Category: 2. World

The United States on Monday announced the approval of a $510 million sale to Israel of bomb guidance kits and related support, after Israel expended significant munitions in its recent conflict with Iran.

“The proposed sale will enhance Israel’s capability to meet current and future threats by improving its ability to defend Israel’s borders, vital infrastructure, and population centers,” the US Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) said in a statement.

“The United States is committed to the security of Israel, and it is vital to US national interests to assist Israel to develop and maintain a strong and ready self-defense capability,” it added.

The State Department approved the possible sale and the DSCA has provided the required notification to the US Congress, which still needs to sign off on the transaction.

Israel launched an unprecedented air campaign on June 13 targeting Iranian nuclear sites, scientists and top military brass in a bid to end the country’s nuclear program, which Tehran says is for civilian purposes but Washington and other powers insist is aimed at acquiring atomic weapons.

Trump had spent weeks pursuing a diplomatic path to replace the nuclear deal with Tehran that he tore up in 2018 during his first term, but he ultimately decided to take military action, ordering US strikes on Iranian nuclear sites.

A ceasefire brought the war to a halt last week, but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to prevent Tehran from ever rebuilding its nuclear facilities, raising the prospect of a future conflict.

Is the “big, beautiful” India-US trade deal slipping out of reach?

With just days to go before a 9 July deadline set by US President Donald Trump’s administration, hopes of clinching an interim trade pact between Delhi and Washington remain alive but increasingly entangled in hard bargaining.

Despite White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt hinting that the deal was imminent, and Indian Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s upbeat assertion that Delhi would welcome “a big, good, beautiful” agreement – in response to Trump’s claim that a trade deal with Delhi is coming and would “open up” the Indian market – negotiators remain locked in tough discussions.

Key sticking points persist, particularly over agricultural access, auto components and tariffs on Indian steel.

Indian trade officials have extended their stay in Washington for another round of talks, even as Delhi signals “very big red lines” on farm and dairy protections, and the US presses for wider market openings. The tone remains optimistic – but the window to strike a deal appears to be narrowing.

“The next seven days could determine whether India and the US settle for a limited ‘mini-deal’ or walk away from the negotiating table – at least for now,” says Ajay Srivastava, a former Indian trade official who runs Global Trade Research Initiative (GTRI), a Delhi-based think tank.

That uncertainty hinges on a few key flashpoints – none more contentious than agriculture.

“There are two real challenges to concluding an initial agreement. First on the list is US access to the Indian market for basic agriculture products. India will need to protect its basic agriculture sector for economic and political reasons,” Richard Rossow, who tracks India’s economy at Washington’s Center for Strategic and International Studies, told the BBC.

For years, Washington has pushed for greater access to India’s farm sector, seeing it as a major untapped market. But India has fiercely protected it, citing food security, livelihoods and interests of millions of small farmers.

Mr Rossow says the “second issue is India’s non-tariff barriers. Issues like India’s growing set of ‘Quality Control Orders’ (QCO) are significant obstacles to US market access and may prove tricky to meaningfully handle in a trade deal”.

The US has raised concerns over what it calls India’s growing and burdensome import-quality rules. Over 700 QCOs – part of the “self-reliant India” push – aim to curb low-quality imports and promote domestic manufacturing. Suman Berry, a senior member of a government think tank Niti Aayog, has also called these rules a “malign intervention” that restrict imports and raise costs for domestic medium and small scale industries.

The elephant in the room is farm exports. India-US farm trade remains modest at $8bn, with India exporting rice, shrimp and spices, and the US sending nuts, apples and lentils. But as trade talks progress, Washington is eyeing bigger farm exports – maize, soya bean, cotton and corn – to help narrow its $45bn trade deficit with India.

Experts fear tariff concessions could pressure India to weaken its minimum support prices (MSP) and public procurement – key protections that shield farmers from price crashes by guaranteeing fair prices and stable crop purchases.

“No tariff cuts are expected for dairy products or key food grains like rice and wheat, where farm livelihoods are at stake. These categories are politically and economically sensitive, affecting over 700 million people in India’s rural economy,” says Mr Srivastava.

Curiously, a recent Niti Aayog paper recommends tariff cuts on US farm imports – including rice, dairy, poultry, corn, apples, almonds and GM soya – under a proposed India-US trade pact. It’s unclear, however, whether the proposal reflects official government thinking or remains a policy suggestion on paper.

“If the US were to say ‘no deal’ if India does not include access on basic agriculture, then clearly American expectations were not set correctly. Any democratically-elected government will have political limits to commercial policy choices,” says Mr Rossow.

So what could happen with the deal now?

Experts like Mr Srivastava believe that the “more likely outcome is a limited trade pact” – styled after the US-UK mini trade deal announced on 8 May.

Under the proposed deal, India may cut tariffs on a range of industrial goods – including automobiles, a long-standing US demand – and offer limited agricultural access via tariff cuts and quotas on select products like ethanol, almonds, walnuts, apples, raisins, avocados, olive oil, spirits and wine.

Beyond tariff cuts, the US is likely to push India for large-scale commercial buys – from oil and LNG to Boeing aircraft, helicopters and nuclear reactors. Washington may also seek FDI easing in multi-brand retail, benefiting firms like Amazon and Walmart, and relaxed rules on re-manufactured goods.

“This ‘mini-deal’, if concluded, would therefore focus on tariff reductions and strategic commitments, leaving broader FTA issues – including services trade, intellectual property (IP) rights and digital regulations – for a future negotiation,” says Mr Srivastava.

At the start, the India-US trade talks appeared to be grounded in a clear and fair vision.

“The two leaders [Trump and Modi] laid out a simple concept in their first summit this year. The US would focus on manufactured goods that are capital-intensive, while India would focus on items that are labour-intensive,” says Mr Rossow. But things appear to have changed since.

If talks fail, Trump is unlikely to reinstate the 26% tariffs on India, experts believe.

While 57 countries faced these levies in April, only the UK has secured a deal so far. Targeting India specifically could seem unfair. “Still, with Trump, surprises can’t be ruled out,” says Mr Srivastava.

The 12-day war of aggression waged principally by Israel against Iran has been fascinating for its starkness on multiple fronts. Much like Israel’s genocide of the Palestinians, on open display yet unstoppable, the falsehood and illegality of both Israeli and American words and actions continued unabated throughout the war.

It was, in every way, a no-holds-barred affair: the facts, the rhetoric, the deceit. And this wasn’t about domestic politics or some marginal policy issue. This was about taking nations to war. It was about planning to tear down a country, deploying weapons and unloading tonnes upon tonnes of missiles. 

It was about flaunting cutting-edge technology, including 30,000-pound GBU-57 bunker buster bombs, to be dropped by the B-2 bombers – the most expensive planes ever built, worth $2.2 billion each. 

The logistics story was made captivating, numbing the mind to more critical questions – such as what these 30,000-pounders could achieve when targeting material located more than a kilometre beneath the earth. 

Reports were sent out dutifully about the unprecedented ‘heroic’ 37-hour-long missions of the B-2 bomber pilots, who would drop fourteen of these bombs, guaranteeing annihilation and destruction at three sites.

The power-wielding architects of this dramatically worded bombing mission spread their ‘faith’ with conviction. The shrill messaging around this unprecedented, colossal task was delivered in fascistic simplicity: that the ‘noble’ objective was to rid the world of the ‘most dangerous threat’ to global security. 

The mission, they claimed, would demolish Iran’s nuclear programme once and for all. Israel had been making the claim for over two decades – and was now seconded by US President Donald Trump – that Iran was just months away from producing nuclear weapons for what they called the world’s most dangerous and dreaded regime.

Thus, the shrill rhetoric proliferated globally. Digital and legacy media buzzed with talk of the mission, of bombers and bombs, of Top Gun-style pilots in Tom Cruise mode who had rehearsed every step of ‘Mission Annihilate’. 

All the rest was drowned out. Questions about the impact on areas and people surrounding the nuclear sites of Isfahan, Fordow and Natanz – and above all, concerns about possible radiation from these bombed sites, where the world had been told Iran held several hundred kilograms of enriched uranium – surfaced only as outlier opinions. 

The dominant mood in the power corridors of the US, most Western nations and India was one of rah-rah, let’s gun for Iran. Questions did emerge regularly, but they evaporated just as quickly. Often, this was because the lead decision-maker, President Donald Trump, would simply brush off all concerns, almost mocking any journalist who dared to raise them.

This was a fantasy being spread, much like the ugly truth that was systematically concealed about a hundred years ago. It was the truth of how today’s aggressor, Israel, was born – and who actively midwifed its then-illegitimate birth. 

That concealed truth was about how Palestinians were robbed of two-thirds of their land, and how Irgun and Haganah, the two terrorist Zionist organisations, killed, maimed and pushed out from Palestine its rightful owners, who were actively resisting the occupation of their land.

Significantly, in the 12-day war of aggression, Israel and the US alone cannot be given credit for the major political, military and psychological setback it represented. Much of the West had politically and diplomatically partnered with the aggressors.

The Israel–US duo’s determination to deny Iran nuclear weapons was shared by most European governments, as well as the EU.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz unabashedly stated that he was happy that “Israel is doing [this] for all of us. We’re also affected by this regime. This Mullah regime has brought death and destruction over the world. The dirty work that Israel did here – I can only say that I have the highest respect that the Israeli army was courageous enough, that the Israeli government was courageous enough to do this. Otherwise, we possibly would have seen this terror made by this regime for months and years, and possibly with a nuclear weapon in their hand”. 

These deeply partisan, hate-ridden words in praise of the aggressor were, of course, spoken somewhat prematurely.

Nato Secretary General Mark Rutte also sent a profusely congratulatory WhatsApp message to Trump, which Trump then posted on social media: “Thank you for your decisive action in Iran. That was truly extraordinary and something no one else dared to do. It makes us safer…” Rutte wrote. Again, prematurely.

Only on Switzerland’s foreign ministry website did a post appear that cautioned against the aggressors’ complete disregard for legality. It read: “Switzerland emphasizes the importance of full respect for international law, including the UN Charter and international humanitarian law.”

However, beyond all the bravado and chest-thumping by the self-declared winners of the 12-day war lay the uncomfortable reality: Not even one of the three objectives that Netanyahu and his team had bragged they were determined to achieve was fulfilled – no regime change, no destruction of Iran’s nuclear capability and no major disabling of Iran’s missile infrastructure. 

Satellite imagery shows only limited irreversible damage to Iran’s storage and launch sites. Iran’s stockpiles of its most advanced ballistic missiles were largely left intact.

The dramatic B-2 bombers and 30,000-pound bombs weren’t able to destroy Iran’s nuclear capability. The core components of Iran’s nuclear facilities were not destroyed – at best, their progress was delayed by only a few months.

The first to report this was the US’s own Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). CNN quoted their report, noting that no irreversible damage had been done and that more information was required from the actual nuclear sites to confirm the extent of the damage. Both the IAEA and DIA conceded that, without access to the sites, all estimates were merely “guesstimates”. Claims of “obliteration” or “significant damage” were baseless.

Trump’s assertions that the 30,000-pound bombs had “obliterated” Iran’s programme at depths of over 800 meters beneath a mountain at the Fordow facility clashed with the IAEA’s conclusion that the programme had only been delayed by a few months, with all of Iran’s enriched uranium safely stashed away – unreachable to everyone but the Iranians. And the majority of the centrifuges had not been damaged.

The IAEA’s own duplicity was unmistakable. Rafael Grossi, head of the UN nuclear watchdog, said on June 23 that the airstrikes had probably caused “very significant” damage to Fordow, a major uranium enrichment facility. Yet the IAEA subsequently veered toward the DIA’s more cautious assessment.

As for what has long been deployed by Washington as a ‘legitimate’ policy tool – the removal of governments in foreign lands through force, sabotage and other means – that too failed. After all, Iran is neither Syria, Iraq, nor Libya, nor even the Iran of 1953. 

This was not a regime that could be brushed aside easily. Iran’s revolution-hardened, four-decade-old government stood its ground. Paradoxically, for a regime already facing multiple domestic challenges, Israeli aggression somewhat boosted its political fortunes. Nationalist sentiment rose.

After the war, despite mounting economic and security problems, Iran’s regime emerged more confident and self-assured, having successfully fought back and survived the much-hyped Israeli-US war machine.

Amid the widespread chatter about what comes next, only two facts appear reliable. First, and fortunately, beyond all the litter of whimsical, flashy and fictional verbosity, there are signs of re-engagement between the two principal players: Iran and the US. 

Trump has publicly criticised some of Israel’s recent actions, while in important circles in Tehran, there is recognition that indirect communication between Iranian and American officials continues. Some Iranians even see in Trump a potential president willing to pursue an ‘America First’, not ‘Israel First’, policy.

The second important development appears to be a ceasefire in Gaza. But does this mean progress toward a definitive two-state solution or merely a deceptive lull, under the cover of which the ‘Greater Israel’ agenda advances? At present, with a disengaged Arab and Muslim world, Donald Trump remains – somewhat paradoxically – central to advancing a lasting and viable solution for Palestine. And that solution, clearly, is a two-state one.

---

The writer is a senior journalist. She tweets at @nasimzehra and can be reached at: [email protected]

---

Disclaimer: The viewpoints expressed in this piece are the writer’s own and don’t necessarily reflect Geo.tv’s editorial policy.

---

Originally published in The News

At least 34 people have been killed in a massive fire at a pharmaceuticals factory in the southern Indian state of Telangana, according to news agencies.

The blast took place during work hours on Monday at a unit of Sigachi Industries, leaving several injured and in critical condition.

“As many as 31 bodies have been extricated from the debris while three died in hospital while undergoing treatment,” senior district police official Paritosh Pankaj told the Press Trust of India.

Police have registered a case against the management of Sigachi Industries, based on a complaint by the son of a victim.

The company has said it is halting operations at the facility for 90 days, because of damage to equipment and structures within the plant.

“The incident has unfortunately resulted in loss of human life, and there may have been individuals who sustained injuries,” Sigachi Industries said in a statement, adding that it was ascertaining the number who are injured.

Authorities say approximately 60 people were in the building when the blast took place, leading to a complete collapse of the building.

Many of the workers were migrants from states like Jharkhand, Odisha, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal in the north and east of the country.

The unit manufactured microcrystalline cellulose, a binding agent often used in pharmaceuticals, cosmetics and food industries.

“Pressure seems to have built up when the workers were operating the spray dryer,” a senior rescue official told the Indian Express newspaper. “Fine dust chemical particles too accelerated the blast and the subsequent fire.”

At least 25 victims were rushed to nearby hospitals with varying degrees of burns and injuries, rescue officials told the newspaper. Many had reportedly inhaled poisonous fumes.

Rescue workers are still clearing the debris at the blast site and have told ANI news agency that they are unsure how many people were still trapped.

“Once we are all done with the clearing, only then we will be able to assess if any other body is still remaining under the debris or if it is all clear,” GV Narayana Rao, director of Telangana fire disaster response emergency, told Reuters.

Officials say DNA testing is being used to identify bodies that were charred beyond recognition.

The ruling Congress government in the state expressed “deep shock over the massive fire accident” and said compensation will be given to the families of the deceased and injured.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi also expressed condolences and announced compensation of 200,000 rupees ($2,336; £1,699) for each for the families of the deceased and 50,000 rupees for the injured.

HYDERABAD, India — The death toll from Monday’s massive explosion and fire at a pharmaceutical factory in India’s southern state of Telangana has risen to at least 36 while about three dozen were left injured, authorities said Tuesday.

The fire department recovered the charred bodies of 34 workers from the accident site in an industrial area about 50 kilometers (31 miles) from the state capital Hyderabad, the state’s fire services director G.V. Narayana Rao told The Associated Press.

Two other workers succumbed to burns and were pronounced dead in hospital, Rao said, adding that debris of the gutted pharmaceutical unit of Sigachi Industries was still being removed to find out if any more workers were trapped.

Nearly three dozen injured workers were admitted to hospitals, he said.

“The whole structure of the factory has collapsed. Fire has been doused, and we hope to finish removing the debris in the next few hours,” Rao said.

The explosion and subsequent fire was reported on Monday in the factory’s spray dryer unit, which is used to process raw material into fine powder for making drugs, Rao said.

The state’s Health Minister Damodar Raja Narasimha said there were 108 workers inside the factory at the time of the explosion.

“As bodies were badly burnt and mutilated, a special medical team has been deployed to conduct DNA tests”, said Narasimha, adding the state government has set up a panel to investigate the cause of the incident.

Witnesses said they heard the explosion from a couple of kilometers away from the site.

India is home to some of the world’s top pharmaceutical companies, playing a pivotal role in the global supply of generic medicines and vaccines. The country’s robust manufacturing and cost-effective production have made it a hub for pharma giants.

Industrial accidents, particularly involving chemical reactors, aren’t uncommon in such factories, underlining the need for authorities to implement stringent safety protocols and regulatory oversight in a sector critical to public health.

Sigachi Industries Limited is an Indian company dealing with active pharmaceutical ingredients, intermediates and vitamin-mineral blends, according to the company’s website. It has five manufacturing facilities across India and subsidiaries in the U.S and the United Arab Emirates.

President Donald Trump signed on Monday an executive order terminating a US sanctions programme on Syria, allowing an end to the country’s isolation from the international financial system and building on Washington’s pledge to help it rebuild after a devastating civil war.

The move will allow the US to maintain sanctions on Syria’s ousted former president Bashar al-Assad, his associates, human rights abusers, drug traffickers, people linked to chemical weapons activities, the Islamic State and ISIS affiliates and proxies for Iran, White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt told reporters in a briefing.

Assad was toppled in December in a lightning offensive by Islamist-led rebels and Syria has since taken steps to re-establish international ties.

Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shibani said Trump’s termination of the Syria sanctions programme would “open door of long-awaited reconstruction and development,” according to a post by the foreign minister on social media platform X.

He said the move would “lift the obstacle” against economic recovery and open the country to the international community.

Syria’s President Ahmed al-Sharaa and Trump met in Riyadh in May where, in a major policy shift, Trump unexpectedly announced he would lift US sanctions on Syria, prompting Washington to significantly ease its measures.

Some in Congress are pushing for the measures to be totally repealed, while Europe has announced the end of its economic sanctions regime.

“Syria needs to be given a chance, and that’s what’s happened,” U.S. Special Envoy for Syria Thomas Barrack told reporters in a briefing call. He described Monday’s move as “the culmination of a very tedious, detailed, excruciating process of, how do you unwrap these sanctions.”

The White House in a fact sheet said the order directs the Secretary of State to review the terrorism designations of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, a rebel group that Sharaa led that has roots in al Qaeda, as well as Syria’s designation as a state sponsor of terrorism.

The White House said the administration would continue to monitor Syria’s progress on key priorities including “taking concrete steps toward normalising ties with Israel, addressing foreign terrorists, deporting Palestinian terrorists and banning Palestinian terrorist groups”.

Layers of US sanctions

A Reuters investigation published on Monday revealed the role of Syrian government forces in the killing of more than 1,500 Syrian Alawites over three days of massacres along the country’s Mediterranean coast in March. The Trump administration had no comment on the Reuters report.

It was not immediately clear if Washington was lifting the sanctions on any of the factions that Reuters found were involved.

Syrians hope the easing of sanctions will clear the way for greater engagement by humanitarian organisations working in the country, encouraging foreign investment and trade as it rebuilds.

In the aftermath of Trump’s announcement in May, the US Treasury Department issued a general license that authorised transactions involving the interim Syrian government as well as the central bank and state-owned enterprises.

However, the US has imposed layers of sanctions against Syria, some of which are authorised by legislation, including the Caesar Act. Repealing the measures is necessary for Syria to attract long-term investment without parties fearing the risk of violating U.S. sanctions.

“We are now, pursuant to the executive order, going to look at suspension criteria for the Caesar Act,” a senior administration official said.

Most of the US sanctions on Syria were imposed on Assad’s government and key individuals in 2011 after civil war erupted in the country.

The dismantling of the US sanctions programme on Syria includes terminating from Tuesday a national emergency declared in 2004 and revoking linked executive orders, according to the order signed on Monday.

The executive order also directs additional actions, including some with respect to waivers of export controls and other restrictions, the order read.