world

Ukraine has asked Russia if they stop for Christmas like in the First World War. The answer could not have been more Russian

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The inevitable reference when talking about a Christmas break in the middle of a conflict is the spontaneous truce December 1914in the first months of the First World War. On several sectors of the Western Front, British and German soldiers left the trenches, exchanged cigarettes, sang Christmas carols and even played football in no man’s land. Ukraine has remembered it, but it is going to be complicated. The first time. On that occasion of the First World War, the truce was not ordered by the commanders nor was it part of a political negotiation: came from belowof human exhaustion in the face of a war that had not yet shown all its industrial brutality. Precisely for this reason it was never repeated. The high command considered it dangerous, subversive and incompatible with a modern total war. Since then, Christmas has been used many times as a rhetorical symbol of peace, but almost never as an actual interruption of fighting. The Ukrainian proposal. In this historical context full of symbolism, Ukraine has raised the possibility of a ceasefire during Christmas, an idea carefully formulated so as not to appear as a disguised surrender. Zelensky has spoken of a specific pauseespecially linked to attacks against energy infrastructure, at a critical time of winter and with the civilian population as the main collateral victim. At the same time, kyiv is preparing a new package of peace proposals backed by European partners and channeled through the United States, with the expectation that Washington will offer top-level security guarantees if Moscow rejects the plan. Zelensky, however, has shown caution and has lowered any expectations of a quick deal, publicly assuming that Russia may choose to continue the war and that, in that case, Ukraine will ask for more sanctions and more weapons. Officers and men of the 26th Division Ammunition Train playing football at Salonica, Greece, on Christmas Day 1915 The Russian response. The Kremlin’s reaction to the “Christmas break” has been immediate and bluntalmost ritual in its formulation. Dmitri Peskov has discarded any temporary ceasefire, including a Christmas truce, with an argument that Moscow has been repeating for months: a pause would only serve for Ukraine to regroup, rearm and prolong the conflict. In official Russian language, the word “truce” is presented like a trapwhile the word “peace” is reserved for a scenario in which Russia has achieved all your strategic objectives. According to Peskov, Moscow is not ready to replace a comprehensive negotiation (in their own terms) for “momentary and non-viable” solutions. The logic is clear and brutal: either the Russian framework of political and territorial victory is accepted, or the war continues without sentimental interruptions. Territory, guarantees and red lines. Behind the exchange of statements lies the real core of the conflict. Russia demands that Ukraine rspread to wide areas of its territory, accept permanent limits on its armed forces and rule out any future accession to NATO. Ukraine, for its part, rejects hand over the Donbaseven under ambiguous formulas such as a supposed demilitarized “free economic zone,” and remembers that it was already betrayed once when it renounced its nuclear arsenal in 1994 in exchange for security guarantees that did not prevent the invasion. Polls show that a clear majority of Ukrainian society opposes withdrawing from the east and is willing to continue fighting, a domestic factor that greatly limits Zelensky’s political margin even as international pressure increases. Christmas without miracles. The proposal for a Christmas break actually exposes the abysmal distance between the war that we evoke in historical memory and the war that is being fought today. In 1914an improvised truce was possible because the soldiers still saw each other as human beings confronted by accident. In 2025, the war in Ukraine is a conflict of objectives strategic, existential red lines and cold calculation of power, where each day of pause is measured in kilometers of front, ammunition reserves and operational advantages. The Russian response dry and distrustfulis not only “very Russian”: it is confirmation that, in this war, Christmas has no capacity to suspend the logic of the conflict. Unlike more than a century agothere is no room for carols between the trenches, only for official statements that remind that, for Moscow, peace does not begin with a truce, but with the political defeat of the adversary. Image | RawPixel, WikiCommons, Ariel Varges In Xataka | 24 hours later, satellite images leave no doubt: a Ukrainian underwater drone has changed the future of wars In Xataka | Drums of peace sound in Ukraine. And that should be a good thing for Europe… unless Finland is right

Europe is the world leader in heat pump manufacturing. The only problem is that Europeans don’t use them

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Not to get grandiose, but Europe has never had so many renewables underwayhad never made so much clean technology and never had talked so much about energy independence. And yet, winter has arrived again and the ritual is always the same: turning on the heating still means burning imported gas. Although if we reach this point it is not for lack of alternatives, because they are there. The problem is much more mundane: in much of the continent, heating with electricity it’s still more expensive than doing it with gas. The energy shock that changed everything. A recent EMBER report has detailed how Europe abruptly lost access to cheap Russian gas and had to replace it with much more expensive liquefied natural gas in a highly volatile global market. The result was an unprecedented price shock: an accumulated extra cost of 930 billion euros during the energy crisis. More on fossils. Far from being a problem caused by the green transition, the document indicates that the impact was concentrated precisely in the sectors most dependent on imported fossil fuels. Energy-intensive industries reduced production and, in many cases, never returned to pre-Ukraine war levels. This reading coincides with that presented by researcher Jan Rosenowwho rejects the idea that dismantling climate policies would make energy cheaper. The problem, he maintains, was not going too fast, but rather having delayed electrification for decades and having kept gas as the pillar of the system. Here the central contradiction emerges. According to EMBERheat pumps are a mature, efficient and strategic technology: they produce between two and three times more heat than a gas boiler for each unit of energy consumed. Even if that electricity came entirely from a gas plant, the net fuel savings would still exist. However, in practice, the technological advantage is diluted in the bill. In most EU countries, electricity costs 2 to 4 times more than gas for the end consumer. The average electricity-gas ratio in the EU is 2.85, and in some member states it exceeds 4. The problem: the pricing structure. As pointed out in the consultancynon-energy costs —taxes, tolls and public policy surcharges— can represent up to three quarters of the final price of electricity, while gas maintains a much lower tax burden. The result is an obvious distortion: the most efficient technology appears expensive and the most polluting technology appears affordable. You save but not. For an average home, this anomaly has a direct effect, since changing systems reduces energy consumption, but it does not always reduce the bill. And when that happens, adoption slows down. Furthermore, the data confirm that this is not a cultural or climatic issue, but rather an economic one. In countries like the Netherlands, where electricity is only slightly more expensive than gas, heat pump sales are soaring. On the other hand, in Germany, Poland or Hungary —where electricity can cost more than three times as much as gas—, adoption is much lower. The lever that remains to be activated. Solutions exist and many are immediately applicable: transferring the costs of electricity policies to public budgets, reducing electricity VAT, taxing fossil gas more coherently or implementing specific rates for heat pumps. From there, technological deployment is no longer a promise, but a reality. In fact, Europe leads the global heat pump industrywith manufacturers such as Bosch, Vaillant, NIBE or Danfoss, and with industrial projects that already operate on a large scale. These are not prototypes or pilots, but rather functioning infrastructure. Real limits and tensions. None of this eliminates obstacles. Europe still need gas to stabilize its electrical grid. The infrastructures are stressed, the flexibility of the system is insufficient and any cold winter can send prices skyrocketing again. Added to this are the physical frictions of the transition. The massive expansion of offshore wind in the North Sea is generating unprecedented conflicts between countries due to the so-called “wake effect”, which reduces the production of neighboring parks. Electrification is not only a matter of political will, but also of technical coordination and supranational planning. The anomaly that Europe has not yet corrected. Europe already has the technology, the industry and the climate goals. What it has not yet corrected is a basic anomaly: fiscally penalizing electricity while de facto subsidizing fossil gas. As long as that distortion persists, heat pumps will continue to advance more slowly than data, engineering, and economic common sense would allow. As the EMBER report concludeselectrifying heating is not a green whim, but a strategy for energy security, industrial competitiveness and price stability. The transition is not about inventing new machines, but about deciding which energy is made cheaper and which is left behind. And today, in Europe, that decision continues to be reflected—very clearly—in the invoice. Image | freepik Xataka | While the US and China dominate different sectors, Europe leads an unexpected leadership: heat pumps

Telefónica leaves Wall Street through the back door. Goodbye to almost four decades in the largest market in the world

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Telefónica has started the procedures to delist your shares from the New York Stock Exchangewhere it has been listed since 1987. The securities will stop trading on Wall Street in a matter of days once the documentation is filed with the SEC. The telecom will only maintain its listing in Madrid, in the Spanish continuous market. Why is it important. The movement closes a symbolic chapter that began when Telefónica became the first Spanish company to be listed on the largest market in the world. But the symbolism was left behind: today maintaining that presence involves high administrative costs and regulatory demands that no longer compensate. The trading volume in New York is residual and investor interest is practically non-existent. The context. Telefónica’s stock has fallen more than 90% in the last fifteen years. Its current valuation is on the floor, very far from that giant that in the nineties became the most valuable company in Spain. The dividend, which for years was the main attraction for conservative investors, has been successively cut, the last time this quarter. Buying in Madrid is more direct, cheaper and with the same liquidity as in New York, where securities are hardly traded. Between the lines. This decision fits into the strategic plan presented in November by Marc Murtra, focused on aggressively reducing costs. Telefónica has been lowering its blinds on all fronts: Sold subsidiaries throughout Latin America except Brazil. Reduced the dividend. Presented an ERE which is ending its negotiation phase. And now it is abandoning stock markets where being present no longer adds value. Also will stop trading in Lima. The figure. 4,554 departures are contemplated by the ERE that was agreed this Wednesday with the unions, 26% of the workforce in Spain. Cost savings are the obsession of the new management: 3 billion annually until 2030. Yes, but. Investors who have ADR certificates (American Depositary Receipts) will be able to exchange them for common shares in Spain or hold and trade them in US over-the-counter markets. Telefónica will provide both options, although it is evident that it prefers the first. The background. The exit from Wall Street is not an isolated or recent decision: The telecommunications sector has lost interest from investors, especially in Europe. It is a mature business, highly regulated, with tight margins and little ability to surprise. Telefónica today is a very different company from the one that debuted on Wall Street: smaller, more regional, more European. Its new strategy focuses on four markets (Spain, Germany, the United Kingdom and Brazil) and on consolidating itself as a reference operator with profitable scale, in addition to increasing its focus on technological solutions. Marking agenda. Wednesday’s day at the Distrito Telefónica offices north of Madrid was hectic. The contrast. When Telefónica went public in New York in 1987, it placed certificates worth $375 million, the largest influx of European capital on Wall Street up to that time. The telecom was then majority owned by the State and its debut was seen as a milestone of internationalization. Today it leaves unnoticed, recognizing that the regulatory burden and administrative costs of the SEC outweigh any benefits. Go deeper. The obligation to report detailed information to the SEC was useful at the time: thanks to it, data such as the price that STC or SEPI paid to enter the capital were known, information that the Spanish CNMV would never have required to reveal. But that level of transparency also has a cost, and Telefónica has decided that it is no longer worth paying for. In Xataka | The Government has had an idea so that the next blackout does not leave us without mobile data: let the operators pay Featured image | Telefónica, Lo Lo

We already know which country had the highest internet speed in the world in 2025: Spain

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How has the internet changed in 2025? It’s too broad a question, but if there’s anyone trying to answer it, it’s Cloudflare. The company has published an extensive summary of the most important thing this year and among the numerous conclusions there is one that has surprised us: Spain is the country with the fastest internet connection in the world. Spain at full speed. in the studio stands out that Europe was the clear leader in terms of the best internet connection speeds. Here Spain was also the protagonist, because it was the country with the highest download speed in 2025, with 318 Mbps on average (25 Mbps more than in 2024). It was also the best in terms of upload speed, with 206 Mbps (13 more than in 2024). A possible person responsible. Cloudflare indicates that the reason why Spain leads this unique ranking is probably in the program UNICO-Broadband (Universalization of Digital Infrastructures for Cohesion). This initiative has been going for years and the current goal was to achieve an infrastructure capable of providing services at symmetrical speeds of at least 300 Gbps, scalable to 1 Gbps, and achieving 100% coverage in 2025. Achieving everything is almost impossible —Hello, rural Spain— but that effort certainly seems to be paying off. Spain also more than meets the metric of latency under load: even on intense connections, response times are very good. We also enjoy excellent latency. Data download and upload speeds are important, but so is the latency of the connections: the lower it is, the more fluid the communication is, especially in video conferencing, gaming and streaming applications. Here Iceland takes the cake with only 13 ms, but Spain is still among the best with 19 ms. Things are even better in the so-called latency under load, which measures how long it takes a signal to go and return (the ping) when the internet connection is under intense load (playing online, watching 4K videos). In that metric, much more realistic than “resting” latency, Spain is in third place with 89 ms, a truly remarkable figure. Years as leaders. These results may surprise, but in reality Spain already led these rankings in past editions of Cloudflare’s annual summary. It happened in 2024and also in 2023which is undoubtedly great data that shows that despite the problems that may arise, most users have access to an enviable infrastructure. More traffic than ever. Global internet traffic grew by 19% in 2025, and the person most responsible for that traffic was the Googlebot that searches the internet to index it and make it easier for us to find all types of data in the Google search engine. Although crawlers from AI companies are gaining ground, they are still a long way from Google’s activity, and with good reason: all types of websites want to be “crawlable” in order to be “findable.” The same does not happen with AI. The higher the ratio, the less traffic these chatbots send to content websites. Anthropic is the worst here, and Google, of course, the best by far. What happens to AI in 2025. There are many metrics related to AI this year. For example, Anthropic is the platform that sends the least traffic to content websites (ahead are OpenAI and especially Perplexity). This also causes platform crawling bots (GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot) to be “blocked” in the robots.txt files of many websites to prevent them from collecting data without permission to train their models. Google continues to reign. The list of most popular internet services Not much has changed around the world: Google leads that ranking, and is followed by Facebook, Apple, Microsoft and Instagram. It’s probably more interesting to see what data Cloudflare is reporting on the most popular generative AI services. There the winner is not a surprise (ChatGPT), but the order of the rest of the contenders is striking, because they are then followed by Claude, Perplexity, Gemini and Character.ai. Grok is in ninth place and DeepSeek in tenth, for example. That list will surely be very different in 2026. Image | Sasha Pleshco | Stephen Phillips In Xataka |

James Webb has opened the door to a fascinating world

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Until not so long ago, the word “exoplanet” seemed more typical of speculation than astronomy. Isaac Newton already dropped in the ‘Scholium Generale‘ of the Principia Mathematica that fixed stars could be the center of systems similar to ours, but science needed centuries to prove it. It was not until the late 1980s that the first signs of planets outside the Solar Systemalthough we had to wait until 1992 to confirm for the first time the existence of worlds beyond the Sun, around the pulsar PSR B1257+12. In recent decades, the pace of discoveries has skyrocketed thanks to increasingly precise instruments, which have allowed us to locate worlds that are as strange as they are fascinating. The Kepler space telescopefor example, identified more than a decade ago Kepler-16ba planet with “two suns” reminiscent of Tatooine from Star Wars. Since then we have cataloged a huge variety of exoplanets, but now the James Webb telescope presents an especially striking find: a world of boiling lava that, to the surprise of astronomers, is colder than theoretical models predict. An extreme world that questions what we know With a radius approximately 1.4 times that of Earth, TOI-561b It is an extreme super-Earth that orbits a star located about 280 light years away, in the constellation Sextans. NASA describes it as the innermost planet of a system made up of four worlds, with an immediate peculiarity: it completes an orbit in less than eleven hours. Its proximity is so extreme, barely 0.01 astronomical units, that the daytime hemisphere must greatly exceed the melting point of rocks. Everything points to a planet trapped by its star in a tidal lock, with eternal day on one side and perpetual night on the other. One of the peculiarities that most puzzles researchers is the low density of TOI-561 b. Astronomer Johanna Teske, lead author of the study, explains that “it is not a super-puff, but it is less dense than one would expect with a composition similar to that of the Earth.” The team envisioned the planet having a small iron core and a mantle made up of less compact minerals, a possibility that would fit the chemistry of its star. As it is a very old G-type star, about 10 billion years old and poor in iron, located in the thick disk of the Milky Way, it is plausible that the planet emerged in a primordial environment different from that of the Solar System. Still, the exotic composition did not resolve all the unknowns, and the team began to consider another possibility: that TOI-561 b was involved through a thick atmosphere. The idea is striking because the models indicate that small planets subjected to such intense irradiation for billions of years should have lost their gases long ago. NASA reminds us, however, that some worlds of this type show signs that they are not simple bare rocks. That nuance opened the door to thinking that the low density could be due, in part, to a volume inflated by a substantial layer of gases. To test the idea of ​​a dense atmosphere, the team turned to a technique that James Webb has used on other rocky worlds: measuring the disappearance of some of the infrared glow as the planet passes behind its star. Using the NIRSpec spectrograph, the researchers estimated the temperature of the illuminated hemisphere and compared it to what would be expected for a surface without heat-distributing gases. If TOI-561 b were a bare rock, its temperature would be around 2,700 ºC. However, observations placed that value close to 1,800°C, a difference too large to ignore. The unexpectedly low temperature makes sense if TOI-561 b is enveloped by a dense, volatile-filled atmosphere. In that case, the winds would transport heat from the illuminated hemisphere to less hot areas, which would reduce the infrared emission received by the telescope. Gases capable of absorbing part of the radiation before it escapes into space also come into play, something that coincides with the models evaluated by the team. YoIt is even possible that silicate clouds exist that reflect the light of the star and contribute to cooling the upper layers of the atmosphere. To explain how TOI-561 b maintains such a resilient atmosphere, the researchers propose a mechanism in which magma and gases are in constant exchange. Tim Lichtenberg points out that as the interior releases volatile compounds into the atmosphere, the ocean of molten rock recaptures some of them, reducing the loss to space. This process requires a planet exceptionally rich in volatile substances, very different from Earth in its initial composition. In Lichtenberg’s words, it would be “like a ball of wet lava,” a description that well sums up the extreme nature of the find. The observations that have allowed us to reconstruct this scenario are part of James Webb’s General Observers 3860 program. For more than 37 hours, the telescope continuously tracked the system as TOI-561 b completed nearly four full orbits, a record that offers a rare glimpse of how its brightness varies along the way. With that volume of data, the team is now analyzing how the temperature changes around the planet and what clues it provides about the composition of its atmosphere. This set of data, still being analyzed, points to a more complex world than was intuited in the first observations. The case of TOI-561 b shows that even the most extreme worlds can hold surprises. Far from just a scorched rock, Webb’s observations describe a dynamic system in which magma, atmosphere, and stellar radiation interact in ways we don’t yet fully understand. As Johanna Teske points out, “What’s really exciting is that this new data set It’s opening even more questions than it’s answering.“The research continues, and each new analysis seems to confirm that this planet belongs to a category that we are only beginning to know. Artistic images | POT In Xataka | We already know when the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS will be closest to Earth and what’s … Read more

Drones revolutionized warfare in Ukraine, now they are going to do it all over the world with one final trick: changing shape

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If something has become clear after these years of war in Ukraine, it is that drones are no longer a mere complement from the battlefield: they have become a such transformative technology like gunpowder or the Kalashnikov, and are entering a second, even more disruptive phase, driven by artificial intelligencethe miniaturization and the accelerated production. Their next landing is planetary. The second revolution. As we said, drones have gone from being tactical support to becoming a structural factor of modern warfare. Ukraine has shown that an inferior actor in means can degrade a great power with cheap swarms air, naval and land. At the same time, insurgencies, militias and states with few resources use the same logic to compensate for conventional disadvantages. The result, as we will see below, is a global diffusion of precision capabilities at low cost that reduces own risks, complicates defense and makes conflicts more accessible and resistant to resolution. War spine. The trajectory of drones goes from radio-controlled experiments in world wars to smart cruise missiles and platforms like the predator and the reaper in the “war on terror.” The recent turning point is Nagorno-Karabakhwhere an average country combined decoys and UCAVs with artillery to neutralize anti-aircraft defenses and dominate the air without powerful traditional aviation. Since then, the central lesson is that no need be a superpower: simply integrate drones, sensors and indirect fire intelligently to alter the tactical balance. Ukraine as a laboratory. In Ukraine, the drone design, testing and tuning cycle has been compressed to weeks. kyiv has scaled from imported platforms to its own industry that produces millions of unitscombining FPV, reconnaissance, long range and fiber optic guided systems to circumvent Russian electronic warfare. The proximity between workshops and front allows for rapid iterations on sensors, frequencies and flight profiles. Russia responds with mass production and specialized units like Rubikon. The front thus becomes an environment where each innovation is copied or counteracted in a very short time. Swarm globalization. The intensive use of drones has extended to conflicts with a lower media profile. In Africa, dozens of states and non-state actors have built-in armed UAV to internal wars, with markets dominated by exporters such as Türkiye and China. In Myanmar, rebels have converted commercial drones into a substitute for artilleryforcing army withdrawals. In Gaza, Hamas used them to blind Israeli sensors before raids. This shows that technology not only balances power relations, but also increases lethality and makes subsequent stabilization difficult. AI, ammunition and fire economy. The AI integration Drones transform the economy of combat: the cost per useful impact decreases and precision increases. Now there are kits software and hardware that allow existing platforms to locate, track and attack targets with limited human supervision. The practical effect is to reduce the need for classical artillery and increase the efficiency of fire, both on land as in sea. However, this does not eliminate the value of artillery or manned platforms, but rather shifts part of the fire load to systems more fungible and scalablewith clear implications for budgets and logistics. The new unmanned spectrum. And here comes one of the big changes, possibly the least expected. The drone family is expanding and transforming, changing shape and size: from nanodevices for close reconnaissance to enormous ships and underwater vehicles autonomous. The former allow discreet exploration in urban or closed environments, and the latter expand the presence on the surface and under the sea without embarking crews or assuming their risks. Between both extremes, ukrainian naval systems, Chinese XLUUV or AUV as the Ghost Shark redefine surveillance, anti-submarine warfare and area denial operations. The common pattern is to eliminate the need to protect lives on board, making it easier to accept high-risk missions and speed up production. A new generation of contractors. Companies like AndurilAuterion or Shield AI operate with startup logic: short development cycles, strong software integration and commitment to assuming own risk before winning large contracts. Some choose to control the entire chain (hardware and software), others to offer “operating systems” applicable to multiple platforms. This puts pressure on traditional, less agile contractors, and reconfigures the industrial ecosystemwith more mid-sized players competing in specific niches (loyal squires, swarms, mission software). The result is greater speed of innovation, but also more fragmentation of solutions. China, the US and the race. China part with advantage in commercial drones and transfers that leadership to the military fieldwhile investing very heavily in countermeasures after observing the performance of cheap drones in Ukraine. The proliferation of manufacturers of anti-drone systems and directed energy weapons indicates a strategic commitment to control both attack and defense. The United States, despite the accumulated experience, appears out of date in volume and in anti-swarm systems, with dispersed programs and irregular financing, which forces to emergency measures to accelerate purchases and use dual suppliers. This anticipates a long race in which quantity, cost and active defense weigh as much as the individual sophistication of each platform. Strategic limits. This point is often not taken into account. The destructive capacity of drones can lead to overestimating their strategic impact. From there what spectacular operations against high-value infrastructure do not always translate into lasting changes in the control of territory or in the political will of the adversary. Controllers like Radakin they underline that drones and algorithms do not replace the need for a coherent strategy or forces capable of occupying and holding ground. The temptation to build campaigns based on high-visibility specific hits can generate a dangerous gap between tactical success and strategic results. The era of eternal wars. All this breeding ground leads to a final scenario: by reducing costs and risks for those who prolong the combat, drones favor conflicts. no clear outcome. Statistics show fewer decisive victories and fewer peace agreements since the 1970s, while stagnant wars increase. In this context, drones provide continuous capacity for harm to actors who would otherwise be forced to negotiate or give in. The probable result is more long wars, distributed … Read more

The Virgin appeared inside a volcano in La Garrotxa. So they built one of the most special hermitages in the world

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I confess that one of the buildings that fascinates me the most is that of the hermitage. There are some as spectacular as the one in Virgin of the Castle in Chillónbut others are four almost dilapidated walls in remote places (or locked in a Madrid roundabout). They are scattered throughout our geography, sometimes extremely hidden, to the point that there is one that crowns a spectacular landscape. It is the hermitage of Santa Margarida de Sacot, in the Garrotxa. And it is in the center of the crater of a volcano. Santa Margarida volcano. Of all the volcanic areas of the Iberian Peninsula, Garrotxa is one of the most spectacular. As in other volcanic areas, we can perfectly see the cones of the volcanoes that erupted thousands of years ago. But, unlike places like Campo de Calatrava, the Garrotxa It is dyed green thanks to its vegetation. It is estimated that the volcanic activity in the Garrotxa Volcanic Zone Natural Park It expanded from 700,000 years ago to 8,300 years ago, with the Santa Margarida volcano being one of the youngest of the 40 cones that make up the area. From a drone view, the volcano is imposing, but it is striking that the interior of the crater is a treeless meadow and has a building right in the center. A hermitage would be good. Places of worship are not usually planted in a random place and, as tradition says, the hermitage that shares its name with the volcano was built when someone discovered something miraculous: an image of the virgin carved in alabaster inside the crater. It was clear: a building had to be built to honor such a miracle. Although the first documented reference to the hermitage is from 1403, when money was allocated to maintain the chapel, it is estimated that this Romanesque building would have been built at some point. moment from the 13th century. The picture is impressive The church is ruined. The miracle of the virgin could not be repeated to save the hermitage from the effects of earthquakes that shook the area in 1428. Known as “Terratrèmol de la Candelera”, a series of tremors with an estimated magnitude of between 6.5 and 7.3 knocked down several buildings, the hermitage of Santa Margarida one of those who ended up badly off. Something was saved: the image of the virgin carved in alabaster, which is currently kept in the Diocesan Museum of Girona. In 1865 decided that something had to be done with the place and they rebuilt the hermitage. They did so by building a single-nave structure that preserves something of the original: the semicircular apse and the porch, and inside it, a replica of the alabaster carving. deep symbolism. Since then, and as it has been doing for 400 years, the hermitage of Santa Margarida governs the center of the homonymous volcano and is part of the Natural Park. If you feel up to it, you can visit it, but you will have to do some hiking. The car is left on the edge of the volcano and it is necessary to continue on foot along a well-marked path until reaching 766 meters of altitude. That is the perimeter of the crater, 2,000 metersand to reach the hermitage, we have to descend a little to 682 meters, where we finally have the place of worship surrounded by a green meadow. For many, it is surely simply another fascinating place in our geography, but for many others it is possible that stopping in that place awakens the feelings that led those who built the hermitage in the Middle Ages: a deep connection with the divine. What is evident is that, whether we have that connection or not, the landscape is impressive and seeing a construction in the center of a volcanic crater is a powerful image. And if there is not much tourism, a moment of retreat and disconnection from everyday life. Images | Jordiferrer, Carquinyol from Badalona In Xataka | The largest underground labyrinth in Spain is in a town in Guadalajara: the fascinating network of “Arab caves”

the map that shows the distribution of world birth rates

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In Brilliant Maps we can find a multitude of very interesting maps and infographics that allow us to obtain context about demographics, culture, and curiosities at a global level. In one of your latest maps shows us the chances of a baby being born on each continent during 2026. The data, based on 2023 birth figures from Our World In Datareveal that it is in Asia and Africa where more than 80% of all births on the planet are concentrated. Specifically, if you were born in 2026, you would have many chances to be Indian. The geography of global birth rates. Of the approximately 132 million babies that will be born in 2026, almost half will be born in Asia (49.7%), followed by Africa with 34.9%. These two regions accumulate 111.7 million births, while the rest of the continents share only the remaining 15.4%. Europe, with only 6.3 million births, represents only 4.8% of the world total. A figure that contrasts with the more than 140 million births annually that were recorded just a few years ago. India leads the ranking by country. The Asian country tops the list with 23.2 million expected births, far ahead of China (8.9 million) and Nigeria (7.5 million). These three countries concentrate almost 30% of all global births. The data from China is especially striking, and it is that just a few years ago, the Asian giant recorded 16 million births annually, which shows the impact of its demographic crisis. Five other African or Asian countries appear among the top ten: Pakistan, Indonesia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia and Bangladesh, while Brazil completes the top ten with 2.6 million expected births. On the other hand, it is worth noting that the United States occupies eighth place with more than 3.6 million births. Spain, touching the top 50. Europe has the lowest birth rates in relative terms of all continents, only ahead of Oceania and North America in absolute numbers. Continent fertility rates remain below replacement level since the 70sa phenomenon that has now spread to practically the entire planet. Spain will register approximately 336,821 births in 2026, ranking 51st in the world, behind Italy (384,627) and France (638,891), but ahead of Poland (317,916). Germany leads Western Europe with 719,249 births, while the United Kingdom reaches 688,388. Nigeria, the African exception. The African country stands out for its position in third place in the world, far ahead of what its economic size might suggest. Your birth rate almost double the world averagea phenomenon linked to factors such as limited access to education for women and a developing economy. Africa will take over in 2100. The projection for the end of the century marks a radical change in the global demographic distribution. According to the dataAfrica will go from the current 34.9% to 48% of world births, becoming the continent with the highest birth rate. Asia, on the other hand, would decrease to 38.17%. And Europe would fall to 4.49%, consolidating its demographic decline. These estimates suggest that more than half of the world’s babies will be born in Africa within 75 years. World population. According to projections According to The Lancet, the world population will reach its peak in the 2060s with 9.7 billion people, and then decline to 8.8 billion in 2100. There are many reasons that can explain this exaggerated demographic change, such as increasing global wealth, access to education, urbanization or changes in gender roles. Some researchers, such as the economist Claudia Goldin, they point to a mismatch between the desires of men and women regarding parenting as a determining factor, pointing out that as long as social structures do not facilitate cooperation in parenting, rates will continue to fall. In Xataka | If you have enough money you can buy a “golden passport”: this map shows the juiciest

Crucial was the gateway to the world of the PC for millions of users. AI has just put an end to its story

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Many users remember the moment when they decided to build or improve their first computer: the search for a fast SSDa RAM kit and the feeling that the PC world was within anyone’s reach. That vision, extended for almost thirty years, is now going through a turning point. The explosion of artificial intelligence has altered the balance of the memory business and has pushed suppliers like Micron to make decisions that would have seemed unthinkable a short time ago. Micron just announced that it will stop selling consumer products under the Crucial brand. The company announced that it will continue to ship memory modules and storage units until the end of its second fiscal quarter, in February 2026, and that it will maintain warranty service for devices already in the hands of users. In parallel, it will continue to operate its business catalog with Micron products for commercial customers. The announcement came accompanied by a precise explanation: the company wants to prioritize attention to segments where demand is growing more quickly. The message of Sumit Sadana, executive vice president of Micron Technology. “AI-driven growth in data centers has driven a surge in demand for memory and storage. Micron has made the difficult decision to exit Crucial’s consumer business to improve supply and support to our largest strategic customers in higher growth segments.” The brand that grew with the home PC. Since its launch in 1996, Crucial was presented as Micron’s branch dedicated to memory and storage upgrades for the home user. Over the years, the brand entered more categories, such as memory cards and external drives. Its constant presence in physical stores and online distributors helped establish it as a household name in the components market. That 29-year trajectory is what is now behind us with Micron’s decision. The pressure of AI on memory. The rise of AI computing has generated unprecedented demand for memory, especially from HBM, used in accelerators from NVIDIA, AMD and other companies. This type of components requires complex manufacturing processes and absorbs a large part of the manufacturers’ capacity, that concentrate resources on meeting business contracts. Fewer options for mounting and expanding PCs. After years of presence in the consumer channel, Crucial leaves a gap that mainly affects the variety of the available catalog. Although there are still alternatives, the departure of a supplier with such a constant presence means fewer options when choosing memory modules or storage units. The price of RAM memory, increasing. Crucical’s farewell occurs at a time when the price of RAM has skyrocketed 300% since September. And, at least according to data from the consultancy TrendForce, everything seems to indicate that the increase in the cost of computer modules is far from over. Images | Micron | Nathan Anderson In Xataka | The war to dethrone NVIDIA has just begun: Amazon and Google are already armed

that of World War II

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The political tension that China and Japan live has added a new chapter: the recent confrontation between boats of both nations near the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands shows the extent to which the balance in East Asia has entered a phase of constant friction. China has issued a hitherto unpublished “diplomatic letter”: that of the Second World War. Sea climbing. The incident, presented in an opposite way by the coast guards of both countries, it is not an isolated episodebut the visible expression of a historical dispute that has been intensified by broader strategic factors: the Chinese military rise, growing Japanese unrest over the Taiwan security and the systemic pressure that China exerts in the region. In a space of just a handful of uninhabited islets, a decade of increased Chinese patrolling, an increase in the Japanese presence and a climate of suspicion fueled now by the more explicit tone of the new leadership in Tokyo is condensed. The chinese reactionwhich insists that its presence in the area is a way of “asserting its rights,” is combined with an internal message of firmness in the face of a Japan that, from Beijing’s point of view, is crossing red lines. The Chinese diplomatic offensive. As we said at the beginning, Beijing has accompanied its maritime deployment with a diplomatic campaign that revives episodes of World War II as a tool of political pressure. China’s appeals to the United Kingdom, France and the United States to line up against Japan reveal a tactical change: transforming a territorial and strategic dispute into a narrative battle that positions Tokyo as an actor that “reverses history” and threatens regional stability. They remembered in the NYT that the references point to revive sensitivities that condemned Japanese expansionism eight decades ago, but are now used to try to discredit a Japan that has verbalized, unusual shapethat a Chinese attack on Taiwan could force it to act militarily. The chinese answer (tourist boycotts, cancellation of imports, public singling out of Japanese politicians) combines economic pressure with nationalist rhetorica pattern Beijing has used before, although rarely with this intensity. Not only that, the campaign also aims to stop any European rapprochement with Taiwan, especially following recent political gestures in Brussels and Berlin that Beijing perceives as a normalization of European support for the island. Senkaku Japan breaks silence. We explained it last week. The words by Sanae Takaichi on the possibility that a Chinese attack or blockade of Taiwan would pose a direct threat to Japanese survival have had an immediate effect: they have publicly revealed a doctrinal line that had been quietly consolidating for years. Japan always understood that its destiny was intertwined with the stability of the Taiwan Strait, yet the clarity with which the prime minister articulated this position marked a turning point. The chinese reaction (accusations of militarism, veiled threats, economic pressures and an increase in the activities of its coast guard) reflects Beijing’s fear that the relationship between Tokyo and Washington will crystallize into a political and military bloc willing to respond in a coordinated manner to a Chinese escalation. If you will also, anxiety worsens as the Taiwanese political cycle of 2028 approaches: if the Democratic Progressive Party chains another term, the possibility of a stronger Taiwanese identity and a sustained rejection of unification would ignite all the alarms in Beijing. Therefore, any sign that Japan will no longer remain in strategic ambiguity alters the Chinese calculus. Tension and risk. The sum of these events builds a scenario in which each movement seems to have multiple layers of meaning. The Chinese pressure on Taiwan It is no longer just military or economic, it is accompanied by disinformation campaigns, naval maneuvers and calculated use of internal nationalism. Plus: the Japanese response, by making explicit that Taiwan’s security is also own securityreturns Beijing to a deeper dilemma. Admit that its pressure can provoke exactly what it wants to avoid, that is, the consolidation of an international coalition willing to consider itself an interested party in the future of the island. Uncertainty. This phenomenon creates especially volatile terrain, because any action by China around Taiwan (a partial blockade, new trade restrictions, an increase in military exercises) could be interpreted by Tokyo and Washington as a prelude to aggravated coercion. The Chinese narrative, invoke historical wounds, increases the risk that domestic public opinion will limit the Chinese leadership’s ability to back down without appearing weak. Critical point. Ultimately, the combination of hostility at seadiplomatic pressure in Europe, demonstrations of strength around Taiwan and Japan’s decision to speak clearly constitutes a decisive moment for strategic balance of the Indo-Pacific. If Japan and the United States maintain their firm stance, China will have to weigh the cost of an escalation which could lead to a confrontation that is beyond their control. If, on the other hand, either of the two actors backs down, Beijing will interpret that the pressure is working and will possibly increase its pressure against the island, reinforcing the idea that international inaction opens space for a unilateral resolution of the conflict. Image | Al Jazeera English In Xataka | China had a tank more typical of science fiction. Now he has added a hypersonic missile in a video that attacks Japan In Xataka | China is sending drones to an island 100 km from Taiwan. The problem is that Japan and the US are filling it with missiles

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