Global News Podcast - The president has also hinted he may seek to prosecute Joe Biden.

Episode Date: January 23, 2025

Donald Trump says he plans to abolish America's emergency response organisation - and hints he may prosecute Joe Biden. Also: International Criminal Court takes on Taliban leaders over treatment of women and girls.

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. Discover how to lead a better life in our age of confusion. Enjoy this BBC audiobook collection, written and presented by bestselling author Oliver Berkman, containing four useful guides to tackling some central ills of modernity. Busyness, anger, the insistence on positivity and the decline of nuance. Our lives today can feel like miniature versions of this relentless churn of activity. We find we're rushing around more crazily than ever.

Somewhere, when we weren't looking, it's like busyness became a way of life. Start listening to Oliver Berkman, Epidemics of Modern Life, available to purchase wherever you get your audio books. This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Paul Moss and at 1400 Hours GMT on Thursday the 23rd of January, these are our main stories. Donald Trump wants to abolish America's emergency response organisation FEMA and he's hinted

he may seek to prosecute Joe Biden. The ICC takes on Taliban leaders over their treatment of women and girls. Gaza's ceasefire is holding but death and destruction continue in the occupied West Bank. We'll hear why some electromagnetic waves from space have got scientists excited. Apparently they're like the chirping of birds. Also in this podcast... The French film, in Spanish, set in Mexico, that's cleaned up in the Oscars nominations. in Mexico that's cleaned up in the Oscars nominations. There's a saying often quoted in Britain that a week is a long time in politics. You do wonder if Donald Trump has taken this to heart as he continues the breakneck speed

of his first few days back in the White House. He's issued a slew of executive orders, pardoned several hundred January 6th rioters and committed to pulling the US out of major international bodies like the World Health Organization. But Mr Trump also has his eye on organizations closer to home. The latest to find itself in the presidential firing line is FEMA, the Federal Emergencies Management Agency. You know what they've done with FEMA is so bad. FEMA is a whole other discussion because all it does is complicate everything. FEMA has not done their job for the last four years.

You know I had FEMA working really well. We had hurricanes in Florida. We had Alabama tornadoes. But unless you have certain types of leadership, it's really, it gets in the way. And FEMA is going to be a whole big discussion very shortly because I'd rather see the states take care of their own problems. Mr Trump was speaking on Fox News in an interview which also touched on his plans for tougher

immigration control with 1,500 troops dispatched to the US border with Mexico. But then there was a hint of something else, that Mr Trump might try to prosecute Joe Biden, as our North America editor Sarah Smith explained to the BBC's Emma Barnett. Donald Trump repeatedly brought up the pardons that Joe Biden had given to family members and people who were part of his administration, who it was feared that Donald Trump might try to wreak vengeance on people who he blamed for the prosecutions against himself. And President Trump kept pointing out that President Biden hadn't pardoned himself, saying that he maybe hadn't realised that family members and other people could now

be compelled to testify against him if he was being investigated or prosecuted. Now he'd previously said that he wouldn't go after Joe Biden, but when he was asked about it, he said, I went through four years of hell, so it's hard to say that they shouldn't have to go through that also, which is quite intriguing. He did sign an executive order in the last day or so, which is called Ending the Weaponization of the Federal Government. But actually, if you read it, it looks a lot like it would in fact empower the Trump administration to go after people who they blame for some of what's happened over the last four years. Talking then about what Donald Trump is going to be doing, you know, far

beyond the Biden administration, what is the latest that we know about his crackdown on the border? He's signing more and more of these executive decrees that mean that he can, without having to pass a law through Congress, order certain things to happen. And that is more troops going to the border. He's particularly keen that they start constructing more physical barriers. And that's probably not the wall, rather huge metal fences but a way to stop people from being able to walk over the border into the United States. A lot of refugees who had already been through the system, they had been investigated, their asylum claims had been vetted and they had been told that they

were being granted asylum and could move to the United States. They had flights booked, special American flights that were going to bring them here, have been suddenly told that their air tickets are worthless, that they are not welcome in the United States and that basically their refugee status has been completely rescinded. And then you have tens of thousands of people who had made appointments at the border. All of those appointments have been cancelled as well. So President Trump has shut down any means by which any refugees or asylum seekers would try and make it into the country. What hasn't happened yet, but we anticipate will soon, are immigration raids against people who are already in America.

There may be over 10 million undocumented migrants living in America. Donald Trump has said he wants to deport all of them which is probably impractical but it won't be long I don't think before you see immigration officials in some of the big cities that have been particularly welcoming to migrants like Chicago, New York, San Francisco, round up people who are not legally in the country and then presumably detain them before they try to deport them. Sarah Smith and staying with Washington goings on, next week the Global News podcast is going to do a special Q&A edition to take stock after Donald Trump's first seven days as the 47th president.

We'd love to hear your thoughts on what's happened so far and your predictions for the rest of this year. And if there's anything you'd like to ask our US experts, please email us. The address is globalpodcast.bbc.co.uk. And if possible, please do record your question as a voice note so we can play it on the pod. Thank you. Now, arrest warrants have been issued for two leading members of the Taliban. This is after the International Criminal Court concluded that members of the Afghan government

are criminally responsible for persecuting women and girls. The court also refers to the treatment of people who it says do not conform with the Taliban's expectations of gender. This persecution, the ICC says, has been committed since August 2021 when the Taliban took over. Anna Holigan is in The Hague where the ICC is based and gave me more details of the ICC allegations. In the statement from Karim Khan, prosecutor at the ICC, he said they are pursuing the investigation into the alleged crimes by members of the Taliban and the Islamic State. So that

remains the focus. In terms of how long it's been going, ever since 2003, in fact, when Afghanistan deposited its instrument of accession to the Rome Statute, which is basically the document which underpins the ICC. But as you mentioned, these particular arrest warrant requests exist since the Taliban came to power. So the 15th of August 2021 until the present day is the period within which the prosecutor says these alleged crimes were committed. So can you just take us through the legal process now? Arrest warrants are issued. What actually happens? Well, not yet. So the ICC prosecutor has taken this body of evidence to the judges, the pre-trial judges at the ICC,

and we have a bit more detail about that evidence, so including expert and witness testimonies, official decrees by the Taliban, forensic reports and statements by the suspects themselves. So all of that has been put on the desks of the ICC judges. They now have to go through it and decide whether they agree with the prosecutor that there are reasonable grounds to believe that these men are responsible for the atrocities as the prosecutor alleges. So, just to give a bit more detail on those to give a bit more detail on those suspects. Kareem Khan, prosecutor at the ICC believes supreme leader of the Taliban and the chief justice are criminally responsible for persecuting Afghan girls and women as well as people who, as you say, the Taliban consider us to be not

conforming with their ideological expectations. You know, the trouble with all of this, of course, is that the Taliban is firmly in control in Afghanistan, so apprehending and transferring suspects to The Hague will be an immense challenge. I mean, is it in effect? If it even gets that far. Yeah, I mean, very briefly, Anna, it does sound like this is effectively a gesture, isn't it? I mean human rights groups would argue it's more than just symbolic as the court would itself and there are situations in international justice where arrest warrants have been issued and it has

taken decades to bring the suspects to the Hague. That does not mean it's inconceivable but indeed there is far to go. Anna Holligan. The Sudanese city Al-Fasher is the capital of North Darfur, a region bitterly fought over in the country's ongoing civil war. It's controlled by the army but has been besieged by rebels from the so-called rapid support forces and the army's now began carrying out airstrikes on areas controlled by the rebels. Amidst all this, civilian suffering continues. The war has forced more than 12 million people from their homes. But the fighting for al-Fasher has continued over a particularly long period, as our correspondent Khalqidan Yibeltal explained to me from neighbouring Ethiopia.

Al-Fasher is the last remaining major urban centre in the Darfur area that has not been under the control of the Al-Rasif. Over the past year or so they have been trying on repeated instances to take control of that city. Two days ago they announced an ultimatum for members of the Sudanese army and their allied forces, allied army groups that operate in that area in the city to surrender their weapons and leave. It was interpreted as a major offensive was imminent and at that time the Sudanese armed forces said that they would be doing everything to resist any

attacks and it seems that the current escalation is coming in the backdrop of that. That that ultimatum has expired as you said and the Sudanese armed forces have carried out air strikes targeting positions held by the RSSF and it seems that the RSSF launched long distance artillery shells on the positions held by the army. This is a conflict being fought over a vast country. Why is there so much attention by both sides? Why are both sides so clearly determined to hold on to this one city?

This city is under siege since May last year because the RSF has encircled it and it's become a major humanitarian hub. Many of the religious agencies work there, operate there and many people have sought shelter in that city. It's close to the bordering area with neighbouring Chad, so it has this strategic importance and it seems that the RSF is determined to take control of it. Calcutta and Yibel Tal. The ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas has entered its fifth day and does appear to be holding. In the occupied West Bank, though, Israeli forces are continuing their operation in and

around the city of Jenin, civilians once again finding themselves under fire. We're trapped in our homes. The situation in the area is completely unsafe. We've been experiencing power outages as well since yesterday. Some people went to the shops to gather supplies but most of the people who were at work didn't have the chance to go and buy anything. The entry of the occupation forces was sudden and we had no choice but to head home as quickly as possible. Our Middle East correspondent Yulane N is in Jerusalem, where reports are coming in

of more casualties. First of all, just in a village outside Jenin, the latest we've been hearing is Israeli forces have killed two Palestinians there. It's just a few miles west of Jenin, a village called Barak Ein, and these two men are said by both the Israeli army and Hamas to have been responsible for a shooting attack earlier this month, which killed three Israelis close to a settlement not far away in the north of the occupied West Bank. Palestinian media is saying Israeli forces surrounded this house. They fired missiles at it after telling those inside with loudspeakers to leave and that the house has been bulldozed.

The bodies of those two men have been killed, has been taken away after there was a shootout there. In Jenin itself, residents say that in this third day of this big new Israeli military operation, there have been gunfire and explosions. Thousands of people now have fled from the urban refugee camp that really seems to be the main focus of the Israeli action there. The mayor of Jenin has said that people have been told camp that really seems to be the main focus of the Israeli action there. The

mayor of Jenin has said that people have been told to leave with loudspeakers although we had the Israeli army previously saying there would be no forced evacuations from Jenin and people have been telling the BBC that they're trapped inside the camp they feel it's very unsafe and they're afraid. And that was Yalan Nel. Still to come in this podcast. You have to have a very healthy respect for the ice because if you don't it will get you. The people whose job is to worry as the world's oldest and largest iceberg goes on the move. Discover how to lead a better life in our age of confusion. Enjoy this BBC audiobook

collection written and presented by bestselling author Oliver Berkman, containing four useful guides to tackling some central ills of modernity. Busyness, anger, the insistence on positivity and the decline of nuance. Our lives today can feel like miniature versions of this relentless churn of activity. We find we're rushing around more crazily than ever. Somewhere, when we weren't looking, it's like busyness became a way of life. Start listening to Oliver Berkman, Epidemics of Modern Life, available to purchase wherever you get your audiobooks.

Thursdays are not particularly known as a popular day of the week to get married. And yet this Thursday has seen hundreds of couples getting hitched in Thailand. The reason? Well, new legislation has just come into force legalising lesbian and gay marriages. That makes Thailand the first country in the region to allow this, and only the third country in Asia as a whole. Demand was so great in the capital Bangkok that a mass wedding was held at a shopping mall. Our correspondent Jonathan Head went along to watch this collective act of matrimony. It is very significant to the LGBTQ community here. I mean everybody who has come to Thailand knows that LGBTQ people tend to be quite visible, you see a lot of trans people. It has a reputation as being a country that's very tolerant, a

very easy place to be open. But they haven't had legal rights and that's a big deal. Today for the first time I think for many of them there's this acknowledgement that they are the same as everyone else. It's not complete yet, there's still a few areas that still need to be improved. I've actually got a couple with me now, Gay and Ploy. They've been together for 17 years. Congratulations to both of you. First of all, how do you feel today?

I'm really excited because we come here in the first couple. You're the first? Yes, in here. Number one. Number one in here. Cause we wake up in the early morning and come together and the first one is us. You could be open about being same-sex LGBTQ before, but actually legal marriage. Why is that such a big step for you? Because for the healthy and the techs in Thailand, if we get married, we have the less of the techs.

And I have to sign the healthy and for the surgery or everything for her. You can make big decisions for her? Yeah and for the property I give her for the marriage is okay in Thailand if I sign the marriage license here. So you can have a home together? Yeah. What about your your families what do they think about this? Yeah, from our family, very happy for us because we met her in 17 years and we have like a whole family now. So today, do you feel like you have the same rights

as everybody else in Thailand? Yeah. Well, congratulations to both of you. That's Gay Employee, just one of around 200 couples who have come down here today. You can hear the music behind me. It's been a very celebratory atmosphere. But it has been a long, hard campaign. Although this is a very lighthearted affair, for the campaigners, 10 years ago, they were not at all sure that they could get this law through. There

was a lot of resistance. Public attitudes have really shifted in Thailand. For all of its famous openness, there was a lot of resistance. Public attitudes have really shifted in Thailand. For all of its famous openness, there was a lot of resistance to actually changing the law. And today there are no gender specific terms relating to marriage. And that makes such a big difference to everybody here. The rest of the region, of course, very different. In neighboring countries, a combination of either religion or traditional, just the lack of political freedom, all of those make it much more difficult. So Thailand is still very much an outlier in South East Asia. Jonathan Head. It's huge, it's cold and it's on the move. The world's largest and oldest iceberg has broken away from Antarctica and is approaching the remote British territory

of South Georgia in the Atlantic, home to large penguin and seal colonies. It's known by the not so catchy name A23A and it's twice the size of Greater London and this iceberg weighs nearly a trillion tonnes. While A23A is being monitored by scientists, sailors and fishermen, Georgina Ranard went to meet some of them. Now captured in satellite pictures, it is speeding into Iceberg Alley, a place where icebergs go to die. But here, right in its path,

lies the British territory of South Georgia. I will take you out the door. Ice is a way of life for sailors and fishermen there, but they can't ignore something the size of A23A. There's an iceberg over that way. You have to have a very healthy respect for the ice because if you don't, it will get you. It can come out of nowhere and you get something the size of A23A

when it comes along and it deposits these thousands of tons of ice. They just kind of hang around the island and it does make things a lot more tricky. The chunks could also block coves where these go to feed, putting half the world's king penguins and millions of seals at risk. But in danger, there is opportunity. Last year, British researchers on this ship seized the chance to visit A23A. It's a really amazing experience. It's unlike anything that I've

ever seen before. You just kind of see a massive wall that is way higher than you are. In this lab, scientists are finding out how icebergs affect the ocean's carbon cycle. It's unlikely that A23A was caused by climate change because it carved a long time ago in 1986. But as climate change progresses and the ice sheets become more unstable, more giant icebergs will form. So being able to see icebergs like this giant iceberg and study them allows us to understand the impact that they're going to have on the ocean and everything around them, the wildlife, the islands and kind of the earth as we know it. Georgina Ranard. One of Japan's best known TV hosts has announced his retirement weeks after being accused of

sexual misconduct. Masahiro Nakai was once part of the boy band SMAP and went on to a successful presenting career. Our Tokyo correspondent Shyama Khalil reports. Mr. Nakai, who works for Fuji TV among other networks, was accused of sexually assaulting a woman at a 2023 dinner party. He had earlier apologized for causing trouble, but added that some media reports were untrue and that he had not used violence. Reports emerged last month that the TV host had paid the unnamed woman more than half a million dollars.

His resignation comes days after Fuji Television confirmed that the company did not disclose the scandal, despite being aware of it. Automakers Nissan and Toyota were among several companies that pulled advertising from the network. This month Fuji TV suspended a weekly show hosted by Mr. Nakai while other major networks also dropped the presenter. Shaiver Khalil, now what do you make of this? Not as you might think, the sound of birds chirping, but something rather more exotic or perhaps I should say extraterrestrial. Those were electromagnetic waves from space, waves which scientists think are affected

by the Earth's magnetic field. They're called chorus waves and they've now been detected at a much greater distance from Earth than previously. So why does that matter? Professor Richard Horne of the British Antarctic Survey has been leading research into so-called space weather. He first told my colleague Emma Barnett what exactly a chorus wave is. They're actually bursts of radio waves, very intense bursts, they only last for less than a second, but they repeat continuously and have this kind of rising tone, this chirping sound. So although they're electromagnetic waves, when you convert them into sound waves, you can hear them and

you hear and they sound like a dawn chorus, they sound like the birds singing, you know, in springtime at dawn. So that's how they get their name. They really do. So just tell me about why it's interesting that you've discovered them further away than you previously had. They're really exciting. They've been seen much, much further away from the Earth than we ever expected. So they're observed in a very unexpected region, number one. But there's some really important science around it because they've detected what we call electron holes and this is a big test of the theory. One of the big questions around these things is how do

you generate the waves? What's happening in space? How are they generated and then where do they go to? What do they do? So these new observations are from the NASA mission, Magnetospheric Multiscale, and they've detected electron holes. So that's part of the theory on how the waves are generated. It's a key observation. What impact do the waves have in space? What do they do? So they actually accelerate electrons to very, very high energies. And that's really important because those electrons once they're accelerated, they will damage electronic components on spacecraft. So there's a real practical application. So it's not just basic

science. It's also an application. It causes damage to spacecraft. And actually, we use these waves, we have developed a large model and where we use these waves in the model to try and forecast periods and locations where satellites might be at risk, risk of damage. Professor Richard Horne, it was always going to be an unusual Oscars nomination ceremony which took place in Los Angeles on Thursday. The city still has wildfires raging nearby. Yet in some ways this was an upbeat shortlist. Two musicals raked in the biggest number of nominations.

Among them, Emilio Perez. That earned its star, Carla Sofia Gascon, the first ever nomination of a trans woman for Best Actress. Demi Moore received her first Oscar nomination for best actress in The Substance. She plays a woman who swaps her body for a younger version, which makes this nomination particularly pointed, according to our entertainment correspondent Charlotte Gallagher. You know how much that will mean to her. She's talked about how she wasn't taken seriously. She was seen as a popcorn actress. She could do the big blockbuster. She could bring in the crowds, but she wasn't

worthy of being rewarded for her performances. And to get to her age now and to be coming back so strong, the substance has so much to say about our obsession with youth and the entertainment industry and how it treats women. Charlotte Gallagher, Ariana Grande has also been nominated as best supporting actress with youth and the entertainment industry and how it treats women. Charlotte Gallagher, Ariana Grande has also been nominated as best supporting actress for her role in Wicked as expected. Dimitri Chalamet and Rafe Fiennes are nominated in the best actor category. And we'll have more on the Oscar nominations in our next edition.

And that's all from us for now, but there will be a new edition of the Global News podcast later. If you want to comment on this podcast or the topics covered in it, you can send us an email. The address is globalpodcast.bbc.co.uk. You can also find us on X at Global News Pod. This edition was mixed by James Piper and the producer was Stephanie Prentiss. The editor is Karen Martin.

I'm Paul Moss. Until next time, goodbye. BBC audiobook collection, written and presented by bestselling author Oliver Berkman, containing four useful guides to tackling some central ills of modernity. Busyness, anger, the insistence on positivity and the decline of nuance. Our lives today can feel like miniature versions of this relentless churn of activity. We find we're rushing around more crazily than ever. Somewhere when we weren't looking it's like busyness became a way of life. Start listening to Oliver Berkman, Epidemics of Modern Life, available to purchase wherever you get your audiobooks.