WASHINGTON: The Gaza ceasefire clinched Wednesday was a bittersweet victory for US President Joe Biden days before he hands over the White House to Donald Trump, who claimed credit — and, most experts say, deserves some.
Biden first proposed the outlines of the deal between Israel and Hamas on May 31 but diplomatic efforts repeatedly came up short, even when Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned in Tel Aviv in August that it may have been the last chance for a deal.
Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff marched into Netanyahu’s office on Saturday, forcing the Israeli leader to break the sabbath, and pushed to seal the ceasefire.
The timing has echoes of a 1981 deal on US hostages in Iran, freed from 444 days of captivity moments after Republican Ronald Reagan succeeded Democrat Jimmy Carter, although this time the outgoing and incoming administrations worked together.
In scenes unprecedented in recent US history, Witkoff and Biden’s Middle East adviser Brett McGurk met jointly with the emir of Qatar — a key intermediary between Israel and Hamas — when sealing the deal.
Trump quickly boasted that the “epic” deal “could only have happened” due to his election as US president in November.
Asked if Trump deserved credit, Biden quipped: “Is that a joke?“
Speaking hours before a previously scheduled farewell address to the nation, the outgoing president said he included the Trump team in negotiations so that the United States was “speaking with one voice.”
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said it was not unexpected for all sides to seek credit for positive news.
“What I can say is, the president got it done,” she said, referring to Biden.
State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said the Trump team’s presence was about demonstrating “continuity” rather than the Republican exerting new pressure.
Biden faced heated criticism from the left of his Democratic Party during its unsuccessful election year over his staunch support of Israel since Palestinian group Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack.
Biden authorized billions of dollars in weapons for Israel’s relentless retaliatory campaign on Gaza, despite criticizing the strategic US ally for the civilian death toll — which authorities in Gaza say is in the tens of thousands.
“The Biden administration was terrified of the political cost of being seen to be pressing Israel in any way,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of the rights group Democracy for the Arab World Now.
Trump, while vowing to be even more pro-Israel, was able to make clear to Netanyahu that “I do not want to inherit this,” Whitson said.
“It made me think that all of this would have been possible months ago and we could have saved thousands of Palestinian lives,” she said.
Trump had warned Hamas of “hell to pay” if it did not agree to a deal, which includes in its first phase the release of 33 hostages seized on October 7.
David Khalfa, an expert on Israel at the Jean Jaures Foundation in Paris, said that Trump’s unpredictability likely impacted Hamas.
He also pointed to Netanyahu’s political position heading a hard-right but shaky coalition government.
“There is today an ideological alignment between the American populist right and the Israeli prime minister. So he has very weak room to maneuver against a Trump who doesn’t face the pressures of reelection,” said Khalfa.
Brian Katulis, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Middle East Institute, said a desire by Israel and others for the right optics as Trump takes over could have played a role in sealing the deal.
But a larger factor than Trump was the changing dynamics in the region — the major blows inflicted both on Hamas and its patron Iran, he said.
Israel has devastated Iranian ally Hezbollah in Lebanon and Iran’s own air defenses, with Tehran’s main ally in the Arab world, Syria’s Bashar Assad, ousted last month by rebel forces.
“I don’t think any of the threats and bluster that we saw from Trump were a huge factor on either side. I think it’s mostly a baby that’s fathered by Biden and his team,” Katulis said.
“But I think the sense that there were big question marks on what was coming might have motivated those who were stonewalling,” he said.
Jon Alterman, director of the Middle East program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, agreed that the uncertainty following Trump’s victory contributed to the deal.
Israel and Hamas were negotiating “under the terms that each side had become familiar with” and knew there was a high risk “that the parameters were about to change.”
And if the deal falls apart?
“Then it doesn’t matter who implemented it; there will be plenty of blame to go around,” Alterman said.
Gaza truce bittersweet for Biden as Trump takes credit
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Gaza truce bittersweet for Biden as Trump takes credit
- Trump had warned Hamas of “hell to pay” if it did not agree to a deal
At India’s flagship industry event, entrepreneurs present solutions to fuel energy transition
- Local and international exhibitors display their new technology at India Energy Week 2025 in New Delhi
- Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister highlights adoption of biofuels, renewables and hydrogen
NEW DELHI: Hundreds of Indian entrepreneurs and innovators have presented their inventions and new solutions at India Energy Week 2025 in New Delhi, displaying their efforts to contribute to the country’s energy transition programs.
Tens of thousands of visitors, officials and delegates took part in the Indian government’s flagship annual energy event, which ran at the Yashobhoomi convention from Tuesday through Friday, featuring exhibitions by 700 local and international industry players.
Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Hardeep Singh Puri, who opened India Energy Week, highlighted the country’s vision of transformation and decarbonization, as the world’s third-largest emitter of greenhouse gases seeks to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2070
“What we are seeing today is a recalibration of strategy — prioritizing near-term profitability while keeping long-term transition efforts in play ... the primary focus remains on increasing the adoption of biofuels, renewables and hydrogen,” he told the event’s participants.
“The transition isn’t about eliminating hydrocarbons overnight but leveraging them strategically while scaling renewables to mitigate emissions ... Even when renewables become the dominant energy sources, oil and gas will continue to play a pivotal role — not just in power generation but in stabilizing grids, industrial hydrogen and energy storage innovations.”
India aims to generate 500 GW of electricity from non-fossil fuel sources by 2030, under its nationally determined contributions to the Paris Agreement.
The solar power sector is the dominant contributor to the country’s renewable energy growth, accounting for 47 percent of the total installed renewable energy capacity. It has observed a 3,450 percent increase in capacity over the past decade, rising from 2.82 GW in 2014 to 100 GW in January 2025, according to the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy.
The country is also heavily investing in green hydrogen — and emerging future alternatives to fossil fuels. Developing technologies to produce it is part of India’s flagship initiatives.
Also known as renewable hydrogen, green hydrogen can be used as fuel and is produced from the electrolysis of water. The process does not generate polluting carbon emissions but is currently very expensive.
India’s National Green Hydrogen Mission launched in 2023 aims to reduce production costs and increase the scale of the industry by 2030, as it targets the production of 5 million tons of green hydrogen generating 125 GW of power a year.
Renewable energy growth is fueled by local production and inventions, with India’s private sector being a top contributor to the transition process.
“There is a green hydrogen mission from the government of India to produce 5 million metric tons of green hydrogen by 2030 ... there are incentive programs run by the government,” said Rohish Kalvit, vice president of Pune-based h2e Power Systems, one of India Energy Week’s exhibitors, told Arab News.
His company is manufacturing electrolyzer stacks and fuel cell stacks, which are critical components in the production and use of hydrogen energy,
“We are helping in the national green hydrogen mission in terms of manufacturing that particular molecule ... as well as doing a lot of R&D (research and development) activities on the material part and the technology part (to) produce cheap and affordable hydrogen in the near future,” Kalvit said.
“India Energy Week is a platform which is being set up by the government of India to bring all the OEMs (original equipment manufacturers), vendors, suppliers as well as offtakers to come and understand at what level each company is working in the hydrogen sector ... people are coming with open minds in order to join hands together at multiple levels to grow in this particular business.”
Raj Process Equipments and Systems, one of the leading process equipment manufacturers in India, was presenting its biogas-based solutions.
“The future is completely about biogas, compressed natural gas. We will be replacing petrol and diesel with this CBG — compressed Biogas ... it is the same as CNG (compressed natural gas), but in case of compressed biogas we get the gas from waste. From municipal waste we make biogas, we upgrade it we make it equivalent to CNG and this we use for vehicles,” said Binu Panickar, the company’s vice president.
“Biogas will be the future. It will completely replace the oil, petrol, diesel. People will completely rely on this technology.”
For him, India Energy Week was like “Maha Kumbh Mela” of the country’s energy sector — a reference to the country’s biggest religious pilgrimage, which draws millions of worshippers.
“Various technology providers are taking participating in it and we have seen a good platform to show the people what we can provide. We can see good number of visitors coming. They are getting knowledge from this event.”
Pope Francis being hospitalized for medical tests and to treat bronchitis, Vatican says
- Francis was diagnosed with bronchitis last Thursday
- Ever since his diagnosis, Francis has appeared bloated
ROME: Pope Francis is being hospitalized to treat his bronchitis and undergo some necessary diagnostic tests, the Vatican said Friday in confirming the latest threat to the 88-year-old’s pontiff’s health.
Francis was diagnosed with bronchitis last Thursday, but he has continued to hold daily audiences in his Vatican hotel suite and preside over general audiences and even presided at an outdoor Mass last Sunday. He has however handed off his speeches for an aide to read aloud, saying he was having trouble breathing.
Francis, who had part of one lung removed as a young man, has long battled health problems, especially long bouts of acute bronchitis in winter. He uses a wheelchair, walker or cane when moving around his apartment and recently fell twice, hurting his arm and chin.
Ever since his diagnosis, Francis has appeared bloated, an indication the medication he was taking to treat the lung infection was making him retain water.
Francis was being hospitalized at Rome’s Gemelli hospital, where he was last hospitalized in June 2023 to have surgery to remove intestinal scar tissue and repair a hernia in the abdominal wall. A few months before that, he spent three days in the hospital to receive intravenous antibiotics for a respiratory infection.
A Vatican statement said Francis would be admitted at the end of his Friday audiences. In addition to regular Vatican officials, the pope met Friday morning with the Slovak prime minister, Robert Fico and the head of CNN, Mark Thompson.
“This morning, at the end of the audiences, Pope Francis will be admitted to the Agostino Gemelli Polyclinic for some necessary diagnostic tests and to continue in a hospital setting treatment for bronchitis that is still ongoing,” the statement said.
India, US agree to resolve trade and tariff rows after Trump-Modi talks
- Initial segments of trade deal to be negotiated by fall 2025
- India to raise US energy purchases to $25 billion from $15 billion
WASHINGTON: India and the US agreed on Thursday to start talks to clinch an early trade deal and resolve their standoff over tariffs as New Delhi promised to buy more US oil, gas and military equipment and fight illegal immigration.
The series of agreements emerged after talks between US President Donald Trump and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the White House, just hours after Trump railed against the climate for US businesses in India and unveiled a roadmap for reciprocal tariffs on countries that put duties on US imports.
“Prime Minister Modi recently announced the reductions to India’s unfair, very strong tariffs that limit us access to the Indian market, very strongly,” Trump said. “And really it’s a big problem I must say.”
The deal to resolve trade concerns could be done within the next seven months, said India’s Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri.
A joint statement after the meeting said Washington welcomed New Delhi’s recent steps to lower tariffs on select US products and increase market access to US farm products, while seeking to negotiate the initial segments of a trade deal by the fall of 2025.
While both leaders “had their perspectives” on tariffs, “what is more remarkable...is the fact that we have a way forward on this issue,” Misri said.
Some of the leaders’ agreements are aspirational: India wants to increase by “billions of dollars” its purchases of US defense equipment and may make Washington the “number one supplier” of oil and gas, Trump said at a joint press conference with Modi.
And Delhi wants to double trade with Washington by 2030, Modi said. Long-planned cooperation on nuclear energy, also discussed by the leaders, faces ongoing legal challenges.
“We’re also paving the way to ultimately provide India with the F-35 stealth fighters,” said Trump.
Misri, the Indian official, later said the F-35 deal was a proposal at this point, with no formal process underway. The White House did not respond to a request for comment on any deal.
WHAT TRUMP WANTS
Although Trump had a warm relationship with Modi in his first term, he again said on Thursday that India’s tariffs were “very high” and promised to match them, even after his earlier levies on steel and aluminum hit metal-producing India particularly hard.
“We are being reciprocal with India,” Trump said during the press conference. “Whatever India charges, we charge them.”
Modi vowed to protect India’s interests.
“One thing that I deeply appreciate, and I learn from President Trump, is that he keeps the national interest supreme,” Modi said. “Like him, I also keep the national interest of India at the top of everything else.”
The two leaders praised each other and agreed to deepen security cooperation in the Indo-Pacific, a thinly veiled reference to competition with China, as well as to start joint production on technologies like artificial intelligence.
Asked before the meeting about the steps India was taking, one source described it as a “gift” for Trump designed to lower trade tensions. A Trump aide said that the president sees defense and energy sales to India lowering the US trade deficit.
India’s energy purchases from the US could go up to $25 billion in the near future from $15 billion last year, India’s Misri said, adding that this could contribute to reducing the trade deficit.
Tariffs will continue to dominate the two countries’ relationship, said Richard Rossow, head of the India program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a think tank.
“It’s going to be a boxing match,” he said. “India is willing to take a few hits, but there’s a limit.”
The US has a $45.6 billion trade deficit with India. Overall, the US trade-weighted average tariff rate has been about 2.2 percent, according to World Trade Organization data, compared with India’s 12 percent.
FIGHT ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION
Trump wants more help from India on unauthorized immigration. India is a major source of immigrants to the United States, including a large number in the tech industry on work visas and others in the US illegally.
The joint statement said the two countries agreed to aggressively address illegal immigration and human trafficking by strengthening law enforcement cooperation.
India may prove critical to Trump’s strategy to thwart China, which many in his administration see as the top US rival. India is wary of neighboring China’s military buildup and competes for many of the same markets.
Modi also worries that Trump could cut a deal with China that excludes India, according to Mukesh Aghi, president of the US-India Strategic Partnership Forum lobbying group.
India has continued its ties with Russia as it carries out its war with Ukraine. India has remained a major consumer of Russian energy, for instance, while the West has worked to cut its own consumption since the war started.
“The world had this thinking that India somehow is a neutral country in this whole process,” said Modi. “But this is not true. India has a side, and that side is of peace.”
Judge orders US to restore funds for foreign aid programs
- Order blocks Trump administration from canceling foreign aid contracts, awards in place before Trump took office
- Trump has attempted to dismantle government agencies and ordered them to prepare for wide-ranging job cuts
WASHINGTON: A federal judge ordered the administration of US President Donald Trump to restore funding for hundreds of foreign aid contractors who say they have been devastated by his 90-day blanket freeze, Politico reported late on Thursday.
The order blocks the Trump administration from canceling foreign aid contracts and awards that were in place before Trump took office on January 20.
The stated purpose in suspending of all foreign aid was to provide the opportunity to review programs for their efficiency and consistency with priorities, US District Judge Amir Ali wrote in a filing in the US District Court for the District of Columbia.
He added: “At least to date, defendants have not offered any explanation for why a blanket suspension of all congressionally appropriated foreign aid, which set off a shockwave and upended reliance interests for thousands of agreements with businesses, nonprofits, and organizations around the country, was a rational precursor to reviewing programs.”
Trump has attempted to dismantle government agencies and ordered them to prepare for wide-ranging job cuts, and several have already begun to lay off recent hires who lack full job security.
The Republican has also embarked on a massive government makeover, firing and sidelining hundreds of civil servants and top officials at agencies in his first steps toward downsizing the bureaucracy and installing more loyalists.
Russian drone ‘struck’ Chernobyl cover, no radiation increase: Zelensky
- The International Atomic Energy Agency also reported an “explosion” at the site
KYIV: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Friday that a Russian drone had struck a cover built to contain radiation at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, adding that “radiation levels have not increased.”
The Ukrainian air force said that Russia had launched more than 100 drones across the country overnight — including attack drones — targeting northern regions of the country where the Chernobyl power plant lies.
“Last night, a Russian attack drone with a high-explosive warhead struck the cover protecting the world from radiation at the destroyed 4th power unit of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant,” Zelensky said in a social media post.
The International Atomic Energy Agency also reported an “explosion” at the site, and said “radiation levels inside and outside remain normal and stable.”
The agency, which has had a team deployed on the site since the early stages of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, published images apparently showing the drone on fire after crashing into the covering.
In 1986, a reactor at Chernobyl exploded during a botched safety test, resulting in the world’s worst nuclear accident that sent clouds of radiation across much of Europe and forced tens of thousands of people to evacuate.
Soviet authorities initially tried to cover up and then play down the disaster.
Eventually a massive concrete and steel cover called a sarcophagus was built over the reactor, to contain the radiation.
“The only country in the world that attacks such sites, occupies nuclear power plants, and wages war without any regard for the consequences is today’s Russia,” Zelensky added in his statement.
There was no immediate response from Russia.
