World Briefing: March 27, 2025
If you’ve any affiliation with mainstream media - or just a fan of public broadcasting- and woke up this morning to read the headlines emanating out of Washington, the rest of your day may appear pretty dark! Made even more so but the outrageous attack on journalists by one of President Donald Trump’s fiercest attack dogs and DOGE sub-committee chairwoman, Marjorie Taylor Greene.
“We don’t give a crap about your opinion or your reporting,” Greene said to a Sky News journalist Martha Kelner questioning her about Signalgate and the complete disregard for operational security among top members of Donald Trump’s national security team. “Why don’t you go back to your country where you have a major migrant problem. You should take care of your own borders…What about all the women who are raped by migrants?” When pressed by the female reporter, Greene lashed out: “I don’t care about your fake news.”
Well it gets worse. A lot worse!
Greene and her pack yesterday used a DOGE subcommittee hearing to call for the defunding and dismantling of the company that provides NPR and PBS with federal funds, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, CNN reported. It’s the two networks I and many others hold in the highest regard. Both have a long lineup of awards to show for it. The hearing was titled, “Anti-American Airwaves: Holding the heads of NPR and PBS Accountable.”
Trump on said Tuesday that the networks are a “waste of money” and claimed “he would love to” defund them, CNN reported. The CPB received in advance $535 million and it disburses funds to 1,500 local radio and TV stations.
At the hearing, Taylor Greene accusing the heads of NPR and PBS of “grooming and sexualizing” children, using DEI for listener demographics, and wasting taxpayer dollars, CNN reported.
At one point, in an exchange harkening back to McCarthy-era hearings on left-leaning Americans, Rep. Robert Garcia, D-Calif., asked PBS CEO Paula Kerger if the Sesame Street character Elmo was a communist? "No" she replied. Garcia: "Are you sure Ms. Kerger? Because he is red.” Kerger replied: Well, he is a puppet, but no.”
Reporters Without Borders executive director Clayton Weimars said he was “deeply concerned the House hearing on bias in NPR and PBS is a political stunt that will create a slippery slope towards politicians dictating the programming of public news outlets.”
A reminder that Trump recently signed executive orders halting funding to Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL). However the Prague-based RFE/RL won a reprieve after a US court issued an order blocking the liquidation of the media organization, saying it likely violated federal law.
In other news…
President Trump said on Wednesday that he would impose a 25 percent tariff on cars and car parts that were imported into the United States, a move that is likely to raise prices for American consumers and throw supply chains into disarray as the president seeks to bolster U.S. manufacturing. The tariffs will go into effect on April 3 and apply both to finished cars and trucks that are shipped into the United States and to imported parts that are assembled into cars at American auto plants. Those tariffs will hit foreign brands as well as American ones, like Ford Motor and General Motors, which build some of their vehicles in Canada or Mexico. Nearly half of all vehicles sold in the United States are imported, as well as nearly 60 percent of the parts in vehicles assembled in the United States. That means the tariffs could push up car prices significantly when inflation has already made cars and trucks more expensive for American consumers. During remarks at the White House, Mr. Trump said the tariffs would encourage auto companies and their suppliers to set up shop in the United States. “Anybody who has plants in the United States, it’s going to be good for,” he said. But the auto industry is global and has been built up around trade agreements that allow factories in different countries to specialize in certain parts or types of cars, with the expectation that they would face little to no tariffs. That has been particularly true for North America, where national auto sectors have been stitched together by trade agreements since the 1960s. Mexico is the largest source of vehicle imports in the United States, followed by Japan, South Korea, Canada and Germany. Stock markets fell on news that the auto tariffs would be imposed. Shares of major carmakers tumbled further in after-hours trading, after the White House clarified that the tariffs would also cover imported auto parts. General Motors was down nearly 7 percent and Ford and Stellantis were more than 4 percent lower after the markets closed. Tesla’s stock fell 1 percent in extended trading - NYT
Donald Trump's most important security advisers used Signal to discuss an imminent military strike. Now, reporting by DER SPIEGEL has found that the contact data of some of those officials, including mobile phone numbers, is freely accessible on the internet. The reporters used commercial people search engines along with hacked customer data that has been published on the web. Those affected by the leaks include National Security Adviser Mike Waltz, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. Most of these numbers and email addresses are apparently still in use, with some of them linked to profiles on social media platforms like Instagram and LinkedIn. They were used to create Dropbox accounts and profiles in apps that track running data. There are also WhatsApp profiles for the respective phone numbers and even Signal accounts in some cases. As such, the reporting has revealed an additional grave, previously unknown security breach at the highest levels in Washington. Hostile intelligence services could use this publicly available data to hack the communications of those affected by installing spyware on their devices. It is thus conceivable that foreign agents were privy to the Signal chat group in which Gabbard, Waltz and Hegseth discussed a military strike, the German newspaper reported.
Thousands of Palestinians marched between the wreckage of a heavily destroyed town in northern Gaza on Wednesday in the second day of anti-war protests, with many chanting against Hamas in a rare display of public anger against the militant group. The protests, which centered mainly on Gaza’s north, appeared to be aimed generally against the war, with protesters calling for an end to 17 months of deadly fighting with Israel that has made life in Gaza insufferable. But protesters also leveled unusually direct and public criticism of Hamas, which has quashed dissent violently in the past in Gaza, a territory it still rules months into the war with Israel. In the town of Beit Lahiya, where a similar protest took place Tuesday, about 3,000 people demonstrated, with many chanting “the people want the fall of Hamas.” In the hard-hit Shijaiyah neighborhood of Gaza City, dozens of men chanted “Out, out out! Hamas get out!” - AP
Washington and Moscow are in talks to revive the Nord Stream gas pipelines, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said, as the Kremlin vies to regain a foothold in Europe amid the prospect of a ceasefire in Ukraine. The Nord Stream pipelines, which previously carried gas from Russia to Germany via pipelines under the Baltic Sea, were blown up in an apparent act of sabotage in late 2022. "There is talk about the Nord Streams," Lavrov told Russia’s state-controlled Channel One TV station, according to a readout shared by his ministry Wednesday. "It will probably be interesting if the Americans use their influence on Europe and force it not to refuse Russian gas." “It’s bad for Europe,” said one EU diplomat, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly. “If Europe wants to support Ukraine, why get [back on] Russian gas?” The fact the Nord Stream talks are happening without European involvement is “insane,” they added. This should be a “strict European question,” added a second EU diplomat. At the same time, the move is prompting concerns around giving Trump’s administration new leverage over the bloc. “They want to squeeze us into a corner” with an “additional layer of dependency,” said a third EU diplomat. It’s “economic imperialism,” they added - Politico
Firefighters are racing to save people and ancient artefacts from the largest wildfires in South Korea's history, which have killed at least 26 people so far. Tens of thousands have also been displaced in the blazes, which started in the south-east on 21 March. Most of those killed were in their 60s and 70s, local officials say. Eyewitnesses described apocalyptic scenes as fires engulfed their homes, with one man telling the BBC the damage in his city has been "devastating". Authorities believe human activities started multiple fires, but strong winds and dry land allowed them to spread quickly. The winds also make it dangerous for helicopters to operate - one crashed while fighting the fires on Tuesday. The fires have gutted a 1,300-year-old temple in Uiseong city and are threatening other cultural sites - BBC
