Global News Podcast - Judge says US government could be in contempt over deportation flights

Episode Date: April 17, 2025

The Trump administration is accused of "wilful disregard" of a ruling blocking the deportation of alleged gang members to El Salvador. Also: new speed climbing record set in the Swiss Alps.

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Jackie Leonard and in the early hours of Thursday, the 17th of April, these are our main stories. A US judge says he's found probable cause to hold the Trump administration in contempt of court for disregarding his order to halt the deportation of Venezuelan migrants. The head of the World Trade Organization says international trade will be hit hard by President Trump's tariffs and poor countries will suffer disproportionately. And the UN's top non-proliferation official says Iran is not far from developing a nuclear

weapon. Also in this podcast, the mountaineers who broke the record for scaling the north face of the Aiger in the Swiss Alps. We hoped that we have maybe around 19 to 21 hours, but you were so fast that we climbed in 15 and a half. It was kind of insane. It was kind of insane. Throughout his campaign, President Trump promised voters he would get tough on immigration, pledging mass deportations of millions of people living in the US without authorisation. And in March, the administration used an obscure wartime law to deport a group of migrants it alleges

were Venezuelan gang members to a mega prison in El Salvador. That's despite a US judge ordering the flight to be turned around. Now that judge, James Boesberg, has said that the Trump administration could be in contempt of court for disregarding his order. Our North America correspondent, Kwan told us more about what the judge said. Jake Kwan, North American Correspondent, North America Well, the judge is saying that the White House must explain itself on why it did not follow

the judge's order. I mean, when the judge gave this order to turn the flight around, the White House had said that, oh, the flight's already left. They could not turn the flight back around because already in the air. Now, the judge is saying that he does not buy this argument and that he could potentially find the White House in contempt and he gave deadline until next week to explain itself and explain exactly what the White House is doing to rectify itself to explain how they're fixing the problem. Okay, so what do we expect to happen now? What movement happens next? So the White House said that they will appeal this order, that they will take it to the higher court, seek a different judge and that it could even potentially impeach the judge.

And then the judge is also in the order that he was giving, is that he will find individuals potentially to punish them on which officials are the ones responsible for not following his order. Now what complicates the matter is that this punishment is supposed to be done by the Justice Department, which ultimately answers to Mr. Donald Trump. So you see, we are in a place where the White House ultimately will have to punish itself. Okay, so how significant is what's happened today? So if you speak to the legal experts, if you speak to the analysts, what we're seeing is inching towards this potential constitutional crisis. Some people have been using these words to say because in the Constitution of the United States, there isn't

exactly spelling out what should be done when the White House and the judges do not agree. Normally the White House is supposed to take the order and carry those out and simply interpreting it. But at this point, they have been taking a very strong approach to interpreting what the judge's order means and these judges are also frustrated because they think that the White House is not following the orders or they're not compliant. We may not be there yet but we obviously seems to be lurching towards that end. An interesting one to watch certainly and Mr. Trump's press secretary Caroline Levitt gave a news conference at the White House on Wednesday evening. What

more can you tell us? In the news conference she first of all she called this a very kind of sudden. It was not a scheduled news conference and she appeared and she wanted to start talking about the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia which is a separate case from the 200 migrants who were sent to Seacot. and she appeared and she wanted to start talking about the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, which is a separate case from the 200 migrants who were sent to Seacot. Now Mr. Abrego Garcia was deported summarily after three days being picked up on the traffic stop and he did not get a chance to appeal the decision. He's now sent to a mega prison in El Salvador and the judge who is presiding over this issue

had ordered the White House to facilitate his return. And White House is today making it very clear that Mr. Robert Garcia is never coming back in the words of the press secretary. And they're saying that they have a major mandate by the US voters to enact this policy of mega mass deportation and they will stay on the course no matter what and they painted Mr. Arbogo Garcia as this domestic abuser. They used the word woman beater and pretty much saying that shame on you whoever wants to argue that this man should be brought back.

NICOLA COLE-CLEMENT, The Washington Post, The Washington Post, Jake Kwan in Washington. The outlook for global trade has deteriorated sharply, a warning from the World Trade Organization in the wake of the tariffs imposed by the United States. The Director-General of the WTO, Isengosi Okonjo-Owala. We project that global merchandise trade volumes will decline by 0.2% in 2025, nearly three percentage points below the level we would have expected without recent trade policy shifts.

This downward revision reflects the combined impact of newly introduced tariffs and heightened uncertainty affecting trade relations with the United States. The US has imposed tariffs of 10% on almost all imports with much higher rates for China totalling 145% and on specific sectors including cars and steel. The WTO expects the biggest impact of the policy to be a sharp decline in trade with the US with other regions still expected to see growth. Our correspondent in Geneva, Imogen Fokes, is following developments. You heard the head of the WTO there stressing uncertainty and that is one of the key things they are concerned about, is that this 0.2% fall in global trade doesn't sound like a

lot but it will hit some countries harder than others. But this is based on tariffs, general tariffs staying at 10%, and not this long list of very punitive tariffs. You remember the poster that Donald Trump held up in the Rose Garden. They're on pause for 90 days, but if they were to come in, then the whole outlook would be even bleaker than what the WTO outlined today with a big, big fall in global trade, probably a fall in global GDP, perhaps even a global economic recession. So the WTO is urging common sense here. So it's urging common sense. What is it actually proposing to do to respond to the situation? Well, one of the things that WTO

points out is that although the US is of course the world's biggest economy it doesn't account for the majority of global trade and over 70% of global trade is still regulated under WTO rules of most favoured nation. So what the organization wants is countries to talk to each other, diversify so that the countries aren't really reliant all the time on America, particularly in the global south. There needs to be more South-South trade to seize the opportunity to do that and don't rely just on one or two economic superpowers because as we're seeing now they can be quite dangerously unpredictable. Imogen folks, viral videos on social media featuring people who say they work in manufacturing in China are claiming that luxury European brands are actually making their goods there. The posts appear to be an attempt by some Chinese makers to sell their products

direct to consumers in response to the massive tariffs imposed on China by President Trump earlier this month. Jake Horton from BBC Verify has been exploring the claims. Videos are being shared widely on social media, raising questions about where European designer goods are made. The clips are being posted on platforms like TikTok. They take almost finished bags from China factories, back to their own factories, and just do the repackaging and logo installing. For something to be labeled Made in Europe,

it has to go through its last substantial transformation there, according to EU rules. That means simply adding a logo or packaging in France or Italy isn't enough for a Made in Europe label, according to experts. There's no clear guidelines on how much of a product needs to be made in Europe for that label to apply. So some production often happens in places like China, even for luxury goods. Despite this, many luxury companies don't mention China in their manufacturing information online. Louis Vuitton, for example, says its leather goods are exclusively produced

in workshops in Europe and the US. And Gucci says 95% of its manufacturers are based in Italy. Sportswear manufacturer Lululemon has told the BBC that 3% of its final goods are made in China, but added it doesn't work with the manufacturers featured in the videos spreading online. Jake Horton from BBC Verify. And staying with financial matters, distressed Nigerians are posting social media videos of themselves in tears after being locked out of their accounts on the digital investment platform CBEX.

Investors were unable to access their accounts last week ahead of the platform's collapse and a great many people fear that all their money's gone. Now Interpol has joined the investigation into an alleged fraud worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Our reporter Chris Awoko is in the Nigerian capital, Abuja. its investors, CBEX's public goal was to help people earn significant profit by trading cryptocurrencies using an advanced artificial intelligence system. Reports indicate that an estimated 250 to 300,000 Nigerians invested their money in CBEX. So 250 to 300,000 Nigerians invested. What's happened to their money? How has it unraveled? What is the company saying?

CBEX claimed to be a global platform and was said to be linked to government-owned businesses in China. However, Beijing Equity Exchange in a statement sometime last year denied any affiliation with the company. And in reality, the genuine Beijing Equity Exchange had no connection with CBEX and even warned people about the theft of its name. Meanwhile, no real branches existed outside of Nigeria. So on a daily basis, user had to log in to see their profits and recruit new members. But there was no evidence of real venture capital firms or banks back in the CBX.

So the investors in Nigeria were mostly ordinary people. Now, early April this month, withdrawals from the CBX platform slowed. People were not able to withdraw their funds from their wallets. The operators then introduced a verification fee of up to $100 or $200 to unlock users' accounts. Then eventually the platform finally collapsed with some reports claiming that Nigerians may have lost up to $800 million. So what are the Nigerian authorities saying about it? The Nigerian Economic and Financial Crimes Commission has now listed CBEX among the dozens of suspicious Ponzi schemes and

following its collapse the EFCC has announced it will collaborate with Interpol to crack down on the masterminds and people behind this scheme. Chris Ewoko in Abuja. The director of the UN's nuclear watchdog, the IAEA, has said that Iran is not far from developing a nuclear bomb. Rafael Grossi likened the development of nuclear weapons to a jigsaw, saying Iran has the pieces and could eventually put it together. Mr Grossi made his remarks before arriving in Tehran on Wednesday for a two-day visit,

a trip that comes ahead of a second round of talks between Iran and the United States on Saturday, a week after the two countries held their highest-level talks since President Trump abandoned the nuclear deal in 2018. The US has demanded that Tehran stops all enrichment of uranium for its nuclear program but Iran says its right to do this is non-negotiable. So how important is this IAEA visit ahead of the next round of US Iranian talks? Paul Henley spoke to Eric Brewer, a deputy vice ahead of the next round of US-Iranian talks. Paul Henley spoke to Eric Brewer, a deputy vice president

of the Nuclear Materials Security Program in Washington DC. You put your finger on it, right? I mean, that's really the key here. This is all happening in the background of US-Iran talks. And so I think one of Grossi's goals in going to Iran, I think, is to figure out where things stand in the talks between the US and Iran. And I think perhaps of Grossi's goals in going to Iran, I think, is to figure out where things stand in the talks between the US and Iran. And I think perhaps to gauge Iran's willingness

to take some steps to improve the monitoring and verification of its program. But in addition to the talks though, there's another important deadline coming up. In the next few months, the IAEA will be issuing a comprehensive report on concerns they have over several sites in Iran that potentially house nuclear materials or activities that Iran should have declared

to the agency. Most of this probably stems from Iran's past nuclear weapons program before 2004, but so far Iran hasn't provided any answers. And so I suspect that Grossi may be going there in part to lay out where that report is headed and to try to see if Iran is willing to provide any cooperation on that front. So this is an important meeting in the sense that this is kind of a check-in to see what Iran is thinking in terms of how much cooperation it might be willing to provide. There are mixed messages, to say the least, coming out of Washington, aren't there?

There was a deal that Trump pulled out of in 2018. He's now said to want a new deal. What's his bottom line? So that's a great question because the Trump administration has kind of gone back and forth on what their goal is. Originally when Trump's envoy, Steve Wittkopf, went to Oman and when he came back, he focused on this idea of monitoring and verification and on capping and limiting Iran's enrichment programme rather than seeking to dismantle it entirely.

And of course, since he's come back, that's kind of the line that we hear out of the Trump administration today is that they're seeking the full dismantlement of Iran's nuclear program. What's kind of known as the so-called Libya model, right? Because it's based on the decision that Muammar Gaddafi made in 2003

where he abandoned his entire nuclear program. But Iran is not Libya. Iran has a massive, expansive nuclear program that's very, very advanced today. It has almost no faith that the United States will abide by its commitment. So to ask Iran to totally abandon its nuclear program is not realistic, right?

It's been tried by both Obama and by the previous Trump administration. And it didn't work in either case. So I think instead the United States should focus on getting some commitment from Iran to roll back that enrichment program and other parts of its program and to impose strict limits on monitoring of that program and strict verification requirements. And the other point I would add is that it's not just about enrichment. Given where Iran is at today, we also need to focus a lot on weaponization. And so that's all of the other steps that Iran has to take in order to actually build

that device. Having limits on those, having an ability to monitor them in a really robust way is critical to the success of any deal. Eric Brewer from the Nuclear Materials Security Program in Washington. Now to sport, West Africa could soon see an increase in the number of women football coaches, many of them former prisoners. Over the past few months, the Confederation for African Football has been running the Football for Reform Program in women's prisons across Ghana, Sierra Leone and Liberia,

giving inmates the skills they need to become coaches when they leave prison. The BBC's Mimi Faroaz spoke to the woman who pioneered the project and some of the prisoners who are taking part. This is a football coaching session like no other. 25 female prisoners are on the pitch in Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone. They are part of a football for reform program run by the Confederation for African Football. The aim is to turn them into football coaches. I had to make a change and football was a massive tool that I had at my disposal. Aisha Johansson, the former president of the Sierra Leone Football Association, has been the pioneer for the project

which is also in Ghana and Liberia. She was inspired to start it after a visit to one of three towns correctional facilities. It was seeing very young girls, teenage girls, 90% of those inmates were in there. You know, it was poverty or crimes of passion, petty crimes, doing five, six, eight years. That struck me and they had no business being there whatsoever. The eight-day program trains women on the rules of football and basic coaching skills. Aisha hopes that the program will help women rebuild their lives once they leave prison. What I'd like to see is that when these girls go back, they come out against society, they don't end up coming back again. When they come out, they've got skills, they can go to the football

federation, they can get a job as a coach. They can go and coach in schools. It's about using football for positive social change. Football is so much more than 90 minutes on the pitch. Football is so much more and this is an example of that. For the female inmates, the qualification has meant a lot. It was something great, more than the world great. To make this training possible, to achieve it until I get my certificate, proud of that. Over in Accra, Ghana's capital, female inmates at Nsaoam Prison, the largest women's prison in Ghana, have also benefited from the program.

Being in prison here is very complicated for us. They're controlling us and it gives us a headache. Coaching is my passion. So when we heard they're coming to teach us, I was so glad to be part of it. During this course, we acquire so much knowledge, like dribbling techniques. I wish if I go out, I will get an opportunity to be part of it and to teach other people. Aisha's dream is for female prisoners across Africa to be able to take part in the coaching course.

For her, rehabilitation and reform for these women are the real goals. Mimi Fawaz reporting on Football for Reform, a programme in place across West Africa, Ghana, Sierra Leone and Liberia. Still to come, why some Boeing passenger planes need their toilet door modifying. If there'd been a severe case of turbulence or another emergency in the cabin, the passenger who was trapped would have been at serious risk. Unless you've been hiding under a very large pixelated rock, you've probably heard of Minecraft. It's the best-selling video game of all time, and the franchise's first feature film is

in cinemas now. But how much do you know about the game's creator, software developer Marcus Persson? Find out about the man behind Minecraft on Good Bad Billionaire, the podcast exploring the minds, motives and money of some of the world's richest individuals. Good Bad Billionaire from the BBC World Service. Listen now wherever you get your BBC podcasts. Israel is pressing ahead with its military offensive into Gaza. The IDF says it's seized 30% of land in the territory for what it calls a security buffer zone

to counter Hamas attacks. Israel says its troops will remain there even after any agreement to end the war. The United Nations estimates that since hostilities resumed last month, half a million Palestinians have been displaced. Our correspondent in Jerusalem is Gary O'Donoghue. This is something that Israel has been developing

for some time so if you think about Gaza this sort of long strip of land on its western edge is the sea and effectively looping around from around the Israeli border from the north down the eastern side and then along the border with Egypt at the bottom has been this sort of buffer zone that they've now expanded inwards into Gaza up to two kilometres but also Israel has been clearing these east-west routes. There's now three of them from north to south and in the south in particular they've been expanding these so-called security zones to include the southern city of Rafa. So it does

mean that they're now designating under their own, as I say, their own designation around 30% of the strippers their own zones and they've been moving the population out of these areas towards the coast to Al Mouassi particularly in the south and that is what is concerning humanitarian organizations in particular because people are being moved away from what homes are left into very, very temporary accommodation with the food running out. We've heard from Palestinian officials about 24 people being killed in an Israeli strike on Gaza City.

What can you tell us? Yeah, particularly devastating night. This is east of Gaza, 10 members of one family, a lot of people who died during Wednesday were women and children and it continues this patterns that we've seen since the end of the ceasefire on the 18th of March with repeated airstrikes. That was Gary O'Donoghue in Jerusalem. Now in the last edition of the Global News podcast we told you about a landmark Supreme Court ruling here in the UK that the legal definition of a woman is based on biological sex. And since then there has been a lot of reaction. Transgender rights activists have expressed dismay. Trans campaigner

India Willoughby called it degrading and the death of transgender rights in Britain. Women's rights campaigners described the ruling as a victory for biology for common sense. Maya Forstater is among them. Public bodies, the UK government, Scottish government, Welsh government, every local council, every employer and all the organisations that advise them and the Equality and Human Rights Commission are going to have to throw their old policies in the bin and start again from scratch. The ruling is likely to have implications for the running of single-sex spaces and services such as hospital wards, prisons, refuges and support groups.

But the judge stressed that transgender people are still protected against discrimination under the Equality Act. The Supreme Court's ruling comes after what has been a bitter debate about how the rights of women and transgender people should be balanced. Here's our social affairs editor, Alison Holt. As the dust settles after today's Supreme Court judgment on gender, the main thing we can take away from it is that it has provided much greater clarity than most expected. In the Equality Act, the term woman means a biological

woman. The importance of that statement can't be understated after years of often angry argument between feminist and trans rights campaigners. The ruling spelt out that if a space or service is designated for women only, a person who was born male but transitioned to female does not have a right to use it. That covers changing rooms, toilets and other similar spaces. But the justices also emphasise that transgender people have existing protections against discrimination and harassment under a separate category in the Act. Exactly what this is all going to mean in practical terms is going to take longer to work out.

Equality guidance already allows for single sex spaces and makes it clear this means biological women. Nevertheless, public bodies and other organisations will be reviewing their gender policies to see what, if anything, needs to change. And for sports bodies, where there is argument over whether trans women should be allowed to compete in women's categories, there is now a much clearer framework for those often heated debates. Trans rights groups have said they will take time to study the judgement and decide on their next steps. There have also been suggestions there could be pressure to change the Equality Act. Alison Holt, police in Spain have uncovered an illegal underground firing range which they believe was used by a weapons trafficking ring to test guns being supplied to drug gangs. Three people were arrested and weapons including assault rifles, a submachine gun and a shotgun were seized.

Alfie Tobbert reports. Officers found the firing range during a search of a house in the southern Spanish province of Granada. It was located three stories underground and it's believed to have been built by hand to avoid raising suspicion. Police say it was used to test weapons sold through secure messaging apps to drug gangs, with some potential buyers even invited to the site to try the guns out for themselves. Spain is one of the main entry points for drugs into Europe because of its ties to Latin America and proximity to Morocco. Alfie Talbot. Now an unfortunate problem for the plane maker Boeing and its 737 Max. It's an issue with thousands of the planes that has prompted the US Federal Aviation Authority to issue a notice to airlines proposing that they should replace the latches

on bi-fold lavatory doors. This comes after an incident on a 737 flight in which a passenger got locked in a plane toilet, the crew couldn't get them out and the plane had to make an unscheduled landing. Evan Davis spoke to Sally Gethin, a global aviation and travel analyst, and first asked her if the plane really had to be diverted. There are safety rules in place which means that the airline had to divert in this case because, for example, if there had been a severe case of turbulence or another emergency in the cabin, the passenger who was trapped would have been at serious risk not being able to exit the actual plane toilet and of course that's not to

mention also the takeoff and landing phases, well in this case the landing phase which is a critical stage flight. So there's no seatbelt in the loo basically is there? Exactly. I suppose is the thing. Now do we know what actually happened here? Basically there's just some problem with the door, plastic on the door, gizmo on the door presumably. Yeah so it hasn't been disclosed which flight this was, which airline this was, but I've

been searching on this and there have been a few incidents, very similar. What happens is that there is actually a way for cabin crew to open the door from the outside. There's a little sneaky trick which makes it easy for them to do that. But in this case, they absolutely couldn't. So the person was stuck on the inside. I've got to say, I myself have had an experience on, it was a Ryanair flight in the early days of Ryanair and I had some difficulty with the, I it was a Ryanair flight in the early days of Ryanair and I had some difficulty with the, I think the door handle came off in my hand or something.

So yeah, yeah, panic ensues when you're in a micro space like that at 20, 30,000 feet. Sally Githin, a global aviation and travel analyst. The FAA investigation revealed that up to three quarters of the Boeing 737 aircraft delivered to US customers could be affected by the same latch defect. It estimates that the cost of replacing the faulty latches could reach $3.4 million. Boeing hasn't yet issued a public response to the FAA's directive. The north face of the Eiger mountain in the Swiss Alps is one of the most legendary and feared climbs among the world's elite mountaineers. And now two

climbers have scaled the Eiger and its sister peaks, the Monch and the Jungfrau, breaking a record that stood for 21 years. They've been speaking to the BBC about how they did it. Nick Palmetto reports. Nicola Hoyak and Philip Brugge celebrating their momentous achievement. Scaling the Eiger, Munch and Jungfrau in just 15 hours and 30 minutes. Shattering the previous record of 25 hours set in 2004. The Swiss-Austrian team began their gruelling task in the early hours on the 4th of April, equipped with crampons and ice picks. For the average climber, just one of these cliff faces can take an entire day or two. It was a surprise to even this pair just how quickly they managed to scale all three.

We didn't realise really how fast we were. We hoped that we would have maybe around 19 to 21 hours, but we were so fast that we climbed in 15.5. It was kind of insane. Nikola says it took years of preparation to achieve this amazing feat. For me it was quite an emotional moment, standing there together on the top of Jungfrau together as Philippe and now finishing this project after three years of trying and waiting for

the perfect moment. According to Philippe, climate change has made climbing even more unpredictable. The mountain is very difficult to compare the conditions and times because it's always changing. The mountains are changing a lot, especially in the last 20 years with climate change. What's next for this daring duo? Perhaps a well-earned break. I do some trail running races the next weeks or months but I think it's good to recover now and to be happy what we did and just take it easy now for a while. Teamwork makes the dream work. Philip Brugger ending that report by Nick Parmiter.

And that's it from us for now, but there will be a new edition of the Global News podcast later. If you would like to comment on this edition or the topics covered in it, do please send us an email. The address is globalpodcast. BBC dot co dot UK. You can also find us on X at BBC World Service. Use the hashtag global news pod. This edition was mixed by Caroline Driscoll. The producer was Liam McSherry. Our editor is Karen Martin. I'm Jackie Leonard and until next time, goodbye.