Man wrongly deported is back in US to face charges
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This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Julia McFarlane, and in the early hours of Saturday, the 7th of June, these are our main stories. Kilmar Abreu Garcia, who was wrongly deported to El Salvador three months ago, is back in the United States.

Leading US Republicans are trying to contain the explosive public row between Donald Trump and Elon Musk. The Russian mercenary group Wagner says it's leaving Mali after several years fighting Islamist militants, during which time it's been accused of widespread abuses. Also in this podcast... Botswana gets about a third of its revenue from...

from the diamond industry and about three quarters of its foreign exchange earnings from the exports. Diamonds have long enriched the small African nation, but it may not be forever.

A man who was mistakenly deported from the United States to El Salvador more than two months ago has been returned. But Kilmar Abreu Garcia is not a free man. The U.S. Attorney General Pambondi says he's being indicted on charges of smuggling undocumented migrants within the U.S.,

At a news conference, she announced the charges against him, but started by thanking the El Salvadorian president for allowing his return. We're grateful to President Bukele for agreeing to return him to our country to face these very serious charges. This is what American justice looks like. Upon completion of his sentence, we anticipate he will be returned to his home country of El Salvador.

The grand jury found that over the past nine years, Abrego Garcia has played a significant role in an alien smuggling ring. They found this was his full-time job, not a contractor. The case was controversial as it was found that Abrego Garcia had been wrongly deported from Maryland to a notorious prison in El Salvador in March.

The Reverend Michael Vanacore knows Abrego Garcia's family and has been campaigning on his behalf. He said he welcomed his return, but believed that he was innocent. Until this very moment, there have not been, as far as I understand, a single criminal charge ever.

made against Kilmar Obrego Garcia in any criminal court in this country. Now, the administration acts like just because they say that he's a criminal, he is a criminal. I have always believed him and anyone who knows him and knows his community to be completely innocent, a hardworking and good family man, a loving father. And I don't believe a single one of these things. But the important thing is we have due process in the United States. It's a fundamental right that every person is innocent until proven guilty.

I asked our North America correspondent Jake Kwan to remind us what happened when Abrego Garcia was deported. After Mr. Abrego Garcia was deported to the mega prison in El Salvador, you know, this was extraordinary because this was the first time the White House admitted to making a mistake as part of its mass deportation policy. And it soon became a major flashpoint between the executive branch, which is, you know, Mr. Trump's White House and the judiciary department.

Because the Supreme Court has ordered that the government should facilitate his return to the United States because he should not have been deported in the first place. Now, the executive branch, the White House, had dragged its heels and stonewalling all these demands. And we saw a federal judge

keeping the demand that, you know, the White House actually show exactly what are they doing to take steps to bring this man back. But the White House kept dragging its heels, saying that, you know, once he's already out of our hands, he's already in El Salvador, there's nothing we can do about it.

So we were looking at these almost like an internal strife between two branches of the government who couldn't really do anything. And there was a big stalemate and there was a battle kind of hanging over the White House all this time. Attorney General Pambondi went into detail this evening about the charges he's facing online.

What is the basis of this indictment? Attorney General did not release any of the evidences of the accusation that she made, but she was accusing Borrego Garcia of making over 100 trips across the United States, smuggling criminal gang members as well as illegal immigrants. And she said that, you know, many of these illegal immigrants were also terrorists.

children. So she was characterizing him as a very dangerous criminal and a part of the gang member, including the MS-13. Now, she was also saying that there were co-conspirators of this organization, the Smuggling Ring, that was accusing Mr. Abrego Garcia of being linked to a murder, as well as abusing some of these migrant women, as well as transporting drugs and

and illegal firearms. So these are very serious, serious allegations. However, these allegations were not part of the charges. Only two charges are ones having to do with transporting illegal migrants across America. So once this case does go to the court, we'll finally get to see some of the evidences that the White House has been alleging against Mr. Arbogast Garcia that we could not see before. Jake Kwan in Washington.

Republican politicians and supporters in the US have been trying to contain the public row that exploded on Thursday between President Trump and his former advisor Elon Musk. The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mike Johnson, says he hopes it resolves quickly for the sake of the country. White House officials say the president has no immediate plans to speak to Mr Musk and is even considering getting rid of his Tesla car.

The two men began trading insults and threats online after the president said he was disappointed by his former advisor's criticism of a major spending bill that's currently making its way through Congress. From Washington, here's our North America editor, Sarah Smith. This fight escalated very quickly and very publicly. And then came a sign Elon Musk might want to make up. When the Trump-supporting billionaire Bill Ackman posted on X saying the two men should make peace, Mr Musk replied, you are not wrong.

Overnight, there were reports that efforts were being made to effect some kind of reconciliation. After all, both men potentially have a lot to lose. Donald Trump has already threatened to cancel government contracts with Mr Musk's companies worth billions, while Elon Musk could use his social media platform X to attack the president.

and he could use his riches to fund political candidates aligned with his views, not Mr Trump's. But President Trump is adamant he is not yet ready to talk to his former first buddy. He has been talking to journalists, telling ABC he's not interested in speaking to the entrepreneur who he called a man who's lost his mind. Elon Musk's father, Errol Wade, in suggesting this row will get resolved. It's the bulls.

having their final round of seeing who's going to be the boss. It's a standard procedure for the last

several thousand years among the leaders of countries, it will fizzle out. It was only one week ago that the president was praising and celebrating Elon Musk in the Oval Office as he left his job in the administration. These two men were not just political allies, they appeared to be very close friends, which is what makes this spat so personal and so bitter. Sarah Smith.

Let's hear now from the place where, in many ways, this important political relationship began, the state of Pennsylvania. It was there last year that Elon Musk publicly endorsed Donald Trump and joined him on stage at his first political rally of the election.

Mr Musk went on to donate more than $250 million to the campaign, making him the biggest political donor in America. The tech billionaire says that without his support, Donald Trump would never have won.

Our North America correspondent, Nomia Iqbal, has travelled to Pennsylvania to see how the row has gone down over there. Where is he? Come on up here, Elon. It was here in Pennsylvania where Elon Musk took a leap of faith for Donald Trump, literally, jumping in the air at a rally with the then presidential candidates. It was held three months after the assassination attempt in the same place. Take over, Elon. Yes, take over.

And now at a local diner here in Folsom, a town where Elon Musk held a solo rally for Donald Trump, voters are stunned by the fallout. It's terrible that this whole thing is happening like this. It really is terrible. First of all, we got a president...

It's supposed to be for us and for the people and make America great again. And here we got like a war. Joseph Prasanti even thinks the South African-born billionaire should get out of the US. I really think he should be deported. I do. I don't think that's ever going to happen. Marvin Little's been waiting to be seated in the diner. He says this was bound to happen. Yeah.

Yeah, because to me, I always took it as Elon wanted to be the president anyway, so there could only be one. And you know Trump ain't giving up none of his power, so... Musk set up a war room of sorts in the city of Pittsburgh. He held a multi-billion dollar door-knocking campaign, attended town halls and controversially organized million-dollar sweepstakes for battleground voters, but insisted at the time he wasn't buying votes. Let's not forget his social media megaphone either, on X.

When Donald Trump beat Kamala Harris securing the crucial 19 electoral college votes, plenty of headlines gave Musk the credit. Trump won the election. His ideas, people wanted that.

They want lower prices, better economy. But Tom and Carol aren't convinced of his influence. And there are others who are a bit sceptical about the fallout. He thinks it's a distraction. Charlotte tells us her teenage son was talking about the row all morning. Something bigger that's either going to happen or that is happening behind closed doors.

It was only four months ago when Elon Musk said he loves Donald Trump as much as a straight man can love another man. A quote the White House reminded him of yesterday as this bromance blows apart.

Let's head to China now and hear about something Elon Musk's been working on for several years, driverless vehicles. Because there, driverless trucks, and not Tesla ones, I should say, are already being tested on the 170-kilometre highway between the capital Beijing and Tianjin Port.

They're still under human supervision, but soon it's hoped that these trucks might revolutionise not just the cost, but also the capabilities of long-haul transport. Smaller driverless delivery vans are already scooting around China's suburban streets. Here's Stephen McDonnell.

In China, the era of the driverless truck is already upon us, at least to some extent. There have been test runs of heavy lorries driving along public roads with nobody in the front seats.

And now, Pernier's trucks are using a combination of sensors and cameras to make deliveries all the way from Beijing to Tianjin port a few hours away. For the moment, they have safety drivers who, at various points, put the computer in charge. And we went along for the ride. Well, on the outside, these driverless trucks look the same. Let's get in and have a look, though.

Just say hello to the driver. Huo Kangtian explains his role. My job as a safety driver is to act as the last line of defence. For example, in the case of an emergency, I would have to take back control of the vehicle immediately to ensure everyone's safety. And we're away, at least at the beginning.

It's like normal. But then, a bit further down the road, he flicks a couple of buttons on the screen, takes his hands off the wheel, and the truck is in control of itself. I have to say it's pretty strange, flying down the highway, looking across and seeing the driver doesn't have his hands on the wheel.

It's the size of the truck, its power, its speed, and thinking that it's the technology which is in charge of our destiny right now. Ask our driver if he thinks he or the truck is more skilful. It is better at driving than I am. On the freeway, it saves time, effort and is reliable while avoiding obstacles.

They also ask him if he's worried that these trucks will eventually, one day, render his job obsolete. I don't really know about this. It's the diplomatic answer. While replacing all truck drivers may be a way off when it comes to heavy lorries, smaller driverless delivery vans have already been cleared to operate freely on suburban streets in many parts of China.

The eastern city of Hefei is the most developed. Here, Rhino AI has robo-vans taking parcels from large distribution hubs run by courier companies to neighbourhood stations where scooter drivers will then drop packages to the front door.

Zhang Qichen is Rhino AI's regional manager. The driverless vehicle industry is growing really, really quickly. Apart from express delivery companies, our customers include supermarkets, hospitals and universities.

The biggest challenge this industry faces is convincing the public that it's worth any safety risks to grant permission for the widespread use of driverless trucks. But, in China at least, this approval is expected to take years rather than decades.

The Russian mercenary group Wagner says it's leaving Mali after fighting Islamist militants for three and a half years. The Malian army and Wagner fighters have been accused of human rights abuses. Jihadist attacks have also been intensifying this month. Nkechi Obona reports.

In a post on its official Telegram channel, Wagner claims to have destroyed thousands of militants and their commanders who they say terrorized civilians. The group claims that all regional capitals formerly held by jihadists have been regained by the state.

so its mission is complete and it is heading home. Despite Wagner's exit from Mali, Russian forces will still be playing an active role in the country's security landscape through the Afrika Korps, a rival Russian paramilitary group that is directly affiliated with the Russian Defence Ministry. Nkechi Obana

Botswana's economy is heavily dependent on diamonds. But the main diamond company in the country has announced that it's temporarily halting production at some of its mines due to a fall in global demand.

That company, Debswana, which is a joint venture between the government and the global mining giant De Beers, saw its sales revenue drop by almost 50% last year. Our Africa regional editor Will Ross told me more. Botswana gets about a third of its revenue from the diamond industry and about three quarters of its foreign exchange earnings from the exports sector.

Ever since, really, independence. In fact, the first diamonds were found just a few months after the British handed the country over. It was a British protectorate. And then since then, the whole diamond industry has helped defend

to grow the country, to help it develop. And certainly initially, it's thought that the whole industry was handled very well and the money was used well to help the country develop. But the problem at the moment is the demand around the world is on the slide. So that is hitting Botswana hard. I was reading that Debswana, the main diamond company in Botswana, was founded in 1888. It's a historic company that

As you say, part of this industry, that's turbocharged Botswana. What have they said? It has said basically because of this slowdown in demand, it's had to suspend operations at some of its mines. And that's in addition to an earlier report

pause at another mine. And it's looking at long-term initiatives. It's looking at trying to revamp some of the mines that have been open for a long time. But it's facing a huge problem at the moment. And there is this drop in demand around the world. Some people point to different reasons, including less marriages, economic problems in some parts. But perhaps the biggest factor in all of this is

is the competition from diamonds or gems, you might want to call them, that are produced in laboratories. So diamonds produced in laboratories don't take millions and millions of years to be created underground. They're made in weeks inside these labs and they cost thousands of dollars less. So it is a huge challenge for the whole diamond industry. Will Ross.

Still to come on this podcast. Is a rhino still a rhino without its horn? That's the bigger question, I guess. Ideally, we won't have to dehorn rhinos into the long term. Researchers in South Africa say cutting off a rhino's horn is the most effective method for deterring poachers.

I'm Zing Singh. And I'm Simon Jack. And together we host Good Bad Billionaire. The podcast exploring the lives of some of the world's richest people. In the new season, we're setting our sights on some big names. Yep, LeBron James and Martha Stewart, to name just a few. And as always, Simon and I are trying to decide whether we think they're good, bad or just another billionaire. That's Good Bad Billionaire from the BBC World Service. Listen now wherever you get your BBC podcasts.

Next to Gaza and the issue of the distribution of aid in the territory. The group that has been responsible for giving out food to Palestinians is the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, an American and Israeli venture currently led by a former Trump campaign advisor. The group has faced controversy and chaos since the aid rollout launched only last week. Dozens of Palestinians were killed and wounded earlier this week as they waited nearby to collect the aid.

The foundation has now had to temporarily close some of its distribution centres due to security concerns. James Elder is UNICEF's global spokesperson and he's currently inside Gaza. During the ceasefire, 500 trucks a day, 400 distribution points. UNICEF, we were going in some cases door to door for malnourished children. This is a few sites militarised, deliberately forcing people to go north to south.

And then for those lucky enough, it's a box of food. Forget vaccines, forget medicines, forget water. And we've seen the worst case scenarios we feared in days gone by. Children killed. I was at a hospital again two days ago. A little boy, he was given money by his dad to go and buy bread. He saw people going to this aid distribution. He went a few kilometres with them. He thought he'd go home with a box of food for his family. And

And in the chaos and the gunfire and a tank shell shattered shrapnel and now he's got shrapnel through his spleen, through his pancreas and again, no medicine. So it is the worst case scenario.

I got the latest on the distribution of aid in Gaza from our Middle East regional editor, Sebastian Usher, who is in Jerusalem. The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation was able to deliver some aid at the two sites that it's currently operating in Rafah.

in the south of Gaza. There was some confusion at one point because it had said on its Facebook page in Arabic and in English that it wasn't going to open the sites today. It was going to announce, you know, the date later and that nobody should go there until that happened. But then later it turned out that it did open these two sites, but it closed earlier than it had expected. It said because

There were so many people who came that it was deemed unsafe to continue. So as every day when it delivers aid, the GHF, it put out a rundown of what it had done and it said it had distributed

around half a million individual meals, which is about a third of what it's been doing, I think, on most of the other days. Again, there's some dispute also about the calculation. And a lot of people say that it is exaggerating the number of meals that can be made from its packs. I think the other thing that is useful to say is that the Israeli army issued an order, essentially a warning to

to people across the whole of Gaza saying that they should not go towards any aid distribution centre except between the hours of six in the morning and six in the evening and that any other time essentially through the later evening and through the night where they would be walking should be regarded as a battle zone and too dangerous for them to walk.

That raises really two questions, I think. One is how people will be able, I mean, some of them are traveling long distances to be able to get to these sites if they can't walk at those times. And also, perhaps some acknowledgement by the IDF and by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, but those three consecutive days in which there were these fatal incidents in which

Dozens of Palestinians were killed and hundreds were wounded with eyewitnesses, multiple eyewitnesses, saying that it was through Israeli fire from their soldiers, which has mostly been denied. But it seems an acknowledgement that doing this in the hours of darkness and having such a large number of people, tens of thousands all gathering at that time, is something that could lead to more incidents like that. So I think this is an effort to try to avoid it. Meanwhile, the World Health Organization is warning that

some of the last remaining hospitals in the south of Gaza are at risk. Yes. What the WHO was referring to is two hospitals in Hanounis, which is the biggest city in the south of Gaza. And that's where many, many, many Palestinians have essentially ended up after all their displacements. So it's a very, very important area for there to still be hospitals functioning. So the Al-Amal Hospital and Manasseh Medical Complex, these are the two hospitals. And what the WHO is saying is

is that with all the evacuation orders that there now are in Hanunis and an announcement essentially of an evacuation zone three or four days ago by the Israeli forces there, it means for access to these hospitals, both for medical staff, for patients to get there and to get whatever medical supplies managed to get into Gaza and then can be used.

can be brought to those hospitals is becoming more and more difficult. And that the WHO is saying that they have about 500 beds between them that they can offer, which is a large proportion of the hospital beds still left in Gaza, that they won't be able to continue unless that access is protected. Sebastian Usher in Jerusalem.

It's six months this weekend since the fall of the Assad regime in Syria. And while attention has turned to other conflicts around the world, since December, more than a million displaced Syrians have returned home. The country is struggling with the after effects of a brutal civil war, including deadly landmines.

According to the Halo Trust, the world's largest humanitarian landmine clearance organisation, more than a thousand civilians have been killed and injured by mines and other explosives in that time. And the trust says this is likely to be an underestimation.

The former Major General James Cowan is its chief executive, and Katie Razzell asked him what the situation is like on the ground in Syria. This was a war that began in 2011, and over 600,000 people have died. That's 10 times as many as have died in Gaza, horrible as that is. And I think there's a great deal of optimism about what's going on in Syria. The trouble is, though, the country is possibly now the most mind-affected country in the world.

There are six children every week being killed by landmines and that's just before what we expect to happen, which is about a million refugees returning to their homes. And are there particular parts of Syria that are bad and how are you working and others working to clear mines?

In contrast to somewhere like Ukraine, which is largely about the front line, landmine contamination across Syria is really across the whole country. And what's so hopeful about Syria is it really should be a middle-income country. It has huge potential and it's not going to take a lot to get it back on its feet. But the one thing that is absolutely holding it back is the scale of this landmine contamination, which is truly astronomical. Do you have the people on the ground? Are there people on the ground clearing mines? Yes.

Yeah, we've been in Syria for some years, been there since 2016. And our plan is to expand across the whole country now that we have access. What's going to be different, I think, from many other countries is we're going to follow the Ukraine example. We're going to mechanise, we're going to use tech. This is going to be far faster rates of clearance than has been seen in previous conflicts like Afghanistan. And this is personal for you in a sense, because I know when you were in the army...

You fought in Iraq. You faced some of the people now involved. Is that right? Yes, I think so. And al-Sharara, as he's now called, was one of Abu Musab al-Sakawi's foot soldiers. And yet here he is shaking hands with the President of the United States. Here we have sanctions being lifted.

He's wearing a suit. He's talking, in my opinion, the right way about a diverse, modern country that's coming in from the cold. And I think that that's leadership for you. And I think that, yes, maybe he was a man of war before, but he seems to be a man of peace now. And I think he should be applauded for that. James Cowan, the chief executive of the Halo Trust.

A Spanish-led anti-drugs operation in the Canary Islands has arrested almost 50 people and seized four tonnes of cocaine. The raids, which followed months of investigations, involved police from Spain, Portugal, Colombia, Britain and the United States. Anna Holligan has more details. Europol said the gang transported cocaine from South America using a flotilla, including a large mothership and 11 speedboats. They set sail from strategic points in the Atlantic and

and dropped off the drug consignments across the Canary Islands, ready for distribution. Police seized dozens of vehicles, including 19 boats and 100,000 euros in cash.

The criminal network allegedly used a complex encrypted communication system to evade detection, including satellite terminals, hard-to-trace phones and a coded language. Anna Holligan. Researchers in South Africa say cutting off a rhino's horn is the most effective method for deterring poachers. A conservation assessment found that removing the horn under sedation reduced poaching by nearly 80% between 2017 and 2023.

Rhinos are at significant threat of extinction as the material in their horns is commonly used for traditional medicine in Asia. Christian Fraser spoke to Timothy Kupia, a senior lecturer in conservation at South Africa's Nelson Mandela University. Is this procedure of cutting off a rhino's horn not a stark process? Yes, it is a very stark choice. So we asked the question, what can we do to reduce rhino poaching?

And I say we, but it was actually the rhino protectors on the front line, the managers and the rangers who asked that question and brought me and some other scientists on board to help answer it. So we found that dehorning was indeed very effective. It was implemented at eight different sites.

We had 11 sites in total and we had seven years of poaching data. And we found every time that dehorning was implemented, it led to quite drastic reductions in rhino poaching. Is a rhino still a rhino without its horn? That's the bigger question, I guess. Ideally, we won't have to dehorn rhinos into the long term. We see this more as a short term and very effective solution to buy us time to address the more ultimate dry

of poaching, things like the demand for horn that you mentioned, but also facilitators of wildlife crimes such as corruption and also stark socioeconomic inequality, the stark contrast between the wealth of the consumers and

and the poverty of those who get involved in poaching, and the criminal syndicates who recruit people to operate for them. Yeah, because as you say, the alternative is surveillance and law enforcement, which I imagine is very costly and not always successful. This is not painful for the animal. A rhino's horn is made out of the keratin, the same material that our fingernails are made from.

our hair. So the procedure is completely painless. Of course, the animal may be under some stress because they're usually tracked down by helicopter and immobilised by a qualified veterinarian. But it's a painless procedure, yes. And poaching is still a major problem. Around 12,000 poached in Africa since 2006. So what does the current population look like and how urgent is this? It's still a very urgent problem. In our particular

Our particular study area, which is the largest rhino population in the world, the population plummeted from over 10,000 rhinos about 15 years ago to less than 3,000 today. And traditionally what's been done is to increase the risk for poachers, so cameras and dogs,

fences, helicopters. And we found in our study area that those interventions achieved many poacher arrests, but that didn't necessarily translate into significant reductions in poaching in the same way that dehorningers did. So our message is that perhaps we need to rethink our strategies and detecting and arresting people may not be the best way to stop poaching, as has been shown for other crimes. But in the longer term, we're hopeful that

this won't be needed as we address some of the bigger causes of poaching. Timothy Kupia from South Africa's Nelson Mandela University.

Now to an icon in the world of fashion. The Birkin handbag has been a status symbol since it was created for the British actress and singer Jane Birkin over 40 years ago. Now the original bag, made by Hermes, is going to auction at Sotheby's next month in Paris. Vanessa Friedman is chief fashion critic of the New York Times newspaper. She told James Menendez about what the bag symbolises and

and how much it might go for. It's like if Adam and Eve had a baby handbag, they would have a Birkin. It is the original bag that has spawned a cult, an obsession, an investment, a piece of pop culture history. Why is the design so special, if indeed it is?

It's very recognizable. It's very practical. It is beautifully made. And it really, it was the first of its kind. You know, it has created a genre unto itself of bags that are sort of shaped in a similar, almost trapezoidal way. And it was created really because Jane Birkin was sitting on a plane next to Jean-Louis Dumas, who was then the CEO of Hermès, and was complaining about the fact that she couldn't get all the stuff she needed to get into her handbag.

And he said, "Well, I'll make you one that can carry what you need to carry."

And this was the result. What do you think this is the original one's going to go for? I mean, we're talking, what, hundreds of thousands of dollars, millions? Well, thus far, the highest price ever for a Birkin at auction was around $500,000. So I think given the fact that this is really a museum quality object, it was in fact in the MoMA, it could go for millions. Vanessa Friedman, the chief fashion critic of The New York Times.

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 at bbc.co.uk. You can also find us on X at BBC World Service. Use the hashtag Global News Pod.

This edition was mixed by Rosenwin Durell. The producers were Liam McSheffrey and Stephen Jensen. The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Julia McFarlane. Until next time, goodbye.

I'm Zing Singh. And I'm Simon Jack. And together we host Good Bad Billionaire. The podcast exploring the lives of some of the world's richest people. In the new season, we're setting our sights on some big names. Yep, LeBron James and Martha Stewart, to name just a few. And as always, Simon and I are trying to decide whether we think they're good, bad or just another billionaire. That's Good Bad Billionaire from the BBC World Service. Listen now wherever you get your BBC podcasts.