In April of this year, TED held its annual symposium to discuss advances in technology and design (mostly from Silicon Valley). The opening keynote address was given by Carole Cadwalladr, an investigative journalist who was subsequently sued. a talk in 2019. On that occasion, he spoke about the Brexit vote and the influence of Facebook – the network that most spread biased or outright false information. Cadwalladr had already written a report on the scandal of Cambridge Analytica in The Observer, but the TED conference was what billionaire Arron Banks used to sue her. The journalist's case has been a paradigmatic case of SLAPP (strategic litigation against public participation), a technique – which we Catalans are well aware of – in which a lawsuit is used as a deterrent exemplary punishment. Despite the harshness of the warning, Cadwalladr returned to the TED symposium to address the CEOs of Silicon Valley: this, gentlemen, seems a digital coup d'état.

The Chinese manufacturer BYD has already strongly consolidated its position in the European market and has become the brand with the fastest-growing sales of electric and plug-in hybrid cars in the Spanish market during the first half of 2025, with a spectacular year-on-year growth of 700% thanks to having registered a total of 12,353 cars in Spain.

Should patents on covid-19 vaccines be released? For months India and South Africa have been demanding it, with the support of a hundred countries in the South. As happened years ago with antiretrovirals to combat AIDS, they claim that only in this way they will be able to immunise their populations. Until now they have met with the frontal opposition of the rich club, who represent the interests of their powerful pharmaceutical industries. But the equation has changed this week with the U.S. President Joe Biden's turnaround, who was pressured by the dramatic situation in India and Latin America, when 252 million doses have already been administered in the United States, which has so far refused to export its stockpiled vaccines. But big pharma has come out to defend its monopoly at all costs. The final decision is due to be taken next month at a meeting of the World Trade Organisation (WTO).