war

The last thing we expected to see in the “war on the wolf” was this: armored sheep

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The image of a sheep equipped with plastic armor full of spikes seems straight out of a medieval fantasy film, but it is the last story we have known about the complex coexistence between livestock and large predators. However, beyond the ingenuity of individual solutions, scientific literature has spent decades analyzing which non-lethal measures are truly effective in protecting livestock that do not involve covering a sheep with armor as if it were a medieval soldier. The armored sheep. Recently, different media echoed the story of Rudolf Schaubach, a 72-year-old rancher from Villach (Austria) who has come to the fore for registering with the European Patent Office an unusual invention which consists of a plastic net with sharp spikes that surrounds the animal, imitating the defense mechanism of a hedgehog. And desperation in the face of the economic losses caused by large predators destroying his sheep pushed this rancher to make this decision in order to ultimately protect his animals. The result. Equipping a single animal took about an hour, which makes this idea a logistically unaffordable process for an entire herd, since equipping them all would require even more workers. In addition, animal organizations they ended up denouncing the initiative for possible non-compliance with animal welfare regulations when seeing that the animal could suffer with that plastic armor on top and also for the damage to predators. What science says. When experts analyze the conflict between ranchers and predators, they warn that the evidence available is heterogeneous and that we should avoid absolute statements that a measure is magnificent and always works. Here they point out that the effectiveness of the measures taken depends enormously on the geographical context, the type of exploitation and the pressure from predators. We have an example in 2018, where a scientific review exhaustively reviewed the state of livestock protection. Their first conclusion is a slap on the wrist for research, since they pointed out that strong experimental evidence is still lacking in many of the methods that are applied. Despite this, the study did manage to identify which tools have better support highlighting the use of guard dogsthe fences and the fladry, which is nothing more than a line of ropes with colored flags that flutter in the wind, acting as a visual deterrent for wolves. More conservative. One measure that can be considered in response to these problems is to kill the predator, but here science indicates that lethal control is not the most consistent response in the long term. In fact, they insist that the solution is to change the way herds are managed. We have the best example in a 2017 study where different scoldings from the United States were analyzed for seven years. The research showed that implementing an adaptive strategy of non-lethal measures dramatically reduced sheep losses to wolves in the protected area compared to areas where such management was not applied. That is why prevention is not about putting up a fence and forgetting about it, but about evaluating, adapting grazing, moving flocks strategically and keeping dogs alert. Images | LT1 OÖ In Xataka | Galicia lacks shepherds to clean the mountains. So he has done the most logical thing: create a school for shepherds

China is strangling critical materials that the US needs for its technology industry. It’s a two speed war

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In early May, Trump went to China on an official trip and took an entourage of CEOs on Air Force One. They were all from the technology (Cristiano Amon, Tim Cook, Elon Musk or Jensen Huang, for example), but also others energy, the space industry or semiconductors. One of them was Jim Anderson of Coherent, who was very interested in something very specific: why China is taking more than necessary in issue export licenses of indium phosphide. Anderson is blown away by indium phosphide for a very specific reason: It’s an essential material for high-speed optical chips. And, although it may seem very specific, it turns out that it is the key piece that the data centers new generation of the United States. And China, as with other strategic materials and metals, is in control. Optical chips. Data centers house miles and miles of visible cables that connect servers to the network and power, but they are not the only ones. Within each device, the chips are linked by cable and it is a functional technology, but with a limit that is beginning to be reached. If you want to improve latency and bandwidth (and, therefore, the performance of artificial intelligence platforms), you must rethink the internal connection to communicate the chips. That’s where optics come into play. By connecting chips by laser, the performance of the equipment is multiplied and Nvidia is so convinced of this that, a few months ago, invested 4 billion dollars in two companies: Lumentum and Coherent. They estimate that, with copper that is at its limit, connecting clusters of thousands of processors by laser is the solution to the physical problem that they are beginning to encounter. They are components with a very high degree of specialization and a series of materials from the rare earth which, as we have said on numerous occasions, are under the control of China. Indium phosphide is not a rare earth derivative, but it is a strategic material. Strangling the market . And therein lies the problem. The United States wants to promote its technological independence (because they have Big Tech, but practically everything is manufactured outside the United States) and, to achieve this, they need a series of materials that are not in their possession. China has that dominancebut with each restriction and veto that is applied to them from the US, they respond with the same currency, but vetoing what American technology companies need so much: rare earth metals. That is why they are classified as minerals, metals and strategic components, and indium phosphide is among them. China produces approximately 70% of the world’s indium and started to apply restrictions to the supply chain in February 2025. This has caused not only prices to skyrocket by 250%, but also American technology companies to pressure to reverse the situation. The main complaint is that, instead of directly blocking the finished products, it slows down the entire process because They are capable of conditioning the export of the materials used to create those products. Therefore, the optical module ecosystem cannot scale as quickly as hyperscalers need. Domino. Taking this situation into account, what is happening with these security systems advanced photonics It is exactly the same as with NAND chips: all the fish are sold for the next few years. In this sense, as consumers we absolutely don’t care because it is something that only affects AI companies, but it is estimated that Lumentum will have everything sold out in 2026, 2027 and… 2028, despite having quadrupled its production. It not only affects American companies, since the Taiwanese VPEC and LandMark Optoelectronics are also suffering interruptions in the supply of the material. And it doesn’t matter if Lumentum or Coherent are multiplying their capacity by opening new plants because the raw materials continue to leave China and, if those export controls are in place, It is an insurmountable funnel. The other side of the coin. On the other hand we have the Chinese industry. In recent years, its technologies have taken a giant leap, expanding its capacity and beginning to make waves in the international conversation with both user level components (RAM memory and computers) and in the high technological spheres (photonics and semiconductors). Because China has detailed the plan to become the world’s leading technological power by 2030 and it is clear that they have both a very defined roadmap and, above all, the materials necessary to achieve that goal and which companies are the ones that will define that future. Huawei or SMIC are two proper namesbut there are others like Yuanjie that have skyrocketed in the stock market. The reason? They are the ones who are creating photonics components for data centers. In Xataka | Huawei no longer competes: it is building its own parallel reality

Europe’s secret weapon to win the electric battery war is not in the mines: it is in the garbage

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The race for European energy sovereignty is being fought far from the large open pit mines. The new battlefield is located in a much more unexpected place: the garbage heap. The companies Vianode and Cylib they have forged an alliance to convert old batteries from scrapyards into high-performance components for new vehicles, the continent’s latest attempt to achieve supply chain independence. However, this scientific advance collides head-on with a real political earthquake. As anticipated at the time Reutersthe European Commission is evaluating whether to reverse or delay its star measure for five or more years: the ban on selling combustion cars from 2035. While technology shows that stopping dependence on foreign powers is possible, economic fear makes Brussels hesitate. The “unsung hero” at the bottom of the landfill. To understand the magnitude of the project, you have to look at a specific material. How do you define it? Aqua Metals, This is the “unsung hero” of lithium-ion batteries: graphite. This material is essential to create the anode (the negative pole of the battery) that allows energy to be stored and released efficiently. Although it is light compared to metals such as cobalt, graphite represents between 10% and 20% of the total weight of a cell. The underlying problem is geopolitical. Global demand for this mineral has skyrocketed, but Europe depends almost entirely on imports of virgin material controlled by external markets. The situation became critical when China, the world’s largest producer, announced severe restrictions for export. The answer to this vulnerability lies in what the industry knows as “black mass,” the dark dust that results from crushing discarded batteries. In this mixture, graphite can account for up to 50% of the content. Recycling has ceased to be a simple green initiative and has become a matter of industrial survival. Urban water-based mining. How exactly is that scrap metal transformed into cutting-edge components? The German company Cylib has developed its own technology based on water, named OLiC. This system is capable of recovering 90% of critical metals (lithium, graphite, nickel, cobalt and manganese) from spent batteries, reducing carbon emissions by 80% compared to traditional mining extraction. This development is not an improvised promise. By mid-2025, Cylib has already marked a milestone together with the Syensqo firm by producing high purity lithium hydroxide directly from this black mass using a proprietary selective solvent (CYANEX 936P). This achievement allowed different battery chemistries to be processed in a single operational line, preparing to more than comply with EU regulation, which will require recovering 80% of lithium by 2031. With the new alliance signed, the graphite recovered by Cylib will be delivered to the Norwegian firm Vianode, which will integrate it into the formulation of its advanced synthetic anodes. Its goal for 2030 is radical: emitting just 1.0 kg of CO2 for every kilo of graphite produced. As Dr. Lilian Schwich, co-founder of Cylib, summarized: “Circular does not mean making concessions. It means a competitive advantage for Europe.” The fracture of the industry in the mirror of 2035. Although recyclers demonstrate that material autonomy is technically viable, pressure from traditional manufacturers has fractured the automotive sector. Giants like Volkswagen or Stellantis They argue that the current goals They are not viable because consumers are reluctant to pay the extra cost of the electric vehicle and the charging infrastructure remains poor. Ford CEO Jim Farley himself publicly admitted that EU demands “are not a sustainable reality in Europe today,” pushing to save combustion engines through the use of synthetic biofuels. But this position is not unanimous. Purely electrical firms see this possible political delay as a strategic error that will give the market to China. Michael Lohscheller, CEO of the electric brand Polestar, was blunt in the face of regulatory uncertainty: “The technology is ready, the charging infrastructure is ready and consumers are ready. So what are we waiting for?” The great European paradox. Europe holds the key to its energy future in its own scrapyards. This year’s pilot plants and commercial agreements demonstrate that the circular ecosystem is a mature reality. The great paradox that remains in the air is evident: What will be the point of building the most advanced battery recycling technology on the planet if, out of fear of competition from foreign markets, Brussels decides to artificially extend the life of the exhaust pipe? European automotive independence may have been born in the trash, but it risks dying in the offices. Image | Pexels Xataka | Keeping combustion engines alive in 2035 leaves us with clear winners. Some called BMW, Porsche and Ferrari

Russia thought kyiv would fall within days. Four years later, the war in Ukraine has just “passed” the First World War

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In 1914, millions of Europeans they were convinced that the war would end before Christmas. In fact, the expression “home by Christmas” became popular between soldiers and civilians who believed that the conflict would be rather brief. It ended up lasting more than four years and transforming Europe forever. More than a century later, the Ukrainian war has already grown longer. From days to historical milestone. When Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022, the Kremlin expected a swift campaign that would culminate in the fall of kyiv within days. More than four years later, the reality is exactly the opposite: the war has reached the 1,569 days duration and has already officially surpassed to the First World War. What began as an operation designed to quickly overthrow the Ukrainian government has transformed into one of the longest and most consequential conflicts in recent European history, to the point that many Ukrainians they contemplate with concern another historical threshold even more distant: the duration of the Second World War. The inevitable comparison with 1914. The historians warn that comparisons with world wars have obvious limits due to the differences in scale, number of countries involved and volume of casualties. However, they consider that the war in Ukraine shares enough features with the First World War to become its closest parallel in more than a century. Both began lightning offensives aimed at achieving a decisive victory within a few weeks. Both the German advance to Paris in 1914 like the Russian push towards kyiv in 2022 came close to achieving their initial objectives before being stopped and forced to retreat. The return of trench warfare. After the failure of the initial offensives, both conflicts drifted towards long static fronts where artillery dominated the battlefield. The images from the trenches of eastern Ukraine quickly evoked scenes from France and Belgium during the Great War. Soldiers barely separated a few hundred meterscontinuous bombardments and small infantry assaults became the daily routine. The firepower forced combatants to bury themselves underground to survive, reproducing a pattern that seemed to belong definitively to the past. Drones change the rules. The main difference between both wars came from the air. The drones profoundly transformed the battlefield and ended up making even traditional trenches vulnerable. Permanent surveillance from the sky and the ability to attack with precision forced the replacement of long defensive lines by small scattered sheltersdifficult to detect and more resistant to attacks. In many areas, any open-air movement can be located and attacked in a matter of minutes, turning large areas of the front into veritable death zones controlled by unmanned systems. Tanks, bunkers and dispersal. Technological evolution has also reduced the prominence of some weapons that for decades symbolized modern warfare. Tanks, feared during the early stages of the invasion, have become on easy targets for drones and they appear less and less near the line of contact. Meanwhile, soldiers invest enormous efforts in building shelters each time more sophisticated and profound. Some bunkers incorporate specific designs to absorb explosions and increase the chances of survival, reflecting the extent to which physical protection is once again a vital issue in an attritional conflict. Destruction reminiscent of the last century. Although the casualty figures They are very inferior Like those of the First World War, the visual devastation is eerily familiar. Destroyed forests, towns reduced to ruins and fields covered in craters constantly appear in images captured by reconnaissance drones. Various military analysts hold that the lethality of the Ukrainian front is close to that of the great battles of a century ago, not because of the absolute number of deaths but because of the constant danger faced by those fighting on the front lines. Stagnation and the search for a way out. The slow pace of progress illustrates the nature of the conflict. In some recent operations, Russian forces have progressed at a pace even slower than that recorded in some of the most stagnant battles of the First World War. With negotiations practically paralyzed, neither side has yet found a formula to break the balance. Ukraine tries to weaken Russian economic capacity through attacks against energy infrastructures and oil companies while flooding the front with thousands of attack drones, seeking to impose unsustainable costs on the adversary. The final paradox is that a war that began with the promise of quick victory increasingly looks like to the Great War: a prolonged struggle of attrition, marked by technology and with no clear end in sight. Image | Ministry of Defense of Ukraine In Xataka | The drone war has left a clear lesson for Ukraine: you can’t leave home without a 100-year-old machine gun In Xataka | In case there was not enough “gasoline” in 2026, the attack by a Russian drone has crossed a red line: that of Chernobyl

So few babies have not been born since the Civil War

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Barcelona is a dynamic city, destination for thousands of foreigners looking for a new life in Europe and a territory that takes years seeing how its census grows almost uninterruptedly. Still, that doesn’t mean its demographic engine is well-oiled. On the contrary. The latest data published by the City Council show that, after almost a decade of decline, in 2025 its birth rate marked the second lowest level since 1900. Since the beginning of the 20th century there was only one year in which fewer babies were born in Barcelona: 1939, when the Civil War ended. In fact, if the Barcelona census remains more or less afloat it is basically thanks to the flow of immigrants. What has happened? That the Barcelona City Council has published their official demographic data as of January 1, 2026 and the general ‘photo’ they leave is full of chiaroscuros. The city’s population remains more or less stable, with 1,729,963 registered0.1% less than the previous year. It is not a bad figure if you take into account that Barcelona has been gaining residents from 2022 and that at the beginning of the century the census barely exceeded 1.5 million. What’s more, the local government relates this slight decline of 0.1% to a simple administrative issue. In his opinion they are explained (at least in part) because there are people who were still registered in Barcelona without living there and have now “regularized” their situation. “Barcelona is the administrative and physical gateway to the territory,” clarify the deputy mayor, Jordi Valls. Resident population in Barcelona (1900-2026) Perfect, right? Not quite. It is true that the loss of population has been minimal, almost negligible, and that Barcelona has been gaining population practically since the beginning of the century; But that doesn’t mean the city’s demographic engine is working well. On the contrary. Its vegetative balance (the difference between births and deaths) is in the red. To be more precise, last year Barcelona saw how they died 3,549 neighbors more than those who were born. This data is explained because, although in general the number of deaths was reduced, the number of births decreased even more. The statistics of the City Council also reveal that this imbalance occurs in practically the entire city. “The negative natural balance is spread across all districts with the exception of Ciutat Vella, where for the third consecutive year there are more births than deaths,” clarify from the Consistory. This is an interesting note because of what it reveals to us about the birth rate in Barcelona. Are so few children born? Yes. The Barcelona statistical office counted last year 11,012 birthsa bad fact no matter how you look at it. Not only does it represent a decline of 1.3% compared to 2024. If we broaden the focus we see that this decrease aggravates the negative trend that the municipality has suffered since 2017 and, above all, distances it (even further) from the peaks in birth rates that it registered during the ‘baby boom’. For reference, the 11,012 births in 2025 are almost three times lower than those recorded in 1973, when the city saw 31,689 cradle Barcelonans born. The 2025 figure is in fact the second lowest in the entire historical series of the Barcelona Department of Statistics and Data Dissemination, which dates back to 1900. Since then there has only been one year in which fewer babies were born: 1939. That year they came into the world in Barcelona. 8,992 people. It is not surprising if we take into account that it was the last of the war and in 1938 the municipality had registered a record number of deaths (almost 28,200). At that time the total registry was also very inferiorit barely exceeded a million. Births and deaths (1900-2025) Immigrants, emigrants and administrative movements (1971-2025) How is the census maintained? Thanks to immigration, basically. “During 2025 the natural balance between births and deaths was -3,549 people, but it was offset by a positive migration balance of +11,383 people,” recognize the City Council, which confirms that the flow of foreigners “continues to be the essential component of demographic dynamics.” This is not an isolated fact or something temporary. From the Town Hall confirm that the population arriving from other countries has been “the protagonist of demographic growth” in Barcelona so far in the 21st century. Last year, in fact, the number of those registered with foreign nationality rose another slight 0.7%. Can we go further? That immigration has become the great demographic driver of Barcelona is something that can already be felt in its social structure. The “native population” was no longer the majority in 2019 and today in the city it is easier to meet people born in other places than in a Barcelona hospital. To be more precise, the City Council calculates that on January 1 the native population barely represented 44.6% of the total. In Barcelona there are 626,924 people registered who were born outside of Spain, the vast majority (53.2%) from America, although there are also many residents born in Pakistan, Morocco, Italy and China. And that among a long list of 181 different nationalities. Almost a third (30%) of those born abroad have already acquired Spanish nationality and today they represent 11% of the registry. What happens with age? The municipal statistics They also allow us to understand how the Barcelona population pyramid evolves. Another interesting indicator, since, although the immigrants who come to the city tend to be young, the average age of the general population has risen to 44.6 years. Nothing surprising if we take into account that the pyramid is clearly widening at the summit. As of January 1, there were 1,196 people residing in Barcelona who had already blown out the 100 candles, an all-time high. Meanwhile, the number of homes in which children and adolescents live is decreasing, and they do not even represent a quarter. What does increase is the education of the population: 37.4% of those registered over … Read more

During World War II, a bell was buried to protect it. A farmer found it in 2024

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One morning in August 2024, Laurynas Družas once again passed his metal detector around his village, Antašava, in northern Lithuania. But this time, unlike the previous ones, he was lucky: He found something he had heard about all his life. In fact, explains This farmer by profession, who bought his first metal detector when he was 18. There it was, two meters underground, the bell of his town’s church. The bell tower of the Jackaus church had been without a bell since 1942 because someone had kept it safe in the middle of the Second World War. Maybe too good, because getting her back had become a chimera. Saving the San Jacinto Bell. In 1942 Lithuania was occupied by the Nazis within the Reichskommissariat Ostland. The previous year, the United States had joined the fray and Germany had failed in its attempt to conquer the east in Operation Barbarossa. In this scenario, the bell of Saint Hyacinth of Antašava disappears. Druzas account that the townspeople risked their lives to hide it from the occupiers with all the sense in the world: it is worth remembering that the Nazi party issued a decree to confiscate the bells and melt them for war purposes. And be careful because at that time there were no tractors: they did it with a horse, a cart and brute force. Quite an act of resistance, protection of heritage and a truly dangerous mission to hide a bell that weighs more than half a ton behind the backs of the Nazi occupiers. The bell became a legend. And time passed, Antašava said goodbye to the Nazis, Lithuania ceased to belong to the USSR to become independent in 1990 and the bell was still missing. The problem was that, as the years went by, those who knew where the bell was buried began to forget the exact place: the landscape changes, bushes grow and memory becomes blurred. But people knew that there was a bell in the bell tower and that it was hidden and the story was passed from generation to generation. In fact, Laurynas’ grandmother knew approximately where she was because as a child an uncle showed her the area. Grandma forgot the exact location, but not the idea of ​​finding it. He passed that “obsession” on to his grandson who, 82 years later, found it. A bell with 100 years of history. The bell of the Antašava church was cast in Poland in 1908 in a foundry that, as confirmed by the Polish “campanologist” Dr. Piotr Jamski, is still active today in the hands of a different family than the original. After 82 years underground, its state of conservation It was almost perfectneither the bell nor the wood show any signs of deterioration, as Laurynas Družas himself described after the discovery. The only thing missing was the clapper, which according to oral tradition was dismantled the same night the bell was buried and kept separately in a house in the town, although it is still missing. When the discovery came to light, heritage professionals they took care to verify its authenticity and origin. Back to the bell tower. In August 2025, a year after the discovery, the bell he returned to his houseto the church of San Jacinto. Polish technicians installed the system to make it ring next to the other bell that was already in the bell tower. Vidmantas Družas, Laurynas’s uncle and church bell ringer, account that the two bells are now connected and ring by pressing a button. In Xataka | We have found a fortress from the Bronze Age: it had been hidden under the Romanian forest for almost five millennia In Xataka | Some 5,000-year-old tombs went unnoticed for millennia. Until we look from the sky Cover | Authorius Vilensija and Vadym Alyekseyenko

Spain has been without an essential weapon for war for years. Airbus has found the solution in Seville, and fires torpedoes and sonobuoys

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One of the most outlandish ideas of World War II was to convert old B-17 bombers into giant loaded drones. with almost ten tons of explosives. The pilots would take off, activate the remote control system and parachute before the plane continued toward its target without a crew. The project it was a failurebut it left a curious lesson: finding submarines and destroying hidden targets has always required the development of some of the strangest and most advanced technologies of each era. The capacity that Spain lost. Modern warfare still relies on highly sophisticated technologies, but some capabilities remain as essential as they were decades ago. One of them is the surveillance and pursuit of submarines. Spain lost that tool in December 2022 with the withdrawal of veterans P-3 Orionleaving a void that was especially striking for a country with thousands of kilometers of coastline, a strategic position between the Atlantic and the Mediterranean and intense naval activity in its waters. Since then, the Armed Forces have lacked an aircraft capable of locating, tracking and attacking enemy submarines, a situation that is now beginning to be resolved. thanks to a program developed entirely in Seville. Cockpit of the new maritime patrol C295 The answer comes from Andalusia. Airbus advances in the construction of the new C295 MPAa version specifically designed to return to the Air and Space Army a capability that had been missing for years. The program has already passed several important industrial milestones, including powering up systems and commissioning the engines of the first aircraft. The company ensures that the deadlines remain as planned and that flight tests will last for more than a year before the delivery of the first unit in 2028. Beyond a simple replacement, Airbus considers this development the most ambitious project carried out on the C295 platform and aspires to turn it into an international reference within maritime patrol. View of the interior of the warehouse from the airplane ramp The return of the submarine chaser. The characteristic that distinguishes this aircraft from the rest of the C295 versions is its ability to combat underwater threats. The device will be able to carry between two and four Mk46 or Mk54 torpedoes and deploy up to sixty sonobuoys, small floating sensors that listen to sounds underwater and allow hidden submarines to be located. The combination of both systems returns to Spain a fundamental tool for contemporary naval warfare. For years, the country has lacked a platform capable of searching for submarines at great distances, classifying them, tracking their movements and, if necessary, attacking them. The new plane recovers precisely that function, one of the more complex and strategic within any modern air force. An arsenal of sensors. Anti-submarine warfare depends on both sensors and weapons. Precisely for this reason, the C295 MPA will incorporate a very extensive set of specialized equipment. Among them are synthetic aperture radarselectro-optical systems, magnetic anomaly detectors capable of perceiving the presence of large metallic masses underwater, automatic vessel identification systems and an advanced acoustic system to process information collected by sonobuoys. Added to this are self-protection equipment against missiles, encrypted satellite communications and tactical data links that will allow information to be shared in real time with other naval and air units. An industrial project. Although Airbus leads the program, development has also become in a shop window of the Spanish defense industry. Companies such as Indra, SAES and Tecnobit participate by providing self-protection systems, acoustic sensors and encryption equipment. The contract also includes simulators, infrastructure, training and logistical support, consolidating a technological ecosystem that goes far beyond the manufacture of the aircraft itself and reinforces Seville’s role as one of the main military aeronautical centers in Europe. Much more than a new plane. The acquisition of eight devices of maritime surveillance and eight of maritime patrol is part of an investment greater than the 1.7 billion eurosto which other contracts for new versions of the C295 have been added. The program reflects the extent to which Spain is rebuilding capabilities considered essential in an international context where submarines once again play a leading role. In essence, the history of new C295 MPA It is not just about a plane that has just come off a Sevillian assembly line, but rather about how a country that had lost one of the most important tools to control its seas is recovering the ability to find invisible threats underwater and respond to them with its own means. Image | Airbus In Xataka | The S-82 is Spain’s second new generation submarine: it has just completed a critical test before delivery In Xataka | Spain is selling military technology for scrap: the latest was a Navy submarine for 130,000 euros

Cold War spy satellites

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Ander Izaguirre is the author of Return to the country of Elkano. It is a book that mixes travel chronicle with adventure narration. The story begins in Guetaria, where he returns after touring the Basque country by bicycle, taking as the backbone of history the figure of Juan Sebastián Elcano, considered the first person to complete a complete circumnavigation of the world. An idea is repeated several times in the book: the world has always been much more connected than we think. The starting point, in this case, is something that happened more than 500 years ago. What could the life of a person who crossed the planet five centuries ago be like when there are still people today who do not go beyond the borders of their country or their hometown? In its pages it talks about the connections between empires and geopolitical struggles to control trade routes. Sometimes, it is difficult to understand how in those days a person could travel thousands of kilometers and metropolises could trade with each other. But, personally, I find it much more complicated to imagine JUlius Caesar traveling along the Nile or Cleopatra living in Rome on the edge of the new year count with its Julian calendar. We are talking about a handful of years prior to the supposed birth of Jesus of Nazareth. Imagine if we go back further. As much as 4,000 years. That is, around the year 2,000 BC In two leaps we have begun to ask ourselves how our world could be interconnected just 500 years ago to how it would be more than 4,000 years ago. And to that question, some archaeologists believe they have found an answer. A river highway in Mesopotamia And our colleagues Motorpassion They bring us the story of one of those discoveries that will delight history fans. For many years it has been known that mesopotamian cities They have been using an intricate system of tunnels and water management for their irrigation for thousands of years. The invention was so effective that by adding all the conduits that have been active at some point, it is believed that it may have the same distance as there is between the Earth and the Moon, according to National Geographic. These tunnels were used, as we say, to move water from the Tigris and Euphrates rivers but also to serve as a refuge for the inhabitants of these cities, both from the scorching heat of the desert and from possible enemy invasions. This has been, until last year, what was thought. And using spy images and the use of LiDAR, research has continued to advance until making sense of a new use of these channels. According to the researchers who have developed Identifying the preserved network of irrigation canals in the Eridu region, southern Mesopotamia, published by the University of Cambridge, These canals would also serve as a river highway to trade between towns. In the 1960s, the United States launched a spy satellite project called CROWN. These satellites took photographs of the terrain in the middle of the Cold War and the declassified file has allowed researchers to detect subtle changes in the terrain that are impossible to detect from the ground. The photographs revealed small differences in the vegetation, which shows commercial roads and passenger traffic for millennia. But using LiDAR, researchers have also managed to bring to light some cities that were hidden, as was the case of an extension near Abarkuh where those famous canals were discovered. The great discovery, however, has been to verify that these canals were not only used to transport water through complex hydraulic systems or to cool the environment. Everything indicates according to the latter research which were also used to move goods, resources and wealth between city-states such as Ur, Uruk, Lagash or Eridu. With this discovery, it is considered that we are facing one of the oldest and most extensive logistics networks in history and the key to understanding how grain, copper, wood or precious stones were traded then thanks to flat-bottomed ships that would move through these canals and not only through the visible bed of the Tigris and Euphrates. Photo | Semhur and Ali sabih kadhim In Xataka | When there was a lunar eclipse, Babylon trembled. Texts from 4,000 years ago announced all misfortunes

No missiles, no rifles, no bombs. Ukrainian drones are carrying a type of cargo unprecedented in war: elderly people

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During the Soviet blockade of Berlin in 1948, an American pilot began to throw chocolates tied to small cloth parachutes on children watching the planes from Tempelhof airport. That improvised initiative ended up becoming the famous “Operation Little Vittles“, one of the most unexpected images of the Cold War: military aircraft used to carry hope instead of weapons. Decades later, Ukraine is finding equally unusual uses for its war machines. Lifesaving robots. For years, unmanned vehicles were associated with a very specific idea: transporting weapons, ammunition or explosives where the risk for soldiers was too high. The war in Ukraine is expanding that definition with an image that would have seemed unthinkable just a few years ago. In some of the most dangerous sectors of the front, the same ground drones that are part of the war machinery are being used to evacuate elderly people trapped between bombings, mines and artillery fire. In a conflict marked by the automation of combat, one of the most unexpected loads carried by these vehicles are not projectiles or supplies, but old people who no longer have a safe way to leave their homes. Rescue through no man’s land. The last known operation took place near Limánin the Donetsk region. While carrying out a logistics mission, a ground drone unit from the Kraken group was approached by a woman who asked for help to leave the area along with three other people, one of them injured by shrapnel. After coordinating the procedure for days, the operators sent a Zmiy Logistic vehiclea kind of remote-controlled four-wheeled buggy capable of transporting up to about 500 kilos of cargo. The drone traveled about 16 kilometers to the agreed point, rpicked up the four evacuees and began the return journey to a river crossing where Ukrainian soldiers completed the rescue and took the wounded to a hospital. The impossible life in the gray zone. These rescues They show a less visible reality of war. Despite years of fighting, there are still civilians living in the so-called “gray zone”, a strip of land disputed between both armies that can reach between 16 and 20 kilometers wide. There are practically no public services, shops, schools or hospitals left there. Power outages are common and bombings are part of the daily routine. However, many older people continue to resist in those places because they don’t want to leave the houses where they have lived all their lives, because they care for sick relatives or because they hope that the war will end before being forced to leave permanently. Iron soldiers on a new mission. It is not an isolated case. They remembered in Insider that in early April, another 77-year-old Ukrainian woman was evacuated from the same area using a ground drone operated by the 60th Mechanized Brigade. The images They went around the world because the soldiers approached her with a blanket on which a message as simple as it was revealing could be read: “Grandma, get on.” The scene summarizes the extent to which these systems are evolving. Originally designed to transport supplies, plant explosives or even assemble remote weaponry, the so-called “iron soldiers” are beginning to take on rescue tasks that previously would have required exposing soldiers or volunteers to extreme danger. Total automation. Behind these stories there is a much deeper transformation. Ukraine and Russia are accelerating the incorporation of unmanned ground vehicles to carry out missions that They are too risky for people. Some carry ammunition, some carry medical supplies, and some incorporate remote-controlled weapons. The Ukrainian goal is especially ambitious: Minister of Digital Transformation, Mykhailo Fedorov, has announced the purchase of 25,000 ground drones during the first half of 2026 and aspires for all frontline logistics to one day depend on these systems. During the first quarter of the year alone, unmanned vehicles performed more than 21,500 missions. Unexpected consequences. The usual image of military innovation may be associated with increasingly destructive systems, but the Ukrainian experience is showing an unexpected consequence of that technological revolution. The same robots that were born to keep soldiers away from danger are being used to remove vulnerable civilians from some of the most dangerous places in Europe. As militaries race to automate combat, ground-based drones are proving military technology can play a role, too completely different: become the ultimate escape vehicle for those trapped in the ruins of an endless war. Image | ArmyInform In Xataka | Storks have become the best anti-drone weapon of war. And Russia and Ukraine are taking note In Xataka | Ukraine has been terrorizing Russian soldiers with its heavy drones for years. Now they are literally giving it back.

In 1967 a war closed the Suez Canal for eight years. Half a century later, the Strait of Hormuz looks into the same abyss

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When war broke out between Egypt and Israel in 1967, fifteen commercial ships were trapped in the Suez Canal. The captains dropped anchor assuming they would only have to wait a few days for the fighting to end. They were right about the duration of hostilities: it was the Six Day War. However, It took eight years for the canal to reopen. When the ships were finally able to set sail in 1975, only two were still seaworthy. The rest had rusted so much under the desert sun that They went down in history as the “Yellow Fleet”. Almost sixty years later, history rhymes in the Persian Gulf. Ninety days after the war between the United States, Israel and Iran blocked the Strait of Hormuz at the end of February, the most important maritime passage in the world remains closed. Dozens of oil tankers wait at anchor, waiting for a diplomatic agreement that always seems imminent but never arrives. The optimism trap on Wall Street The analyst Javier Blas, in your column for Bloombergexposes the dangerous complacency with which the world is facing this closure. The financial industry operates under an adapted version of Stein’s Law: “The Strait cannot be closed forever because it would cause too much economic damage; therefore, it will reopen soon.” The problem with this logic is that the economy has not yet inflicted the pain necessary to force peace. As Blas points out: For Washington: The war is proving politically cheap. The US economy is riding with quarterly growth of more than 4% and the S&P 500 index is close to historical highs, having risen almost 10% since the start of the conflict. For Tehran: Even as the currency plummets and inflation chokes the population, the Iranian regime has demonstrated for decades an almost inexhaustible capacity to absorb economic punishment when it considers it faces an existential threat. While the mediators seek an agreement in Islamabadinertia maintains the illusion of normality. The market has absorbed the disappearance of about 20 million barrels per day thanks to accumulated inventories and massive releases of strategic reserves. Qero the global tank is emptying. June: The end of logistics inertia If we do not see shortages on the streets it is due to pure physics of transportation: a supertanker moves at the speed of a bicycle. The fuel that the West consumed in the spring left the Gulf before the first missile fell. However, the data They already show the cracks in the system. Global demand fell by 5 million barrels per day in April, the largest consumption destruction since the COVID-19 pandemic. And the blow is already felt at home: Funcas warns thatIf the conflict continues, Spanish inflation will exceed 4% and growth will fall to 1.8%. In addition, the multimillion-dollar extra cost of fuel for airlines such as Iberia or Vueling directly threatens the waterline of Spanish tourism. The real precipice has a date: June. With the arrival of summer, the peak driving season and the massive use of air conditioning will collide with inventories at multi-year lows. Furthermore, a diplomatic reopening it would not solve the physical problem: Clearing the mile-wide Hormuz safe lane would require months of complex naval operations. However, the impact of this crisis goes far beyond the gas pump. As the physical shortage of crude oil becomes undeniable, the most serious repercussions are brewing in the bowels of the global financial system: The fracture of the petrodollar: The unwritten agreement of 1974, which guaranteed security in the Gulf in exchange for crude oil being sold in dollars and reinvested in US debt, is breaking down. Countries like India They are selling their US Treasury bonds to obtain liquidity and pay for much more expensive oil. The bond market: The persistence of energy inflation has skyrocketed sovereign bond yields. 30-year Treasury bonds in the US exceeded 5.15%. The cost of real life: If government bonds yield above 5%, 30-year mortgages are inexorably approaching 7%. This translates into more expensive loans, lower business investment and a paralysis of the real estate market. As several analysts warn, undoing the economic damage from Hormuz could require an induced recession to curb borrowing costs. The bypass of the desert While the world waits, some actors have already given up on Hormuz. United Arab Emirates has accelerated urgently the construction of a gigantic pipeline that bypasses the strait, with the goal of exporting 3.5 million barrels a day directly to the Gulf of Oman by 2027. It is “prudent planning for the worst scenario,” and a clear sign that Abu Dhabi believes the waterway could remain threatened for years. Half a century ago, no one imagined that 15 ships would spend a decade rotting in the sun in Suez for a war that lasted less than a week. Today, the world assumes that the Hormuz crisis will be a temporary blip. But as the days go by, the shock absorbers wear out and the financial markets creak. The oil is simply still waiting in the sea. Image | Photo by Jens Rademacher on Unsplash Xataka | The war in the East has reached an unexpected agreement: one where the US does not discuss Iran’s missiles, bombs or uranium

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