
The president's moved at a blistering pace, setting in train the agenda for his 2nd term
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Alex Kratosky
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Today we're on the Mexico US border where towns are preparing for an influx of deportees as Donald Trump begins his immigration crackdown. In Bangladesh, we visit a hospital leading the treatment of life threatening conditions like cholera. The facilities are state of the art, but not everyone has access. In Guatemala, we hear how indigenous communities are tackling poor mental health through traditional means. We attend a healing circle on the shores of Lake Atitlan. And finally we're in Borneo where we encounter the charismatic Black Horn Bill and learn about the crucial role it plays in rainforest conservation. But first, Donald Trump marked his return to the White House with an immediate deluge of executive orders and announcements, a tactic known in political circles circles as flooding the zone, leaving opponents struggling to muster a coherent response. Mr. Trump has launched his much promised immigration crackdown, ended federal diversity programs, withdrawn the US from the Paris climate agreement and the World Health Organization moved to end birthright citizenship and announced pardons for nearly 1600 people convicted or charged in connection with the US Capitol Hill riots. On top of this, he took a tour of the regions recently affected by natural disasters. Anthony Zuerka joined the president on board.
Kevin Fong
Air Force One On Monday night, as Air Force One began its descent towards Washington, White House spokesperson Caroline Leavitt came back to the press cabin to tell us that the president wanted to talk one more time. The handful of reporters in the traveling press pool scrambled to gather our gear and notepads for a final round on a weekend trip that had been full of interactions with the new commander in chief. We had spoken with him on the airfield tarmac and at a roundtable meeting in Asheville, North Carolina. We chatted with him upon landing at Los Angeles International Airport and again when we left. He came back to the press cabin for 20 minutes on the flight from Las Vegas to Miami. And here he was just minutes before our trip was over, eager to tout yet another round of executive orders he had just signed with Trump. You have to always be ready, leavitt said with a laugh. Throughout my time in his press pool this weekend, the president was at his most gregarious, soaking up the media attention and basking in his return to power. He played nice with California governor Gavin Newsom, a frequent critic, and posed for pictures with Pacific Palisades firefighters. He chatted up a cocktail waitress and cheered on gamblers at a craps table in Las Vegas. He instigated, then resolved, a deportation dispute with ally Colombia on Sunday and still had time to play a round of golf. With all these questions came an extraordinary amount of access, access the press never had during the Biden years. I asked him about tariffs and trade. I pushed him on why he was attempting to place conditions on disaster aid to liberal California but not more conservative North Carolina. On that, he never gave a good answer. I sought his views on British Prime Minister Keir Starmer. I like him a lot, he said, and he's done a very good job thus far. And I asked him why he was suspending U.S. foreign aid, including for PEPFAR, an HIV AIDS treatment program that has saved tens of millions of lives in Africa. We'll see about that, was his reply. And we want other people to help us. Days later, the State Department announced it would resume the program. For now, with all that talking, Donald Trump sometimes put himself in unnecessarily difficult situations. His comments on Saturday that he wanted to clean out Gaza and relocate Palestinians to Egypt and Jordan triggered widespread outcry in the Middle East. And on Monday night, I wondered if the promise he made two days prior that the US Would not fall behind in the race for dominance in artificial intelligence to not let the rabbit get away, in his words, might be difficult to keep given the shocking debut of China's deep Seq chatbot. The man who has surrounded himself with the American tech industry elite was surprisingly dismissive, saying if the company found a way of doing AI cheaper, that's a good thing for us. Nothing seemed to dent Mr. Trump's good mood. In fact, on Friday night in Los Angeles, he came over to us before boarding Air Force One and touted the fact that his defense secretary nominee, Pete Hegseth, had just been confirmed by the U.S. senate. I asked him what he thought of the fact that Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, until recently the Senate Republican leader, had voted against the nominee. He shrugged it off, a political slight that in his first term might have triggered an extended tirade. Winning is what matters, he said. President Trump has been on a hot streak during his first week in the White House. Through dozens of executive orders, he has advanced his campaign promises ranging from mass deportations to dramatic withdrawal from multilateral organizations and pared back environmental regulations. He even asked Google Maps to rename the highest mountain in North America and the Gulf of Mexico, a request the company has provisionally agreed to. It won't always be this easy, however. Early this week, the White House had to quickly roll back an order suspending all government loans and grants amidst confusion over whether popular programs like low income health insurance and childcare were affected. And a recent Reuters Ipsos poll indicated that many of Trump's early actions his Gulf of America order, pardoning of those involved in the January 6 US Capitol attack and his move to do away with birthright citizenship, for instance, were very unpopular. As Mr. Trump's second term gets fully underway and he tries to convert his political capital into legislative success and durable accomplishments, this public dissatisfaction with his priorities could be a growing obstacle. Despite all this, as Washington has been reeling from the fallout from his new presidency, Trump seemed to be enjoying every minute being back at the center of the world's attention and confident that after already overcoming considerable political adversity, he will ultimately prevail. Success, he told us with an ear to ear smile on Monday night. Will be my revenge. He said it again for emphasis. Success will be my revenge.
Field Reporter/Correspondent
Anthony Zerka in CITIES across the U.S. the Immigration Enforcement Agency has been conducting raids and arresting thousands of undocumented migrants as part of President Trump's crackdown. So far, the Trump administration says it has concentrated on those who pose a threat to public safety, though all illegal immigrants are at risk of deportation under the policy, the Mexican president, Claudia Schoenbaum, has said deportees to Mexico must be treated with humanity and the country has started to ready itself for the potential arrival of tens of thousands of people in the coming weeks. Will Grant reports from both sides of.
Narrator/Reporter
The border Marcus nightmare began with his mother's toothache. As he shivers slightly in the shade of a tree, he seems like an ordinary 17 year old Mexican boy, slightly gangly, a little awkward, his forehead marked with a couple of spots and a light fuzz on his upper lip. His story, though, is far from ordinary. As we chatted, it became clear that Marcos fresh face is at odds with the harsh realities he's endured, a series of dark life experiences rare in men two or three times his age. About a year ago, with his mother's molar causing her shooting pain, he went out to buy her some painkillers in his home state of Michoacan in western Mexico. Suddenly, he tells me, he was surrounded by four pickup trucks filled with armed men. Get in, we'll take you, they growled. Marcos tried to insist that he had his scooter and was fine going alone. We're not asking, came the reply. The boy was hooded, handcuffed and taken to a ranch outside town, where several other youths were in the same predicament. Forcibly recruited into a drug cartel called Los Viagras, Marcos spent months as a foot soldier in a war he wanted no part of. Eventually, a gang member I've known since we were kids took pity on me, he explained, and helped him to escape in the heat of a gun battle by giving him a mobile phone and an opportunity to run. Fearing recriminations from the cartel, Marcos, though that's not his real name, fled his home along with his family, and they wound up in the border city of Tijuana with a view to reaching the United States. Rather than follow the thousands of people who crossed the border illegally, they formally registered with the US Authorities and began the wait for an appointment to submit their asylum request. There's a term in US Immigration courts called credible fear, the concept that an asylum applicant has a convincing case of fleeing persecution, torture or death, ideally supported with documentary evidence, and cannot be reasonably expected to go home. From where I was sitting, Marcus fear seemed pretty credible, and he was confident that if he could just tell his story to a US judge, they'd believe him too. But time had run out. Barely 24 hours after we spoke, Donald Trump was sworn into office and immediately declared an emergency at the border. Within minutes, all such appointments were cancelled. Closing the doors to asylum seekers was just one of the immigration measures President Trump unveiled on day one. Raids are underway in cities across the US as part of what Mr. Trump calls the biggest deportation in American history. Mexico's president, Claudia Scheinbaum has made it clear that her country will only accept Mexican deportees, not those from other nations. But with an estimated 5 million undocumented Mexicans living in the US, her administration has begun to prepare for the influx. On an old fairground site in the border city of Ciudad Juarez, beneath a huge crucifix and an altar erected for an outdoor Mass by Pope Francis In 2016, men in work boots and baseball caps draped a tarpaulin over a metal structure, the centerpiece of a tense city built to temporarily house men and women much like themselves. Casual labourers, domestic workers, kitchen staff and farmhands are all likely to be among those making the unwanted journey south. President Sheinbaum has spoken of treating them with humanity and dignity on their arrival under a deportee support program she calls Mexico Embraces you. Still, many will initially end up in one of the overcrowded and underfunded migrant shelters along the border in Tijuana. One of the best known shelters is called Juventu Dos Mil. Its manager, Chema Garcia Lara, a renowned name in local migrant circles. Showing me around, Chema says they're already nearing capacity with around 40 migrant families living in thin nylon tents set up in a large room under a corrugated iron roof. I guess we could put people in the kitchen or the library, says Cema, thinking out loud. We're being hit on two fronts, he continues. The arrival of migrants fleeing violence and now their mass deportations from the us. We simply don't know how many people will be sent back here in need of our help. As the implications of President Trump's decisions rippled along the border, several U.S. church leaders gathered outside St. Patrick Cathedral in El Paso, Texas. I've already heard of people too afraid to come to church, fear of raids, said Bishop Mark Seitz. Right now people are terrorized, afraid to shop for groceries, and it's not an unreasonable fear, he added. It is in fact, a credible fear for young Marcos still mentally coping with being forced into the darkness by the cartels. He just wants his story to be heard by the authorities. I hope that they look at the circumstances of each person on merit, he says, and that Mr. Trump's heart softens the to help the people who truly.
Field Reporter/Correspondent
Need it, will grant In Bangladesh, deaths related to diseases such as cholera, rotavirus and E. Coli are considered especially high because of long standing issues with overcrowding, poor sanitation and limited access to clean water. But in the capital, Dhaka, a team of experts works both to treat the sick and conduct research on these diseases. Rebecca Root visited the International Centre for Diarrheal Disease Research to better understand just how bad these diseases are for local communities and the work being done to tackle them.
Rebecca Root
The first reaction most people have when I tell them about my visit to the world's largest diarrheal hospital is to screw up their noses and comment on what they imagine must have been its pungent odour. But that wasn't the case. Instead, the first thing that strikes me as I enter the hospital wing is the soft smell of detergent. Everything is spotless, from the white tiled floor to the low level walls separating the wards. There is little in the way of furniture. Each metal bed frame has a green or red waterproof sheet tethered to the mattress, a set of drawers beside it and a bucket underneath. This is strategically placed under a hole in the centre of each bed, designed to catch any contents from patients too sick to go to the toilet. Staff, I'm told, are quick to clean them out so there's no lingering smell. Instead, it's fear that hangs in the air here. Most of the patients here are children. Their parents sit beside their beds or pace the wards, cradling them in their arms, fretting over their fate. After all, diarrhoeal diseases are the biggest killer of children under five around the world and in Bangladesh, over half a million die each year. The heavy footfall of visitors, staff and swinging of doors means the short stay ward is anything but quiet. Some infants are dozing, but others wail, their cries tempered by the hushed tones of parents trying to comfort them. I meet Shamin Akhta, a 19 year old garment worker, and her 14 month old son, Mohammed. She sits on his bed wearing a bright pink shawl and head covering. The joyous colour stands in stark contrast to the dark circles under her eyes and worry etched on her face. She brought her son here two days ago, travelling five hours by bus to reach the hospital. After neighbours told her she could access free treatment. Mohammed has had diarrhoea for nearly three weeks, Shaman tells me as he lies in front of her. She gently tries to dribble water into his mouth with a plastic spoon. Shamin and her husband, who's leaning against a nearby wall, took their son to several local doctors, exhausting their entire month's wages paying for treatment. Nothing worked since he's arrived here, Mohammed's been plied with fluids and antibiotics but is yet to improve. I'm worried because he's still sick, sharman says, blaming herself. Rather than the rotavirus common this time of year, it's rotavirus that mainly accounts for the crowd of new patients being funnelled into the emergency ward. Nurses in butter yellow smocks usher patients one by one into a waiting chair, where a doctor checks their vital signs before assigning an empty bed. Each admission is logged on a whiteboard and at 12 noon it shows 186 patients have already been admitted today. By the end of the last few days, the total number has exceeded 500. That's about normal for this time of year, explains Dr. Shaweeb bin Islam, clinical lead at the hospital. But come the monsoon season, daily numbers can climb as high as 1300 as cholera takes hold, with staff forced to turn the car park into an overflow area. Deeper in the labyrinth of the research center, I meet senior scientist Dr. Manerool Ilam in his paper strewn office located at the back of his lab. His research focuses on predicting the next outbreak, he tells me. Regular flooding and rising sea levels contaminate water sources, while heat waves often drive people to drink more unsanitary surface water to quell their thirst. Efforts are being made in the country to educate people on the need to clean their hands and boil their water. But ultimately it's better infrastructure to provide clean water that's needed, says Dr. Alam. The government is trying to address this, but it has a lot of other problems. I don't think that this is a top priority, he says. Patients who manage to get here have a good chance of recovery, he adds. It's those who don't make it to a hospital that we need to be concerned about.
Field Reporter/Correspondent
Rebecca.
Alex Kratosky
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Field Reporter/Correspondent
The Route There are at least 22 different indigenous communities in Guatemala which are mainly descended from the Mayans. They have their own distinct culture and language and make up almost half of the Central American country's population. But many of these communities live outside the major cities and the stress of living isolated lives has fuelled mental health problems. But in a country where only 1% of the health budget is spent on improving mental health, it's hard for people to get the support they need. A group of indigenous women is trying to change that. Jane Chambers travelled to Lake Atitlan to meet them.
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It's a windy day on Lake Aticlan and the waters are choppy by the sandy shore. I can see three lush green volcanoes on the other side of this immense lake, one of the most popular tourist attractions in Guatemala. Hummingbirds dart in and out of bright red tropical flowers on the grassy lawn where a group of 11 women are sitting, chatting as they wait for the session to start. This is the perfect place for a gathering because we're in nature, sadie Garcia tells me cheerfully. She's one of the coordinators of the group. We try and choose places like this because it's a beautiful environment that helps people to relax. The women are dressed in embroidered hand woven blouses and skirts with a variety of designs reflecting the different indigenous communities they come from. The circle opens with a welcome and a prayer. Next they're up on their feet for warm up exercises where they give each other a shoulder rub and wave their arms about to shake out all the bad feelings they might bring with them. Many of these women come from rural communities where they feel isolated and don't have people to talk to. There are often issues with domestic violence, drug abuse or alcoholism, sadie explains. She tells me that for years women were told by the men in their community that their role was to have children, stay at home and look after their husbands. Here they have a space where they can talk about their feelings and what's going on in their life and not be judged. Across Guatemala, there are more than 30 groups like this, made up of around 10 to 25 women who meet every few weeks. After the exercises, Sadie leads a discussion. Today she's talking about water, which is sacred for the Mayan communities. They then take it in turns to say something good and bad, which has happened to them since they last met. Sadie admits she's been feeling a bit down herself. My brother's having an operation today and I'm worried about him, but I have to learn to accept my feelings. It's like the water in the lake. Sometimes we're calm and happy and at other times things get more difficult for us, she tells the group. For her, the key is not letting outside factors dominate how we feel. The other women nod in agreement. The group started when a French doctor called Anna Maria Choma brought women from the Maya Mang community together for interviews for her doctoral fieldwork. She realized the positive effects of them being able to talk about their problems and started a project called Buena Semilla, or Good Seed in English. She lives in Canada, but her work continues with women from different communities in Guatemala. The sessions are held in their mother tongues rather than the country's official language, Spanish, because that's what many of them feel comfortable speaking. It's another reason why access to help for mental health is hard. It's often not available in their own language. Speaking in her Mayan language of Zutu Hill, Huana Chenning looks happy after the session. I've been coming to the group for four years, she tells me. I came here because I have mental health issues where I overthink things and get worried about life. And in this group I have people to support me with what's going on in my daily life, she goes on. The exercises we do in the group, like meditation, help me to relax and Dolores words motivate me so when I get home I feel more relaxed and happier. Dolores Kvec is one of the other coordinators for her. As well as talking, the group's creative activities are an important part of helping the women to manage their stress. We do embroidery or make brightly colored bracelets and it takes their mind off what's going on at home. Sometimes they say to me, I might have problems in my house, but these colours inspire me. So when I go back, I feel better and have a different mindset. Sadie and Dolores tell me that indigenous women were silenced for years, from the time of the Spanish conquest, then through decades of civil wars, dictatorships and an enduring patriarchal society. They recognised that a lot more still needs to be done to improve mental health in Guatemala, but say these groups are empowering women to build a network and speak out.
Field Reporter/Correspondent
Jane Chambers and finally, we're in the Malaysian state of Sabah in northern Borneo. It's a mountainous region covered in dense rainforest and is perhaps best known for its orangutans, which, though threatened, can still be seen in the wild. On a recent visit there, Stephen Moss came across another animal under threat, this one a species of bird, the increasingly rare black hornbill, which he discovered plays a significant role in the conservation of the region's forests.
Stephen Moss
Look over there. Hornbills. I turn to see where the young lad is pointing, and sure enough, right at the top of the tallest tree in the forest are three huge birds. They're black hornbills, one of eight members of this weird and wonderful family we've encountered on our short visit to Saba. Of all the world's birds, hornbills are amongst the most exotic, charismatic, and because of their total dependence on rainforests, vulnerable as fruit eaters, they play a crucial ecological role by dispersing seeds. So if they disappear, the forest itself may be next. Black hornbills feed on durian fruit, with its infamously horrible smell. To find it, they clamber around the canopy, uttering harsh croaking calls that echo across this unique landscape. The sound provokes an immediate response from an unseen troop of gibbons, their hooping crescendo building towards an excitable climax. I turn back to the boy who's here at the Rainforest Discovery Centre near Sepilok with his mum. He tells me he's 14 years old and obsessed with birds. I don't blame him. As well as those charismatic hornbills, we've already encountered sunbirds and flowerpeckers, bulbuls and bee eaters. And along a forest trail, a shy Saba partridge emerging from the undergrowth. We've even watched a male orangutan leisurely clambering around the branches above our heads. Yesterday evening, after dark, we entered a mysterious nocturnal world, spotting scorpions and vipers, a tiny mouse deer, the impossibly cute slow loris, and a dwarf kingfisher, barely the size of a sparrow, discovered at its nighttime roost. The forest canopy boardwalk here is a naturalist's paradise. But a faded display board along one of the trails tells a very different story. It shows the proportion of tree cover remaining on Borneo, with tiny red blotches representing the original untouched primary forest, less than 1% of the island's total land area. There's a lot more secondary forest like this one, changed by humans, but still home to many special wild creatures. Yet even this is only a shadow of what it used to be. The reason to make our lives just a little bit easier. Palm oil is widely used in cosmetics and cleaning products and also in biscuits, cakes and many other ultra processed foods we unthinkingly consume in vast quantities. All these products are made with oil harvested from the palm trees grown in Borneo. As we drove here, we passed through an ecological wasteland of palm oil plantations, with lorry after lorry thundering towards us, carrying their destructive harvest to the world's markets. Yet it's not all doom and gloom. Borneo remains one of the most biodiverse places on the planet and the state government of Sabah is keen to promote sustainable tourism. That's why the 14th annual Borneo Bird Festival is being staged here, attracting more than 5,000 visitors from Sabah, elsewhere in Malaysia and beyond. As I wander around the colourful and informative displays, I'm struck by the number of young people I meet. I stop and talk to a troupe of teenagers from the Sepilok Junior Rangers, proudly sporting their smart new uniforms, who greet us with smiles and a genuine pride and joy in their event. Before we leave, I once again bump into the young boy who showed me the hornbills. I experience a sudden and wholly unexpected time shift back 50 years to when I was his age. I remember my own mother used to ferry me around to watch birds, though they were never quite as exotic and exciting as these. Is your mum a birder too? I ask him. He pauses for a moment before answering, no, she's not. But if I'm happy, she's happy. I give a silent thanks to selfless parents who encourage their child's passions even when they don't always share them. Since I was a fresh faced 14 year old, more than one in eight bird species have become globally threatened with extinction. So sometimes I do find it hard to feel hopeful. But seeing the wide eyed wonder expressed by the youngsters here at the Borneo Bird Festival. I believe that maybe, just maybe, those hornbills and the rest of the world's 11,000 or so species of birds might, with their help, have a better future.
Field Reporter/Correspondent
Stephen moss, and that's all for today. But you can hear more stories on the from our own correspondent podcast on BBC Sounds, including our recent visit to Catalonia, where we hear how a famous family of winemakers is looking to the past for answers on how to combat climate change. We'll be back again next Saturday morning. Do join us.
Alex Kratosky
I'm Alex Kratosky.
Kevin Fong
And I'm Kevin Fong.
Alex Kratosky
How do you feel about AI?
Stephen Moss
Does it scare you? Very quickly that question comes up, you.
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Know, is it going to think for us?
Stephen Moss
Does it excite you?
Alex Kratosky
I say, how is the AI going.
Stephen Moss
To help us to think better?
Alex Kratosky
Do you worry about how it'll change your life, your job, your kids?
Stephen Moss
AI is built into many of the software applications that we now use in schools.
Alex Kratosky
Every day, in every episode of the artificial human from BBC Radio 4, Kevin and I are here to help. We will chart a course through the world of AI and we will answer your questions.
Stephen Moss
It doesn't just lie, but it lies in an incredibly enthusiastic, convincing way. That ability to be able to kind of think critically is just going to be so important as we move forward.
Alex Kratosky
The Artificial Human with me, Alex Kratosky.
Stephen Moss
And me, Kevin Fong.
Alex Kratosky
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BBC Radio 4 | Air date: 1 February 2025
Presented by: Kate Adie
This episode explores early global reactions and local impacts following Donald Trump’s dramatic return to the White House. Through on-the-ground reports from the U.S.-Mexico border, Bangladesh, Guatemala, and Borneo, BBC correspondents provide nuanced accounts beyond the headlines: from the immediate consequences of Trump’s executive orders to the struggles of asylum seekers, innovative health solutions in resource-limited settings, indigenous mental health practices, and conservation challenges in Southeast Asia.
[02:14–08:58] Field report by Anthony Zuerka (with contributor Kevin Fong aboard Air Force One)
Executive Orders Galore:
President Donald Trump returned to the White House with “an immediate deluge of executive orders and announcements, a tactic known in political circles as ‘flooding the zone’, leaving opponents struggling to muster a coherent response.”
(02:22)
Key Policy Actions:
First Week: Public Persona & Media Access
International & Domestic Friction:
Political Calculus:
[08:58–14:39] Field report by Will Grant
Border Reality: “Credible Fear”
Personal Story: Marcos’ Ordeal
Shelters Overwhelmed
Atmosphere of Fear:
Hopes Dwindle:
[14:39–19:28] Report from Rebecca Root
Setting:
Front-Line Realities:
Patient Story:
Expert Voices:
Access & Inequality:
[21:03–25:53] Report from Jane Chambers
Background:
Grassroots Empowerment:
Key Quotes & Impact:
Cultural and Historical Context:
[25:53–31:05] Report from Stephen Moss
Setting & Species Spotlight:
Human Connection and Environmental Loss:
Hope through Youth and Education:
Trump’s Mood and Motto:
“Winning is what matters ... Success will be my revenge.”
(07:40, Trump to Anthony Zuerka)
Atmosphere at the Border:
“Right now people are terrorized, afraid to shop for groceries, and it’s not an unreasonable fear.”
(13:50, Bishop Mark Seitz)
On Health Priorities in Bangladesh:
“The government is trying to address this, but it has a lot of other problems. I don’t think that this is a top priority.”
(18:24, Dr. Manerool Ilam)
Empowerment through Community:
“Here they have a space where they can talk about their feelings and what’s going on in their life and not be judged.”
(22:32, Sadie Garcia)
The episode maintains the BBC’s signature calm, informative, yet emotionally resonant style. The correspondents blend vivid on-the-ground observation with direct quotations, aiming to illuminate complex stories through the eyes of those most affected.
“Donald Trump’s Rapid Start” is an incisive, globe-spanning episode that reveals the ripple effects of U.S. policy shifts and testifies to human resilience—across borders, cultures, and continents. Through meticulously reported vignettes, listeners travel from Oval Office turbulence to the hopes of asylum seekers, from children’s hospital wards in Dhaka to lakeside healing circles in Guatemala, and finally to the endangered treetops of Borneo for a message of cautious optimism.