The post Get ready for protests in the streets and an election after the summer: The Hub’s can’t-miss predictions for 2025 appeared first on The Hub.

HONG KONG (AP) — Asian markets were mostly higher on Tuesday, with Chinese markets logging gains of more than 1% after the Chinese finance minister promised a more pro-active approach to government spending in the coming year.

U.S. futures were little changed in quiet Christmas Eve trading and oil prices rose.

Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 slipped 0.3% to 39,036.85.

Honda’s shares surged more than 12.2% as the Japanese automaker announced an up to 1.1 trillion yen ($7 billion) share buyback after it announced Monday that it was seeking a merger with its larger but troubled rival Nissan.

The two companies said they had signed a memorandum of understanding on Monday and that smaller Nissan alliance member Mitsubishi Motors Corp. also had agreed to join the talks on integrating their businesses. Nissan’s shares rose 6%.

The Hang Seng in Hong Kong added 1.1% to 20,098.29 and the Shanghai Composite index was up 1.3% at 3,393.53.

Chinese Finance Minister Lan Fo’an told a financial work conference that Beijing will increase the fiscal deficit in 2025 and step up spending, issuing more government bonds and increasing transfers to local governments to help ensure they can deliver guarantees to the public for housing, heating and food, according to the ministry’s website.

The comments were the latest by top leaders aimed at assuaging concern over the slowing growth of the world’s second-largest economy.

South Korea’s Kospi lost 0.1% to 2,440.52 as a report said consumer sentiment dropped sharply in December after President Yoon Suk Yeol declared martial law and then was impeached by lawmakers.

Elsewhere in Asia, Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 advanced 0.2% to 8,220.90.

Taiwan’s Taiex gained 0.1%, with shares in Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., the world’s biggest computer chip maker, hitting a record high.

On Monday, the S&P 500 ended 0.7% higher at 5,974.07. The Dow Jones Industrial Average eked out a 0.2% gain to 42,906.95. The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite rose 1% to 19,764.89.

The Conference Board said its consumer confidence index fell to 104.7 from 112.8 in November. Wall Street had been expecting a reading of 113.8.

The unexpectedly weak consumer confidence update followed several generally strong economic reports last week. One report showed the overall economy grew at a 3.1% annualized rate during the summer, faster than what was thought earlier. The latest report on unemployment benefit applications showed the job market remains solid.

Inflation concerns have added to uncertainties heading into 2025, which include the jobs market and shifting economic policies under President-elect Donald Trump.

Wall Street has several economic reports to look forward to this week, including a weekly update on unemployment benefits on Thursday.

Markets in the U.S. will close at 1 p.m. Eastern on Tuesday for Christmas Eve and will remain closed on Wednesday for Christmas.

In other dealings early Tuesday, U.S. benchmark crude oil picked up 37 cents to $69.61 per barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, was up 41 cents at $72.73.

The dollar fell to 157.05 Japanese yen from 157.17 yen. The euro fell to $1.0394 from $1.0405.

Zimo Zhong (), The Associated Press

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The U.N. organization assisting in investigating the most serious crimes in Syria said Monday the country’s new authorities were “very receptive” to its request for cooperation during a just-concluded visit to Damascus, and it is preparing to deploy.

The visit led by Robert Petit, head of the International, Impartial and Independent Mechanism for Syria, was the first since the organization was established by the U.N. General Assembly in 2016. It was created to assist in evidence-gathering and prosecution of individuals responsible for possible war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide since Syria’s civil war began in 2011.

Petit highlighted the urgency of preserving documents and other evidence before it is lost.

Since the rebel overthrow of Syria’s President Bashar Assad and the rebel opening of prisons and detention facilities there have been rising demands from Syrians for the prosecution of those responsible for atrocities and killings while he was in power.

“The fall of the Assad rule is a significant opportunity for us to fulfill our mandate on the ground,” Petit said. “Time is running out. There is a small window of opportunity to secure these sites and the material they hold.”

U.N. associate spokesperson Stephane Tremblay said Monday the investigative team “is preparing for an operational deployment as early as possible and as soon as it is authorized to conduct activities on Syrian soil.”

The spokesperson for the organization, known as the IIIM, who was on the trip with Petit, went further, telling The Associated Press: “We are preparing to deploy on the expectation that we will get authorization.”

“The representatives from the caretaker authorities were very receptive to our request for cooperation and are aware of the scale of the task ahead,” the spokesperson said, speaking on condition of not being named. “They emphasized that they will need expertise to help safeguard the newly accessible documentation.”

The IIIM did not disclose which officials in the new government it met with or the site that Petit visited afterward.

“Even at one facility,” Petit said, “the mountains of government documentation reveal the chilling efficiency of systemizing the regime’s atrocity crimes.”

He said that a collective effort by Syrians, civil society organizations and international partners will be needed, as a priority, “ to preserve evidence of the crimes committed, avoid duplication, and ensure that all victims are inclusively represented in the pursuit of justice.”

In June 2023, the 193-member General Assembly also established an Independent Institution of Missing Persons in the Syrian Arab Republic to clarify the fate and whereabouts of more than 130,000 people missing as a result of the conflict.

Edith M. Lederer, The Associated Press

They pawned objects worth up to €50 in order to make ends meet and will now receive them back for Christmas in an act of solidarity and charity by a municipally owned pawnshop in southern France.

“We’ve seen a sharp increase in objects being pawned,” said Jean-Dominique Faedda, head of Credit Municipal d’Avignon, which runs pawnshops in four southern cities.

“We wanted to make a gesture for those most vulnerable by allowing them to recuperate without charge objects worth up to €50 that they pawned,” he said.

Some 77 people are eligible to benefit, who have mostly pawned small pieces of gold jewellery that have more sentimental than resale value.

The city of Avignon, which owns the pawnshops, has allocated €6,000 for the effort.

Only municipalities have had the right to operate pawnshops in France, under laws passed during the reign of Louis XIII in the early 17th century to combat exploitation.

Some five million people live under the poverty line in France, an increase of 1.4 million in two decades, according to the independent anti-poverty group l’Observatoire des Inegalites.

The post French pawnshops give back for Christmas appeared first on CANADIAN AFFAIRS.