Category World News

“Bubble” is probably the word most associated with “AI” right now, though we are slowly understanding that it is not just an economic time bomb; it also carries significant public health risks. Beyond the release of pollutants, the massive need for clean water by AI data centres can reduce sanitation and exacerbate gastrointestinal illness in nearby communities, placing additional strain on local health infrastructure.

AI’s energy consumption is massive and increasingly water-dependent

Generative AI is artificial intelligence that is able to generate new text, photos, code and more, and it has already infiltrated the lives of most people around the globe. ChatGPT alone is reported to receive around one billion queries in a single day, pointing to huge demand at the individual level.

This, however, is only the tip of the iceberg. Companies such as Google, Apple and Microsoft are now embedding AI into their key products. Applications that utilise search results are quickly moving to have AI as a new standard in their algorithms. Whether it is shopping on Amazon or booking a flight or a hotel, AI is now being used in searches, and that demands more energy. As an example, a single AI-powered Google search is estimated to use up to 30 times more energy than its standard version.

Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) are the current industry answer to this. They are chips that demand energy and produce heat. Though the thousands of small cores on GPUs enable parallel processing of massive, repetitive maths carried out by AI algorithms, a single chip can use up to 700 watts. This means that three chips alone can use roughly the same amount of energy as a home electric oven.

The large amount of heat produced by data centres is cooled by up to hundreds of thousands of gallons of fresh water each day. With thousands of heat-generating chips stacked next to and on top of one another, a simple fan does not do the trick. Instead, water is pumped or immersed between and around chips in order to avoid system overheating. A recent report from the United Kingdom’s Government Digital Sustainability Alliance predicts that AI will increase global water usage from 1.1 billion cubic metres to 6.6 billion cubic metres by 2027.

Some companies are attempting to use seawater in cooling. However, fresh water continues to be widely used for cooling in many facilities. Water recycling is another option, but not a simple one. Several companies use a “closed-loop system” to reduce the total amount of water needed. Nevertheless, dust and minerals collected during cooling can degrade water quality over time, requiring treatment or replacement.

How AI-driven water scarcity threatens public health

Data centres being placed where water is already scarce can quickly translate into a healthcare burden, even before pollution becomes an issue. In 2023, Microsoft reported that 41 percent of its water withdrawals were from areas with water stress. Google, on the other hand, said that 15 percent of its water consumption occurred in areas with high water scarcity. Amazon did not disclose comparable figures.

It is well established that water scarcity correlates with infections, malnourishment and declining hygiene. While most such studies focus on areas that are already impoverished, in many cases, these are exactly the places where data centres are planned to be built. In addition, the underlying cause remains the same. Less fresh water for local populations pushes households to prioritise drinking and cooking over washing hands, food or bathing. Naturally, this also leaves less water available for cleaning living spaces.

The World Health Organization recognises that unsafe drinking water and poor sanitation and hygiene are conducive to the spread of diseases such as cholera and other diarrhoeal illnesses, along with a range of other pathogens. To make matters worse, several diseases associated with water scarcity can pass from person to person, raising the risk of sustained local transmission.

The health burden on children is particularly alarming, as infections and deaths are more common than among adults. In fact, 84 percent of the global burden of diarrhoeal disease is borne by children under five, and infections with diarrhoeal pathogens have been linked to cognitive impacts later in childhood.

Although it is too early to draw direct causal links between AI data centres and water-related diseases, the known facts make this a significant concern. It is established that AI data centres can significantly deplete local water supplies. It is also established that communities with poor water access face heightened risks of gastrointestinal disease and other illnesses.

To claim that AI data centres are directly causing gastrointestinal disease would be poorly supported. However, the warning signs are increasingly difficult to ignore. When risks are foreseeable and severe, governments should not wait for people to start dying before putting preventative policies in place.

Marginalised communities are already reporting polluted water

In Newton County, Georgia, in the United States, Meta has built an AI data centre, and residents have reported discoloured, sediment-filled water coming out of their taps, which they attribute to the facility. Similarly, in Fayette County, residents have reported sediment in their water, which they believe coincided with nearby data centre construction. Another report from California suggests that a data centre planned along the San Francisco Bay in Bayview-Hunters Point has raised concerns about compounding environmental burdens in an already polluted community. In all these cases, the local population includes a significant Black and African American presence, a pattern that has raised environmental justice concerns.

Accumulated residues can result in effects ranging from acute gastrointestinal illness to chronic conditions such as cancer. Microbial contamination can cause poisoning and acute disease, while chemical residues are associated with long-term harm, often acting as a slow, invisible threat.

With plans for data centres in African countries such as Nigeria, Egypt and South Africa, further questions arise about who will bear the brunt of their environmental impacts and whether affected communities will receive sufficient protection or support. Weak regulatory oversight in some of these countries makes this uncertain. In many cases, serious community effects may go unreported altogether.

Why corporate water promises and regulation matter

Only 0.5 percent of the planet’s water is fresh water, and water is not only needed for data centres. It is also required for the power plants that generate electricity for them. The manufacture of chips and wiring similarly demands water, making water use an AI supply-chain issue rather than merely a data-centre problem.

Many companies are promising sustainability, with some even claiming they aim to be “net water producers” or “water positive”. Even if such targets are achieved, which remains questionable, they must deliver benefits to the communities from which water is extracted. Providing more water for affluent areas while depleting supplies in places such as Newton County may satisfy corporate accounting standards, but local residents will still suffer the consequences.

To meet their ethical obligations to the public, governments must rapidly catch up with the pace of AI expansion and data-centre construction. A healthy population is a productive one, and a lower public-health burden can reduce government spending while supporting development. More fundamentally, there is a collective moral obligation to build a sustainable future for coming generations by safeguarding water security and averting environmental catastrophe. This begins with legislation mandating transparent corporate reporting on water use and enforcing meaningful standards for sustainable management. Regulation must prioritise human wellbeing over short-term, extractive technological growth. As with climate change, unrestrained innovation risks further harm to both people and the planet.

Shinzo Abe was killed by him during a political campaign event in 2022, according to the man who received the sentence. The court decision has divided public opinion, according to Al Jazeera’s Patrick Fok.

The US attack on Venezuela on January 3 should not be seen as merely an unlawful force, but as a result of a wider shift toward nihilistic geopolitics, which openly prioritizes international law over imperial control of global security. What is at stake is not only Venezuela’s sovereignty, but the collapse of any remaining confidence in the capacity of the United Nations system, and particularly the permanent members of the Security Council, to restrain aggression, prevent genocide, or uphold the core legal norms they claim to defend.

The US government’s use of veto power substitutes for accountability, coercion substitutes for consent, and its political aftermath combined with the accompanying rhetoric of US leadership expose a system where legality is selectively used. Thus, Venezuela becomes both a case study and a warning: not that international law as a whole has broken, but that those nations who are responsible for overseeing global security have purposefully marginalized it.

From the standpoint of international law, this action constitutes a crude, brazen, unlawful and unprovoked recourse to aggressive force, in clear violation of the core norm of the UN Charter, Article 2 (4), which reads: “All Members of the United Nations shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state”. Article 51, which states, “Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations,” is the only exception to this prohibition. Years of US sanctions, weeks of explicit threats, and recent lethal attacks on alleged drug-tracking vessels, as well as the seizure of Venezuelan oil tankers, were the result of this flagrant violation of Venezuelan territorial sovereignty and political independence.

This unilateral action was further aggravated by the capture of Venezuela’s head of state, Nicolas Maduro, and his wife, Cilia Flores, by US Special Forces, reportedly guided by the CIA, to face charges of “narco-terrorism” in a US federal court, in apparent violation of sovereign immunity. President Trump’s stated intention to direct Venezuelan policymaking for an indefinite period, ostensibly until the country was “stabilized” sufficiently to restore oil production under the auspices of major US corporations, including Chevron, Exxon Mobil, and ConocoPhillips, highlighted this imperial posture, openly disregarding the immunity of foreign leaders. Trump retorted uncontrollably, “We are in charge,” when asked who was in charge of Venezuela’s governance.

There is more politically at stake in this drastic reversal of the US Good Neighbour Policy, associated with Latin American diplomacy since 1933 and the presidency of Franklin D Roosevelt, than initially meets even the most discerning eye. This type of cooperative relationships was, of course, repeatedly undermined by Salvador Allende’s victory in Chile and the Castro revolution.

Most knowledgeable observers assumed that the Venezuelan attack was intended to end the regime and install Maria Corina Machado, a staunch supporter of US intervention and 2025 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, whose acceptance speech lavishly praised Trump as the candidate with the most merit. The most unexpected development of the intervention has been the bypassing of Machado, and the installation instead of Vice President Delcy Rodriguez as Venezuela’s new president. Washington expressed confidence in Rodriguez’ ability to support US interests, particularly those relating to Venezuelan oil and other resources, and to achieve stability in accordance with US priorities. Trump even claimed that if Venezuela’s president had resisted accepting the Nobel Prize because he deserved it, she would have won.

A more plausible explanation is that Machado lacked sufficient domestic support to stabilise the country, whereas Rodriguez appeared willing to accommodate US economic demands, particularly those relating to control over Venezuela’s resource wealth, while enjoying broader popular support. Instead of a symbolic march into Caracas alongside Machado’s inauguration as Venezuela’s new puppet leader, the “pro-democracy” narrative promoted by US state propaganda gained a limited hold for itself from this continuity of leadership. Executives of significant US oil companies, widely regarded as the main beneficiaries of the intervention, met Trump on January 9 and expressed reservations about restarting operations in response to his concerns about instability following the US takeover.

Clarifying relations between international law and global security

The UN Charter explicitly states that this military operation in Venezuela and its political aftermath are in violation of international law that governs the use of force. Even this ostensibly straightforward assessment has ambiguity. The charter’s institutional design privileges the five victorious powers of the second world war, granting them permanent membership of the Security Council and an unrestricted veto. These nations, which became the first nuclear weapons powers, deliberately tasked with overseeing global security, allowing any one of them to veto any resolution even with a 14-to-1 majority.

Other than the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the Security Council is the only political body in the UN with the authority to make binding decisions. The ICJ, however, operates under voluntary jurisdiction, as states may withhold consent to what is known as “compulsory jurisdiction”. The Permanent Five, which are typically dominated by the US or paralyzed by vetoes, have therefore been in charge of managing global security in practice.

In this context, Venezuelan operations should be seen more as an expression of nihilistic geopolitical management than as a signal of the collapse of international law. If so, the appropriate remedy is not simply to strengthen international law, but to strip geopolitical actors of their self-assigned managerial role in global security. Similar to how Russia’s aggression against Ukraine in 2022 was shaped by NATO provocations that were ineffective, leading to Russia’s own provocative yet egregious violation of Article 2(4).

Any remaining confidence in the Permanent Five’s ability to lead peace, security, or prevent genocide is further undermined by the Venezuelan operation. It therefore reinforces the need to consider alternative frameworks, either by curtailing the veto or by shifting security governance beyond the UN to counter-hegemonic mechanisms, including BRICS, China’s Belt and Road Initiative, and emerging South–South development frameworks.

However, it should be kept in mind that international law is still essential and effective in the majority of cross-border interaction areas. Negotiated legal standards are typically respected and disputes are settled peacefully in areas like diplomatic immunity, maritime and aviation safety, tourism, and communications. International law functions where reciprocity prevails, but has never constrained great-power ambition in the domain of global security, where asymmetries of hard power dominate.

Nihilistic geopolitics: the US national security strategy for 2025

It is crucial to review the United States’ National Security Strategy, which was released in November 2025, to understand Venezuela’s place within Trump’s worldview. Trump’s cover letter is suffused with narcissism and contempt for internationalism, including international law, multilateral institutions, and the UN. He states, “We are making peace all over the world because America is strong and respected again.” Such jargon, which is normal in an ordinary person, is alarming when delivered by a leader who controls the use of nuclear weapons. Trump concludes by promising to make America “safer, richer, freer, greater, and more powerful than ever before”.

The NSS repeatedly makes “pre-eminence” the main thrust of US foreign policy, which must be pursued wherever necessary. The Venezuelan intervention is seen as a follow-up to the US’s involvement in the genocide in Gaza and a potential prelude to larger projects, including control of Greenland and renewed military threats against Iran. Yet the document’s primary focus is Latin America, framed through a revival of the Monroe Doctrine, now reinforced by the explicitly named “Trump Corollary”, colloquially dubbed the “Donroe Doctrine”.

This hemispheric turn abandons Obama and Biden’s post-Cold War ambitions for global US leadership, which used enormous resources to fund failed state-building projects in Libya, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Instead, it prioritizes resource extraction, ensuring US corporations have access to oil, rare earths, and minerals, while ignoring NATO and abandoning multilateralism, which are at the root of the US’s most recent decision to secede from a 66 distinct institutional bodies, including the climate change treaty. Venezuela, with its vast oil reserves, strategic location and authoritarian populist government, provided an ideal testing ground — and conveniently diverted attention from Trump’s personal entanglements with Jeffrey Epstein.

In reality, the intervention resembles a coup rather than a regime change, and it is explicitly demanded by the new leadership to pay for political survival. Trump and Marco Rubio, a Cuban exile secretary of state, have openly discussed Venezuela and potential regime change initiatives in Colombia and Cuba. Trump threatened Colombian President Gustavo Petro and US forces, who reportedly killed 32 Cuban members of Maduro’s Presidential Guard, with crude threats.

Implications

It remains uncertain whether Delcy Rodriguez’s government will negotiate an arrangement that preserves formal sovereignty while surrendering substantive control. Such a result would lead to the resumption of the UN’s Permanent Sovereignty over Natural Resources, and the reintroduction of a hierarchical hemispheric order. Even in this perspective, Washington’s political and economic preferences are considered in the same way.

International reactions to the assault on Venezuela have been muted, reflecting fear, confusion or perceived futility. Meanwhile, there is more geopolitical rivalry, especially between Russia and China, which raises the possibility of a new Cold War or nuclear conflict. The NSS repeatedly makes clear that US dominance necessitates the inclusion of all extra-hemispheric powers in the area through references to “our Hemisphere”.

The Venezuelan episode thus exemplifies a broader strategy: the rejection of international law, the marginalisation of the UN, and the unilateral assertion of US dominance in the Western Hemisphere, along with potential intervention almost anywhere on the planet, but with immediate relevance to Greenland and Iran.

The bulldozing of the headquarters of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) in occupied East Jerusalem has sparked condemnation from the world body and Palestinian leaders, who warn the move signals a “barbaric new era” of unchecked defiance of international law.

Israeli forces, accompanied by far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, stormed the compound in the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood on Tuesday, demolishing structures and confiscating equipment. Ben-Gvir described the destruction as a “historic day”.

Philippe Lazzarini, UNRWA’s commissioner general, said the operation was a “wake-up call” for the world.

“This constitutes an unprecedented attack against a United Nations agency and its premises,” Lazzarini wrote on X. “What happens today to UNRWA will happen tomorrow to any other international organization or diplomatic mission … anywhere around the world.”

Lazzarini vehemently rejected Israel’s justification for seizing the land.

“The Israeli Government’s claims are false and illegal,” he wrote. “UNRWA has leased the land from the Government of Jordan since 1952. It is now being seized in blatant breach of international law.”

Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the demolition was following through on a 2024 law that banned UNRWA.

Lazzarini warned that a “lost moral compass” is opening a dangerous chapter in which UN staff are demonised and their facilities destroyed with impunity.

UNRWA was created by the UN General Assembly in 1949 to provide basic support, including food, healthcare and education, to tens of thousands of Palestinian refugees. More than 750,000 Palestinians were forced from their homes and land leading up to Israel’s creation in 1948, which Palestinians remember as the Nakba, or “catastrophe”.

UNRWA’s operations are spread across Palestinian territory, including in East Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan.

Erasing the right of return

Palestinian leaders view the demolition not merely as a property dispute but also as a calculated attempt to erase the political rights of refugees.

Mustafa Barghouti, secretary-general of the Palestinian National Initiative party, told Al Jazeera Arabic that Israel is driven by “absolute stupidity” in believing that destroying buildings will destroy the right of return of Palestinian refugees.

“It reminds them of their criminal past and the ethnic cleansing they carried out in 1948,” Barghouti said.

He outlined three strategic goals behind the attack:

• Political: erasing the refugee issue
• Existential: destroying the “system of Palestinian steadfastness” by cutting off health and education services
• Territorial: facilitating the “complete Judaisation of Jerusalem and the West Bank”

Calls for sanctions

The incident has reignited the debate over Western complicity and double standards in Israel’s treatment of Palestinians.

Luisa Morgantini, former vice president of the European Parliament, told Al Jazeera Arabic that the international community’s silence amounts to complicity.

“The Europeans are complicit, and the Americans are complicit because they didn’t say anything and didn’t act,” Morgantini said. “The only way Israel can understand … is if, for example, Europe stops forging trade relations with Israel.”

Barghouti echoed this, demanding the same treatment be applied to Israel as other nations.

“Why are sanctions imposed on Russia, Venezuela, Cuba and Iran but not Israel?” Barghouti asked. “It is the duty of the UN secretary-general now to demand governments of the world impose sanctions. This is the only way to deter Israel.”

The demolition was carried out during a wider crackdown on humanitarian aid. Israel has recently revoked the operating licences of 37 aid groups, including Doctors Without Borders, for failing to comply with new regulations requiring them to provide detailed information on their staff members, funding and operations. The ban will impact the provision of life-saving assistance to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

Despite a ceasefire in place since October, Israel has continued to curb the entry of aid into the Palestinian enclave of 2.2 million people and has killed more than 460 Palestinians there.