Monday, January 13, 2025

Informed Comment daily updates (01/13/2025)

 

Crime of the Century: CBS’ 60 Minutes Exposes the Biden Administration’s Complicity in Gaza Genocide, Interviews the Whistleblowers

Crime of the Century: CBS’ 60 Minutes Exposes the Biden Administration’s Complicity in Gaza Genocide, Interviews the Whistleblowers

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The amazingly brave Cecilia Vega at CBS’ 60 Minutes did a groundbreaking segment on Sunday in which she interviewed US government officials involved with the Israeli war on Gaza, who resigned in protest either explicitly or implicitly. She also screened the sort of horrific footage of the aftermath of Israeli […]


Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The amazingly brave Cecilia Vega at CBS’ 60 Minutes did a groundbreaking segment on Sunday in which she interviewed US government officials involved with the Israeli war on Gaza, who resigned in protest either explicitly or implicitly. She also screened the sort of horrific footage of the aftermath of Israeli attacks in Gaza, with the gory parts left in. Here is the transcript.

American television news has almost completely ignored Israeli (and US) war crimes in Gaza, which have been taking place daily, but are not apparently deemed “news” at CNN, MSNBC, Fox, CBS, ABC, etc.

Here let me just excerpt some statements by the former US government officials:

Hala Rharrit was an American diplomat working on human rights: “What is happening in Gaza would not be able to happen without U.S. arms. That’s without a doubt.”

“I would show the complicity that was indisputable. Fragments of U.S. bombs next to massacres of– of ch– mostly children. And that’s the devastation. It’s been overwhelmingly children.” (Emphasis added.)

“I would show images of children that were starved to death. In one incident, I was basically berated, “Don’t put that image in there. We don’t wanna see it. We don’t wanna see that the children are starving to death.”

Hala Rharrit: The level of anger throughout the Arab world, and I– I’ll say beyond the Arab world– is palpable. Protests began erupting in the Arab world, which I was also documenting, with people burning American flags. This is very significant because we worked so hard after the war on terror to strengthen ties with the Arab world.

[Cecilia Vega: You believe that this has put a target on America’s back, you’ve said.]

Hala Rharrit: 100%.

Hala Rharrit: Yes. I don’t say them lightly. And I say it as someone that myself has survived two terrorist attacks. My first assignment was in the U.S. Embassy in Yemen. I survived a mortar attack. I say it as someone who has worked intensely on these issues and has intensely monitored the region for two decades.

After three months of the Gaza War in 2023, she was told her reports were no longer needed.

Josh Paul spent 11 years as a director in the State Department’s Bureau of Political – Military Affairs.

Josh Paul: Most of the bombs come from America. Most of the technology comes from America. And all of the fighter jets, all of Israel’s fixed-wing fleet– comes from America.

Josh Paul: There is a linkage between every single bomb that is dropped in Gaza and the U.S. because every single bomb that is dropped is dropped from an American-made plane.

Josh Paul: After October 7th, there was no space for debate or discussion. I was part of email chains where there were very clear directions saying, “Here are the latest requests from Israel. These need to be approved by 3:00 p.m.”

Josh Paul: “This came from the president, from the secretary and from those around them.”

Josh Paul: I would argue exactly the opposite. I think the moment of October 7th was a moment of incredible worldwide solidarity with Israel. And had Israel leveraged that moment to press for a real, just and lasting peace, I think we would be in a very different place now in which Israel would not be facing this increasing isolation around the world and in which its hostages would be free.


“America in Gaza,” Digital, Dream / Dreamland v3, Clip2Comic

Andrew Miller was the deputy assistant secretary of state for Israeli-Palestinian affairs.

Andrew Miller: The Israelis were using those bombs in some instances to target one or two individuals in densely packed areas. And in enough instances, we saw that was in question, how Israel was using it. And those weapons were suspended.

Andrew Miller: There were conversations from the earliest days about U.S. desires and expectations for what Israel would do. But they weren’t defined as a red line.

Andrew Miller: I’m unaware of any red lines being imposed beyond the normal language about complying with international law, international humanitarian law, the law of armed conflict.

Andrew Miller: I believe the message that Prime Minister Netanyahu received is that he was the one in the driver’s seat, and he was controlling this, and U.S. support was going to be there, and he could take it for granted.

Andrew Miller: There is a danger– that if the U.S. was not providing support to Israel, Hezbollah, Hamas, Iran would see that as an opportunity to go after Israel. However, we could have said, we are taking this step because we believe this class of weapons– is being used inappropriately. But if you use this moment to accelerate your attacks against Israel, then we are going to immediately lift our prohibition.

Andrew Miller: Yes. I think it’s fair to say Israel does get the benefit of the doubt. There is a deference to Israeli accounts of what’s taken place.

Here is the segment on YouTube:

Biden policy on Israel-Gaza sparks warnings, dissent, resignations | 60 Minutes



What challenges do Syrian Refugees face as they return Home?

What challenges do Syrian Refugees face as they return Home?

Written byRami Alhames Syrian and Iraqi refugees arrive at Skala Sykamias Lesvos, Greece. Image by Georgios Giannopoulos via Wikimedia Commons. CC BY-SA 4.0. ( Globalvoices.org ) – Since the eruption of the Syrian civil war in 2011, millions of Syrians have fled their country, seeking refuge in neighboring countries and beyond. Thirteen years on, a significant number […]


Written byRami Alhames

Syrian and Iraqi refugees arrive at Skala Sykamias Lesvos, Greece. Image by Georgios Giannopoulos via Wikimedia CommonsCC BY-SA 4.0.

( Globalvoices.org ) – Since the eruption of the Syrian civil war in 2011, millions of Syrians have fled their country, seeking refuge in neighboring countries and beyond. Thirteen years on, a significant number of these 13.5 million refugees are identified by the UN as displaced persons in need of humanitarian assistance, particularly those who fled to Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon, and Europe

While the prospect of going back to Syria after the fall of President Bashar al-Assad’s regime seems hopeful for many, it is tempered by deep concerns about the fear of instability and economic collapse, the difficulties of rebuilding their lives, and the challenges they face in leaving behind the new lives they have established in exile.

While the situation in Syria remains uncertain, the lives of refugees in host countries have evolved over the past 13 years. In some contexts, like in Lebanon, economic pressures are forcing their children to forgo schooling and enter the labor market. Meanwhile, many of the refugees who fled have integrated into their respective societies, established new businesses, and built families. Leaving behind these lives is not an easy decision, and, for many, the thought of uprooting their families again is overwhelming.

Turkey: A new life amid uncertainty

Turkey has been the largest host country for Syrian refugees, with over 3.7 million Syrians currently residing there. Many refugees have integrated into Turkish society, with several opening small businesses and contributing to the local economy. However, the economic challenges in Turkey — especially during periods of inflation and political instability — have made life difficult for many Syrians. Despite this, Turkey remains a relatively stable environment compared to Syria, and some refugees worry that returning home could mean giving up the hard-earned security they have achieved in Turkey.

For many Syrians in Turkey, the fear of losing their livelihoods is a major deterrent to returning. Owning businesses in Turkey has allowed many refugees to gain financial independence, but starting over in a war-torn country is a risk few are willing to take. Furthermore, the ongoing tensions between the Turkish government and the refugee population add another layer of uncertainty for those who are considering returning to Syria.

Jordan: Struggling with workforce gaps

Zaatari Refugee Camp in Jordan. U.S. Department of State, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

 

Jordan has hosted approximately 1.3 million Syrians, the majority of whom live in cities and refugee camps such as Zaatari. For years, refugees have faced limited opportunities for employment, but, in recent years, many Syrians have established themselves within the Jordanian workforce, working in sectors like construction, agriculture, and retail. Some have even opened their own businesses, creating new economic opportunities.

Many of the industries that Syrians have contributed to in Jordan are already facing workforce shortages, and the impact of losing skilled labor could be detrimental to both Jordan and Syria. Moreover, Syrians who have lived in Jordan for years face a complex dilemma: they want to help rebuild Syria, but may be fearful of the lack of economic opportunities back home. The culture of food and commerce in Jordan has also influenced many refugees’ way of life, and some worry that returning to Syria would force them to readjust to a society that is not ready to cater to their tastes and needs.

Lebanon: The strain on local communities

Lebanon, with its proximity to Syria, hosts over 1.5 million Syrian refugees, facing immense strain from hosting so many displaced people. The situation for the Syrian refugees has been so difficult that some Syrian families needed their children to also work, instead of going to school. As workers, Syrians are mainly engaged in agriculture, personal and domestic services, and, on a smaller scale, construction, according to the International Labour Organization. However, Lebanon’s own political and economic instability complicates the prospects for refugees seeking to return to Syria.

In a post on Facebook, Aljazeera Mubasher reported on Lebanon’s prime minister Najib Mikati statements, saying “The pressure on our resources is very great, which exacerbates the current economic problems and creates fierce competition for jobs and services.”

For those who have established businesses or found steady employment in Lebanon, the decision to return is fraught with uncertainty. Syria’s devastated economy offers few opportunities, and for many refugees, the fear of having to restart their businesses from scratch outweighs the hope of returning to a peaceful Syria. The gap in Lebanon’s workforce is another challenge: many industries rely on Syrian labor, and a mass return could create labor shortages, further exacerbating Lebanon’s economic struggles already in crises.

Germany: Integration and new opportunities

Germany has taken in approximately one million refugees from Syria, and many of them have integrated successfully into the country’s labor market. Refugees who initially arrived with little more than the clothes on their backs have since found work in fields ranging from healthcare to engineering. Many Syrians in Germany have also benefited from the country’s comprehensive integration programs, which have helped them learn the language, gain vocational skills, and find stable employment.

Today, Syrian refugees have become one of the main components on which Germany, the largest European economy relies. However, immediately after the announcement of the fall of the Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria on December 8, 2024, 12 European countries, including Germany, Austria, Belgium, and others, announced putting asylum applications for Syrians on hold. Many European politicians have been calling for the repatriation of Syrians causing fear among Syrians about their future in Europe.

 

The Austrian government went further, to offer a sum of EUR 1,000, which it called a “return bonus,” to be paid to every refugee who voluntarily wishes to return to their country, Syria. The conservative Chancellor Karl Nehammer stated that the security situation in Syria after the fall of the regime will help in assessing the legal status of Syrian refugees on Austrian territory. In a post on X, Nehammer addressed a message to Syrian refugees in which he said, “Their country now needs its citizens to rebuild it.”

All European countries have signed the Geneva Convention, which includes provisions to protect refugees and prohibit their forced deportation to places where their life or freedom would be at risk. Those granted asylum are generally protected from return under the principle of non-refoulement.

On the other hand, Europeans fear the consequences of Syrian professionals returning to their country. The head of the German Hospital Association, Gerald Gass, warned of the repercussions of the return of Syrian doctors “who played a fundamental role in preserving health care, especially in hospitals in small cities.” On December 13, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz confirmed that “integrated” Syrian refugees in Germany are “welcome.”

The complex decision to return

Syrian Refugees Crisis and flow into neighboring countries and Europe. ERCC – Emergency Response Coordination Centre. Sources: ECHO, ESRI, UNHCR, IOM and national authorities, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The decision of Syrian refugees to return to Syria after the fall of the Assad regime is a deeply personal and complex one. While many long for the day they can go home, the uncertainty of Syria’s future, the challenges of rebuilding the country, and the fear of political instability weigh heavily on their minds.

For those who have established businesses and lives in host countries, returning to Syria is not simply a matter of patriotism — it is a question of survival, economic security, and social integration. Also, Syria, after Assad, needs its young citizens. According to an ILO assessment of the impact of Syrian refugees in Lebanon and their employment profile, more than half of Syrian refugees are below the age of 24.


About the Author

Global Voices is an international community of writers, bloggers and digital activists that aim to translate and report on what is being said in citizen media worldwide. A non-profit, it is incorporated in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.




When Israeli Warplanes Rain Death on Gaza, the Copilot is a Bipartisan Uncle Sam

When Israeli Warplanes Rain Death on Gaza, the Copilot is a Bipartisan Uncle Sam

( Tomdispatch.com ) – In recent weeks, political soothsayers have speculated about a wide variety of odious new policies the incoming Trump administration and its allies in Congress may or may not pursue. No one can predict with certainty which of those measures they will inflict on us and which they’ll forget about.  But we […]


( Tomdispatch.com ) – In recent weeks, political soothsayers have speculated about a wide variety of odious new policies the incoming Trump administration and its allies in Congress may or may not pursue. No one can predict with certainty which of those measures they will inflict on us and which they’ll forget about.  But we can make one prediction with utter confidence. The White House and large bipartisan majorities in Congress will continue their lavish support for Israel’s war on Gaza, however catastrophic the results.   

Washington has supplied a large share of the armaments that have allowed the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) to rain death and destruction on Gaza (not to speak of Lebanon) over the past year and a quarter. Before October 7, 2023, when Hamas and other groups attacked southern Israel, that country was receiving $3.8 billion worth of American military aid annually. Since then, the floodgates have opened and $18 billion worth of arms have flowed out. The ghastly results have shocked people and governments across the globe.

In early 2024, the United Nations General Assembly and International Court of Justice condemned the war being waged on the people of Gaza and, in November, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights, and Médecins Sans Frontières all followed with determinations that Israel was indeed committing genocide.

This country’s laws and regulations prohibit aid to military forces deliberately killing or wounding civilians or committing other grave human rights abuses. No matter, the U.S.-to-Israel weapons pipeline has kept right on flowing, completely unchecked. A cornucopia of military funds and hardware for Israel in the early months of the war came from just two nations: 69% from the United States and 30% from Germany.

Were it just about any other country than Israel committing such a genocide, Washington would have cut off arms shipments months ago. But U.S. leaders have long carved out gaping exceptions for Israel. Those policies have contributed mightily to the lethality of the onslaught, which has so far killed at least 52,000 Palestinians, 46,000 of whom are believed to have been civilians. And of those civilian dead, five of every six are also believed to have been women or children. Israeli air strikes and other kinds of bombardment have also destroyed or severely damaged almost half a million housing units, more than 500 schools, just about every hospital in Gaza, and large parts of that region’s food and water systems — all with dire consequences for health and life.

Bombs Leave Their Calling Cards

From October 2023 through October 2024, reports Brett Murphy at ProPublica, 50,000 tons (yes, tons!) of U.S. war matériel were shipped to Israel. A partial list of the munitions included in those shipments has been compiled by the Costs of War Project. The list (which, the project stresses, is far from complete) includes 2,600 250-pound bombs, 8,700 500-pound bombs, and a trove of 16,000 behemoths, each weighing in at 2,000 pounds. In January 2024, Washington also added to Israel’s inventory of U.S.-made F-15 and F-35 fighter jets. Naturally, we taxpayers footed the bill.

As Abigail Hauslohner and Michael Birnbaum of the Washington Post noted in late October, “The pace and volume of weaponry have meant that U.S. munitions make up a substantial portion of Israel’s arsenal, with an American-made fleet of warplanes to deliver the heaviest bombs to their targets.” When confronted with solid evidence that Israel has been using U.S. military aid to commit genocide, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters, “We do not have enough information to reach definitive conclusions about particular incidents or to make legal determinations.”

Really? How much information would be enough then? Isn’t it sufficient to see Israeli forces repeatedly target clinics, homes, hospitals, mosques, and schools with massive, precision-guided bombs? Isn’t it enough when the IDF targets the very “safe zones” in which they have commanded civilians to take shelter, or when they repeatedly bomb and strafe places where people have gathered around aid trucks to try to obtain some small portion of the trickle of food that the Israeli government led by Netanyahu has decided to allow into Gaza?

If the U.S. State Department’s analysts really were having trouble making “definitive conclusions about particular incidents,” then Stephan Semler was ready to lend a hand with a report at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft entitled “20 Times Israel Used U.S. Arms in Likely War Crimes.” Worse yet, his list, he points out, represents only “a small fraction of potential war crimes committed with U.S.-provided weapons,” and all 20 of the attacks he focuses on occurred at locations where no armed resistance forces seemed to be present. Here are a few incidents from the list:

When warplanes bombed a busy market in northern Gaza’s Jabalya refugee camp, killing 69 people in October 2023, U.N. investigators determined that U.S.-made 2,000-pound GBU-31 air-dropped munitions had been used. A couple of weeks later, the U.N. found that “several” GBU-31s were responsible for flattening a built-up area of more than 60,000 square feet within Gaza City, killing 91 people, 39 of them children. A weapon dropped on a residential building last January, killing 18 (including 10 children), left behind a fragment identifying it as a 250-pound Boeing GBU-39. An airstrike on a tent camp for displaced people in Rafah in May, killing 46 people, left behind a GBU-39 tailfin made in Colorado. The next month, a bomb-navigating device manufactured by Honeywell was found in the rubble of a U.N.-run school where 40 people, including 23 women and children, had been killed. In July, more than 90 people were slaughtered in a bombing of the Al-Mawasi refugee camp, an Israeli army-designated “safe zone” near the southwest corner of Gaza. A tailfin found on the scene came from a U.S.-built JDAM guidance system that’s commonly used on 1,000- or 2,000-pound bombs. Also in July, fragments of the motor and guidance system of a Lockheed-Martin Hellfire missile fired from a U.S.-made Apache helicopter were found in the remains of a U.N.-run school where refugees were sheltering. Twenty-two had been killed in the attack.

“Everyone Knew the Rules Were Different for Israel”

In December, a group of Palestinians and Palestinian-Americans filed a lawsuit in federal court accusing the State Department of violating a 1997 act of Congress that prohibits arms transfers to any government that commits gross human rights violations.

As the Guardian reported, a large number of countries “have privately been sanctioned and faced consequences for committing human rights violations” under the act, which is known as the “Leahy law” after its original sponsor, former Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont. But since 2020, a special committee, the Israel Leahy Vetting Forum (ILVF), has decided whether payments or shipments destined for Israel should be permitted. According to the Guardian, Israel has “benefited from extraordinary policies inside the ILVF,” under which arms transfers get a green light no matter how egregiously Israeli occupation forces may have violated human rights. In the words of a former official, “Nobody said it, but everyone knew the rules were different for Israel.”

According to the Post‘s Abigail Hauslohner and Michael Birnbaum, the process of determining whether Israel is using U.S.-supplied weapons to commit war crimes “has become functionally irrelevant, with more senior leaders at the State Department broadly dismissive of non-Israeli sources and unwilling to sign off on action plans” for disallowing aid. A midlevel department official, once stationed in Jerusalem, told Post reporters that senior officials “often dismissed the credibility of Palestinian sources, eyewitness accounts, nongovernmental organizations… and even the United Nations.” So, the arms have continued flowing, with no letup in sight.

In January 2024, Jack Lew, the Biden administration’s ambassador to Israel, sent a cable to top State Department officials urging that they approve the IDF’s request for thousands of GBU-39 bombs. Lew noted that those weapons were more precise and had a smaller blast radius than the 2,000-pound “dumb bombs” Israel had been dropping in the war’s early months. Furthermore, he claimed, their air force had a “decades-long proven track record” of avoiding civilian deaths when using the GBU-39.

That was, unfortunately, pure eyewash. At the time of the cable, Amnesty International had already shown that the Israeli Defense Forces were killing civilians with GBU-39s. The State Department nevertheless accepted Lew’s claims and approved the sale, paving the way for even more missiles and bombs to rain down on Palestinians. In reporting on the Lew cable, ProPublica‘s Brett Murphy wrote, “While the U.S. hoped that the smaller bombs would prevent unnecessary deaths, experts in the laws of war say the size of the bomb doesn’t matter if it kills more civilians than the military target justifies.” That principle implies that when there is no military target, an attack causing even one civilian casualty should be charged as a war crime.

During 2024, with its unrelenting bombardment of Gaza and then Lebanon, too, Israel chewed rapidly through its munition stocks. The Biden administration came to the rescue in late November by approving $680 million in additional munitions deliveries to Israel — and that was just the appetizer. This month, ignoring Israel’s 15 months of brutal attacks on Gaza’s population, the administration notified Congress of plans to provide $8 billion worth of additional arms, including Hellfire missiles, long-range 155-millimeter artillery shells, 500-pound bombs, and much more.

Big Death Tolls Come in Small Packages

International bodies have accused Israel of using not only bombardment but also direct starvation as a weapon, which would qualify as yet another kind of war crime. In early 2024, responding to pressure from advocacy groups, Joe Biden signed a national security memo designated NSM-20. It required the State Department to halt the provision of armaments to any country arbitrarily restricting the delivery of food, medical supplies, or other humanitarian aid to the civilian population of an area where that country is using those armaments. But the memo has made virtually no difference.

In April, the two top federal authorities on humanitarian aid — the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the State Department’s refugee bureau — submitted reports showing that Israel had indeed deliberately blocked food and medical shipments into Gaza. Under NSM-20, such actions should have triggered a cutoff of arms shipments to the offending country. But when the reports touched off a surge of outrage among the department’s rank and file and demands for an arms embargo, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and other top brass steamrolled all objections and approved continued shipments, according to Brett Murphy of ProPublica.

Another dimension of Israel’s war-by-starvation has been illustrated and quantified in a spatial analysis published by the British-based group Forensic Architecture. See, for example, the maps and text on pages 252–258 of their report, which reveal in stark detail the extent to which Israeli forces have ravaged agricultural lands in Gaza. Alongside bombing, shelling, and tank traffic, bulldozers have played an outsized role in the near-obliteration of that area’s food production capacity. The model D-9 bulldozers that are used to demolish Gaza’s buildings and lay waste to her farmland are manufactured by Caterpillar, whose global headquarters is in Texas.

In the early months of the war, Biden administration officials also took advantage of federal law, which doesn’t require that military aid shipments whose dollar value falls below certain limits be reported. They simply ordered that the huge quantities of arms then destined for Israel be split up into ever smaller cargoes. And so it came to pass that, during the first five months of the war, the Biden administration delivered more than 100 loads of arms. In other words, on average during that period, an American vessel laden with “precision-guided munitions, small diameter bombs, bunker busters, small arms and other lethal aid” was being unloaded at an Israeli dock once every 36 hours.

Israeli pilots have used U.S.-built fighter jets for the lion’s share of their airstrikes on Gaza and, by last summer, even more aircraft were needed to sustain such levels of bombing. Of course, jets are too big and expensive to be provided covertly, so, in August, Secretary of State Blinken publicly approved the transfer of nearly $20 billion worth of F-15 jets and other equipment to the IDF. The aircraft account for most of that sum, but the deal also includes hundreds of millions of dollars worth of ground vehicles and tank and mortar ammunition.

In September, Bernie Sanders, who served in Congress alongside Patrick Leahy from 2007 until the latter’s retirement in 2023, further enhanced the good reputation of Vermont senators by introducing three resolutions that would have blocked the State Department’s $20 billion Israel aid package. But when the measures came up for a vote in November, all Republicans, along with two-thirds of Sanders’s fellow Democrats, joined forces to vote them down. So, as always, Israel will continue to get its jets, tanks, and ammo.

With scant political opposition, the new Republican-controlled Congress and Trump White House will undoubtedly only double down on material support for Israel’s war crimes. And they are already threatening people who demonstrate publicly in support of an arms embargo with investigation, prosecution, deportation, or other kinds of attacks. Citing those and other threats, Ben Samuels of Haaretz anticipates that Trump’s promise “to crack down on pro-Palestinian sentiment in America will be a defining factor of his administration’s early days” and that “the fight against the pro-Palestinian movement might be one of the only things that has a clear path across the government” — that is, the suppression could be bipartisan. For the people of Gaza and their American supporters, 2025 could turn out to be even more horrifying than the ghastly year just passed.

Tomdispatch.com

About the Author




Old posts you may have missed

New Solar Installations double to 24.5 Gigawatts in 2024 in India — World’s 5th Largest Economy


New Solar Installations double to 24.5 Gigawatts in 2024 in India — World’s 5th Largest Economy

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – India installed 24.5 new gigawatts of solar power in 2024, along with 3.4 gigawatts of new wind. That represented a doubling of solar installations over 2023. This surge in renewables installations is unprecedented in the country’s history.

In all, India has roughly 100 gigawatts of installed solar capacity. The United States, with an economy 7.5 times as big and vastly more resources, only has 179 gigawatts of solar.

India saw 18.5 gigawatts of new utility-scale solar projects implemented, nearly 3 times as much as in the previous year.

Indians installed 4.59 gigawatts of rooftop solar, impelled by a government program called the Prime Minister’s” Free Electricity Program [Muft Bijli Yojana],” or solar for residences, which was put into effect by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. It successfully promoted 700,000 rooftop solar installations within 10 months of its start. It aims to put rooftop solar on 10 million homes and to spend $8.7 billion.

The big increase in solar installations is thought to be in part because of government incentives and in part because of a steep drop in the price of Chinese solar panels this past year.

India is emerging as one of the more important countries in the world by nominal over-all gross domestic product (GDP). The IMF is projecting its 2025 GDP to be $4,271,922, only a bit less than Japan, which in turn has a somewhat smaller economy than Germany. India is therefore the world’s fifth largest economy, ahead of Britain, France, Italy and Canada. Of course, India’s enormous population is such that its per capital GDP is small. But if we are talking about the place of the country as a whole, it is becoming one of the leading world economies.


“Rashtrapati Bhavan,” Digtial, Dream / Dream v3, Clip2Comic, 2024

India’s transition to green energy is therefore consequential. It is currently the third largest emitter of greenhouse gases after China and the United States. Again, its per capita emissions are small.

Renewables make up 43.6% of the Indian electricity grid, a more impressive number than can be offered by China or the United States. It amounts to 209 gigawatts in total. India hopes to put in 500 gigawatts of renewables by 2030.

Total installed renewable capacity surged nearly 14% in 2024.

India imports half of the natural gas it uses, and spent some $15 billion a year on these imports in 2024. The Financial Express reports that India’s natural gas import costs rose by 18.5% last year, reaching $7.7 billion in the first half of the current fiscal year. That was up from $6.5 billion in the same period last year. This increase is attributed to a higher demand, particularly from city gas distribution companies and the power sector.

India is still poor on a per capita basis and would benefit from not having to spend $14 billion a year on fossil gas imports, especially since it could have the same energy for free from the sun.

Further, being beholden to Trump, the UAE, and Nigeria for imports of Liquefied Natural Gas is a security issue for India, which has such abundant solar that it does not need to put itself in that situation. US sanctions have already forced India to back off imports of Russian fossil gas.

About the Author

Juan Cole is the founder and chief editor of Informed Comment. He is Richard P. Mitchell Professor of History at the University of Michigan He is author of, among many other books, Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires and The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. Follow him on Twitter at @jricole or the Informed Comment Facebook Page



Israel’s Gaza War has cost Tel Aviv $67 Bn., Diverting NatGas Revenues from Health and Education to Military

2024’s extreme Ocean Heat breaks Records again, leaving 2 Mysteries to solve

Palestinian Deaths from Military attacks in Gaza 69% Higher than Estimated, 60% Women, Children, Elderly

Israel destroyed Gaza for Generations to come, and the World stayed Silent

L. A. Fires show the Human Cost of Climate-Driven ‘Whiplash’ between Wet and Dry Extremes

The Center of the World: A Global History of the Persian Gulf

No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.

Trump GOES MUTE as he HIDES on DISASTER SATURDAY

  MeidasTouch 4.56M subscribers MeidasTouch host Ben Meiselas reports on Donald Trump running away to his bunker in Mar-A-Lago on Saturday a...