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Destroyed train carriages are seen at the site of a crash, where two trains collided, near the city of Larissa, Greece, March 1, 2023.

REUTERS/Alexandros Avramidis

Hard Numbers: Greek train crash, US attaches strings to chip cash, Serbia and Kosovo outline peace, camel copies for sale

43: At least 43 people are dead after a passenger train carrying people from Athens, Greece, to the northern city of Thessaloniki collided head-on with a freight train. A provincial stationmaster has already been arrested as part of the initial investigation. Greek rail unions have long complained about staffing shortfalls and outdated equipment.

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Paige Fusco

Biden enlists Japan & Netherlands to fight US-China chips war

Japan and the Netherlands have reportedly agreed to join US export controls to stop China from getting the machines to make some of the world’s most advanced semiconductors — in part, the Biden administration claims, to make high-tech weapons. It's a major milestone in the broader US push to beat China in the race to dominate global tech with "weapons" such as the $52 billion CHIPS Act, which aims to subsidize domestic chipmaking in America and make it harder for China to access the tech.

We learn more from Eurasia Group's senior analyst Nick Reiners.

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A mock customs post is set up with protesters from border communities between Ireland and Northern Ireland against Brexit.

Reuters

What We’re Watching: End of Brexit? No, US-India tech alliance, Czechs checking China

Are the EU and UK close to a post-Brexit deal?

For a fleeting moment, it seemed like Brexit wrangling could finally end. But no. After reports claimed that the EU and UK were close to clinching a deal on trade rules for Northern Ireland, Brussels announced that, despite some progress, several issues remain intractable. (Really sorry you still have to hear about Brexit, but the Northern Ireland Protocol, you might recall, is the arrangement that Boris Johnson reached with the EU to avoid creating a hard border between the Republic of Ireland, an EU member, and Northern Ireland, a part of the UK.) One big sticking point is that Downing Street, along with the pro-UK DUP Party in Northern Ireland, wants to limit the role of the European Court of Justice in overseeing trade-related disputes. Another is the failure to agree on a practical border system that would avoid rigorous checks by customs. With Prime Minister Rishi Sunak facing mounting pressure from Tory Brexiteers not to give an inch to Brussels, we’re watching to see how he navigates a major political test that threatens to further split his Conservative Party.

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Police secures the area in Berlin after 25 suspected members and supporters of a far-right group were detained during raids across Germany.

REUTERS/Christian Mang

What We’re Watching: German coup plotters, Peru’s self-coup, Xi’s Saudi visit, TSMC’s big investment

A thwarted German Jan. 6?

Is there a single German word for "narrowly averted right-wing coup attempt"? We aren't sure, but on Wednesday German authorities arrested 25 people accused of belonging to a domestic terror organization with plans to overthrow the government and replace it with German nobility in a throwback to pre-Weimar times. Some 3,000 police conducted raids in several German states as well as in Austria and Italy, detaining people associated with the Reichsbürger, a right-wing German conspiracy group, the far-right Alternativ für Deutschland party, and at least one Russian citizen. You’ll likely remember that a member of the AfD – a euroskeptic party that has capitalized on anti-immigrant sentiment in recent years to grow its base – tweeted after the Jan. 6 riot at the US Capitol that "Trump is fighting the same political fight — you have to call it a culture war." Harboring beliefs that Germany is being run by a “deep state'' (sound familiar?), the group reportedly planned to launch an armed attack on the Reichstag, Germany’s parliament. This is just the most recent reflection of a far-right extremist problem in Deutschland. Last year, the German government placed the AfD under surveillance for its far-right extremist affiliations, and early this year the government found that more than 300 employees in Germany's security apparatus harbored far-right views.

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A researcher wearing cleanroom suit displaying a wafer in the lab of Shanghai Microsemi Semiconductor Co., Ltd. in Shanghai, China.

Reuters

Who’s winning the war over chips?

When it comes to semiconductor production, there’s just one superpower: Taiwan. The self-governing island produces more than two-thirds of the world’s chips, and almost all of the advanced ones.

But with Taiwan’s geopolitical fate uncertain, both Washington and Beijing are racing to build their own dominance and self-sufficiency in the chip industry.

We sat down with Eurasia Group geo-technology expert Xiaomeng Lu to learn more about where this battle is heading. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

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Semiconductor manafacturing require a lot of water.

GZERO Media

Hard Numbers: Thirsty industry, global economic slump, China’s contraction, India enters the fray

264 billion: Semiconductor manufacturing is extremely water intensive. Consider that the industry consumes as much as 264 billion gallons of water per year, and by some estimates, a large chip plant can use up to 10 million gallons of water a day, equivalent to the water consumption of roughly 300,000 households.

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A US cellphone chip's global journey

GZERO Media

The Graphic Truth: A US cellphone chip's global journey

Semiconductors bind the electrical circuits in the tech we use every day. In mid-2021, a global semiconductor shortage caused by COVID supply/demand issues and a drought in Taiwan made many devices hard to come by. But the self-ruled island in China's crosshairs is only part of the global chipmaking supply chain, which travels back and forth between Europe, Asia, and the US. We follow its steps for a smartphone.

Semiconductor manufacturing.

Annie Gugliotta.

The semiconductor battle is heating up

Global semiconductor supply chains have some big resistance points that threaten to make microchips a macro-geopolitical flashpoint. On Tuesday, US President Joe Biden will visit Taiwanese chipmaker TSMC’s facility in Arizona, where he'll spotlight the White House’s efforts to ramp up US chip manufacturing amid the US-China chip race.

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In technology, as in geopolitics, a little resistance can make all the difference. Consider semiconductors, the nearly invisible microchips essential for running everything from our computers to our cars to our cruise missiles. They work by doing something deceptively simple: They use carefully calibrated resistance to slow the flow of electricity through a circuit in ways that make computing possible. The smaller they get the more powerful our devices become.

The trouble is, global semiconductor supply chains have some big resistance points of their own, choke points that threaten to make microchips a macro-geopolitical flashpoint.

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