Atonement is a concept that the good believer knows well.. By converting virtue and sin into the 'yin and yang' of your life, you need it to make a spiritual 'reset', because no one is immune to the second: we are all sinners.. Luis de la Fuente is
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A puzzle of liberals, Christian Democrats, socialists and far-right vie for the Government of the Netherlands
The Dutch elect this Wednesday a Parliament that will surely be very fragmented. The Kingdom of the Netherlands does not have an absolute majority, but it is not even close to the imperfect two-party system of Spain. Its political system is so open and plural that although the Chamber has 150 seats, none of the formations that are presented will exceed 30 deputies, according to the polls.
There are four candidates who start as favorites, but none has a considerable advantage over the others, so the election is still completely open. Everything points to a conservative government that includes the extreme right, which even stands out as a possible list with the most votes in the latest polls.. But a pact from the left to the center is also possible.
Surveys in recent days show slight changes compared to recent weeks. The combination of the latest known polls, according to Peilingwijzer, shows that Geert Wilders' far-right is rising after moderating his speech until he is slightly ahead (26-30 seats); the ruling Popular Party for Freedom and Democracy remains strong but falls to second position (22-28 deputies); The social democrats of Frans Timmermans rise, although from third place, precisely because of the fear of the radical right (21-25), and the surprise of these elections falls slightly, the New Social Contract of Pieter Omtzigt, a party with only three months of existence. life (19-25 seats). Even so, the party with the most votes does not have to later hold the leadership of the Executive.. Everything will depend on the game of majorities and the agreements that are reached after a negotiation that is expected to be long and difficult.
26 parties are running for the November 22 elections and the current Parliament welcomes representatives of 17 different parties (the Spanish Congress is considered fragmented and has 11 parties). For all this, the Dutch know that today's elections may only be the beginning of months of negotiations until a Government composed, probably, of three, four or five different parties is born.. In the last legislature, the prime minister took 271 days to close a coalition of four political parties.
Furthermore, and for the first time in 13 years, the head of the Government since 2010, Mark Rutte, is not running for office.. Its Executive exploded last summer after disagreements between the four partners of the Government coalition over immigration and asylum policy and after a scandal of institutional discrimination against thousands of immigrants who were falsely accused of having received aid. improper.
The campaign has been more tense than usual in Holland. Finally, on Monday night they brutally attacked Thierry Baudet, leader of another far-right party, Forum for Democracy (FvD), which could obtain between three and five deputies.. Baudet was hit severely on the head with a beer bottle in a cafe in the north of the Netherlands during a campaign event.. Fortunately, the candidate from the minority party is fine.
Below, we detail the most important candidates in Wednesday's elections and their electoral possibilities:
POPULAR PARTY FOR FREEDOM AND DEMOCRACY
Rutte's party remains the favorite, although by a narrow margin and in tough competition with the extreme right. The People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) presents as its candidate the acting Minister of Justice, Dilan Yesilgöz, who was born in Turkey and arrived in the Netherlands as an illegal immigrant at the age of eight.. Now and as a candidate, her main electoral demand is the tightening of migration and asylum policies.. His party defends the free market when it comes to the economy and is liberal on social issues.
In addition to containing immigration, his electoral program emphasizes the fight against drug trafficking and organized crime, proposes the construction of four nuclear power plants so that the Netherlands is less dependent on the outside world and wants to limit the increase in rent prices.
Yesilgöz could be the first female prime minister of the Netherlands, but she does not make a flag of it. In recent months, he has tried to distance himself from former Prime Minister Rutte with a tougher and more right-wing profile than his predecessor in the party.
Pieter Omtzigt, leader of the New Social Contract, greets a supporter at a campaign event in Diemen on November 18. EFE
NEW SOCIAL CONTRACT
A formation that was formed in August has become the surprise of this campaign by rising to the first four places. The New Social Contract (NSC) bases its success on the popularity of its leader, Pieter Omtzigt. This Christian Democrat has become the fashionable politician in the Netherlands after he was the one who denounced in Parliament the plot of institutional discrimination by the Tax Agency against low-income immigrants who had received aid. Then, he left his party, which was part of Rutte's government coalition, and just three months ago he decided to head a new political formation, the New Social Contract (NSC), also inspired by Christian Democrats.
His attractive proposal consists of a thorough reform of the Dutch State and the Administration, something very difficult to achieve because any Executive that is formed will be made up of a minimum of three parties that will have to negotiate a common program.
His voters, according to the polling companies, come from both the right and the moderate left and he could become the big surprise of these elections, although this week's polls give him a slight drop compared to the previous week and place him in fourth place.
FREEDOM PARTY
To the right of both formations is the extreme right, the Party for Freedom (PVV) of Geert Wilders, with which both the liberals of VVD and the Christian Democrats of the New Social Contract could agree.. In recent weeks, Wilders has moderated his speech in the style of Argentine Javier Milei, both to attract moderate votes from the Dutch right and to stop scaring the electorate further to the left, which could be benefiting the social democrats.. His program highlights the ban on mosques, Islamic schools, the Koran (which he compares to Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf) and the veil in public buildings.
In recent weeks he has had less impact on the most radical part of his proposals and has clarified that compliance with these points would not be insurmountable conditions to be a partner in a future coalition government.
His preferred coalition would be with the VVD, the NCS and the Peasant Movement.
Frans Timmermans, candidate of the Socialists and Greens, at a rally last Saturday. AFP
SOCIAL DEMOCRATS AND GREEN
The fourth politician in the running is the former vice president of the European Commission Frans Timmermans, who heads a coalition of social democrats and greens that in the Netherlands has been compared to the Spanish model of the PSOE and Sumar: the PvdA (social democrats) and GroenLinks (greens ). Timmermans achieved this pre-electoral pact with the intention of putting himself ahead of his center and center-right competitors, but he has not achieved it.
Timmermans himself has been highlighting in recent days that he is the only candidate with the possibility of leading a Government capable of stopping the extreme right, in a strategy similar to that of Pedro Sánchez in Spain.. For this reason and according to the different polls, his coalition would be gaining votes in the final stretch of the campaign, subtracting votes from other minority left-wing candidates who have no chance of exceeding 10 seats.
The former European commissioner assured this Tuesday that his bloc “has a good chance of emerging as the largest in these elections” and promised the left-wing groups affected by the vote useful to the PvdA-GroenLinks that “he will not abandon them” if he wins.. “But if we are not the largest party, you will have the same problem as me: the right and the extreme right will win,” he stated, according to Efe.
PEASANT MOVEMENT
Finally, the Peasant Movement (BBB), which won the regional and Senate elections last March with 20% of the votes, seems to have deflated. Polls now give him between four and seven seats that could be decisive in shoring up a right-wing government.
POLITICAL PUZZLE COMPLEX
The complex Dutch political puzzle is completed by almost 10 other formations that can have between one and 10 seats and that would be key to tipping the majority to one side or the other of the balance.
The Dutch Government has historically been very important in the European Union. Rutte used to show a position that was often inflexible with the countries of the South, led the so-called frugal countries (the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark and Austria) and pushed to impose austerity policies on Spain, Portugal, Greece and Italy.. In fact, one of Rutte's nicknames in Brussels was 'Mister No'. Although in his country he is better known as 'Mister Teflon', for his resistance to many and multiple crises until his resignation in July 2023.
For all these reasons, the next Executive in The Hague has more importance than it might seem for the interests of southern Europe, and Spain in particular, especially when the aid from the Recovery and Resilience Plan ends and the EU begins to mark more restrictive policies to stop the economic slowdown.
The three 'D's of the anti-Semitism guide that govern Germany
That. The taboo about the war between Israel and Hamas is constant in German society, to the point that they do not know exactly what can or cannot be said.. Who. The poet and art critic Ranjit Hoskote resigned from the direction of the Documenta exhibition due to disagreements over the limits of freedom of creation. When. Since 2004, politician Sharansky's roadmap on the Israeli-Palestinian confrontation has reigned
The Germans are so unsure about what can or cannot be said about Israel's offensive in Gaza that even the public managers of cultural life apply the right to freedom of expression and creation guaranteed by the Magna Carta with the famous question of ” Why don't you shut up?”. Under the constant bombardment of politics, with messages reminiscent of those that communist China propagated to the people from speakers hung on trees and street lamps, anti-Semitism and Islamophobia embrace each other like the Guadalquivir and the Guadiana.
Example: the artistic direction of Documenta, the exhibition held every five years in the city of Kassel, has resigned entirely due to disagreements over the limits of freedom of artistic creation, that is, to what extent intellectuals can rebel. with his works in the context of the tragedy that is being experienced in the Middle East. The first resignation was that of the poet and art critic Ranjit Hoskote. It was followed by that of the Israeli Bracha Lichtenberg Ettinger.
Hoskote was accused of being anti-Semitic for having signed an open letter from the Indian Cultural Forum in 2019, protesting an event organized by the Consulate General of Israel in Mumbai on Hindutva.. In the letter, Zionism was equated with the movement led by the nationalist leader Vinaiak Dámodar Savarkar (1883-1963), an opponent of Mahatma Gandhi and a confessed admirer of Adolf Hitler..
He was also accused of sympathizing with the movement that promotes the boycott of Israeli products and supports Palestinian demands, BDS.. Hoskote described as “outrageous the accusation of anti-Semitism that has been leveled against my name in Germany, a country that I regard with love and admiration and whose cultural institutions and intellectual life I have contributed for several decades as a writer, curator and cultural theorist.”.
He denounced that “German journalists who do not know my life or my work have condemned and stigmatized me on the basis of a single signature on a letter that was taken out of context.”. But it didn't matter.
And while the German Minister of Culture, the green Claudia Roth, boasted of her resignation and threatened Documenta with withdrawing subsidies if the “anti-Semitic” outbreaks were not cut, in Berlin she canceled sine die an exhibition on the Lives of Muslims to avoid problems. “We do not want to show in an exhibition a one-sided presentation of Muslim life without a corresponding counterpoint, for example about Jewish life in Berlin,” the exhibitors explained.. The argument left the affected artists speechless. But it didn't matter.
Germany purges with its eyes closed the monstrosities of its ancestors, in silence and without looking to the other side.
Limiting Israel's right to self-defense and presenting it as a state that does to the Palestinians what the Nazis did to the Jews is anti-Semitic: that is what the first of the three D's of the guide to knowledge that the media repeats says Germans on their websites, “Demonization”. The second is “Double standards” or wondering if a European State would respond to terrorist attacks as Israel is doing.. The third is “Delegitimization” or denying Israel's right to exist as a State by demanding a “free Palestine”. The guide was prepared in 2004 by the Israeli politician Natán Sharansky and in Germany it is said to be internationally recognized.
BRICS Gaza summit: Israel accused of war crimes and Xi Jinping promises 'assistance' to Palestinians
The five emerging nations that make up the BRICS group (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) held an extraordinary virtual summit on Tuesday to discuss the situation in Gaza six weeks after the start of the war between Israel and Hamas.. From Beijing, President Xi Jinping, in addition to calling for a ceasefire and humanitarian corridors to protect Palestinian civilians, assured that China “will provide more support and assistance” to the population of the strip, explaining that his country, with the help of Egypt had already sent 15 million yuan (almost two million euros) in food and medical supplies.
“The fundamental cause of this crisis is that the right to existence of the Palestinian people has been ignored for a long time,” Xi stressed in his first public speech on Gaza since the conflict broke out.. The Chinese leader also called for the convening of an international peace conference and insisted that only a two-state solution would bring lasting peace.. “There can be no security in the region without a just solution to the question of Palestine,” he stressed.
From Moscow, Vladimir Putin stressed that the BRICS can play a key role in achieving a ceasefire in the war between Israel and Hamas. The Russian leader assured that the “sabotage” (by Israel) of the decisions of the UN Security Council made “the Palestinians live in injustice”. The president who ordered a bloody invasion of Ukraine said that “the deaths of thousands of people, the massive displacement of civilians and the humanitarian catastrophe that has been unleashed are deeply disturbing.”
It is the first time that a conflict in the Middle East is the focus of the meeting of a bloc that has gained a lot of weight and voice on the international stage.. The summit was chaired by South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, whose government requested a few days ago that the International Criminal Court (ICC) issue an arrest warrant against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.. Ramaphosa on Tuesday accused Israel of war crimes and genocide in Gaza.
“The collective punishment of Palestinian civilians through the illegal use of force by Israel is a war crime. “The deliberate denial of medicine, fuel, food and water to Gaza residents amounts to genocide,” said the South African.. His party, the African National Congress (ANC), has often linked the Palestinian cause to its own fight against apartheid.. “Let this meeting be a wake-up call for us to combine our efforts and strengthen our actions to put an end to this historic injustice,” he said.. On Monday, Israel recalled its ambassador to South Africa.
Representatives of five new members of the group (Saudi Arabia, Argentina, Ethiopia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates) joined the videoconference meeting, whose membership will be official next year.. The Secretary General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, also participated.
Another notable intervention was that of the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman, who asked “all nations” to stop arms exports to Israel.. “The brutal crimes unfolding in Gaza demand a collective effort to put an end to them,” he added.
The main absence from the summit was Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who sent his Foreign Minister, S., in his place.. Jaishankar. This unexpected sit-in sends a clear signal that New Delhi is not at all comfortable with a meeting organized to criticize the Israeli army's devastating bombing of Gaza..
Unlike the rest of the countries that make up the BRICS, India has at all times adopted a position closer to that of the United States. He has not demanded a ceasefire by Israeli forces and abstained from a UN General Assembly vote on a resolution calling for an end to the offensive for failing to include an “explicit condemnation” of the attack in the declaration. of Hamas.
This position of the Modi Government represents a historic shift in his country's position on the conflict in the Middle East, moving from support to the Palestinians – it was the first non-Arab nation to recognize the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) – , to a support that seems unconditional towards Israel, with whom India shares increasingly strong commercial and, above all, defense ties. Delhi is Tel Aviv's largest foreign customer when it comes to the purchase of missiles, drones and border security equipment.
Just hours after the October 7 Hamas massacre, Modi was one of the first world leaders to condemn the terrorist attacks. In contrast, Beijing has not yet directly condemned Hamas.. The second world power is increasingly focused on positioning itself as a mediator of the conflict and asking Israel to end the offensive in Gaza.. Meanwhile, in India, many complaints have come out from activists saying that social media groups linked to the Bharatiya Janata (BJP), the Hindu nationalist ruling party, are spreading messages that all Palestinians are jihadists and that in the conflictive region Muslim-majority Kashmir, Hindus face Hamas-like threat.
Modi will be at another virtual summit on Wednesday, that of G-20 leaders, which will also have the presence of Putin, who was absent from the group's in-person meeting held in Delhi last September.. Xi Jinping did not appear there either. From Beijing they have confirmed that the Chinese president will not participate in Wednesday's meeting. His place, as happened a couple of months ago, will be taken by Premier Li Qiang.
Xi's new sit-in is a new message sent from Beijing about the Chinese president's personal commitment to the BRICS as a multilateral platform that helps counter Western dominance in international organizations, as well as turning it into a forum that provides new support to countries hungry for alternative governance structures.
As happened after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, many of the developing countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America have moved away from the dominant position in part of the West, led by the United States, of supporting Israel in its war in Gaza.. There are two increasingly separated blocks, with one of them repeating messages that try to reveal the different standards by which some powers are governed depending on the current conflict that is most current.
In these troubled waters, an authoritarian force like China moves well, playing as a tightrope walker on all fronts, promoting charm diplomacy towards the so-called Global South and strengthening the attractiveness of the BRICS group, which has long since emerged from a discreet background to demand more global relevance.
Tubacex values the entry of partners to conquer the new green business of 1.5 billion
Tubacex dressed in green yesterday before investors to launch its new strategic plan 2024-2027, which it has named NT2, a play on words between “new transition” and “new Tubacex”. The name chosen by the senior management of the group headed by its CEO, Jesús Esmoris, is a declaration of intent of the Basque tube company's great bet: to conquer the new green world, a business in which it sees a turnover potential of up to 1,500 million in 15 or 20 years. To achieve this, the company considers bringing in new financial partners.
Tubacex has just achieved, two years ahead of schedule, the objectives set in the previous plan. With this letter of introduction, the company wants to convince investors that its future, on which 2,500 employees currently depend, involves turning the Low Carbon area into its crown jewel..
In fact, it is expected that this division will go from absorbing 28% of the investment in R&D&i (2022) to capturing 80% of this item already in 2025.. The goal is ambitious. Historically, the company has been very exposed to the fluctuations of the hydrocarbon market, in fact, today, the Oil & Gas areas still account for 42% of sales..
The company does not hide that the leadership of these new businesses linked to the energy transition may involve sealing new alliances. Not at any price. This was stated by Esmoris during the Captial Markets Day that the company held this Tuesday in Madrid, in which it stated that the group would be willing to transfer a stake to a partner if it provides certain added value and not just financing.. For example, the CEO of the company based in the Alava municipality of Llodio indicated that a point in favor for potential partners will be to pave the way for Tubacex towards a client portfolio that it cannot currently reach..
Hydrogen, ammonia and CO2
The company, which closed the third quarter of the year with a record turnover of 642 million euros, 22% more than in the first nine months of 2022, aims to more than triple its income by the end of the period, which represents reach 2027 with an annual sales volume of up to 1.4 billion. All this, with strict “financial discipline” and an attractive dividend for shareholders, that is, a pay out of between 30 and 40% of the profit, in line with that established in the previous strategic plan..
Debt control will be a priority for the company, according to the interventions of the CEO and the financial director, Guillermo Ruiz Longarte, who specified that the group's goal will be to maintain the leverage ratio below 2 times EBITDA, compared to the current 2.5 times.
“The forecast is that leverage will decrease year after year, although different inorganic growth operations are undertaken,” the company stated.. The idea is that the debt does not overcome this barrier structurally, although the Tubacex plan admits specific deviations from said path.. Regarding inorganic growth forecasts, the CEO stressed that they will seek corporate operations only “when they make sense.”
The group is targeting industrial solutions for new renewable fuels, such as hydrogen or green ammonia, and carbon capture projects, in which it sees an income potential of between 400 and 500 million euros, around half of the total turnover with which the group expects to close 2023, about 850 million.
Susana Voces, president of Adigital: "The 'Startup Law' is not enough, we must go further"
Susana Voces has become president of Adigital at a time that invites little contemplation: the European Union seeks to finalize its second major package of digital legislation before next spring arrives (with Spain in a key role c
Diana Morant maintains the Science and Innovation portfolio and also takes on universities
The approval of the long-awaited Science Law has been the most outstanding achievement of the Valencian Diana Morant (Gandía, 1980), who will not only repeat as head of the Ministry of Science and Innovation but also add Universities to her powers. His continuity has not been a surprise since he was one of the profiles most likely to continue in Pedro Sánchez's new cabinet.. And the trust he has in her has translated into him also commissioning universities, until now under the command of Joan Subirats, who had already announced that he would not continue in this new coalition government.
This telecommunications engineer entered the Government in the middle of the legislature, during the great renewal of the Executive that Sánchez carried out on July 10, 2021. The until then mayor of Gandía left her position in the city council the next day, which she had held since 2015, to replace the astronaut Pedro Duque at the head of a ministry to which she arrived ten years after entering politics, since she began as a socialist councilor in the City Hall of his hometown in May 2011.
NEW CABINET
Profiles. The list of the 22 ministers of the new Government of Pedro Sánchez
The list of the 22 ministers of the new Government of Pedro Sánchez
Spain. Sánchez boasts a “high political profile” to “publicly explain” the agreements in a legislature for “territorial cohesion”
Sánchez boasts a “high political profile” to “publicly explain” the agreements in a legislature for “territorial cohesion”
Although her name was mentioned as a possible socialist candidate for the Mayor of Valencia in the last municipal elections – something that did not sit well with the PSPV-PSOE -, Morant ultimately remained in the central government as a minister and in recent months as an acting minister.
During the 28 months in which she has been at the head of her ministry, Diana Morant has managed the largest science budget that has ever been in Spain thanks to an increase in the money allocated from Spain, but above all to the injection that the European Union cohesion funds. Thus, for 2023 the budget of his ministry reached a total of 3,991 million euros, 4% more than the previous year.. Not counting European funds, the national budget grew by 20% compared to 2022 (within that total item, the national item amounted to 2,610 million).
Upon joining Sánchez's cabinet in the middle of the legislature, the Valencian continued with a good part of the projects initiated by Pedro Duque, who had worked intensely to carry out the law of Science, Technology and Innovation, although finally the norm was approved during Morant's term. On February 18, 2022, the Council of Ministers gave the green light to this law, which was definitively approved by the plenary session of Congress on August 25, 2022.
The norm contemplates the indefinite hiring of researchers and protects stable and growing financing of public R-D&I with the objective of reaching 1.25% of GDP in 2030 – and 3% including private investment -, of in accordance with the Science and Innovation Pact. Since the Science Law was approved a year ago, efforts have been aimed at its implementation, as it is a very complex text, and at combating bureaucracy in the Spanish scientific system.
Like Duque, the minister has promoted the space sector with the creation of a Spanish Space Agency, which was announced in May 2021 and was formally established last April, with headquarters in Seville.. Its creation is an old demand of the sector that involves several ministries, in addition to Science.. The Aerospace PERTE is underway, which will mobilize around 4,533 million euros between 2021 and 2025 (with a contribution from the public sector of around 2,193 million euros and a private investment of around 2,340 million), according to data from the Ministry.
More money has also been dedicated to the European Space Agency (ESA), which has contributed to the selection of two Spanish astronauts during the last promotion, announced a year ago: Pablo Álvarez as the main astronaut and Sara García in the reserve corps).
During his mandate, the launch of the National Volcanology Center in the Canary Islands or a maximum security biological containment laboratory in Madrid has been announced..
12 years in politics
Morant finished her studies in Telecommunications Engineering at the Polytechnic University of Valencia in 2007 and before entering politics she worked as a development engineer in the R&D department of the company Alhena Ingeniería between 2008 and 2011 and taught a Home Automation course at the company SGS Tecnos. When he entered the Gandía City Council in 2011, the Popular Party governed. In 2015, Morant headed the PSOE list, which was the second most voted, with seven councilors compared to 12 from the PP, but he was able to govern thanks to the support of the five councilors from the Més Gandia coalition and one from Ciudadanos.. In the 2019 elections, it maintained the mayor's office (it was the party with the most votes, with 11 councilors to which it added the four from the Compromís Més Gandia Unida coalition).
Coinciding with her time as mayor of Gandía, she was a deputy in the Provincial Council of Valencia (2015-17), member of the Tourism Council of the Generalitat Valenciana (since June 2015), member of the Spain Convention Bureau (2016-2019). , member of the Territorial Council of the Spanish Federation of Municipalities and Provinces and of the board of directors of the Port Authority of Valencia.
Cassandra, a pilot program to 'search' for patients suffering from respiratory diseases
The entire process of undergoing a low-dose CT scan of the chest takes just over 30 minutes.. And through the images a specialist can know if there is a trace of cancer, any respiratory pathology lodged in the bronchi, damage to the heart and any other anomaly in that region.. A test that could be performed on patients with a defined risk and save their lives.
The Cassandra pilot project will certify that this is possible. And yes, as its coordinators assure, it is an ambitious plan, “but necessary to get ahead of the disease”. “It is entered into the patient: we contextualize through cancer and other risk diseases. What is pursued is early detection,” explains Juan Carlos Trujillo, clinical head of the Thoracic Surgery Service at the Santa Creu i Sant Pau Hospital in Barcelona and coordinator of the Cassandra project..
But not only that. With this pilot program we also want to instrumentalize help with smoking cessation. “Primary prevention [quitting tobacco] has not worked, that is why we need other tools to help us,” Trujillo emphasizes..
Madrid, as confirmed this week by its Minister of Health, is now giving the starting signal to its participation in the Cassandra project. “We have supported it from minute one, because it is a pilot project for lung diseases, not just cancer”.
Matute highlighted the work led by the Spanish Society of Pulmonology and Thoracic Surgery (Separ) together with nine scientific societies. “In Madrid it will help us export the idea of units in all our centers,” said Matute.. For now, La Paz, Ramón y Cajal and Clínico have been included. “Although more could be added”.
In this way, “a domino effect occurs and we will be able to implement the pilot in 12 centers. It is almost ready in other Autonomous Communities. At the end of 2028 we hope to have the results,” explains Trujillo.. It is expected that all the autonomies will get on board to have a faithful reflection of Spanish society, at least up to 40 centers that can perform a total of between 40-30,000 scans in total.
Trujillo stressed the importance of the project being implemented in the National Health System in line with the recommendations of the European Plan to Fight Cancer.. “This will help us to enter the portfolio of services such as screening tests,” said the pulmonologist.. Matute added that “every advance in the prevention of the disease is an opportunity for action”.
Ángel Gallete, secretary of the Cassandra de Separ project, points out that “this is necessary because lung tumors are found in increasing numbers.”. 70% are detected in advanced stages and five-year survival is 5%. However, we know that this increases the sooner it is detected [up to 80%]”.
In our country, more than 29,000 new cases of lung cancer are diagnosed every year and one person dies from this cause every 20 minutes.. It has been shown that screening with low-dose CT allows early detection of lung cancer in early stages and reduces mortality in randomized clinical trials with large sample sizes carried out in Europe and the United States..
Luis Miguel Seijo Maceiras, co-director of the Cassandra Project and coordinator of Separ, explained that “the test of choice is low-dose computed tomography: it is a radiological test, with a degree of recommendation just like mammography in breast cancer.”.
The Cassandra project, which responds to the acronym Cancer Screening, Smoking Cessation and Respiratory Assessment, takes into consideration that there are aspects of screening with a significant impact on effectiveness, feasibility and cost-effectiveness..
At the moment, the risk profile is by age and smoking habit, between 50 and 75 years old with a specific smoking burden.. “But we are open to verifying that we should include new features as we have more experience,” Gallete emphasizes.
“We have taken important steps in reducing false positives. And we will compose a refined strategy to search for significant damages. For that we have incorporated new knowledge, and in this way we reduce the negative effects,” says Seijo..
Test Safety: Low Dose CT
“Among the advantages of low-dose radiation chest computed tomography, we must highlight that it is a simple, quick, painless and comfortable test to perform,” explains Luis Gorospe, specialist at the Spanish Society of Medical Radiology (Seram). , thoracic radiologist at the Ramón y Cajal University Hospital and member of the scientific committee of the Cassandra project.
The administration of intravenous contrast is not required to perform it.. In addition, it uses much less radiation than a “conventional” computed tomography study, even in many cases comparable to a chest x-ray..
This test is “the best diagnostic tool for studying the lung, and in addition to detecting lung nodules, it also allows us to evaluate calcifications of the arteries, the presence of pulmonary emphysema or whether a person has osteoporosis,” says Gorospe..
A ship-eating worm pest turned into an oyster-flavored superfood
The shipworm or Terero navalis is a pest. A species of wood-eating marine termite, in which it makes its home. Responsible for the destruction of ships, docks and underwater pilings, decanting the history of navigation through its tunnels, putting cities in check, or the Royal Navy in the 18th century.. Now scientists have just discovered that it is a superfood, and they invite us to eat them.
To do this, they have first given it a more commercial name: naked clams.. And a very nutritious cover letter. They taste like oysters, and their levels of vitamin B12, essential for the health of neurons and blood, are higher than those of most bivalves.
Researchers at the University of Cambridge have begun to breed them, adding an algae-based compound to their wood diet, making the worms enriched with omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids.. Their results have just been published in the magazine Sustainable Agriculture.
“Naked clam aquaculture has never been attempted before. We grow them using wood that would otherwise end up in landfills or be recycled. They are rich in protein and very nutritious, and can be produced with a very low environmental impact,” says Dr.. David Willer, Henslow Research Fellow at the University of Cambridge's Department of Zoology and first author of the report.
Several specimens of naked clam.
These worms grow extraordinarily fast, faster than any other bivalve. They reach 30 centimeters in just six months. The reason is that they do not have a shell, but they do have a small shell at one end that barely grows, which allows them to dedicate all their energy to the growth of the body, unlike mussels or oysters, which can take two years to reach a height. harvestable size.
Teredo navalis is found in temperate and tropical seas and oceans around the world.. It is believed that it could have originated in the northeast of the Atlantic Ocean, but it is already difficult to establish it, due to its expansion throughout the world through any wooden debris or ship hull.. In 1730 he began to destroy the dikes that protected the Netherlands from flooding.. Shortly after, the Royal Navy had to cover the bottoms of its ships with copper to avoid being left without a fleet.. In 1920 it was already eating the docks of San Francisco Bay, in the Pacific Ocean.
No treatment can with it. Linseed oil, metallic paint, powdered glass, carbonization treatments and biocides such as chromated copper arsenate have been tried, and although the pest is partially mitigated, the worm always returns.. Perhaps its extermination in the oceans will come now when it is revealed as a super-seafood.
To know more
Science. Silkworms for the first time spin spider web six times stronger than fiber to make bulletproof vests
Silkworms for the first time spin spider web six times stronger than fiber to make bulletproof vests
Present. Adriana Casillas, head of the largest insect factory in the world: “We raise thousands of tons of worms, a super-prime product in terms of its proteins”
Adriana Casillas, head of the largest insect factory in the world: “We raise thousands of tons of worms, a super-prime product in terms of its proteins”
Researchers developed a completely closed aquaculture system. That in addition to eliminating the water quality and food safety problems that are often associated with the cultivation of mussels and oysters, allows them to be grown even in urban environments, far from the sea.
“We urgently need alternative food sources that provide the micronutrient-rich profile of meat and fish, but without the environmental cost they entail.. Our system offers a sustainable solution,” says Dr.. Reuben Shipway of the School of Biological and Marine Sciences at the University of Plymouth, author of the report. He added: “Switching from beef burgers to naked clam nuggets could be a fantastic way to reduce your carbon footprint.”. They can even be a substitute for “white meat” in processed foods like fish fingers and fish cakes.
Eating these worms has not, however, been an occurrence of British scientists. Shipworms have long been eaten in the Philippines, either raw, battered, or fried like squid.. On the plate it is not too different from a fried whitebait, or a squid tail.. In the end, we diners will be the ones who decide whether to put an end to a plague by eating it, making good that of Oscar Wilde: “I have simple tastes. “I am satisfied with the best.”
'Superbacteria' kill 20 times more than traffic accidents in Spain
In 2023, 23,303 people will die in Spain due to multi-resistant bacteria; due to pathogens that do not respond to available antibiotics. This is estimated by a study carried out by the Spanish Society of Infectious Diseases and Clinical Microbiology (SEIMC) presented this Monday in Madrid, which highlights that the number of deaths related to antimicrobial resistance “is 20 times higher than the number of people who died in accidents. traffic”. In Spain, in 2022, a total of 1,145 people died on the road, according to data from the DGT.”
“Our objective is that these data serve to raise greater and better awareness among citizens and professionals about a formidable problem that has a very important impact on health,” said José Miguel Cisneros, head of the Infectious Diseases service at the Virgen del Hospital. Rocío de Sevilla and coordinator of the aforementioned study during her presentation, within the framework of the conference 'Fight against resistance: institutional, professional and patient perspectives'.
Cisneros has stressed that, according to the estimates of the research, called 'SEIMC-BMR 2023' and in which 260 researchers from 130 Spanish hospitals have participated, in our country there will be 159,174 infections due to bacteria that do not respond throughout this year. to treatments for having developed resistance mechanisms against their action.
Among these 'superbacteria', 'Extended-spectrum beta-lactamase-producing Escherichia coli' stands out, a pathogen causing 25% of the cases studied in this research.
According to the work data, urinary infection is the most frequent problem associated with multi-resistance while pneumonia is the infection that causes the highest mortality.. 45% of multidrug-resistant infections occurred in the hospital setting, according to the research, which also estimates 189,535 years of life lost due to these pathogens.
“The study provides knowledge of great epidemiological, clinical and health management value about infections caused by these bacteria in our country,” said Cisneros, who recalled that antimicrobial resistance is, according to the World Health Organization, one of the 10 largest threats to global public health, “one of the greatest challenges we will face in the 21st century.”
In 2019, there were almost five million deaths worldwide associated with antimicrobial resistance, a problem that threatens to reverse the medical advances achieved in recent decades.. If we run out of tools to combat bacterial infections, operations as simple as tooth extraction could become an unapproachable risk.
The figures produced by the 'SEIMC-BMR 2023' study are similar to those shown in the 2018 and 2019 editions of the study (both in mortality and deaths, which, according to Cisneros, “demonstrates the effectiveness of what is being done [to combat antimicrobial resistance] and, at the same time, points out that it is not enough. “It is necessary to pay more attention to the problem,” he stressed.
The work followed for 14 days the multidrug-resistant infections detected in 130 hospitals of different sizes throughout the country, which “represents 40% of the hospital beds available in the country”. Each case was followed up for 30 days following diagnosis to analyze mortality.. In total, 2,307 patients were analyzed – 54% were men – with an average age of 70.8 years.
“Infections due to multidrug-resistant bacteria affect more weakened people, which includes older people, but it is a mistake to think that it can only affect them.”. These types of infections can affect everyone,” Cisneros stressed.
The data from the work, the researchers noted during the presentation, “must be interpreted with caution because they are estimates,” although the methodology of the work and the similarity of the results with other editions allow the solidity of the conclusions to be assessed, they stressed.