World Briefing: March 17, 2025

US President Donald Trump announced to reporters that he will be speaking to Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday, BBC reported. He said “a lot of work” has been done over the weekend, and they will see if they have “something to announce” on Tuesday. It comes one week after US and Ukraine delegates met in Saudi Arabia, where they announced the prospect of a 30-day ceasefire - the first step to ending the war. However, the US is still trying to convince Russia to agree. On the talks with Putin, Trump says: “I think we’ll be talking about land. It’s a lot different than it was before the war, as you know. We’ll be talking about power plants, that’s a big question. “But I think we have a lot of it already discussed very much by both sides, Ukraine and Russia. We’re already talking about that, dividing up certain assets and they’ve been working on that.” He adds: “We want to see if we can bring that war to an end. Maybe we can, maybe we can’t, but I think we have a very good chance.” Separately, in news that came as a shock in Ukraine and created headlines, Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, told CBS’ Face the Nation that, as part of a potential ceasefire deal with Russia, the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, access to ports, and “the Black Sea potential agreement” would be on the table. Those items have not come up previously. The Zaporizhzhia NPP is Europe’s largest and has been occupied by Russia for quite some time, a period during which several emergency alarms were sounded due to shelling or other damage.

The Justice Department has quietly informed European officials that the United States is withdrawing from a multinational group created to investigate leaders responsible for the invasion of Ukraine, including President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, according to people familiar with the situation. The decision to withdraw from the International Center for the Prosecution of the Crime of Aggression against Ukraine, which the Biden administration joined in 2023, is the latest indication of the Trump administration’s move away from President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s commitment to holding Mr. Putin personally accountable for crimes committed against Ukrainians. The group was created to hold the leadership of Russia, along with its allies in Belarus, North Korea and Iran, accountable for a category of crimes — defined as aggression under international law and treaties that violates another country’s sovereignty and is not initiated in self-defense. The decision, the people familiar with the situation said, is expected to be announced on Monday in an email to the staff and membership of the group’s parent organization, the European Union Agency for Criminal Justice Cooperation, better known as Eurojust - NYT

U.S. President Donald Trump’s move to stop financing U.S.-funded media including Voice of America (VOA) and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) is stirring anger and indignation. On Saturday, journalists from VOA, RFE/RL and other U.S.-funded media outlets were put on leave or otherwise told to stop work after Trump moved to effectively freeze funding to media that have correspondents all over the world and provide coverage of regions including Eastern Europe and Central Asia. “These media outlets have been a beacon of truth, democracy, and hope for millions of people around the world,” the European Commission told POLITICO on Sunday. “In an age of unmoderated content and fake news, journalism and freedom of press are critical for democracy,” it said. “This decision risks benefiting our common adversaries,” the EU executive added. “I am deeply saddened that for the first time in 83 years, the storied Voice of America is being silenced,” VOA’s director Michael Abramowitz said on Saturday, announcing that more than 1,300 VOA journalists and employees, including himself, have been placed on administrative leave. Trump on Friday signed an executive order to reduce to the minimum the functions of several agencies, including the United States Agency for Global Media (USAGM,) which oversees media including VOA, RFE/RL, Office of Cuba Broadcasting, Radio Free Asia and Middle East Broadcasting Networks. “The cancellation of the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty grant agreement will be a huge gift to America’s enemies,” RFE/RL President and CEO Stephen Capus said on Saturday. “The Iranian Ayatollahs, Chinese communist leaders, and autocrats in Moscow and Minsk would celebrate the demise of RFE/RL after 75 years. Handing our adversaries a win would make them stronger and America weaker,” Capus said. VOA and RFE/RL are designated as undesirable foreign organizations by Russia - Politico

As of Monday, the VOA livestreams had gone dark and news stories on its site hadn’t been updated since Saturday. Staff said they have been locked out of business email accounts and that they had little information about their future, other than what they read in the media.

More than 200 Venezuelans alleged by the White House to be gang members have been deported from the US to a supermax prison in El Salvador, even as a US judge blocked the removals. El Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele wrote on social media that 238 members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua had arrived in the Central American country, along with 23 members of the international MS-13 gang, on Sunday morning. Neither the US government nor El Salvador has identified the detainees, nor provided details of their alleged criminality or gang membership. A federal judge’s order prevented the Trump administration from invoking a centuries-old wartime law to justify some of the deportations, but the flights had already departed. “Oopsie... Too late,” posted Bukele on social media, referring to the judge’s ruling. A video attached to one of his posts shows lines of people with their hands and feet shackled being escorted by armed officials from the planes. - BBC

The authorities and citizens of North Macedonia are searching for answers amid the carnage of a nightclub fire that killed at least 59 people and injured more than 150 others, as questions arise about the legality of the venue’s license to operation. The death toll is likely to increase, Health Minister Arben Taravari said a day after the deadly March 15 blaze stunned the town of Kocani, as messages of condolences flowed in from neighboring nations, the European Union, and the United States, among others. Officials said a pyrotechnic display used during a concert by the band DNA late on March 15 ignited the blaze in the crowded club, which authorities say they suspect did not have proper license to operate. “We have a reason to believe graft and corruption were involved in this case,” Interior Minister Panche Toshkovski told a news conference. He said the ceiling at the Pulse nightclub was made of flammable material that caught fire from the pyrotechnic sparks and that thick smoke quickly spread throughout the building. Video posted on social media showed towering flames reaching up out of the building’s roof. “There were about 500 persons in the club -- 250 tickets had been sold,” he said - RFE/RL

Serbian officials denied Sunday that security forces used a military-grade sonic weapon to disperse and scare protesters at a huge anti-government rally in the capital. Opposition officials and Serbian rights groups claimed the widely banned acoustic weapon that emits a targeted beam to temporarily incapacitate people was used during the protest Saturday. They say they will file charges with the European Court of Human Rights and domestic courts against those who ordered the attack. Serbia has not denied that it has the acoustic device in its arsenal. At least 100,000 people descended on Belgrade on Saturday for a mass rally seen as a culmination of monthslong protests against Serbia’s populist President Aleksandar Vucic and his government. The rally was part of a nationwide anti-corruption movement that erupted after a concrete canopy collapsed at a train station in Serbia’s north in November, killing 15 people - AP

Facebook founder Mark Zucerberg and umbrella company Meta don’t want you to read the new blockbuster book Careless People, written by a former Meta director. They’ve obtained a temporary injunction preventing its author, Sarah Wynn-Williams, from doing any further promotion of book, although UK publication went ahead - now reaching No 4 on Amazon print bestsellers. Among many revealing passages, she explained just the length Zuckerberg went to ingratiate himself with Chinese Presdient Xi Jinping. In 2015, Zuckerberg, who speaks some Mandarin, asked Xi if he would “do him the honour of naming his unborn child”. Xi refused - according to Wynn-Williams. But Myanmar is where Wynn-Williams thinks the “carelessness” of Facebook was most egregious. In 2018, UN human rights experts said it had helped spread hate speech against Rohingya Muslims, about 25,000 of whom were slaughtered by Burmese military and nationalists.

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