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There are no Christmas decorations or lit trees for Palestinian Christians in the city of Bethlehem, this year amid Israel’s continued bombardment of Gaza. Israeli strikes killed at least 19 Palestinians on Christmas morning.

Syrian Christians have attended Christmas Eve services for the first time since the overthrow of President Bashar al-Assad in early December.

In Sednaya, Syria, a large crowd gathered near a historic monastery on Christmas Eve to witness the lighting of a towering tree adorned with glowing green lights.

The celebration offered a rare moment of joy in a city scarred by more than a decade of war and its infamous prison, where tens of thousands were held.

Families and friends stood by the illuminated tree, some wearing Santa hats, others watching from rooftops, while a band played festive music and fireworks lit up the sky.

“This year is different, there’s happiness, victory and a new birth for Syria and a new birth for Christ,” said attendee Houssam Saadeh.

Another, Joseph Khabbaz, expressed hope for unity across all sects and religions in Syria.

The pews of Lady of Damascus Church in Syria’s capital filled with a mixed congregation of young and old, holding candles as hymns filled the air and echoed through the church.

Hours before the service, hundreds of protesters in Damascus had gathered to denounce an incident in which a Christmas tree was burned in the northern countryside of Hama governorate in western-central Syria.

Carrying wooden crosses, they chanted, “We are your soldiers, Jesus”, “With our blood and soul, we sacrifice for Jesus,” and “The Syrian people are one.”

Hamas’ armed wing, Al Qassam Brigades released video of an Israeli military vehicle being attacked as clashes between fighters and the Israeli military continue.

Islamabad, Pakistan – The Pakistani military conducted air strikes in neighbouring Afghanistan late on Tuesday night, targeting hideouts of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) armed group in Paktika province, according to security officials.

While no official statement was issued by Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs or military media wing, the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), sources confirmed to Al Jazeera that the strikes occurred in the Barmal district of Afghanistan, near Pakistan’s South Waziristan tribal district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

The interim Afghan government, ruled by the Afghan Taliban, also confirmed the attacks but insisted that civilians had been targeted. The Afghan Ministry of Defense stated that several refugees, including women and children, were killed or injured.

“The Pakistani side should understand that such arbitrary measures are not a solution to any problem,” Enayatullah Khowarazami, spokesperson for Afghanistan’s defence ministry, wrote on social media platform X. “The Islamic Emirate will not leave this cowardly act unanswered and considers the defense of its territory an inalienable right,” he added.

The air strikes, the second such incident this year, came just hours after Pakistan’s Special Representative for Afghanistan Mohammad Sadi, met the interim Afghan Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi in Kabul.

“Met Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi today. Held wide-ranging discussions. Agreed to work together to further strengthen bilateral cooperation and promote peace and progress in the region,” Sadiq posted on X.

Sadiq’s visit to Kabul, which also included a meeting with Afghan interim interior minister Sirajuddin Haqqani on Monday, took place amid deteriorating relations between the two neighbours, and ties are only likely to sink further following the Tuesday night strikes, say analysts.

Increasing attacks

Pakistan has repeatedly accused the Afghan government of harbouring armed groups, especially the TTP, which it claims carries out cross-border attacks targeting Pakistani security forces.

Last week, TTP fighters claimed responsibility for killing at least 16 Pakistani soldiers in South Waziristan in one of the deadliest recent attacks on security personnel.

While the Afghan Taliban deny providing refuge to armed groups or allowing their territory to be used for cross-border attacks, Pakistan asserts that the TTP conducts its operations from Afghan sanctuaries.

During a United Nations Security Council briefing last week, Pakistan said that thousands of TTP fighters have sought shelter in Afghanistan.

“The TTP, with 6,000 fighters, is the largest listed terrorist organisation operating in Afghanistan. With safe havens close to our border, it poses a direct and daily threat to Pakistan’s security,” Pakistani diplomat Usman Iqbal Jadoon said at the UN briefing.

Data indicates a rise in attacks and fatalities, particularly in Pakistan’s restive northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province and southwestern Balochistan province, both of which border Afghanistan.

According to Pakistan’s Interior Ministry, more than 1,500 violent incidents in the first 10 months of this year have resulted in at least 924 deaths. Among the casualties were at least 570 law enforcement personnel and 351 civilians.

The Pakistan Institute for Conflict and Security Studies (PICSS), an Islamabad-based research organisation, reported more than 856 attacks so far in 2024, surpassing the 645 incidents recorded in 2023.

Risk of retaliation

Pakistan maintains that it has repeatedly shared evidence with the Afghan Taliban regarding TTP operations but claims these concerns have not been adequately addressed.

The Pakistani government launched a military campaign, Azm-e-Istehkam (“Resolve for Stability”), in June, and security analyst Amir Rana believes that the current air strikes are likely part of this operation.

“Discussions within military circles have focused on conducting offensives on Afghan soil after the recent surge in attacks against security personnel. These strikes appear to be triggered by last week’s attacks on soldiers,” Rana told Al Jazeera.

Rana, who is also the director of Islamabad-based security think tank Pak Institute for Peace Studies (PIPS), further says that the Kabul visit by Sadiq, Pakistani special representative to Afghanistan, might not be connected to the Tuesday air strikes.

“Sadiq’s visit was more about conveying the government message to share its apprehensions about increasing attacks by TTP networks which operate from Afghanistan, and was likely a trust-building exercise,” he added.

Ihsanullah Tipu, an Islamabad-based security analyst, said that Pakistan has conducted at least four air strikes on TTP hideouts in Afghanistan over the past few years, including one in March.

However, Tipu added that a major flaw in Pakistan’s Afghanistan policy was its “inconsistent approach”.

“Historically, Pakistan’s approach has been personality-driven rather than strategy-driven. Actions such as cross-border air strikes should be part of a comprehensive and well-planned policy instead of reactive measures,” Tipu, who is also the co-founder of The Khorasan Diary, a security research portal, told Al Jazeera.

Tipu also suggested that while the Afghan government has promised retaliation, the real response may come from the TTP.

“The actual reaction may come from the Pakistani Taliban, who have been discussing revenge attacks in their internal communications already, alleging that the strikes killed their women and children,” the Islamabad-based Tipu said.

Rana from PIPS said that such cross-border attacks are becoming a norm globally, and said it was unlikely that Pakistan would face any criticism or consequences from the international community for the air strikes.

“But this also presents a big challenge to us, and a matter to introspect, that despite four decades of engagement in Afghanistan, we still have not developed diplomatic skills to hold dialogue with rulers in Afghanistan, whoever it might be, in a constructive manner,” Rana said.

Tipu, meanwhile, emphasised that the TTP issue remained a major obstacle to Pakistani-Afghan relations.

“With Sadiq’s reappointment as special envoy, there were hopes for détente between the two countries. However, Tuesday’s strikes may significantly hinder any progress before it formally begins,” he said.

As a child growing up in the 1980s in Washington, DC, Christmas was a time when the usual monotony of my Catholic school existence gave way to an indescribable magic. It was not so much the presents as the sense that reality had been temporarily suspended and replaced by something far more invigorating – which I suppose is part of the reason I insisted on believing in Santa Claus until I was 10 years old.

Of course, mine was a relatively privileged childhood in the United States capital, an imperial headquarters that continues to this day to embody the racism and socioeconomic inequality that governs life in the so-called “land of the free.” While I knew vaguely of such domestic issues growing up, I knew even less of my country’s contributions to global suffering; in my birth year of 1982, for example, Washington had greenlit the Israeli invasion of Lebanon that killed tens of thousands of people.

Closer to home, the decade of the 1980s was characterised by US backing for mass right-wing slaughter in Central America, all in the noble pursuit of making the world safe for capitalism. That the tedium of Catholic school was my greatest earthly complaint meant that I was doing much better than a whole lot of folks – something that became even clearer when I abandoned the US in 2003, at the age of 21, in favour of an itinerant lifestyle that brought me into contact with the fallout of US misdeeds from Colombia to Vietnam.

I am now 42, and I did not have high hopes for Christmas when in mid-December I flew from Mexico to DC, where my parents had returned to live – following their own lengthy stretch abroad – shortly before my father’s death last year. This year, it was not just my dad’s absence that seemed to preemptively put a damper on festivities. The potential for indescribable magic would seem to have been fairly soundly obliterated by the dismal terrestrial state of affairs and the US-backed Israeli genocide that continues to rage in the Gaza Strip, where almost the entire population has been forcibly displaced.

Meanwhile, America’s conversion of Christmas into a giant traffic jam of Amazon delivery trucks merely drives home the all-consuming presence of apocalyptic capitalism and the reduction of humanity to an infinite soul-sucking series of economic transactions.

And yet, ironically, my first inkling of holiday cheer here in DC was triggered by just such a transaction-based interaction, when a Sudanese driver working for the ride-share company my mother uses gave me a hug.

Hailing from the Sudanese capital of Khartoum, the man – we’ll call him Alsafi – had registered his enthusiasm at the sight of my “Free Palestine” sweatshirt when he arrived to pick me up. Also 42, he had worked as a human rights lawyer in Sudan – itself no stranger to systematic killing and mass forced displacement – prior to fleeing the country in 2013 after one too many arrest-and-torture sessions.

Upon getting to the United States, however, Alsafi had determined that the American dream was not at all what it was cracked up to be. Not only did he regularly find himself on the receiving end of overtly racist comportment, he had also quickly tired of the oppressive consumerism that has become a substitute for life itself. He, too, was now plotting his exit from the country. Needless to say, we had much to talk about.

Days before Christmas, Alsafi invited me to dinner at a lowkey Ethiopian restaurant in Arlington, Virginia, just across the bridge from DC. I had spent a month in Ethiopia in 2016; Alsafi had spent several months there in 2013 in between fleeing Sudan and relocating to the United States. Over Ethiopian Habesha beer and injera bearing mounds of lentils and collard greens, I heard some of the details of Alsafi’s Sudanese carceral experiences.

During one of his detentions, he was blindfolded and beaten while his torturers continuously commanded him to move to the corner of the room. He stumbled around in search of the corner, to no avail. “It was funny,” he remarked to me with a genuine laugh. “When they took the blindfold off, I saw there were no corners in the room after all. It was round.”

Alsafi was not a fan of driving, but had to put in long hours in order to support his family in Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, where they had sought refuge from Sudan’s ongoing violence. On the drive back to my mother’s place in DC, he pointed out key landmarks in a geography he by now knew far better than I: the Pentagon building, the Watergate hotel, the patch of tents housing homeless persons whom Alsafi informed me had also been forcibly displaced in the interest of “security” when in July Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had descended upon the US capital to make the case for genocide.

There was something paradoxically uplifting about our shared pessimism, and the evening ended with another hug in front of my mom’s apartment building – the lobby of which now hosted a gigantic Christmas tree and an ever-multiplying heap of Amazon delivery boxes. Alsafi went on his way, and I was left with the reminder that even in capitalist-conquered society there are still humans out there – which might just be as magical as it gets.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

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Global equities reached record highs in 2024, mainly due to generative artificial intelligence and the global economic recovery. 

Building on the positive economic backdrop in 2024, the global economy is expected to keep growing and stocks are expected to keep riding the wave in the new year, according to analysts.

Is the stock market euphoria going to last in 2025?

UK-based investment management company Brooks Macdonald states that easing inflation pressures and decreasing interest rates are expected to drive market performance. 

In the US, markets could also be fuelled by “extension (and possible enhancement) of tax cuts in 2025”, said Chris Crawford, managing partner at Crawford Fund Management. 

Another wealth manager, AJ Bell, also foresees good results on the stock markets, especially in “Big Tech”, if investors choose “the right approach”. 

AJ Bell investment director Russ Mould warned that the rules of the market are changing, thanks to AI, and said that “investors need to consider the words of American industrialist J. Paul Getty, who once asserted that ‘in times of rapid change, experience can be your worst enemy’, because those who are sticking to long-held valuation disciplines are getting left behind as US equities generally, AI-related names more specifically and cryptocurrencies are all on a roll.”

Mould said he expects this trend to continue as long as the cooler inflation, steady growth and lower interest rates develop as hoped. 

Chris Crawford added that Bitcoin’s recent rally is not over. “The increasing mainstream adoption of Bitcoin is another interesting narrative that we expect in the new year as financial advisors and institutions integrate Bitcoin into their portfolios.”

However, he noted that markets need to be aware of the risks, including debt, tariffs and a stronger dollar, which could weigh on trade and growth.

What are the five things that could shape the market?

1 . Sovereign debt

Analysts agree that major economies are grappling with a mounting debt problem that could endanger economic growth. “Addressing these challenges will be crucial for maintaining economic stability in 2025”, Brooks Macdonald said in their outlook for 2025. 

In the UK and France, the debt-to-GDP ratio is almost 100% and 112% respectively. On the other side of the pond, the US is facing 123% and with expectations of it rising further. “President-elect Trump’s policy package could even accelerate growth in government borrowing from what is already a record-high of $36tn (€34.3trn)”, Mould said, adding that the US’s annualised interest bill on that debt already exceeds $1tn, “a sum larger than the defence budget”. 

Unless the US starts cutting expenses or raising income, there could be trouble ahead. The possible scenarios include “either bond yields rise in the face of growing supply, or interest rates stay higher for longer, or the Fed looks to cut rates”, Mould said, adding that “this final scenario may be why gold (and bitcoin, for that matter) are on a roll, as investors seek perceived stores of value”.

2. World trade developments

While US economic growth is expected to impress, President-Elect Donald Trump’s trade policy, including tariffs, may push China and the eurozone, especially Germany, back behind other regions. Tariffs would also fuel inflation in the US, potentially leading the Fed to alter its monetary policy. 

However, analysts are optimistic.

“The possibility of a major trade war may prove to be overstated, as the implementation of tariffs by the Trump administration is expected to remain targeted and limited”, Crawford said.

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“Trump talked loudly and carried a big stick on the subject of tariffs during his first term, but he only really wielded the stick at China”, Mould said. “We may see the same again this time around given Trump’s propensity to seek a deal.”

Potential global trade tensions between the US and China could bring about disruption to global supply chains, noted Brooks Macdonald’s outlook.

3. Watch the dollar

US tariffs could lower the US trade deficit and that would result in fewer dollars leaving the country. According to AJ Bell: “If they produce America’s first trade surplus since 1975, dollars will actively flow back into the US.” Due to the dollar’s status as the world’s reserve currency, used across the global economy and financial markets, having less of them could lead to “global liquidity drying up, with potentially deleterious consequences”, Mould highlighted.

Having fewer dollars, so essentially a strong US currency, would also increase the debt servicing cost of emerging countries that often borrow in this currency. 

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4. Are the Magnificent Seven going to keep the ‘magic’?

In the stock market, the so-called Magnificent Seven made up of Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia and Tesla have made a lot of money this year. However, they may not be fuelled by the same level of enthusiasm in the new year as in 2024.

“This year’s average 65% gain across the septet leaves them with an aggregate market capitalisation of $18tn, or 35% of the S&P 500,” Mould said, adding that an unexpected recession could pose a challenge for these companies, as well as sustained inflation and higher than expected rates. “Only a perfect middle path may do to justify their lofty valuations,” Mould added.

Crawford believes that: “The dominance of the Magnificent 7 is expected to fade as embedded extreme expectations, and the sheer size of these companies, constrain performance.” 

He believes: “Small and mid-cap equities, which have fallen behind in the last few years, should grow and attract more attention from investors.”

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5. Mergers and acquisitions are on the horizon in 2025

“The new year will usher in an M&A boom, sparked by the relaxing of government regulations and willing credit markets”, Crawford also noted – and he predicts that: “This will be the most significant deal wave in over a decade, creating opportunities for investors positioned in sectors that are ready for consolidation.”

IPOs may also sweep the floor, according to the Crawford Fund Management. 

“Conditions are favourable for the new issues market to reopen after a long drought and expect a wave of IPOs to hit the equity market in 2025 and to be well received with potentially generous valuations.”

Disclaimer: This information does not constitute financial advice, always do your own research on top to ensure it’s right for your specific circumstances. Also remember, we are a journalistic website and aim to provide the best guides, tips and advice from experts. If you rely on the information on this page, then you do so entirely at your own risk.

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Embattled leader fails to appear for questioning over short-lived declaration of martial law for second time in a week.

Impeached South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol has defied a summons to appear for questioning over his short-lived declaration of martial law for the second time in a week.

Yoon did not appear for questioning on suspicion of insurrection and abuse of power after being ordered to attend the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials in Gwacheon, south of Seoul, at 10am on Wednesday.

Yoon previously failed to respond to a separate summons by prosecutors on December 15.

Yoon, who served as the country’s top-ranking prosecutor before entering politics, has been suspended from his duties since December 14, when the National Assembly voted for his impeachment in a 204-85 vote.

The Constitutional Court of Korea is currently deliberating whether to uphold the motion and remove Yoon from office, a step that must be approved by at least six of nine justices.

The court has scheduled its first public hearing on the matter for December 27 and could take up to six months to deliver its ruling.

New elections would be held within two months if Yoon’s removal is confirmed.

Yoon’s brief declaration of martial law on December 4 stunned South Korea, plunging the country into its worst political crisis in decades.

Yoon, who said the declaration was aimed at tackling “anti-state forces”, has defended his actions as legal and pledged to “fairly confront” the investigations against him.

Washington, DC-based lender says Cairo agreed to raise tax-to-revenue ratio and accelerate divestment of state-owned firms.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has announced that it has reached an agreement with Egypt to unlock about $1.2bn in funds to prop up the country’s troubled finances.

The Washington, DC-based lender said on Tuesday that it reached the “staff-level agreement”, which is subject to approval by the Executive Board, after Cairo outlined steps to improve macroeconomic stability.

Egyptian authorities agreed to raise the tax-to-revenue ratio by 2 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) over the next two years and accelerate the divestment of state-owned companies, among other steps, the lender said.

“A comprehensive reform package is needed to ensure that Egypt rebuilds fiscal buffers to reduce debt vulnerabilities, and generates additional space to increase social spending, especially in health, education and social protection,” said Ivanna Vladkova Hollar, who led the IMF’s discussions with Egyptian authorities.

The two sides also agreed on the need to speed up reforms to improve the business environment, Hollar said.

“In this regard, more decisive efforts are needed to level the playing field, reduce the state footprint in the economy, and increase private sector confidence to help Egypt attract foreign investment and develop its full economic potential,” she said.

Egypt in March struck a deal to receive an $8bn loan from the IMF in tranches subject to undertaking economic reforms, expanding on a $3bn, 46-month deal struck in December 2022.

As part of the terms of the loan, Cairo agreed to let its currency sharply depreciate and allow the exchange rate to be determined by market forces.

Egypt has been grappling with double-digit inflation and foreign currency shortages amid economic challenges including a collapse in revenues from the Suez Canal, the war in Ukraine and the fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Hsinchu, Taiwan – A crane bird flies across a silent rice paddy, the water slowly trickling in the background. It is a tranquil and stereotypical image of an East-Asian countryside. Little seems to suggest I am just a few kilometres removed from one of the hearts of the global economy.

This is Hsinchu, a small city close to Taipei in Taiwan. It is what you could literally call the Silicon Valley of the world.

Just a few kilometres from the tranquil rice paddies, gargantuan buildings rise from the ground, air conditioning humming permanently over the bustle of traffic. These are the factories that build the silicon chips or semiconductors that make our smartphones, computers and even artificial intelligence (AI) systems such as ChatGPT work.

Yet these two worlds, tranquil nature and high-tech manufacturing, are increasingly clashing on the island.

Taiwan is the world leader in the production of computer chips.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited (TSMC) is the largest chip manufacturer in Taiwan. By the third quarter of 2024, it had conquered 64 percent of the global semiconductor market, according to research firm Counterpoint.

The second-biggest player, South Korea’s Samsung Foundry, represented only a distant 12 percent.

Chip manufacturing makes up an outsized part of Taiwan’s economy and contributes 25 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) of the island. In 2020, the market value of TSMC was equal to the size of half of Taiwan’s economy, as per a study at the time.

Few countries seem to be able to outdo the Taiwanese at manufacturing chips. However, this semiconductor success is also raising sustainability issues.

Chip manufacturing consumes large amounts of water and energy, and emits emissions through chemicals. TSMC alone consumes about 8 percent of the island’s electricity, according to a recent report by S&P Global Ratings.

“After the petrochemical industry, the electronics industry is the biggest emitter of Taiwan,” Chia-Wei Chao, the research director at the nonprofit Taiwan Climate Action Network and adjunct assistant professor at the National Taiwan University, told Al Jazeera.

“Semiconductors are also a rapidly growing industry, which is worrying, to say the least.”

This is even bringing them into conflict with the farmers that Taiwan’s chip factories are located near.

In 2021, during a drought, the Taiwanese government halted irrigation of farms, so the huge chip factories could use the saved water. Today, anxiety is growing over how solar farms, which are needed to power chip manufacturing, might take up farmland.

“There seems to be a lack of systemic analysis on the environmental effects on semiconductor production,” Josh Lepawsky, a professor of geography at Memorial University of Newfoundland in Canada, told Al Jazeera.

“That’s a grave mistake.”

‘Crazy’ AI

While the water use of chip factories has garnered much international attention in the past few years, on the island itself, it is considered old news. Semiconductor manufacturers are already recycling most of the water they use, and the government has invested in more water infrastructure since the drought of the past years.

The Taiwanese today are worrying about the industry’s energy use. Artificial intelligence achieved large breakthroughs in the past years, driven by the large language models of US companies like OpenAI and tools such as ChatGPT. This revolution was powered by chips that were mostly manufactured in Taiwan.

The AI hype, in turn, is causing Taiwan’s huge chip factories to go into overdrive.

“The AI market is becoming more crazy than ever,” Lena Chang, a campaigner at Greenpeace East Asia, told Al Jazeera.

“Because of it, the energy use of the semiconductor industry is becoming a major problem for Taiwan, because of increased emissions and even possible shortages.”

In all the craziness, the climate might have been forgotten. “The main goal is now to develop AI and the related supply chains,” Chang said.

“Energy is not a big concern. The government should be more active in developing sustainable energy.”

Slow renewables

One key issue here is the Taiwanese energy market. Taiwan is currently phasing out its nuclear reactors. Construction of solar and wind energy, however, has been lagging.

“Taiwan still heavily relies on fossil fuels,” Chang said. “More than 80 percent of our energy supply is from gas and coal.”

Just 11 percent of Taiwan’s energy supply between September 2023 and August 2024 came from wind, solar and hydropower, according to the Energy Administration.

A declining nuclear share contributed another 5.6 percent.

The Taiwanese government in 2016 set a target of 20 percent renewables by 2025, which it will almost certainly miss.

Offshore wind, for example, is lagging behind government targets. In 2018, Taiwan awarded 5.7 gigawatts (GW) of offshore wind to be installed by 2025.

By 2024, the government had downgraded its targets, and hoped between 2.56GW and 3.04GW would be ready that year.

“Offshore wind went quite well until 2022. But then, for the following auction rounds, Taiwan tried to get both cheap energy and high localisation of the supply chain,” Raoul Kubitschek, the managing director of the renewable energy consultant NIRAS Taiwan, told Al Jazeera.

Wind energy is particularly running into Taiwan’s localisation rules. Taiwan’s government is demanding that very high percentages of its wind turbines and other components be produced locally.

This local production, however, is not picking up fast enough.

“You cannot build a new supply chain this fast,” Kubitschek said. “Taiwan only constructed its first commercial-sized offshore wind farm in 2017. It takes time to create a domestic wind energy industry.”

Solar energy is also running into barriers. Rooftop solar has been largely saturated on the island. Larger-scale solar farms, in turn, are controversial because of land disputes. Groups like farmers are afraid they will encroach on farmland, leading to protests and lawsuits.

Chia-wei Chao is hoping to turn this around.

He leads some pilot projects where farmers themselves place solar panels on their land. “We shouldn’t force farmers to sell their land or stop farming to install solar panels,” Chao told Al Jazeera. “We should allow a combination of the two. We need to regain the trust of farmers.”

For now, however, Taiwan’s energy market remains reliant on fossil fuels. All the while, the semiconductor industry’s energy use is rapidly increasing.

That is an issue for semiconductor manufacturers. They are being pressured by their customers into going green.

Apple, a prominent buyer of TSMC chips, wants its large suppliers to commit to 100 percent renewable energy use by 2030 – a far-off target given current trends.

Taiwanese electricity prices are also increasing rapidly, and the threats of power outages are growing.

According to Kubitschek, broader changes are needed in Taiwan’s energy market, including relaxing localisation policies, reforming permitting and looking at the role of Taipower, the government-owned energy company.

However, Kubitschek says such reforms might be far off. Greenpeace, in the meantime, wants to bypass this conundrum and demands that companies like TSMC build their own sustainable energy installations.

CHIPS Acts

Taiwan’s issues with semiconductor manufacturing are not unique, however.

Since COVID-19 and the associated shortages in critical goods such as semiconductors, governments like the United States and the European Union want to make more chips locally.

Both the US and EU passed legislation to support domestic chip production, although US President-elect Donald Trump has harshly criticised his country’s CHIPS and Science Act.

Both the US and the EU are now running into similar issues as Taiwan.

In the US, for example, new chip factories are being placed in areas prone to drought. TSMC is investing $12bn in a factory in the desert regions of Arizona.

That is bad planning, according to the Memorial University of Newfoundland’s Lepawsky.

“The [US] CHIPS Act didn’t consider water use. That will cause problems in the future.”

In Europe, worries about chip manufacturing’s environmental effects are also increasing.

In 2022, the EU announced that it wanted to increase Europe’s share of the global semiconductor manufacturing market to 20 percent by 2030, prompting TSMC and Intel to unveil plans for new plants in Germany and Poland (Intel has since postponed its plans as it seeks to rein in heavy financial losses).

According to a study by the research firm Interface, if Europe were to achieve its 20 percent production target, the continent’s semiconductor emissions would rise eightfold, clashing with other policy programmes like the Green Deal.

Chip gasses

Researchers are also worrying about another type of climate effect of semiconductors.

Besides water or energy use, semiconductor manufacturing produces greenhouse gases. During the complex manufacturing flow, the processes themselves can produce their own emissions.

These are called scope 1 emissions, according to Emily Gallagher, the director of the Sustainable Semiconductor Technologies and Systems (SSTS) programme of the research institute Imec in Belgium. TSMC is one of the companies that is a member of Imec’s SSTS programme.

“During the etching process, we use plasma to selectively remove material to build minuscule structures in chips. The etch process often uses gasses such as the fluorinated chemical CF4,” Gallagher told Al Jazeera. “CF4 has a global warming potential that’s 6,500 times larger than CO2.”

According to calculations by Imec, for an average chip, roughly 10 percent of the production emissions are scope 1. Reducing these will mean adapting the highly complex semiconductor manufacturing procedures by increasing process efficiency to increase utilisation of the gases, by replacing existing gases if possible and by reducing their use.

“For now, scope 1 emissions do not dominate the emissions associated with semiconductor manufacturing,” Gallagher said. “But as factories decarbonise their energy supply, its importance will increase dramatically.”

Back in Taiwan, energy use is still on everyone’s mind.

Taiwan is at the core of the global AI hype, not just producing chips, but even making the systems that cool the hot-running servers on which AI models are trained. Whether the local energy market can handle that remains to be seen.

“We need more ambitious goals and the means to accomplish them”, Chang said. “There’s a real concern now about power shortages. Large power users such as semiconductor companies need to take responsibility.”

This article was supported by the Pascal Decroos Fund.

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VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Dec. 24, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — The janitors who clean Vancouver’s International Airport have ratified a new collective agreement. The strike at the airport ended on one of the busiest travel days of the year.

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Strike action was set to escalate today, however SEIU Local 2 suspended those actions and was able to quickly organize a ratification vote for the 233 janitors working for Alpine Building Maintenance (Alpine).

The workers had set out to win $25 per hour, an overnight shift premium and retirement security.

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“We’re happy because it won’t be long before we reach the $25 we were looking for and the premiums will help many of us as well,” said Goutam Luthra, one of the cleaners. “No one ever wants to go on strike, but sometimes you just have to make a stand.”

Every janitor will be at $25 per hour or higher in 2025. There will be a raise of $1.29 in April bringing pay to $24.55 per hour. A second wage hike in October will bring wages to $25. There will be more raises in 2026. In addition to the raises, there is also premium pay for lead hands and hours worked overnight. The cleaning contractor has also committed to providing the living wage over the course of the two-year agreement. Their medical benefits package remains intact.

While there is relief that the strike is over, the big demand the janitors didn’t win was retirement security. It will be made a priority in the next round of bargaining and workers say they look forward to coming back to the table in two years when they will continue the fight for that and other improvements.

“We didn’t win everything we wanted, but we think it’s a good deal and this experience brought us closer together,” said Varinder Singh, one of the overnight workers. “We know our job here is not done. Our grandparents shouldn’t have to keep on working well into their senior years just because they can’t afford to retire. We need to do better, and we will fight for that next time.”

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Back to Work

The parties agreed to a back-to-work protocol.

Alpine will recall all striking employees to their first regularly scheduled shift following today’s the ratification vote, with no loss of seniority and/or service by virtue of their absence during the strike.

Some workers may be back as early as this afternoon.

The employer agreed that there will be no discipline, termination of employment, discrimination, intimidation, interference, restraint, coercion, recrimination or reprisal action of any kind whatsoever against union members for their participation in the strike and strike related activities.

The Union agreed to publicly rescind any notification of job actions and any escalating activities.

Background

The janitors’ job action began last Thursday evening. The workers and their supporters had been gathering at YVR’s designated “Authorized Demonstration Area,” Chester Johnson Park, since Friday morning. That was set change on Christmas Eve, as the cleaners planned to exercise their right to set up lawful picket lines at undisclosed areas of the airport and ask airport workers who have the legal right to honour picket lines to not cross.

The janitors’ contract expired at the end of September. They clean nearly the entire airport including the terminals, bathrooms, hallways, exterior, and airport operations facilities on both sides of security checkpoints.

For more information visit www.YVRjanitorStrike.ca

SEIU Local 2 represents 20,000 workers in British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. We are proud members of the largest, fastest growing, and most dynamic union in North America.

Media Contact:

Tina Oh
(902) 955-9966
[email protected]

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Haitian authorities have struggled to address rise of powerful armed gangs, and accountability for violence is rare.

Armed men have opened fire on a group of journalists in Haiti who had gathered to cover the reopening of the capital’s largest public hospital.

While authorities have not offered details on casualties from the attack on Tuesday, the Reuters news agency reported that two journalists and a police officer were killed, citing a journalist who witnessed the attack and asked not to be named.

“We express our sympathy to all the victims’ families, in particular, to the PNH [Haiti’s national police] and all the journalists’ associations,” Haiti’s transitional presidential council stated in a social media post.

“We guarantee them that this act will not remain without consequences.”

The attack is the latest to roil Haiti, where continued political and economic instability have helped fuel the rise of violent armed gangs that have grown more powerful since the assassination of former President Jovenel Moise in 2021.

Law enforcement authorities on the island nation have struggled to counter the criminal groups, which have exerted control over an estimated 80 percent of the capital, Port-Au-Prince, where widespread violence has hammered civilians and disrupted vital services.

One institution forced to close in March was the General Hospital, the country’s largest public hospital. Journalists had gathered on Tuesday morning to cover the facility’s reopening when gunmen opened fire at about 11am (16:00 GMT), Reuters reported.

Government officials had convened to reopen the hospital in downtown Port-Au-Prince in July, but that event was also targeted by gunfire, which forced former Prime Minister Garry Conille to flee the scene.

An unverified video posted online on Tuesday appears to show three journalists lying wounded on the floor of the building. A recent report by the United Nations stated that only 24 percent of health facilities in the Port-Au-Prince area are operational.

Johnson “Izo” Andre, a powerful gang leader in a coalition known as Viv Ansanm, posted a video to social media on Tuesday taking credit for the attack.

At least six other people killed and many wounded in an Israeli raid on a house in Jabalia al-Nazla in northern Gaza.

At least two members of Gaza’s Civil Defence have been killed in the latest Israeli attacks on the Palestinian enclave, rescue and emergency services say.

A drone strike targeting the Civil Defence headquarters in Gaza City on Tuesday killed firefighter Nabil Bahloul and his son.

Another Civil Defence worker, Najib Sakr, was killed as the Daraj neighbourhood in Gaza City was bombed by Israeli forces.

“We received an emergency stress message … calling for help to extinguish a fire that broke out as a result of an Israeli air strike on a residential building,” said Ahmed al-Madhoun, a member of the Civil Defence.

“We rushed to the scene. On the way, we received a call telling us that the site we were heading to has just been pounded again. We went and found dozens killed, including our fellow Civil Defence team members shredded to pieces.”

The Israeli military’s targeting of Gaza’s Civil Defence offices is on the rise, Al Jazeera’s Gaza correspondent Tareq Abu Azzoum said.

“We are talking about 14 centres that have been obliterated alongside 56 vehicles, including fire engines and ambulances,” he said.

“Civil Defence workers are unable to effectively operate in northern Gaza, where their services are witnessing a near-total collapse due to the repeated Israeli attacks on their members on the ground,” he added.

As a result, civilians are taking responsibility, coming together to conduct risky rescue operations, including pulling victims from under the rubble of bombed buildings, Abu Azzoum said.

At least six Palestinians were killed and many others wounded in an Israeli raid on a house in northern Gaza’s Jabalia al-Nazla area, according to Al Jazeera reporters on the ground. The house belonged to the Abu Warda family.

Civil Defence officials said the bodies of three children were still under the rubble and its crews were facing difficulty in recovering them.

Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said a mid-level Israeli ceasefire negotiating team will return to Tel Aviv on Tuesday night after a “meaningful week” of talks in Qatar.

Additionally, an Israeli military investigation concluded on Tuesday that the presence of Israeli troops inadvertently contributed to the deaths of six captives killed by their Hamas captors in Gaza.

The captives’ bodies were discovered in a tunnel in late August, an event that sparked some of the largest antiwar protests since the war began.

The investigation found that the six captives were killed by multiple gunshots from their captors after surviving for nearly 330 days in Gaza.

Israel’s genocide in Gaza since October last year has killed at least 45,338 Palestinians and wounded 107,764.

At least 1,139 people were killed in Israel during the Hamas-led attacks on October 7, 2023, and more than 200 were taken captive.

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OTTAWA — Immigration measures announced as part of Canada’s border response to U.S. president-elect Donald Trump’s 25 per cent tariff threat are starting to be implemented, beginning with a ban on what’s known as “flagpoling.”

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This is when someone who was in Canada on a temporary visa leaves for the U.S. then quickly re-enters Canada to access immigration services at a port of entry.

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The restriction on providing work and study permits to flagpolers takes effect today.

Last week, Immigration Minister Marc Miller said that going forward temporary visa holders will have to apply online to extend their stay in Canada.

The Canadian Border Services Agency processed more than 69,300 people who engaged in flagpoling in the 2023-2024 fiscal year.

There are still rare exceptions where a person will be granted a work or study permit even though they meet the definition of flagpoling, including international truck drivers with a work permit, professionals under certain free trade agreements and American citizens.

Miller first announced the plan to ban the practice on Dec. 17, alongside Finance Minister Dominic LeBlanc who promised a border control package worth $1.3 billion.

This includes removing the point value for having a job offer in Canada’s express entry immigration system. The stated goal of this change is to reduce and prevent immigration fraud.

In a social media post, Miller said this will take effect in the spring and that it will be a temporary measure.

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A broader review of the express entry program is being conducted, and a future decision on the value of a job offer in that system will be made at that time.

A labour market impact assessment, a key document required for an employer to hire a foreign worker, is currently worth 50 to 200 points in the express entry system.

Applicants are not supposed to pay for these, but a black market has emerged where people are charging tens of thousands of dollars for these documents.

Applications that are already in progress won’t be affected once this change takes effect.

Miller also said the government is looking at ways to streamline Canada’s asylum system at that Dec. 17 press conference. This includes exploring options to “quickly deal with” illegitimate claims.

The government’s broader border measures plan to respond to Trump’s 25 per cent tariff threat also includes enhanced aerial surveillance and drug detection efforts.

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With the spacecraft out of contact, it will be Friday before mission operators confirm its historic flyby.

NASA’s Parker Solar Probe is expected to make history by flying into the sun’s outer atmosphere, called the corona, on a mission to help scientists learn more about Earth’s closest star.

“No human-made object has ever passed this close to a star, so Parker will truly be returning data from uncharted territory,” Nick Pinkine, mission operations manager at Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, said in a United States space agency blog on Tuesday.

Parker was on course to fly 6.1 million kilometres (3.8 million miles) from the sun’s surface at 11:53 GMT on Tuesday. With the spacecraft out of contact, it will be Friday before mission operators confirm its health after the close flyby.

Moving at up to 692,000km/h (430,000mph), fast enough to fly from Washington, DC, to Tokyo in under a minute, the spacecraft will endure temperatures of up to 982 degrees Celsius (1,800 degrees Fahrenheit), NASA said on its website.

If the distance between Earth and the sun were the equivalent of the length of a 100-yard (91.4-metre) American football field, the spacecraft should have been about 4 metres (4.4 yards) from the end zone at the moment of its closest approach – known as the perihelion.

When the probe first passed into the solar atmosphere in 2021, it found new details about the boundaries of the sun’s atmosphere and collected close-up images of coronal streamers, cusp-like structures seen during solar eclipses.

Since the spacecraft launched in 2018, the probe has been gradually circling closer towards the sun, using flybys of Venus to gravitationally pull it into a tighter orbit with our solar system’s star.

One instrument on board the spacecraft captured visible light from Venus, giving scientists a new way to see through the planet’s thick clouds to the surface below, NASA said.

By venturing into these extreme conditions, Parker has been helping scientists tackle some of the sun’s biggest mysteries: how solar wind originates, why the corona is hotter than the surface below and how coronal mass ejections – massive clouds of plasma that hurl through space – are formed.

Tuesday’s flyby is the first of three record-setting close passes with the next two – on March 22 and June 19 – expected to bring the probe back to a similarly close distance from the sun.

Since Donald Trump’s re-election as United States president, there has been growing discussion about what his incoming administration’s policies towards Afghanistan might look like.

Many anticipate a tougher stance against the Taliban, but a closer look at Trump’s track record and statements on the issue indicates he is unlikely to make any drastic changes to the pragmatist and staunchly anti-intervention policies he pursued during his first term in power.

During his first term as president, Trump made his stance against protracted foreign engagements and especially the decades-long US presence in Afghanistan clear. He was the architect of the 2020 Doha Agreement between the US and the Taliban, which paved the way for the US withdrawal from the country and ultimately allowed the Taliban’s return to power.

The Doha Agreement was a major turning point in America’s Afghanistan strategy. Dissatisfied with the progress of his administration’s South Asia policy, frustrated by a perceived lack of accountability among military advisers and eager to prove to his voting base that he could indeed end one of America’s longest and most costly wars, Trump began to look for a fast way out of Afghanistan. And after all the traditional strategies failed to produce a workable exit plan, he entered into direct negotiations with the Taliban to end the conflict.

After his re-election, Trump is likely to stick to this business-minded approach to foreign policy, which remains popular with his base, and favour pragmatic deals over costly confrontations and military entanglements in Afghanistan and elsewhere.

The Taliban itself seems to believe the Trump presidency could be beneficial for its future prospects. For example, the Afghan government hopes the future Trump administration “will take realistic steps toward concrete progress in relations between the two countries and both nations will be able to open a new chapter of relations”, Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Abdul Qahar Balkhi said in a post on X in November soon after Trump’s victory in the US election.

The Taliban’s optimism for future relations stems from its positive interactions with the first Trump administration. After all, the first Trump administration negotiated directly with the Taliban, started the process of a US withdrawal from Afghanistan and prepared the ground for its return to Kabul.

However, although he has been more open to a pragmatic collaboration with the Taliban than President Joe Biden and firmly against any direct military confrontation, Trump is unlikely to let the Taliban do as it likes with the country or give it everything it needs without extracting a price. If the Taliban fails to make progress in fulfilling the commitments it made as part of the Doha Agreement, for example, Trump would likely curtail US assistance or condition it on tangible progress in specific areas.

Trump has consistently argued for cutting back foreign aid as part of an “America First” approach, and he can also reduce US assistance to Afghanistan significantly without offering a reason or condition. He also would not hesitate to impose severe economic sanctions on the Taliban government if he concludes that it is harming American interests in one way or another.

US humanitarian aid amounting to about $40m a week since the Taliban takeover is an important lifeline to Afghanistan’s impoverished population. Any limitation or reduction in US aid would have significant consequences for its wellbeing and that of the fragile Afghan economy. Such a decision would deepen Afghanistan’s economic crisis and further erode progress in education, healthcare and food security.

Since Trump’s last term as president, global attention has moved away from Afghanistan. After the US withdrawal and with the beginning of globally consequential hot conflicts in Ukraine and Palestine, the country became somewhat peripheral to Washington’s foreign policy agenda. As an “America First” president who will have to spend considerable time dealing with crises in the Middle East and Europe, Trump is highly unlikely to treat Afghanistan as anything other than a problem he already solved.

However, Trump’s isolationist tendencies in foreign policy coupled with the aid cuts and economic sanctions he may impose on the Taliban could easily result in the collapse of the Afghan economy and once again turn Afghanistan into an urgent problem for the US and its allies.

Afghanistan’s economic collapse could trigger a new migration crisis, significant regional instability and create fertile ground for extremist groups, such as the ISIL (ISIS) affiliate in Khorasan Province, to flourish.

While Trump’s noninterventionist stance appeals to an American audience wary of foreign intervention, the ripple effects of a weakened and further impoverished Afghanistan could present longer-term security challenges.

Such a scenario would also have severe consequences for the Afghan people – worsening economic hardship and causing a potential collapse of health services, renewed conflict and further isolation from the rest of the world.

Once Trump is back in the White House and trying to deliver on his “America First” agenda, Afghanistan is unlikely to be a priority in his mind. Nonetheless, the choices he makes regarding Afghanistan will have important consequences not only for the long-suffering Afghan people but also the entirety of the international community.

In short, in his second term, Trump will need to find the right balance between pragmatic disengagement and responsibilities of global leadership to be successful in his Afghanistan policy and ensure that his efforts to end one conflict do not create a worse one down the line.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

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VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Dec. 24, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — A tentative agreement between SEIU Local 2, the union representing the striking janitors at Vancouver’s International Airport, and their employer, Alpine Building Maintenance, has been reached.

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The escalated job actions planned for Tuesday December 24 at YVR have been cancelled.

Arrangements are being made for the workers to vote on the tentative agreement. If the agreement is ratified by the union members, the strike will be over.

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The 233 janitors have been without a contract since the end of September. They clean nearly the entire airport including the terminals, bathrooms, hallways, exterior, YVR operations, before and beyond security checkpoints.

No details of the tentative agreement will be made available until after it is presented to SEIU Local 2 membership, and the janitors vote on it. More information to come.

www.YVRjanitorStrike.ca 

SEIU Local 2 represents 20,000 workers in British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. We are proud members of the largest, fastest growing, and most dynamic union in North America.

Media Contact:

Tina Oh
(902) 955-9966
[email protected] 

Share this article in your social network

IPC report outlines famine in five areas, including in Sudan’s largest displacement camp, Zamzam, in North Darfur province.

Famine is spreading in Sudan due to a war between the army and paramilitary group, a United Nations-backed global hunger-monitoring group says.

The Famine Review Committee of the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) published a report on Tuesday outlining famine in five areas, including in Sudan’s largest displacement camp, Zamzam, in North Darfur province.

Famine conditions were confirmed in Abu Shouk and al-Salam, two camps for internally displaced people in el-Fasher, the besieged capital of North Darfur in western Sudan, as well as in residential and displaced communities in the Nuba Mountains in southern Sudan, according to the report.

The five-member committee also found that famine, first identified in August, will likely spread to another five areas – Um Kadadah, Melit, el-Fasher, Tawisha and al-Lait – by May. It also identified another 17 areas across Sudan at risk of famine.

According to the IPC report, 24.6 million Sudanese – half of the population – face acute food shortages.

“[The war] has triggered unprecedented mass displacement, a collapsing economy, the breakdown of essential social services, severe societal disruptions, and poor humanitarian access,” the report said.

The IPC, an independent body funded by Western nations, comprises more than a dozen UN agencies, aid groups and governments that use its monitoring as a global reference for analysis of food and nutrition crises.

The report was published despite the Sudanese government’s continued disruption of the IPC’s process for analysing food shortages. On Monday, the government announced it was suspending its participation in the global hunger-monitoring system, saying the IPC issues “unreliable reports that undermine Sudan’s sovereignty and dignity”.

Sudan has been roiled by a 20-month war that has killed more than 24,000 people and driven over 14 million people – about 30 percent of the population – from their homes, according to the UN. An estimated 3.2 million Sudanese have crossed into neighbouring countries, including Chad, Egypt and South Sudan.

The war began in April 2023 when long-simmering tensions between the military and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces exploded into open fighting in the capital, Khartoum, before spreading to other urban areas and the western region of Darfur.

The conflict has been marked by atrocities, including ethnically motivated killings and rapes, according to the UN and human rights groups. The International Criminal Court is investigating alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity.

In its report, the IPC added that in conflict areas, hostilities can severely disrupt farming, resulting in workers abandoning their crops. Farms have also suffered from looting and killing of livestock.

“Displaced households, especially those living in settlements and public buildings, are unlikely to benefit significantly from the harvest,” it said.

Dervla Cleary, a senior emergency and rehabilitation officer at the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization, said the situation in Sudan is “just awful”.

“It is unacceptable in a world like today,” Cleary told The Associated Press news agency. “We need the violence to stop so people can access food, water, health, nutrition and agriculture.”

Sudan is the third country where famine has been declared in the past 15 years. The other two are South Sudan and Somalia.