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How Shapewear is Silently Reshaping the Plus-Size LandscapeTHIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The CPM in Kerala is facing an unprecedented crisis as infighting within the party has escalated into violent outbursts. The situation has become extremely challenging for the CPM leadership, particularly with the Party Congress scheduled to take place in April. The brawl at the Kulasekharam North local conference followed by the incident where state leaders were locked up inside the hall, culminated in the dissolution of the Karunagappally Area Committee on Saturday. In Alappuzha, the party suffered a setback after former Kayamkulam Area Committee member Bipin C Babu left the party and joined the BJP. The other day, the party was shocked to see leaders, including local committee members, taking part in a demonstration towards the area committee office in Karunagapally with the banner of 'Save CPM'. The crisis has deepened in Palakkad, where intense factionalism has split party leaders and members into two groups in Kozhinjampara. In a shocking turn of events, an alternative party office was opened in the area, which was inaugurated by an area committee member who also serves as the standing committee chairman of the panchayat. From corruption to sexual harassment allegations The slogan 'Save the party from looters' was prominently heard during the march to the Karunagappally Area Committee office the other day. Meanwhile, social media is getting flooded with allegations of sexual misconduct and corruption against leaders following the dissolution of the Area Committee on Saturday. Kollam district—known as a stronghold of the VS faction—had not witnessed regional infighting of this magnitude even during the period when the VS and Pinarayi factions used to clash with each other. Leaders who were earlier divided into two factions are now fragmented into multiple factions.
New Orleans Saints quarterback Derek Carr sustained a left hand injury and possible concussion in the fourth quarter of Sunday's 14-11 victory over the New York Giants. The Saints feared Carr fractured the hand, per reports, and he was slated to undergo further testing. He reportedly had a cast on the hand when exiting the stadium. Javascript is required for you to be able to read premium content. Please enable it in your browser settings. Scenes from Georgia's victory over Texas in the SEC Championship Game at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta on December 7, 2024. (Photos: Jim Blackburn) Click for more. PHOTOS: Georgia Defeats Texas for SEC ChampionshipWASHINGTON (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump is promising expedited federal permits for energy projects and other construction worth more than $1 billion. But like other Trump plans, the idea is likely to run into regulatory and legislative hurdles, including a landmark law that requires federal agencies to consider the environmental impact before deciding on major projects. In a post on his Truth Social site Tuesday, Trump said anyone making a $1 billion investment in the United States “will receive fully expedited approvals and permits, including, but in no way limited to, all Environmental approvals.” “GET READY TO ROCK!!!” he added. While Trump did not specify who would be eligible for accelerated approvals, dozens of energy projects proposed nationwide, from natural gas pipelines and export terminals to solar farms and offshore wind turbines, meet the billion-dollar criteria. Environmental groups slammed the proposal, calling it illegal on its face and a clear violation of the National Environmental Policy Act, a 54-year-old law that requires federal agencies to study the potential environmental impact of proposed actions and consider alternatives. “Trump is unabashedly and literally offering to sell out America to the highest corporate bidder,” said Lena Moffitt, executive director of Evergreen Action, an environmental group. She said the plan was “obviously illegal” and another example of Trump “putting special interests and corporate polluters in the driver’s seat, which would result in more pollution, higher costs and fewer energy choices for the American people.” Alexandra Adams, chief policy advocacy officer at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said Trump should be careful what he wishes for. “What if someone wants to build a waste incinerator next to Mar-a-Lago or a coal mine next to Bedminster golf course?” she asked, referring to Trump’s Florida home and New Jersey golf club, respectively. “There’s a reason Congress requires the government to take a hard look at community impacts to make sure we don’t greenlight projects that do more harm than good. Cheerleading on social media doesn’t change that reality,” Adams said. Energy analyst Kevin Book said Trump’s post showed his usual flair for showmanship but said there was a real concern underlying it: a bipartisan push for permitting reform to speed up major environmental projects that now take years to win approval. “The substance here is he is really serious about trying to get permitting reform done,” said Book, managing partner at ClearView Energy Partners, a Washington research firm. “Permitting delays are an impediment in many sectors — including energy — and there are multiple billion-dollar investments waiting for permitting reform,” Book said. A bipartisan plan championed by Senate Energy Committee Chairman Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso, the committee’s top Republican, would speed up permitting for major energy and mineral projects, but its chances are uncertain in the final few weeks of the current Congress. Their plan would boost energy projects of all types, bringing down prices, creating domestic jobs and allowing the U.S. to continue as a global energy leader, Barrasso and Manchin say. Critics say the bill would open major expanses of public lands and waters for oil and gas drilling and gut executive and judicial review. “Checking off wish lists for oil, gas and mining companies is not permitting reform,” said Rep. Raul Grijalva of Arizona, the top Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee. He called the bill “a dirty deal” that would exempt some oil and gas drilling projects from federal review and “let mining companies dump even more toxic waste on our public lands.” Jason Miller, a senior adviser to Trump, said Trump’s second term will be a “golden age of regulation-cutting,” including a promise to “drill, baby, drill.” “If you want to bring in money, he’s going to move heaven and earth to get that money in the door and get it invested in the United States,” Miller said Tuesday at a conference organized by the Wall Street Journal. The plan applies to both domestic and foreign investment, Miller said: “He wants to get the money and he wants to get the regulations cut and get the economy moving again. ” In the short term, Trump’s post makes permitting reform less likely this year, Book said, as Republicans seek to wait until next year when they will control both chambers of Congress and the White House. But the issue is likely to return quickly in the new year.
Elon Musk is easily the world’s wealthiest man, with a net worth topping $300 billion. But even he stands to make more money from his association with the federal government after placing a winning bet on Donald Trump’s election to the presidency. “It’s going to be a golden era for Musk with Trump in the White House,” Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives said. Musk’s aerospace company SpaceX received billions of dollars in federal contracts, and could be in line for more, while his five other businesses could gain from a lighter regulatory touch. Trump named Musk to co-head a new Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE — a nod to the cryptocurrency Musk adores. However, federal law bars executive branch employees, which can include unpaid consultants, from participating in government matters that will affect their financial interests, unless they divest of their interests or recuse themselves. Trump’s transition team has sought a work-around, saying he would “provide advice and guidance from outside of Government” with the work concluding by July 2026, according to a news release. Richard Painter, a University of Minnesota Law School professor and former chief White House ethics lawyer, said that if Musk is truly working outside the government he doesn’t have to sell his assets, but that limits his influence. “He can make recommendations, but ultimately the decisions are made by government officials,” Painter said. Trump’s campaign and Musk’s companies didn’t respond to requests for comment. Here’s how Musk could benefit from Trump’s presidency. If there’s one Musk business that could profit the most from the incoming Trump administration, it’s SpaceX. The company, which announced this year it would move its headquarters from California to Texas, already received at least $21 billion in federal funds since its 2002 founding, according to government contracting research firm The Pulse. That includes contracts for launching military satellites, servicing the International Space Station and building a lunar lander. However, that figure could be dwarfed by a federal initiative to fund a Mars mission, which is the stated goal of SpaceX. “Elon Musk is wealthy, but he’s not wealthy enough to completely fund humans to Mars. It needs to be a public/private partnership, because of the tens of billions of dollars that this would cost, or even hundreds of billions dollars,” said Laura Forczyk, executive director of space industry consulting firm Astralytical. SpaceX already made big strides testing Musk’s Starship rocket, the most powerful ever built. NASA envisions employing the rocket in its Artemis program to return humans to the moon, but it has been designed to have enough thrust to propel a spacecraft to Mars. What’s more, Trump, during his first presidency, speculated on Twitter about why the United States was focusing on the moon instead of Mars. Still, there are technical challenges, with SpaceX yet to complete the $4 billion Starship lunar lander, which would have to be modified for Mars. And without a pressing geopolitical threat, Congress may be unwilling to spend more on space exploration, as it did during the 1960s with the Apollo program, Forczyk said. Should a Mars project not materialize, SpaceX could still reap rewards in the next four years. For example, the Federal Communications Commission denied SpaceX nearly $900 million in federal subsidies to provide rural broadband access through its Starlink satellite network. Under new FCC leadership, Forczyk sees that being reversed. Trump’s policies could reduce the sales of electric vehicles, but with Musk’s influence, his administration’s policies could boost Tesla — though not with federal funding. For example, Trump, who tempered criticism of electric vehicles after Musk backed him, might end a $7,500 tax credit for electric vehicles. That would hurt Tesla’s unprofitable rivals that rely more on the tax credits to lure customers. “Tesla is the only automaker that has the scale and scope to price vehicles in a $30,000-to-$40,000 range and make significant profits,” Ives said. “It would essentially take competition out of the market.” Trump’s Republican administration also is considering imposing tariffs on Mexico and China, which could make cars more expensive. Ives said he expects Trump to make exceptions for Tesla and Apple so they’re not hit by a tax on imported goods. Tesla receives only a smattering of federal contracts, according to USAspending.gov , a database that tracks U.S. government spending. This year, Tesla received at least $2.8 million from the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation through a federally funded program to deploy EV charging stations. Musk’s startup xAI doesn’t appear to have federal government contracts, but artificial intelligence companies could benefit in other ways under Trump. Republicans and Musk have expressed support for cutting regulation to fuel AI innovation, a crucial part of the future of tech companies. But Musk has also warned that AI could pose a threat to humanity, and it’s unclear how Trump plans to address potential safety risks that come with technology including fraud, bias and disinformation. X, formerly known as Twitter, served as an online megaphone for Musk, who constantly shared his support for Trump during the election season. The social media site, which recently relocated its San Francisco headquarters to Texas, doesn’t appear to have any federal government contracts, but X could benefit from policy changes that affect its rivals such as Meta and TikTok. Musk, who has declared himself a “free speech absolutist,” recently shared an old Trump video with the words “YES!” In the video from 2022, Trump says he would change Section 230, a law that shields platforms from liability for user-generated content. Platforms would qualify for immunity only if the companies “meet high standards of neutrality, transparency, fairness and nondiscrimination,” Trump said. Fed up with Los Angeles traffic, Elon Musk launched The Boring Co. with two tweets in 2016, promising “to build a tunnel boring machine and just start digging.” The Bastrop, Texas, company, formerly headquartered in Hawthorne, has completed a 1.7-mile loop under the Las Vegas Convention Center and is building a larger citywide loop — both without federal funding. Projects in some other cities didn’t get past the proposal stages. However, at Trump’s urging, congressional representatives could earmark local transportation projects to the benefit of Boring Co., though the company would still have to compete to win them, said Greg Griffin, a former urban planning professor at the University of Texas at San Antonio, who studied that city’s proposed Boring Co. project. Controlling robotic limbs. Seeing without eyes. Those are the kinds of miraculous advances Musk’s Neuralink startup has been trying to achieve. The Fremont, California, company he co-founded in 2016 doesn’t receive federal money, but its technology and clinical trails are regulated by the Food and Drug Administration. The more hands-off approach favored by Trump could aid such medical device developers. “We’re concerned that regulation in general in the FDA will be weakened under the second Trump administration, and particularly concerned about medical devices,” said Dr. Robert Steinbrook, health research group director for the consumer rights group Public Citizen. Get local news delivered to your inbox!
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December 27, 2024 This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlightedthe following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: fact-checked peer-reviewed publication trusted source proofread by University of Bologna Exploiting an ingenious combination of photochemical (i.e., light-induced) reactions and self-assembly processes, a team led by Prof. Alberto Credi of the University of Bologna has succeeded in inserting a filiform molecule into the cavity of a ring-shaped molecule, according to a high-energy geometry that is not possible at thermodynamic equilibrium. In other words, light makes it possible to create a molecular "fit" that would otherwise be inaccessible. "We have shown that by administering light energy to an aqueous solution , a molecular self-assembly reaction can be prevented from reaching a thermodynamic minimum, resulting in a product distribution that does not correspond to that observed at equilibrium," says Alberto Credi. "Such a behavior, which is at the root of many functions in living organisms, is poorly explored in artificial molecules because it is very difficult to plan and observe. The simplicity and versatility of our approach, together with the fact that visible light—i.e., sunlight—is a clean and sustainable energy source, allow us to foresee developments in various areas of technology and medicine." The study was published in the journal Chem The self-assembly of molecular components to obtain systems and materials with structures on the nanometer scale is one of the basic processes of nanotechnology. It takes advantage of the tendency of molecules to evolve to reach a state of thermodynamic equilibrium, that is, of minimum energy. However, living things function by chemical transformations that occur away from thermodynamic equilibrium and can only occur by providing external energy. Reproducing such mechanisms with artificial systems is a complex and ambitious challenge that, if met, could enable the creation of new substances, capable of responding to stimuli and interacting with the environment, which could be used to develop, for example, smart drugs and active materials. The molecular fit The interlocking components are cyclodextrins, hollow water-soluble molecules with a truncated cone shape, and azobenzene derivatives, molecules that change shape under the effect of light. In water, interactions between these components lead to the formation of supramolecular complexes in which the filiform azobenzene species is inserted into the cyclodextrin cavity. In this study, the filiform compound possesses two different ends; since the two rims of the cyclodextrin are also different, insertion of the former into the latter generates two distinct complexes, which differ in the relative orientation of the two components. Complex A is more stable than complex B, but the latter forms more rapidly than the former. In the absence of light, only the thermodynamically favored complex, namely A, is observed at equilibrium. By irradiating the solution with visible light, the azobenzene changes from an extended configuration akin to cyclodextrin to a bent one incompatible with the cavity; as a result, the complex dissociates. However, the same light can convert the azobenzene back from the bent to the extended form, and the dissociated components can reassemble. Because complex B forms much faster than A, under continuous illumination a steady state is reached in which complex B is the dominant product. Once the light is turned off, the azobenzene slowly reverts to the extended form, and after some time only the A complex is observed. This self-assembly mechanism coupled with a photochemical reaction makes it possible to harness the energy of light to accumulate unstable products, thus paving the way for new methodologies of chemical synthesis and the development of dynamic molecular materials and devices (e.g., nanomotors) that operate under non-equilibrium conditions, similar to living beings. The study is the result of a collaboration between the Departments of Industrial Chemistry "Toso Montanari," Chemistry "Ciamician" and Agricultural and Food Science and Technology of the Alma Mater, the University of Coruña in Spain and the Isof-Cnr institute in Bologna. More information: Light-driven ratcheted formation of diastereomeric host-guest systems, Chem (2024). DOI: 10.1016/j.chempr.2024.11.013 . www.cell.com/chem/fulltext/S2451-9294(24)00597-7 Journal information: Chem Provided by University of Bologna
Kosovo’s Prime Minister Albin Kurti said an explosion late Friday night that damaged a key water canal was a “terrorist act” and accused groups aligned with Serbia of having been behind it — an accusation Serbia called baseless. Kosovo’s interior minister, Xhelal Svecla, announced the arrest of eight people linked to the explosion and said police seized a large cache of weapons and military equipment during the operation. He said the searches were carried out at 10 locations in northern Kosovo. The searches “to the confiscation of arms, explosives, hundreds of uniforms, and other military gear, which will serve as evidence in criminal proceedings,” he said during a press conference on Saturday evening. The blast in the Zubin Potok municipality of northern Kosovo damaged a canal that carries drinking water to several regions as well as cooling water for the country’s thermal power plants. The incident raised concerns about potential disruptions to essential services, including water and electricity. Local media showed photographs of water leaking from the reinforced canal. “The attack was carried out by professionals, and we believe it comes from groups orchestrated by and directed by Serbia,” Kurti said in the Kosovan capital of Pristina at an emergency press conference after midnight. Kurti said Serbian operatives have the “capacity to carry out such attacks using large quantities of explosives,” without offering specific evidence. Serbian Foreign Minister Marko Djuric fired back against “premature accusations” in a lengthy post on X, saying the blast may have been “a deliberate diversion” orchestrated by Kosovo’s government. He offered financial and technical support to help repair the canal, which is vital to Serb-populated municipalities of Kosovo. Aleksandr Vucic, Serbia’s president, said in Belgrade on Saturday that his country had nothing to do with the incident “and Pristina knows that.” Kosovo’s National Security Council convened an emergency meeting to approve additional security measures for critical infrastructure. Jeff Hovenier, U.S. ambassador to the Balkan nation, and other diplomatic missions, including France and the EU, also condemned what they called an attack. The U.S. is closely monitoring the situation and supports a full investigation, Hovenier said. The incident follows a series of grenade attacks in northern Kosovo targeting police stations and government buildings. Serbian List, the political party in Kosovo that represents the minority Serb population and is backed by Belgrade, also condemned the explosion, calling it a threat to the water supply of Serb residents in northern Kosovo. ©2024 Bloomberg L.P. Visit bloomberg.com. 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The atmosphere was electric as the students showcased their passion and talent, supported by teachers, peers, and enthusiastic spectators. The event served as a platform to highlight the untapped potential within public school students, demonstrating the significant role esports can play in education and youth development. Speaking on the success of the event, Gbenga Folorunsho, Impact as a Service Lead at Kucheza Gaming, said: “The Kucheza School Esports Championship goes beyond just playing games; it is about unlocking the potential of the next generation.” He added that, “by engaging students in Esports, we are equipping them with relevant digital and collaborative skills needed for the future. Seeing these young minds compete, innovate, and work together shows the immense possibilities esports offers as a tool for education and empowerment.” The initiative underscores Kucheza Gaming’s commitment to bridging digital skill gaps and nurturing creativity among youth. With the partnership of Ukie Digital Schoolhouse renowned for integrating games-based learning into education—the event exemplifies a global approach to transforming learning through esports. “The French Embassy is proud to support Kucheza’s School Esports Championship, as it reflects our commitment to empowering youth through technology and creativity. “Esports is not only a cultural and entertainment phenomenon but also a valuable asset for economic, technological, and social development.” The Kucheza School Esports Championship celebrates youth, collaboration, and competitiveness while highlighting educational opportunities and career pathways in the video game industry. It aims to accelerate access, enhance quality, and improve learning outcomes for Nigerian teens and youth.
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Should the U.S. increase immigration levels for highly skilled workers?Kalimuendo has hat trick in Rennes rout while PSG held at homeServer. Server racks in server room cloud data center. Datacenter hardware cluster. Backup, hosting, ... [+] mainframe, mining, farm and computer rack with storage information. 3d illustration The race to build powerful AI data centers is accelerating, with tech giants vying to be key players in AI’s future. Microsoft and OpenAI, for instance, are reportedly planning a $100 billion investment in data center projects to expand their AI capabilities. This competition highlights supercomputing infrastructure as the backbone of AI development. Elon Musk’s xAI is scaling new heights with its Colossus supercomputing center in Memphis, Tennessee. Already outfitted with 100,000 Nvidia Hopper GPUs, the facility is doubling its capacity to 200,000 GPUs. Leveraging Nvidia’s Spectrum-X Ethernet networking, it’s aiming to become a cornerstone of AI research and applications. Named after Colossus, the world’s first programmable electronic computer built in 1945, Elon Musk evokes the historic significance and transformative potential of supercomputing. This fierce competition marks supercomputing data centers as critical infrastructure of the economy, akin to railways, highways, or the electricity grid in earlier eras of social development. Alan Turing’s foundational ideas in his 1950 article Computing Machinery and Intelligence illuminate this transformation, offering a lens to understand the societal impact of the rapidly growing demand for supercomputing. Britain / UK: Alan Turing (1912-1954), computer scientist and cryptologist instrumental in breaking ... [+] Germany's 'enigma' machine code during World War II, c. 1928. Alan Mathison Turing was a British pioneering computer scientist, mathematician, logician, cryptanalyst, philosopher, mathematical biologist, and marathon and ultra distance runner. He was highly influential in the development of computer science. (Photo by: Pictures from History/Universal Images Group via Getty Images) Data Centers: From Universal Machines to Universal Infrastructure Turing’s concept of the “universal machine” envisioned computation as adaptable, capable of performing any task with the right programming and resources. Supercomputing datacenters now embody this idea, designed as a general-purpose platform for diverse AI applications—training language models, developing humanoid robots, and enhancing self-driving cars. The 130 Best Black Friday Deals You Can Still Shop Now Refresh Your Wardrobe And Home With Quince’s Black Friday Deals The infrastructure supporting this universal capability is just as critical as the computation itself. Data centers facilitate the flow of information much like transportation networks moved goods and people in industrial economies. However, this infrastructure should not remain the sole domain of private corporations. Public investment in supercomputing is necessary to ensure that access to computational power doesn’t become overly commoditized, exacerbating inequities in research, education, and innovation. Historically, governments and public institutions played an important role in building infrastructure such as railways, highways, waterways, and electricity grids, which supported economic growth and more equitable access to resources. Today, AI-driven productivity relies on vast data centers, which process and store the immense datasets powering modern machine learning models. However, the infrastructure of the AI era is largely controlled by private corporations. This concentration risks creating uneven access to the computational power that drives innovation. Governments must step in to establish publicly funded or subsidized supercomputing facilities. Such efforts could democratize AI access, enabling small businesses, academic researchers, and public institutions to participate in AI development. Speed and Storage of Learning Machines Turing’s vision of “learning machines” has come to life in neural networks and AI models that refine their performance with reinforced learning and more training data. Turing emphasized the importance of speed and storage in determining the capabilities of a digital computer. In today’s supercomputing, these two factors remain paramount. The expanded data centers will enable exascale data processing, addressing the growing demand for computational power as industries push the boundaries with more advanced large language models and multimodal AI agents. The doubling of GPU capacity is not just about raw power; it's a response to the exponential growth in data requirements for training sophisticated AI models. Colossus’s architecture, with its vast storage and advanced networking capabilities, exemplifies Turing's foresight. It's designed to maximize throughput, allowing AI systems to learn and iterate faster. Supercomputing requires vast amounts of energy. Colossus uses advanced supermicro liquid-cooled racks, each containing 64 Nvidia H100 GPUs, grouped into clusters for high-performance AI training tasks. These cutting-edge systems are designed with integrated liquid cooling, ensuring optimal efficiency and easy servicing through quick-disconnect features and accessible tray designs. Public Investment for Sustainable AI Managing the energy demands and costs of supercomputing is a societal challenge that requires public involvement. Without coordinated efforts, private ownership of supercomputing infrastructure could prioritize profit over equity and sustainability. Publicly funded AI infrastructure could be built with broader societal goals in mind, such as sustainability, open access, and the ethical use of AI. Turing’s work reminds us that computation isn’t just about machines—it’s about systems and the societal frameworks that support them. Supercomputing is too important to be left solely to private entities. The commoditization of these resources risks creating barriers to entry for small innovators, public institutions, and educational initiatives. Governments can and should take a proactive role in funding and regulating AI infrastructure to prevent monopolization and ensure equitable access. The governance of data centers could mirror internet regulation, where agencies like the Federal Trade Commission and Federal Communications Commission set standards for fairness and accessibility. Similar oversight could ensure equitable access to computational resources, ethical AI use, and prevent monopolistic practices, fostering broader societal benefits. Turing’s legacy offers a roadmap for navigating the AI era. His insights into universal machines and efficient computation are combined with the challenges of building equitable, sustainable supercomputing infrastructure today. As data centers become the railways and electricity grids of the 21st century, their governance must reflect broader social values. The expansion of supercomputing data centers demonstrates the potential of AI to drive innovation, but it also highlights the need for public oversight. Balancing ambition with equity, sustainability, and accessibility will ensure that the infrastructure of the AI age benefits all—continuing the journey that Turing began toward a more intelligent, inclusive future.
Chinese President Xi Jinping and other top leaders are reportedly convening an annual central economic work conference this week to discuss economic policies and growth target for the year ahead. Market participants will watch the events this week for clues on how policymakers plan to steer the world's second-largest economy through entrenched deflation and looming U.S. tariffs. While the specific numbers will not be announced until March, it is widely expected that Beijing will keep its next year's GDP growth target at "around 5", if not slightly lower. Chinese President Xi Jinping and other top leaders are gearing up for the annual central economic work conference, reportedly set to take place this week, as Beijing strives to boost growth. While an official date for the two-day conclave has yet to be announced, Bloomberg has reported that the closed-door meeting will be held from Dec. 11 to 12. Usually, the annual conference is preceded by the high-profile gathering of the Politburo, the top decision making body led by president Xi. During both meetings, top policymakers will review economic performance and policy implementation in the current year, while setting priorities for the following year, economists at Goldman Sachs said. The central government will also discuss its growth target and budget for 2025, partly to give local governments a guidance for setting their own targets ahead of the annual parliament session early next year, according to Goldman Sachs. While the specific numbers will not be announced until March, it is widely expected that Beijing will keep its next year's GDP growth target at "around 5" — same as the current year — if not slightly lower. "If history is any guide, policymakers may leave the 2025 growth target unchanged at around 5% or lower it to 4.5-5%, said Larry Hu, chief China economist at Macquarie, adding that Chinese policymakers have never lowered target by more than 0.5 percentage points in the past. China's government has rarely failed to meet its growth targets, with only two exceptions where growth fell significantly short of the target, in 1990 and 2022, according to Lynn Song, chief economist at ING. While China's economy is on track to achieve this year's growth target of "around 5%," it is still contending with several longer-term problems, including a prolonged housing downturn, tepid domestic consumption and escalation in trade tensions with the U.S. as Donald Trump returns to the White House. Chinese officials have ramped up stimulus announcements since late Septembe r, including several interest rate cuts, looser property purchase rules, and liquidity support for stock markets. Recent data indicated that existing stimulus measures have worked to lift some aspects of the economy, but were still not enough to offset persistent deflationary pressures. In November the country's already near-zero consumer price inflation fell to a five-month low , and a deflation in wholesale prices deepened further, with the producer price index falling for the 26th straight month, data on Monday showed. The country's persistent consumption slowdown traces back to the country's real estate slump and its deep ties to local government finances. Last month, Chinese Minister of Finance announced a $1.4 trillion package to alleviate the local governments' debt crisis. The authorities need to further expand the scale of the debt swap program, economists at Morgan Stanley said in a note, given that local government financial vehicle debt was at nearly half of the country's GDP. Beijing is also expected to widen its fiscal deficit by 1.4 percentage point, which would allow more central government borrowing to shore up the economy, according to Morgan Stanley. Even as the fiscal deficit widened to 3.8% in Oct. 2023 with the issuance of special bonds, authorities in March reverted to their deficit target of 3% . In the face of additional tariffs, the Chinese leadership may consider larger fiscal packages next year "in a multiple stage fashion" as it monitors and reacts to U.S. policy, economists from Barclays said in a note. Trump, who takes office in January 2025, has said he will impose an additional 10% tariffs on Chinese goods unless Beijing does more to stop the trafficking of the highly addictive narcotic fentanyl. He had also threatened to impose tariffs in excess of 60% on Chinese goods during his election campaign trial. The latest tariff threat is likely a "tactic to push China to the negotiation table," Barclays economists said, predicting the president-elect would eventually only deliver 30% additional tariffs. That, still, could create a drag of up to 1-percentage-point in China's GDP, they added. "A policy bazooka could arrive if the Trump tariffs hit China's exports hard," Macquarie's Hu said, adding that Beijing will have to stimulate domestic demand to achieve its growth target. Exports and manufacturing sectors can no longer power the economy to achieve annual growth of 4% to 5% in the next decade, Hu added, "they have simply become too large to drive growth in the long run" and exports face more risks from trade tensions. China needs to boost consumption to be the main growth driver, Hu stressed, by tackling unemployment and raising labor income, as well as providing more for the low-income groups. "A reasonable target is for household consumption to reach 50% of GDP," Hu said. China's government bonds have been on a tear amid expectations of further interest rate cuts and weak economic fundamentals. The 10-year yields recently dropped below the psychological benchmark of 2% to hit a multi-decade low. Chinese government has attempted to stem the bond rally, fueled by pessimism about its economy and a lack of attractive investment options. "The market is still pricing in some fiscal stimulus support early next year," said Edmund Goh, investment director at abrdn. Despite some encouraging signs of recovery in China's property market, "we didn't see any improvement in domestic economic data in the last few months," Goh added. On the equities front, Barry Gill, head of investment at UBS Asset Management said China is still his "top pick" given cheap valuations and "the most potential to surprise investors" on numerous fronts compared with other markets. Chinese benchmark CSI 300 was down 0.5% Monday after jumping 1.3% last Friday to its highest level in two weeks, as some traders positioned for further stimulus at this week's policy meeting. "A more decisive stimulus response and a turnaround for the markets in the next 12-18 months could be in the cards," the UBS asset management team said in an email. — CNBC's Evelyn Cheng contributed to this report.
