WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - The State of the World: Fertilizer, Fire, and Force

Episode Date: March 27, 2025

The State of the World breaks down top headlines in Europe, Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and the Western Hemisphere. Key topics include Russia-Ukraine peace negotiations, South Korean wildfires, Turkish protests, Burundi-Rwanda negotiations, and Panamanian copper.

Hello, my name is Aaron Osborne, and this is the state of the world on WRFH 101.7 FM, where we discuss international news and top headlines from around the world in the past week. Starting off with Europe, after a series of negotiations in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Russia and Ukraine have agreed to expand their limited ceasefire to include the Black Sea. Previous ceasefire negotiations focused on energy infrastructure. The United States has also agreed to help Russia. access world markets for fertilizer and agricultural products, according to the Washington Post. In exchange, America will continue to help Ukraine with prisoner exchanges and the recovery of kidnapped children. Russia also seeks the removal of banking limitations and sanctions, which have been imposed on the country after the start of the war. And in Western Europe, the European Commission announced that it is limiting tariff-free steel imports by its member states in a protectionist effort.

In Asian news, South Korea has been experiencing deadly wildfires, which endanger over 200,000 people. The fires have already burned over 36,000 acres of the East Asian country. In other South Korean news, South Korea's Constitutional Court reinstated the Prime Minister on March 24th. The reinstitution overturned the National Assembly's impeachment vote during a period of martial law in December. The president also impeached in December. has yet to be reinstated. Shifting to China, China has released all detained employees of the United States business Minsk Group, whom were taken during a 2023 raid, according to Wall Street Journal.

The Minsk Group offers corporate investigations and background checks, which had the potential to run in conflict with Beijing's national security and data management regulations. The Israeli conflict in Gaza has been heating up as Netanyahu plans a major ground offensive in Gaza, according to the Wall Street Journal. The news aligns with Netanyahu's assessment that Hamas will only relent if defeated on the battlefield. The terrorist organization still holds hostages that acclaimed in October 7th a couple years ago. Israel has also reintroduced targeted airstrikes on Hamas's political and military leadership. The resumption of hostilities, however, has been met with international criticism.

And in Turkey, more than 1,000 people have been detained following major demonstrations in Istanbul, according to the Washington Post. The president claimed that over 120 security personnel have been injured, while the protests largely center on the jailing of the president's main political challenger under suspicion of corruption. The country held primary elections last week, and the sitting president has been in power for 22 years. In the African country of Burundi, the Burundian president told the BBC that Rwanda Plans, to attack his country. He claimed that Rwanda previously planned a coup a decade ago and is supporting the

recently resurgent Reddit-Tobara rebel group. Rwanda has recently come under criticism for support of the M23 rebel group in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, with which it denies involvement. M23 has been ticking territory in the east of the country. And in Sudan, a war monitoring organization accused the rapid support forces military of killing hundreds of people in an airstrike on a market in the Western Darfur region. The military denies targeting civilians, but Reuters said that the rapid support forces has also placed restrictions on aid deliveries as it seeks to perform a parallel

government in Western Sudan while losing ground in the capital of Khartoum. Last but not least in the Western Hemisphere, there's been a lot of news in Panama this week. The Panamanian president is in discussions to reopen a large copper mine, which accounted for nearly 5% of Panamanian GDP in the last year of its operation. The mine was temporarily closed in 2022 after political troubles, according to the Associated Press, although it began negotiations to reopen in 2023. There was also a 6.2 magnitude earthquake off of Panama's coast on March 23rd, although damage was limited. And following up on the state of emergency in Peru that we discussed last week,

Peru's Congress voted to remove the Interior Minister Juan Jose Santivaynez due to his inability to handle rising crime. The country is still in a state of emergency. That's all for this week. My name is Aaron Osborne, and this is the state of the world on WRFH Radio Free Hillsdale 101.1.1.7 FM.