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erika: i love seeing interns succeed, i love seeing them come back and join engagement teams and seeing where they go from there, i get to watch their personal growth, it makes my heart happy. (laughs) ♪ ♪ narrator: funding was also provided by, the freeman foundation, the judy and peter blum kovler foundation, upholding freedom by strengthening democracies at home and abroad. announcer: and now, bbc news. anchor: this is bbc worls america. a u.s. judge orders a limited parts on certain steps by the trump administration to dismantle the world's largest aid organization. ecuador gears up for presidential elections as the country struggles with a rising gang violence.

we speak to a family impacted. scams, casinos, and high-rises. the bbc makes a rare visit to a strange city in myanmar. ♪ welcome to world news america. breaking news right here in washington, a u.s. federal judge intervened at donald trump's plans to shut down usaid. putting what described as a limited temporary halt on sending thousands of workers home. the ruling follows a lawsuit from two labor unions. it is unclear if it impacts all of the workers. a notice sent to the agency's workers on thursday said that starting on midnight here in washington, almost all staff at usaid were set to be placed on

leave. reports more than 10,000 employees were sent to be -- meant to be sent home. the move would not affect jobs that were labeled mission-critical. a sign came down today. that move already upending humanitarian programs around the world. our north american correspondent sent us this report. reporter: usaid is the world's largest provider of humanitarian aid. set up by president kennedy in 1961. it has long been criticized by republicans who claim it is mismanaged. now president trump is going further, as part of his campaign promise to save public money. >> when you look at usaid, it is a fraud. the entire thing is a fraud. very little being put to good

use. every single line that i look at in terms of events and transactions is either corrupt or ridiculous. reporter: he has not offered any evidence of those claims. today, the agency's science are being removed from offices. the total budget makes up less than 1% of all u.s. spending. trump considers many of these out of line with his agenda. >> 47 thousand dollars for a transgender opera in colombia. >> supporters of the agency says that most of the money goes to food aid and health care, vital programs that have now been shut down. >> it said stop everything you're doing globally. no matter the human consequences. >> regardless if you are in the middle of disturbing food. >> we have stories of kids going

in for their medicine. one kid got it and everybody else was told to go home. >> the dismantling of usaid is being led by the world's richest man, elon musk. he has been putting -- put in charge of cutting federal spending. staff have been protesting. already shut out of their offices, most of them are being forced to leave tonight. some essential programs will be kept on, such as funding for the global aids >> response. >>we have seen disruption of services at the community level. in ethiopia, we have 5000 public health contracts that are funded by u.s. assistance. all of these have been terminated. reporter: these moves are raising fears that lives might be lost.

anchor: joining me now is a former senior executive at usaid. she spent more than a quarter-century with the program. i would ask you about a judge ordering a limited order blocking the trump administration from taking certain steps to dismantle usaid. what is your reaction? >> thank you for having me. this is a very important development. the judge just issued his ruling.

they would be out of the system. with this ruling, it does provide a reprieve. it provides some other relief we hope as well for payments that the u.s. government is due to pay partners and all of those who have been limiting programs long before january 20. anchor: there are a lot of legal questions around this. looking at what appears to be a limited order here, do you think this will go far enough to protect so many jobs that are being threatened? >> for now. just to give you a window into what everybody was dealing with, particularly in the last 24 hours, when staff around the world found out that an agency that was more than 10,000 people was being whittled down.

all around the globe. while people were quite alarmed and devastated about the fact that they would be losing their job. they were more devastated today of the leaving there work. this is not a 9-5 job. this is a 24/7 job, especially when you are serving overseas. there was a tremendous amount of feeling of desperation that these people who have been more than just colleagues, were really family anchor: you are working as the most senior foreign service officer. you have some insight into this.

what impact does this have on the ground? >> it has an enormous impact. just as an example, they are right now experiencing violence. to have these programs come to an end, colombia houses thousands of venezuelan migrants for being a violence in their homeland. all of a sudden those programs ended.

on the border with venezuela, where there are displaced people, they are fleeing violence. those programs were shut down. it has had a devastating consequence. we know people are dying all around the globe because of this. anchor: just about 30 seconds left, we know elon musk and his team have accused usaid of wasting money. what is your response to that? >> like every agency across the government, we have an inspector general's office. we are often the ones to bring things forward. if we see something not working,

we bring it forward. we welcome every time a new administration comes in to show what we are doing. what we could do better. this is not how you go about reforming government. anchor: thank you for your time. >> thank you. anchor: a group of nations belonging to the international criminal court has condemned president trump's decision to sanction the organization, saying this erodes the international rule of law. trump issued an executive order accusing the court of illegitimate and baseless actions after it issued an arrest warrant for benjamin netanyahu. there were also warrants issued for top hamas leaders.

the court says it stands by its personnel and will continue providing justice and hope to millions of victims of atrocities around the world. the u.s. sanctions were met with praise by mr. netanyahu. he is here capping off a busy week in washington. he met with mike johnson. >> the critical decisions that show his commitment and the american people's commitment to israel have come to the fore instantly. he renewed the supply of weapons which have been stopped which we needed. we are fighting for our future, for our existence, and for the broader middle east. he immediately released those weapons. he issued sanctions on this scandalous and corrupt operation, the icc.

anchor: on friday, hamas released the names of israeli hostages they are set to release from captivity. israel is expected to release 183 palestinian prisoners in exchange. reporter: we have now had the list from hamas of the next three hostages to be released under phase one of this deal. the list had been late in coming. there have been difficulties and tensions. by the end of the weekday, total of 21 hostages will be released. much more aid is getting into gaza.

there has been a partial reopening of a border crossing. so there have been tangible visit -- benefits from this ongoing cease-fire deal, even though it has becoming under a lot of pressure. the next three hostages to be released are men. they are all men from mikovits. 1 -- a kibbutz. one was abducted from a music festival. this is very good news for their families. there will be bittersweet moments because many of those being released have lost family members and friends who were killed on october 7 when hamas stormed across the border. since then, whether 47,000 people are reported to have a

guilty gaza. there is a lot of hope for this cease-fire to continue into a second phase but that is by no means a certainty. anchor: president trump says the u.s. will export record volumes of liquefied natural gas to japan. speaking after a meeting with the japanese prime minister, he said japan and the u.s. would work together to export oil and gas from alaska. he said japan will increase its investment. he floated the idea of imposing tariffs on japan. he said they had not discussed that. the u.s. president delayed a call with his panamanian counterpart. he accused the u.s. of spreading lies and falsehoods about the panama canal.

he was reacting to claims that panama had agreed to waive fees for american and government boats crossing the canal, something he says goes against the panamanian constitution. panama did agreed to withdraw from the chinese belt and rode infrastructure program. the rise and extreme gang violence is because of the rise of cocaine exports. the president is up for reelection on sunday. he deployed the military with sweeping powers to crush the gangs. some fear this has created human rights violations. this report contains some distressing images. reporter: who controls the streets of ecuador?

the military now in theory. the drug gangs still in practice. every two hours, a person is killed. every day, seven are kidnapped. >> everyone feels like it is a pandemic. we are not able to go out and enjoy our lives because of the violence. reporter: this is not paranoia. it is this man's experience. too afraid to show his face.

>> i knew my father would never have that amount. they left my father's body with his fingers and a bottle tied to his hand. reporter: home upon home, livelihood after livelihood, broken leg -- broken by stories like these. this is the current government response. a tough crackdown by the security forces. police think this tattoo identifies him as working for one of the biggest gangs. they are now searching for drugs or weapons in his house. they find hostage photos on his phone, linking him to a kidnapping. some fear that this military crackdown has gone too far. these teenage boys were later

found mutilated and burned. all that remained was a finger and a foot. >> they both love football. we want justice. for these people. our children were mutilated, burned. reporter: 16 soldiers are in custody, but deny the murder. the election will judge this crackdown. as a father holds onto his sons and they hold onto their father, there is a message for those buying cocaine. >> we lose thousands of innocent family members. our lives are destroyed. anchor: how much will that violence play a role in this

upcoming election? reporter: i think will play a huge role. all the polls here in ecuador suggests that security is the top concern for voters. and for good reason. in january of this year alone there were 750 homicides recorded in ecuador. that was a record monthly number. cases have continued to soar as have cases of kidnapping. we talk about people fleeing cartel violence to places like the u.s. or europe to try to escape violence. it seems like people are often fleeing from violence. if you like they had no choice but to leave. many i have spoken to want solutions from the government. that is what this election will be all about. do they continue to support his tough security crackdown?

many think that is essential to smash these criminal gangs. or have they gone too far? that is a question of any voters will be facing on sunday. anchor: thank you for your reporting. the government in thailand says it is trying to shut down criminal stamina compounds that have proliferated in recent years on the border with myanmar. this all follows the rescue last month of a chinese actor and several of people who had been abducted and forced to work in these scam centers used to defraud people. the businesses may be owned by chinese crime bosses. this is resulted in a frenzy in building on the myanmar side of

the border. there are casinos, luxury hotels, and entertaining complexes. before recently, it was off-limits to journalists. reporter: there are few places on earth stranger than this one. it looks just like a provincial chinese city. there are chinese characters on the sides of the buildings and shiny staff are running the place. but this is not in china. it is an myanmar. one of the poorest and most isolated parts of asia. why has a chinese company builds all of this? it is promising a $15 billion project complete with casinos, luxury villas. the reason critics say is scam

centers human trafficking, and money laundering. they invited us to see their city to show a different side. it is a safe, green city, they kept telling us. everywhere they put up huge billboards promising that forced labor human trafficking are not permitted. but we were only allowed to see the outsides of the buildings. we have been driving around here for a while now. this really is the most extraordinary place. technically we are the middle of the war zone. and yet the scale and ambition of this project is breathtaking. it is not clear what the business model is. looking around at all of this, you cannot figure out where the

money is coming from to fund it. they manage to hook up the connection to his jail cell in bangkok. he told us of his dream to build a modern city here. what about the scams, i asked him? we only do legitimate business, he said. but he admitted it was likely that fraudsters were operating here. we spoke later to a young woman who had worked there just before our visit. >>. no way they don't know about this. the entire city is doing it in those high-rise buildings. everyone there knows what goes on. >> did economy has become a scam economy. there's not really any viable means of transitioning into other forms of industry. no legitimate investors or companies are going to locate in

a zone like this. reporter: at night, it lights up with nine casinos supposedly for chinese gamblers. but there are few visitors. they allowed us to see the spectacular karaoke rooms. where we only met these young chinese women who work here. his face looks down at us, extolling his vision of a shiny new city. anchor: let's take a look at some other stories making headlines. a new united nations report released on friday shows that sexual violence against children in haiti has increased 1000%. they attribute this to gang rule. more than one million haitian children live in a constant threat of violence.

the united kingdom government is one thing to access encrypted data used by apple users. this is in order to tackle crime, such as terrorism and child exultation. apple has denied comment. the swedish government announced plans to tighten gun laws after the country suffered the worst mass shooting in its history. 11 people died in the attack, including the suspect to kill himself. he had four legally owned rifles. a new report on friday shows that job growth slowed in the u.s. last month. but unemployment remained low. it slipped to 4%.

this comes in the same month that a new administration entered the white house. a reminder that you can always find all of the days news on our website. we have a recap of a very busy week for the trump administration. you can see the 15 things that he got up to in the past seven days or so. narrator: funding for presentation of this program is provided by... bdo, accountants and advisors, funding was also provided by, the freeman foundation, the judy and peter blum kovler foundation, upholding freedom by strengthening democracies at home and abroad. ♪ ♪ usa today calls it "arguably the best bargain in streaming"

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i'm geoff bennett amna: and i am amna navaz. tonight, president trump charges forwth