. and it’s normal. Varenna is located in the province of Lecco, on the shores of Lake Como, and is full of fishermen’s houses with the mountains in the background. “You can’t sacrifice yourself”. This flow of tourists comes accompanied by wealth, but it also strains coexistence between visitors who come to enjoy a relaxed vacation and neighbors who continue with their daily routine. Hence, the City Council has decided to make a move, tightening the regulations that apply to tourists. To be more precise, the June 26 approved two changes to its regulations that aim to “guarantee a more harmonious coexistence.” “We are proud to welcome hundreds of thousands of visitors each year. However, the quality of life of our inhabitants cannot be sacrificed for the sake of mass tourism. These new regulations are not born from the desire to curb tourism, which remains a crucial resource for our economy, but from the need to manage it in a more intelligent and respectful way,” argues Manzoni, who recalls that the changes in the regulations have already come into force. Be careful with swimsuits. One of the novelties that has caused the most expectation, inside and outside of Varenna, is the one that affects the dress code. No more walking around the center of town with your torso naked or in a bathing suit. No matter how hot it is or if you’ve just taken a dip in the lake, from now on you can only go that way in very specific areas of Varenna: the beaches, piers and piers. In the rest of the town you have to cover yourself. Breaking the rule involves fines of between 50 and 200 euros. Goodbye groups and speakers. It’s not the only thing visitors to Varenna will have to keep an eye on. To prevent the streets from becoming saturated with large groups, the City Council has decided that these should be limited to a maximum of 25 people. That is the limit that tour operators that organize excursions must respect. During your visits you should also remember another guideline: guides will not be able to use speakers or devices that amplify their voice. The goal: to put an end to the noise, something they have already done in Florence. Precisely to reduce inconvenience, groups will have to proceed along pedestrian paths and will be prohibited from standing still in certain “particularly sensitive and crowded” areas, such as Pizetta Brenta, Pizza San Giovanni or Via IV Novembre. Breaking those rules doesn’t come cheap. Guides risk fines of between 100 and 400 eurosa punishment that can be toughened in case of recidivism. Guidelines on group size and organization are only relaxed for educational and school visits. Is it something new? No. And that is the most significant thing. The diary The Republic public a chronicle a few days ago in which I explained that Varenna is not the only tourist town in Italy that has decided to tighten its rules to combat touristification: in Eraclea, Favignana, Levanzo or Marettimo (to name just a few cases) they have also renewed the rules that prohibit walking in a swimsuit or bikini through the historic centers and commercial towns. It is not a new restriction, but the municipal authorities have wanted to reinforce it, increasing the fines in some cases up to 500 euros. Sandwiches, beers, selfies and bikinis. The Italian newspaper recalls that in the center of Apulia, for example, the prohibition of walking in a swimsuit or with a naked torso is not limited to streets, avenues and squares. It is also applied in parks, gardens and public transport. Skipping this restriction can cost up to 500 euros. In other towns they even go further and have prohibited eating sandwiches or drinking beers in the street, lying on benches or become selfies in viewpoints. Italy is not even the only one that has declared war on visitors who decide to walk around half naked, in a swimsuit or bikini. In France they have done something similar and right here, in Spain, there are cities that punish severely walk through the streets and squares without a shirt. The torso in the air, it is better to reserve it for swimming pools, beaches and areas authorized by the regulations. Images | Ray in Manila (Flickr), Becks (Flickr) and Gerry Labrijn (Flickr) In Xataka | “Vacation rentals are losing their appeal”: real estate agencies face the bursting of the tourist apartment bubble

The war and the unbearable heat have led Europe to unprecedented spending. And Türkiye has become the perfect supermarket

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For centuries, in the Mediterranean, white was much more than an aesthetic question: whitewashed facades, light roofs and narrow streets helped reflect solar radiation and keeping homes several degrees cooler long before the invention of air conditioning. Two thousand years later, Europe once again discovers that fighting the heat has become a priority. Europe is paying two unexpected bills. For decades, Europe built its prosperity on one premise: that the continent would enjoy a relatively stable environment, both in climate and security. That scenario has changed at high speed. Heat waves are increasingly intensewar has returned to the continent, and both phenomena are forcing governments to spend billions in two needs that previously seemed secondary: cooling their cities and strengthening their armies. Air conditioning as critical infrastructure. Heat waves have ceased to be exceptional episodes and have become an economic factor permanent. Schools, hospitals, companies, data centers and industries need air conditioning systems capable of maintaining their activity even during extreme temperatures. Air conditioning has ceased to be a domestic luxury and has become a essential infrastructurewhile countries in central and northern Europe discover a need for which they never prepared their buildings. Türkiye had been preparing for years. It happens that, while Europe was beginning to discover the problem, Türkiye already had a powerful air conditioning industryextensive manufacturing capacity and an enormous logistical advantage over Asian competitors. The result is that Turkish exports of air conditioning, heat pumps and other refrigeration systems they are growing to the heat (pun intended) of a continent that needs to modernize millions of buildings and also do so under criteria of energy efficiency and sustainability. The other great urgency: rearmament. I counted the weekend the Washington Post that the climate is not the only front that is strengthening the Turkish position. The progressive withdrawal of the United States from European security and increase in military spending have placed the Turkish arms industry in a privileged position. Its drones, armored vehicles, ammunition and other defensive systems have demonstrated competitiveness, availability and attractive prices just when many European countries are looking for new suppliers to accelerate their rearmament. From awkward partner to supplier. For years, Türkiye was viewed with suspicion within NATO for the purchase of the Russian S-400 systemthe tensions with Greece, its policy in Syria or the temporary blockage of Sweden’s entry into the Alliance. However, the context has changed profoundly. Europe needs weapons. It needs to control migratory flows. And now it also needs technology to adapt to a much more hostile climate. That combination has notably reduced public criticism of Ankara and reinforced its diplomatic weight within the Alliance. Trump and Erdogan’s position. Plus: the good relationship between Donald Trump and Erdogan has added another layer to this change of scenario. The American president has publicly praised the Turkish leader and has left the door open to unblocking old disagreements, such as the one related with F-35 fighters. At the same time, the upcoming NATO summit in Ankara will serve to showcase Turkey as one of the essential actors in the new Western security architecture. The great European paradox has a clear winner. Thus, the two great crises that today condition the future of Europe seem to have no relationship with each other. One comes from the atmosphere in form of heat waves increasingly extreme. The other comes from the deterioration of the geopolitical scenario and the return of war to the continent. However, both converge on the same point: they force Europe to buy what it needs most. And few economies seem so well placed to take advantage of both trends. like the turkish. While the continent seeks how to protect itself from the heat and military uncertainty, Türkiye is establishing itself as one of the major providers of solutions to both problems. Image | Wikimedia In Xataka | The map that splits Europe into two when the heat arrives: where there is air conditioning and where there isn’t In Xataka | The Rhine is running out of water due to heat waves. And that is a logistical and energy disaster for Europe

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