war

We tend to think that the war of extermination was invented by the modern State. A mass grave from 2,800 years ago has just destroyed the myth

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There is an almost romantic tendency to idealize the remote past. Perhaps, inspired by the myth of the “noble savage” they often let’s imagine prehistory and the first societies as peaceful environments where extreme violence and systematic was an aberration or, in any case, an invention that came with the help of more modern times. But the reality is that if we had a time machine, this would be one of the few places where we would have to travel. A reality. Archeology has an uncomfortable habit of unearthing truths that do not fit our prejudices. The latest blow to this idyllic vision that some may have comes from the Balkans, specifically from a mass grave in Gomolava from 2,800 years ago that reveals a calculated, selective and brutal massacre against women and children. A mystery. In the 9th century BC, during the first Iron Age, the Carpathian and Balkan region was inhabited by societies that we today consider primitive. Specifically, they could be found semi-nomadic groups and sedentary communities who were beginning to clash for control of the territory. But here there were neither states nor regular armies. In this way, when archaeologists found a huge mass grave with the remains of 77 individuals at the Gomolava site, the first hypothesis was the most logical for the time: a catastrophic epidemic devastated everyone. However, a new study published in the magazine Naturehas completely rewritten the history of this site, combining forensic, genetic and isotopic analyses. Annihilation. Here the DNA was clear, since there was no trace of deadly pathogens. In this case, people died not from a disease, but from an outbreak of deliberate violence that has shocked the scientific community. Not only because of the violence, but because of the demographic profile, since 70.8% of the adults were women and 66% of the total were children and adolescents. Here the forensic analyzes revealed a terrifying pattern, since the vast majority had injuries at the time of death in the skull. Thus, they were forceful blows inflicted from above, suggesting that the attackers could have been on horseback or executing the victims while they were kneeling or subdued. Why children and women? The answer is pure strategic calculation, since the study of isotopes and DNA revealed that, with the exception of a mother and her two daughters, the victims were not related to each other and came from various regions with varied diets. But it was not a simple robbery gone wrong, but rather an interregional selective annihilation designed to wipe the reproductive future of rival groups off the map. And, in a context of profound social restructuring and territorial conflicts in the Carpathian Basin, eliminating offspring and those people who can produce even more offspring, such as women, was the most brutal and effective way to assert power in an area. Without a doubt, a great strategy to prevent anyone from claiming rights in that area. Ritual. To add another layer of complexity to this dark episode, the burial was not improvised. Contrary to what happens in many mass graves that are quickly made to throw the corpses, andIn this case they took their time. Investigators saw that the victims were buried next to bronze jewelry, ceramics and even sacrificed animals, so it was quite taken care of. Here the theory proposed is that it is a “macabre demonstration of power”: an act where the brutality of the massacre coexists with the socioeconomic value of the victims and the need to maintain the funeral customs of the time. Image | Sarah Nylund (Nature) In Xataka | When did human beings start “cooking”? The answer lies in some carp from 780,000 years ago.

The war between Anthropic and the Pentagon points to something terrifying: a new “Oppenheimer Moment”

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Anthropic has refused to bow to pressure from the Pentagon. Its co-founder and CEO, Dario Amodei, has just published a statement in which they make it clear that they are not willing to break their ethical principles. No massive espionage with AI, no development of lethal autonomous weapons with its models. And that reminds us of a terrible case: the one with the atomic bomb. From hero to villain. J. Robert Oppenheimer went from being the “father of the atomic bomb” and a national hero to become in an outcast. His sin was not betrayal, but his moral clarity. After witness the horror of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Oppenheimer desperately tried to stop the atomic escalation and the development of the hydrogen bomb. Either you are with us, or against us. The United States, which had praised him in the past, took advantage of his former political affiliations and stripped him of all his privileges and influence. This demonstrated how the US government simply decided that scientific knowledge was state property and that any researcher who tried to propose ethical limits to their own projects would be treated as an enemy of the country. History is threatening to repeat itself these days. From Oppenheimer to Anthropic. He is doing it with a protagonist that is still there—the US Government—and another that is changing: the one who now defends the ethics of a scientific-technological project is not Oppenheimer, but Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic. Claude is increasingly vital in the US Government. Your company is between a rock and a hard place these days. Anthropic managed to make its model Claude become the pretty girl of the US Government. The ability of this AI has proven to be so remarkable that it was apparently used to plan the arrest of the former president of VenezuelaNicolás Maduro. red lines. But so that the Pentagon could use Claude, Anthropic imposed certain red lines. No use for mass surveillance of US citizens, and no use for the development of lethal autonomous weapons. And the Pentagon has ended up not liking those red lines, so they want to eliminate them and use Claude as they please as long as, they say, the Constitution and American laws are respected. The Pentagon wants AI without restrictions. That has ended up causing an enormously tense situation these days. The Pentagon threatened to punish Anthropic if it did not give in to its demands, and those threats from the Department of Defense have not been subtle at all. In fact, they have suggested that they could label Anthropic as a company that is “a supply chain risk,” a black label typically reserved for companies in rival countries like China or Russia. Contradiction. Dario Amodei himself explained in an entry on the company’s official blog that those two threats were self-exclusive: “These last two threats are inherently contradictory: one labels us as a security risk; the other labels Claude as essential to national security.” Can AI be nationalized? It’s a disturbing irony: the same government that considers Claude an essential tool for national security is willing to label his creators a public threat if they don’t hand over the keys to the kingdom and their AI. What the Department of Defense and the Pentagon want is to basically “nationalize” the AI ​​technology developed by Anthropic and appropriate it as they already did with the technology that gave rise to the atomic bomb. We know how that ended. Anthropic refuses to give in. The danger is enormous in both sections: mass surveillance, rather than defending democracy, can dynamite it from within, and the NSA scandal is a good example. But even more worrying is the Pentagon’s intention to use this AI to develop lethal autonomous weapons. Amodei insisted on this point, indicating that “The foundational models of AI They’re just not reliable enough. to power fully autonomous weapons. “We will not knowingly provide a product that puts American warfighters and civilians at risk.” Amodei even offers the Department of War/Defense help in the “transition to another provider” of AI models, but at the moment it is not clear which path the US government will take. Oppenheimer Moment. If the Pentagon finally execute his threat and ban Anthropic, the message for the industry will be chilling. In the age of AI there are no conscientious objectors: if a company develops a technological and strategic advantage at a military level, that company is at the mercy of the State. It is a new and terrifying “Oppenheimer Moment” that conditions the future not only of Anthropic, but of the development of AI models itself. In Xataka | “The world is in danger”: Anthropic’s security manager leaves the company to write poetry

Three AIs clashed in ‘War Games’. 95% of them resorted to nuclear weapons and none ever surrendered

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In ‘War Games‘ (John Badham, 1983) the WOPR machine (‘Joshua’) constantly played at simulating nuclear wars for the US Government. The objective: to learn from these simulations so that if there was a nuclear war, the US could win it by taking advantage of that knowledge. That led to a legendary final lesson – “Strange game. The only move to win is not to play” – and left a strong message for later generations, but now a professor at King’s College London has decided to do the same experiment that was done in the film, but with current AI models. The result has been equally terrifying and conclusive. what has happened. Kenneth Payne, professor at King’s College in London, faced three LLMs (GPT-5.2, Claude Sonnet 4 and Gemini 3 Flash) against each other in war game simulations. These scenarios included border disputes, competition for limited resources or existential threats to inhabitants. They could negotiate, or go to war. From these situations, each side could try to resort to diplomatic solutions or end up declaring war and even using nuclear weapons. The AI ​​models played 21 games in which a total of 329 turns took place, and produced 780,000 words with the reasoning for their actions. and here comes the terrible. Pressing the red button. In 95% of those simulated games, at least one tactical nuclear weapon was deployed by one of the AI ​​models. According to Payne “the nuclear taboo does not seem to be as powerful for machines as it is for humans.” Never back down, never give up. Not only that, no model ever made the decision to give in to one of their opponents or surrender to them, and it didn’t matter that they were losing completely against those opponents. In the best of cases, the only thing the models did was reduce their level of violence, but they also made mistakes: accidents occurred in 86% of the conflicts and the measures that should be taken based on the reasoning of these models They went further than they should have gone. Nuclear weapons rarely stopped the opponent, acting more as catalysts for further escalation. How the models performed. These models are by no means the most advanced on the market at the moment, but they are still models with more than decent capacity and they still performed fearsomely. How he maintains Payne’s studythe most determining factor was the time frame: models that seemed peaceful in open settings became extremely aggressive when facing imminent defeat. Each one had their own “personality”: Claude: He dominated the open stages with strategic patience and calculated escalation, but was vulnerable to last-minute attacks from his rivals. GPT-5.2: showed pathological passivity and an optimistic bias in long games, but became a nuclear earthquake if there was time pressure: at that time its success rate went from 0% to 75%. Gemini: was the most unpredictable model with the greatest tolerance for risk, being the only one that chose to bet on a total nuclear war from very early turns. Experts say. As pointed out in New Scientist James Johnson, of the University of Aberdeen, “from a nuclear risk perspective, the conclusions are disturbing.” Tong Zhao of Princeton University believes this experiment is relevant because There are many countries that are evaluating the role of AI in military conflicts and as he says “it is not clear to what extent they are including AI support when actually deciding in these processes.” The red button seems safe at the moment. Both Zhao and Payne believe it is difficult to believe that a government give up control of its nuclear arsenal to an AI, but as Zhao says, “there are scenarios in which in very short time frames, military planners have a very strong incentive that leads them to depend on AI.” It is something that is reflected precisely in the recent ‘A house full of dynamite‘ (Kathryn Bigelow, 2025), a film in which this fear of using nuclear weapons raises a clear reflection. Image | United Artist In Xataka | The password for the US nuclear button was so absurdly simple for years that the strange thing is that no one violated it

They are your weapon in the war of the last mile

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In 2017 The Supercor Stop&Go brand was born. The objective was to “create the largest network of proximity and convenience stores in Spain” and we can say that almost a decade later they have achieved it. The number of establishments is now close to 800 and their plans are even more ambitious. 1,000 stores. It is the objective that El Corte Inglés and Repsol have set for 2028. Only In 2025, 71 establishments will openreaching a total of 778 stores in operation. Of all of them, there are 672 that correspond to the Stop&Go format and 106 are the Mini version; By 2028 they want them to be 750 and 250 respectively. In total, they will have to open 222 more establishments in the next two years, 111 a year, almost double the pace of last year. Why it is important. For El Corte Inglés there are many points of sale that allow it to gain ground in the local supermarket, but it is also a huge network of collection points. For Repsol, It’s part of your business non-oil and allows them to give added value to their stations, generating benefits beyond the sale of fuel. More ecommerce than retail. The alliance is not understood without ecommerce. El Corte Inglés does not only want to sell at gas stations: it wants to create a capillary network of points where its customers can collect online orders. This allows them compete on the battlefield that is last mile logistics. Amazon has its mega logistics centers and its delivery fleets, ecommerce startups compete on price and speed. El Corte Inglés and Repsol have something better: physical assets already operational and a brand that people recognize. Repsol’s business grows. As we said, Supercor Stop&Go is part of a broader diversification strategy for Repsol. The oil company has alliances with other companies such as Amazon, Strarbucks, Lizarran or Levaduramadre, in addition to more than 500 Klin washing areas. Its objective is to convert its stations into multi-service spaces that increase traffic. As part of its loyalty strategy, the Waylet app also stands out, which already has more than 10 million users. Image | The English Court In Xataka | In 2022 Repsol began to apply very aggressive discounts at its gas stations. The CNMC believes that they were taking advantage

The F-35 cannot be hacked like an iPhone. The explanation is the same why Spain and Europe cannot go to war without the US.

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There was a moment, probably towards the end of the Cold War, when the concept of Western military superiority stopped being measured solely in tons of steel or number of divisions and began to depend more and more on lines of code, networks and invisible architectures. As the decades passed, that technological transformation redefined not only how war is fought, but who really has control of the tools with which war is waged. Europe is realizing that that train has missed it. The jailbreak myth. Last year we already have that the possibility of an “off” button on the American F-35 it wasn’t exactly like that. Now, the comparison launched last week by the Dutch minister when suggesting that the fighter could “break free” like an iPhone It simplifies to the absurdity what is, in reality, a combat system defined by software and armored by cryptographic architecture. The F-35 is not designed for the operator to modify its code, but only to run software authenticated by keyscontrolled supply chains and closed validation environments, which means that physically accessing the aircraft is not the same as controlling its system. It is therefore not a consumer device on which alternative applications are installed like those on a mobile phone, but rather a platform whose integrity depends on digital signaturestrusted hardware modules and a support infrastructure that validates each update before the aircraft executes it. ODIN and structural dependency. They remembered in the middle The Aviationist that the real core of the problem is not in “hacking” the plane, but in keeping it outside the American ecosystem that keeps it operational. The F-35 depends on ODINthe logistics and data network that manages maintenance, mission planning, software updates and threat files, all under the control of infrastructure and processes largely managed from the United States. Disconnecting it does not turn it off immediately, but it initiates a progressive loss of capabilities that transforms it from a fully integrated fifth-generation platform to a combat fighter that is increasingly less relevant in the face of modern threats. So yes, exactly the same as a phone that stops receiving critical patches and updates. The same European dependence. Curiously, or perhaps not so much, this logic does not end with the plane, but runs through the entire European military architecture. The Financial Times recalled this morning in a piece that tried to answer the big European questions, that the continent’s armies depend on American software, clouds and systems for secure communications, data analysis, command and control, intelligence and platform maintenance. We are talking about platforms with contracts that involve giants like Google, Microsoft or Palantir and fundamental systems such asl Lockheed Martin Aegis integrated into, for example, European ships. The European military commanders themselves they recognized in the report that an abrupt break would generate operational gaps, fragmentation and loss of effectiveness, because a good part of the digital “back-end” on which its capabilities rest is not under European sovereign control. Digital sovereignty vs reality. Now that Washington is going through a phase where the word “ally” does not fit to the profile, the political speeches that advocate accelerate technological sovereignty in defense they collide with a structural reality: replicating the entire ecosystem that supports platforms, networks, encryption, AI and cloud services is not as simple as moving servers to European soil or changing providers overnight. And it is not because data localization does not equate to real sovereignty when that same software, updates, cryptographic keys and interoperability depend on American supply chains and regulatory frameworks, and where European generals themselves warn that a hasty decoupling would put daily operations at risk. Same explanation. In the end, the F-35 can’t be hacked like an iPhone has the same explanation why Spain and Europe cannot aspire to full digital sovereignty or resort to a high-intensity war without the United States: the structural dependence of the North American technological ecosystem. In the air, that translates into a fighter whose effectiveness rests on updates, threat data and logistical support controlled from Washington. On the ground, in militaries that operate on digital infrastructures, critical software and command architectures deeply intertwined with American suppliers and standards. If you also want, it is not so much a question of political will, but rather of technical architecture: whoever controls the software, controls the capacity. Image | RawPixel In Xataka | “It’s not what we need”: Germany has just put the finishing touches on Spain’s great military dream, the European anti-F-35 is disappearing In Xataka | The Netherlands has just activated panic in Spain and the US allies: the F-35 can be “released” like an iPhone

We have been experiencing a great war between the Xbox and the PlayStation for 25 years. And that’s wonderful: Crossover 1×38

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The clear things and the thick chocolate: I’m from Xbox. I have been almost always, although my first real console was the original PlayStation. Then, for various reasons, I decided to try the original Xbox and loved it, and have ended up owning all of its successors. But that doesn’t stop me from knowing that Spain is a country of Play. I respect and accept it, but what I also value is that this “console war” continues to be so active, because that competition not only allows us some fun and laughter with friends – “Do you really have an Xbox!?!?” – but above all because it has allowed both evolve amazingly. And precisely that war between the Xbox and the PlayStation we talk about in this installment of Crossover, in which both Jose and I We talk about our experiences and the history of these platforms accompanied, of course, by Jaume, who moderates and as always asks the right questions. Thus, we review the birth of the first PlayStation and Xbox and how that completely changed a market that previously seemed dominated by Sega and Nintendo. The latter has never directly entered into competition with Sony and Microsoft, and has chosen a different path and in which it has certainly done extraordinarily well. But what is clear is that the evolution of the Xbox and the PlayStation marked us all and in that review we talk about all those decisions, how each of the generations fared and what the future may hold for us. The final question, “Who won the console war?”may have a valid answer for the current moment, but the best of all is that we are facing platforms that are absolutely alive and that are preparing the most interesting news in the short term. Not only of them, of course, also with promising projects like the Steam Machine. Meanwhile, whether you are from Xbox or Play, we have a single message. Long live video games. On YouTube | Crossover In Xataka | There is brutal competition for our attention. And there is someone losing that battle in a bloody way: the consoles

We have found an ancient bone in Córdoba. Some believe it is part of Hannibal’s war elephants.

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What the hell is the bone of an elephant that lived more than 2,000 years ago doing in a Córdoba site surrounded by ammunition for catapults and arrows like those used in the scorpions? The question arises, but it is what a team of researchers who have just signed have been guessing for years. a fascinating article in one of the most reputable archaeological magazines in the world. In it they slip that this mysterious proboscis bone unearthed by pure chance in Andalusia could be neither more nor less than the first test direct from the war elephants employed by the Carthaginian general Aníbal Barca. What is this bone? A question similar to that must have been asked. towards 2019 archaeologists who, during a emergency excavation to expand the Provincial Hospital of Córdoba, they found a peculiar bone fragment. The piece was not larger than a baseball (measures between 15 and 8 cm), preserved its porosity and peeked out from under what looked like a ruined adobe wall from the 3rd century BC, which probably facilitated its preservation. That archaeologists unearth a bone during a tasting (even a millennia old one) has little to offer. In this case, however, the fragment held several surprises. The first, its age: 2,250 years. The second (and this is where things get interesting) is its origin: the bone is neither more nor less than the carpal bone of an elephant, something like part of the ‘wrist’ of a proboscide that for some mysterious reason ended up in the Iberian Peninsula. “He has enormous interest.” The discovery was so exciting, opening up such promising scenarios, that in 2023 it already generated interest outside the academic circuit. In September of that year Rafael Martínez, professor of Prehistory at the University of Córdoba recognized to The Country the expectation around the bone. “It is of enormous interest given the practical absence of remains of elephants from a pre-Roman context in Europe, excluding ivory objects that were subject to trade and import,” he said enthusiastically. “In any case, this discreet bone can be interpreted as proof of the presence of these animals in the area of ​​current Córdoba between the 4th and 2nd centuries BC” By then the professor went one step further and ventured a fascinating hypothesis: “It could belong to the period of the Public Wars. It could be the first elephant discovered by Hannibal’s troops, but it cannot be certain.” There were still many questions on the table. For example, its chronology: it was estimated that the animal died between the end of the IV and I BC, a long period that left several possibilities open. Did the bone belong to a Punic elephant or was it more correct to frame it in times of Julius Caesar? Hunting for answers. The bone may be small, but scientists have not had an easy time analyzing it. To begin with, it has been difficult to specify its species. After a detailed examination they concluded that it must be a large specimen, larger than female Asian elephants. Specifically, they think of a Loxodonta pharaoensis (the Carthaginian elephant) an African subspecies extinct in Roman times. Maybe the name doesn’t tell you much, but they are animals. used by Hannibal for his passage through the Alps. The other great unknown. Once the species was clarified (more or less), another unknown remained: its antiquity. The bone was a challenge because it did not contain enough collagen and had not fossilized. That did not prevent a study from ending up revealing that the fragment dates from between end of the 4th and beginning of the 3rd BC Live Science It even goes further and precise that the extract in which the fragment was found (part of a fortified Iberian town known as oppida) can be dated approximately 2,250 years ago, at the beginning of the 3rd BC It is a key fact because it takes us back to a time before the founding of the Roman Cordoba and the turbulent times of Second Punic War (218-201 BC), when Carthage and Rome struggled to dominate the Mediterranean world. Click on the image to go to the tweet. Are there more clues? Yes. And they are just as interesting. Not only was the bone found at the site, protected by a demolished adobe wall. Archaeologists also discovered more than a dozen of bolaños, small projectiles that were used with catapults, and part of what appears to be a spear. They are clues that help complete the story and help to better understand the site, such as recognize researchers in Journal of Archaeological Science Reports. “The level of destruction fits well within an emerging pattern of events associated with the Second Punic War, some of which are attested in literary sources and some of which are not, spanning both siege warfare and open battlefield contexts,” they explain in statements to Phys. Why is it important? Because of the implications it has. In your article Martínez and the rest of his colleagues recall that the discovery seems “intimately linked to the events of the Second Punic War in Hispania” and slips a key idea: “This may represent the first known anatomical element of an elephant used by the Punic troops in this war in Europe.” If they are correct, we would be looking at a first-class find: the bone of one of the elephants of Hannibal’s troops in the Second Punic War. Is it so relevant? “It could be a historical milestone. There is no direct archaeological evidence of the use of these animals,” clarify Martinez to Live Science. The march led by Hannibal through Western Europe in his attack on Rome and the use of elephants as “war machines” during the Punic Wars it is a very popular episode, but direct and palpable evidence is not abundant. The episode of passage through the Alps We know it thanks to historians like Polybius or Titus Livy, but the strongest archaeological evidence today is traces. That … Read more

A report has set off alarm bells in Europe. Russia’s shell production is meaningless for a single war

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When Russia crossed the Ukrainian border in 2022, Europe reacted as it had not done since the end of the Cold War: massive sanctions, accelerated rearmament and a political unity forced by urgency. During these years, the European debate revolved around a seemingly simple question about kyiv’s resistance, as the conflict lengthened, became normalized, and ceased to be a “temporary” war. Now, with the front stagnant and the calendar moving forward, in the European capitals it is beginning to prevail another concern. What will Russia do when this war is no longer the center of the board? It’s not just the front. Yes, as the conflict in Ukraine approaches its fourth anniversary, it is beginning to take hold in Europe a different reading And more disturbing: Russia is not acting like a country trapped in a war of attrition, but rather like a power that uses the conflict as, perhaps, a preparatory phase. In the last few hours, a piece of information has appeared on the old continent: the massive increase in its military production suggests that Moscow is not only thinking about supporting the current front, but about setting up a later strategic scenarioin which having reserves, industrial capacity and room for maneuver will be as important as any territorial advance achieved in Ukraine. The figure that triggers the alarms. The data that most worries the European intelligence services is the Russian production of ammunition, which has exceeded the seven million projectiles annually, a figure 17 times higher to that of the first stages of the invasion. According to the Estonian intelligence service Välisluureamet, this jump is not explained by a simple intensification of combat, mainly because it makes no sense, but by the construction of new industrial plants and the will to rebuild strategic reserves in the long term. For Europe, the implicit message is clear: no one manufactures at that rate if they are only thinking about surviving the current conflict. Resist and prepare. This rearmament occurs despite the Russian economic deterioration, enormous human cost of the war and the increasing difficulties for recruit soldiersreinforcing the idea that the Kremlin prioritizes material accumulation over internal well-being. The support of North Korea, which has come to supply a substantial part of the ammunition used in Ukraine, has allowed Moscow to gain time and rebuild arsenals. For Estonia, maintaining these reserve levels is a central element of planning possible future conflictsnot simple insurance for the ongoing war. The north enters the radar. we have been counting in recent months. That fear of what comes next is not limited to the eastern flank. Now Norway has warned openly that a Russian move to protect its nuclear assets in the Arctic, concentrated on the Kola Peninsula, a short distance from its border, cannot be ruled out. This is not a classic ambition of conquest, but rather an aggressive defensive logic: ensuring the ability second nuclear attack in case of an escalation with NATO. The Ukrainian War has forced Nordic countries to plan for scenarios that a few years ago would have seemed unlikely. Tactical peace for strategy. The Guardian said this morning that, while increasing its military capacity, Russia deploys calculated diplomacy that seeks to buy time and divide the West. Estonian intelligence describes opening gestures toward the United States and negotiating rhetoric as a maneuver to reduce pressures, exploit cracks between Washington and Europe and consolidate positions without giving up the underlying objectives. In parallel, Moscow intensifies influence operations and hybrid warfareaware that the Ukrainian post-war can be as decisive as the war itself. The disturbing scene. In short, the combination of mass production of ammunition, possible nuclear planning, hybrid pressure and instrumental diplomacy seem to paint a panorama most uncomfortable for Europe: one where even when the weapons end fading in Ukraine, Russia will remain an actor ready to act. From that perspective, it is not only the end of a war that is worrying European capitals, but the beginning of a stage in which Moscow, industrially reinforced, could decide when and where to tighten the chess again. Hence, what comes after Ukraine is precisely what generates the most fear. Image | Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, Vitaly V. Kuzmin In Xataka | The question is no longer whether Europe “is at war”: the question is whether it is willing to defend itself In Xataka | First it was Finland, now the US has confirmed it: when the war in Ukraine ends, Russia has a plan for Europe

Spain does not know if it has too many or too few rabbits. But this town of Toledo has declared war on them at their own risk and expense.

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In Villa de Don Fadrique, province of Toledo, the town hall you have just activated an extraordinary authorization to shoot down rabbits daily. In fact, it is inviting volunteers to reduce its population to a minimum. It is a total war against these rodents that are becoming a real headache for farmers across the country. And it is curious because, if we look at the data, the truth is that the European rabbit entered the red list of threatened species from the IUCN in 2019. Can you be endangered and an indiscriminate pest at the same time? And the answer is yes, of course yes. A few days ago, it was the Union of Farmers and Ranchers of Castilla la Mancha the one that warned that “the proliferation of rabbits is a problem that has been going on for ten years, they speak of a ‘pest’ that is threatening olive groves and pistachio and almond trees, and they demand that the populations of these animals be controlled.” It is not an anecdotal impression, in a sectoral report points out that rabbits account for 64% of agricultural insurance payments for wildlife damage and averages of tens of thousands of hectares damaged per year are cited. And yet, the decline of the rabbit at a general level it’s clear. And that not only impacts the “bug” itself: whether we like it or not, there is the base of the food chain of more than 30 species (from the Iberian lynx to the imperial eagle) and its disaster alters the functioning of the Mediterranean forest. He’s been altering it for decades. Because what is clear is that this is not something recent. The decline of the European rabbit is associated with myxomatosisfirst (mid-20th century); then continue with the rabbit hemorrhagic disease in the 80s; and is complicated by the arrival in 2012 of a new variant (RHDV2) that affects populations just when they were beginning to recover. To this we must add the changes in the landscape and the disappearance of boundaries, fallow lands and traditional shelters. However, when God closes a door he opens a window. And, despite the general decline, rabbits have known how to use the gaps in human infrastructure to create authentic breeding sites. The slopes and shoulders of the roads have become tremendously favorable habitats (and even in motion vectors) and areas with constant food (irrigation/crops) are natural attractors of these reduced populations. That is to say, the explanation is simple: the populations are smaller, but they have been rearranged in areas that cause more damage to farmers. And thus, the conflict is served. While conservationists and scientists ask to recover the rabbit in the mountains, farmers ask to expel it from its areas of influence. But the curious thing is that both sides are partly right and we do not have stories that allow us to understand what is happening. Something that is also happening with all the bugs on the mountain. Image | Sönke Biehl In Xataka | In 1940 Japan removed this island from the maps to keep its activities secret. Now your creatures are dying

Germany does not want to depend on Elon Musk for war. So the largest weapons factory in Europe wants a “military Starlink”

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For decades, European security has rested on critical infrastructure controlled from the United States. But with the war back on the continent and space communications becoming a decisive military assetGermany is beginning to assume that it cannot afford depend on Elon Musk nor from Washington for something as basic as talking and fighting in case of conflict. A “military Starlink”. Rheinmetall and OHB are in preliminary talks to present a joint offer to create a satellite communications network in low orbit for the Bundeswehr, a system that in Berlin already is openly described as a “Starlink for the German army”. The initiative aims to capture part of the ambitious German plan for invest 35,000 million euros in military space technology, with the aim of providing a secure, sovereign infrastructure specifically designed for military use, reducing dependence on US services such as Starlink, owned by SpaceX. Technological sovereignty. The background of the project will be one of the great themes of this 2026, and it is both strategic and political, since the war in Ukraine has shown to what extent satellite communications in low orbit can be decisive when terrestrial networks are destroyed or degraded. Although Starlink (and its military version Starshield) became in a key asset for kyiv, many European countries distrust to base critical capabilities on a foreign private provider, which has accelerated plans to build national or European networks under state control. The weight of Germany. With this program, Germany aims to become the third largest investor world in space technology, only behind the United States and China, according to the consulting firm Novaspace. German military authorities have already defined the technical specifications and are preparing the tender, prioritizing coverage of NATO’s eastern flank, where Berlin deploys a permanent brigade of 5,000 soldiers in Lithuania as part of its defensive reinforcement. From armored to space. Traditionally associated with tanks, artillery and ammunitionRheinmetall is rapidly expanding its presence into new domains in the heat of German rearmament. At the end of last year it obtained its first major space contract, up to 2,000 million eurosto develop together with Iceye a constellation of radar satellites capable of operating at night and in bad weatherwhich puts it in a solid position to now aspire to a military communications system in low orbit. HBO and opportunity. For HBOthird largest European satellite manufacturer and navigation system supplier Galileothe project represents a key opportunity to strengthen its military business. The company faces the possible creation of a European space giant as a result of the merger of the divisions from Airbus, Thales and Leonardoan operation that its CEO considers potentially anti-competitive and that could leave OHB at a disadvantage if it does not expand its scale and capabilities. Boiling market. The simple announcement of the talks has OHB price skyrocketedreflecting the extent to which the sector perceives German military space spending as a catalyst for opportunity. That said, the project is still in an early phase, with no official comments from the companies or the Ministry of Defense, and is part of a growing competition for multi-million dollar contracts that will define who controls future critical military communications infrastructure in Europe. Image | Support Forces of Ukraine Command In Xataka | Germany is experiencing a new “industrial miracle” that it already experienced 90 years ago: that of weapons In Xataka | Europe’s largest arms factory faces an unexpected problem: earning an indecent amount of money

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