Global News Podcast - Deadly school disaster in Pakistan
Episode Date: October 15, 2026More than 30 people have been killed after a school roof collapsed in Peshawar, Pakistan, with the majority thought to be children under the age of 13. The owner of the school has been arrested, with ...police warning the building was extremely dangerous and there was a risk of further collapse. Also: the BBC has identified 254 incidents in which the Israeli military has been accused of killing or injuring people in Gaza, Lebanon, the occupied West Bank and Israel, which it said it would investigate - but no outcome has been publicly disclosed; Prince Harry and his wife Meghan Markle carry out their first joint engagement since returning to the UK; one of the most shocking court cases of recent years, the Pelicot trial, comes to the stage in London next month. Dominique Pelicot was jailed for 20 years for drugging and raping his wife and allowing at least 50 other men to abuse her while she was unconscious; Ukraine attacks one of Russia's major oil refineries, hours after President Vlodomyr Zelenskyy vowed to renew strikes; we report from Iowa, where Democrats lead in early polls for next month's mid-term elections; the World Athletics president aims for African "legacy" with 2029 World Championships in Kenya; and research suggests dogs can link shapes to sounds.The Global News Podcast brings you the breaking news you need to hear, as it happens. Listen for the latest headlines and current affairs from around the world. Politics, economics, climate, business, technology, health – we cover it all with expert analysis and insight.Get the news that matters, delivered twice a day on weekdays and daily at weekends, plus special bonus episodes reacting to urgent breaking stories. Follow or subscribe now and never miss a moment. Get in touch: globalpodcast@bbc.co.ukPhoto: Police officers and military personnel gather as they survey the site of a school roof collapse at a hospital morgue in Peshawar, Pakistan, October 15, 2026. Credit: REUTERS TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY
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Hello, I'm on Kretacei and at 16 hours GMT on Thursday the 15th of October.
These are our main stories.
A school roof has collapsed in North Wales.
Western Pakistan, killing more than 30 children and a teacher.
Ukraine has attacked a Russian oil refinery.
In response, it says to Russia breaking the energy ceasefire declared by President Trump.
And Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have made their first official public visit since they returned to live in the UK.
Also in this podcast.
I'm wondering whether the dogs are actually tuning in to what humans are doing when they're
naming objects in the environment.
Animal behaviourists have found that dogs, just like humans,
connect sounds with shapes.
We begin in Pakistan where a roof has collapsed at a school in Peshawar,
killing at least 32 students and a teacher.
The children were all under the age of 13.
Officials say at least 19 others are injured some critically.
This man, Sohail, told us his niece was inside the building
when it happened and survived.
My young niece had left the school to buy a pencil.
She told me that on her way back to school.
She stepped onto the stairs and the roof collapsed.
She managed to get outside and told me the school has collapsed.
When I arrived at the scene, I saw around 10 to 15 children trapped beneath the rubble,
with debris piled up to their necks.
We quickly pulled them out.
Police say the owner of the school has been arrested and the site is under investigation.
But rescue operations have concluded and no one remains under the rubble.
I've got the latest from our reporter at the scene, Azizullah Khan.
I'm standing at the moment in front of that school.
So we are seeing that a lot of people are visiting over here into the school area where the building has been collapsed.
There was a two-floor building over there.
And this was very near the dilapidated conditions because there were a lot of students are there.
what police have told us, that about 110 students were over there,
and they were in the classrooms over there,
and at that time it saw it's quarter to nine, I think.
So when the cracking sound was heard by the people,
and they rushed over to the school,
and they saw that there was a building,
part of that building was collapsed.
And we saw this building, this was in a very dilapidated condition.
This was constructed in the first floor of construction
with the T-iron and garters,
where rest of it was constructed with the mud and the wood.
things. So it cannot bear the weight of the students because there was 110 students
was over there and it collapsed over here. The rescue process is still here, but the injured
and the dead bodies were rushed to the Lady Redding Hospital in Pishawar. This is one of the
congested area over here in Pishawar, that's the capital of the Khabapha Fafhtunka province.
The hospital says that they have received 33 dead bodies, whereas about 22 were injured.
And still there says that the death toll can be getting higher because some injured were in critical conditions over the air.
We have talked to the police officials and when we find out that how the no objection certificate was given to this school,
that how it was working over here when this was in such a bad condition,
they say that we have put this proposal to the administration and the government to think over it,
that how it can happen when such conditions, building was there.
There's a lot of students, mostly poor students of this area.
I have spoke to the local people and I talked to them
and they said their children were studying over here
and they didn't know that it can collapse any time.
Azizullah, what more do we know about the investigation
that's currently being undertaken?
I'm seeing reports that the owner of the school has been arrested
as investigations are carried out regarding the structure of the building.
Yes, I have spoke to the senior superintendent of the police.
Farhan Khan, they have taken the principal of that school.
First information report, the police have registered the case as well.
And he was saying that investigations would be started.
The education department, they have also constituted an inquiry committee to find it out how it happens over here.
Similarly, I spoke to the information minister of the Khabaphtun Khapram, Samar Harun, below.
And she says that this inquiry is going to be conducted and will be finding.
out that how this school was working over here. And similarly, how it was given the no objection
certificate, where was the monitoring team, where was the education department authorities were
there, and where was the government, that why it has not been taken into the account to find
it out that how such kind of a bad condition building was working over here.
Azizullah Khan in Peshawar. The BBC has identified 254 incidents in which
the Israeli military has been accused of killing or injuring people in Gaza, Lebanon,
the occupied West Bank and Israel, which is said it would investigate,
but no outcome has been publicly disclosed.
BBC Verify has been combing through tens of thousands of news reports
and hundreds of incidents in which the Israel Defence Forces or the IDF
faced allegations of harm since the outbreak of war in Gaza.
The IDF says it takes every allegation or report raising,
concerns about conduct that may be inconsistent with the law or IDF directives with the utmost seriousness.
BBC verifies Merlin Thomas has been looking at the findings.
It's been really hard getting any clarity on how it does do that.
And there are multiple layers to the system in which it goes about investigating incidents.
Now, it goes from everything from command level reviews to a more escalated version of that,
which is a criminal investigation.
Now, in each of these cases we've looked at, the IDF has said it's investigating.
investigating them, but they're all a variation of those words. For example, it says it's examining or reviewing or looking into or checking. Now, in either way, whatever happens, the outcome isn't always made public. And that speaks to your point about transparency. It's been really hard getting an understanding of what's going on. But in August, the IDF made a really rare report and it published the details of five incidents and some really high profile ones, including the killing of the five-year-old Hindrajab, the killing of 15 Palestinian emergency. And it published. And some really high-profile ones, including the killing of 15 Palestinian
workers and the killing of world central kitchen workers as well. It also added that 150 incidents
were being reviewed. Now, we don't know what those incidents were. And we approached the IDF multiple
times with the incidents that we'd identified, asking them for the specifics of what had happened.
Now, it got back to us about two of them, and it told us that they were still under review.
Now, the IDF, as you said, has said that it takes all of these allegations with the utmost seriousness.
And you've used AI to help get through some of these reports as well. How did you use AI to conduct the research?
In this case, AI was essentially used as a gathering tool, kind of helps us comb through thousands and thousands of articles, about 60,000 initially.
And because the IDF used all of these different types of phrases to look into these instance, we couldn't just use a simple keyword search.
It wouldn't have thrown up all the results.
And so we manually went through thousands of these articles after it shortlisted a few of them.
And then we went through and deduplicated them.
And then we manually checked every single one of them.
So it was essentially the beginning jumping off point to help us gather the possible leads.
Okay. And I guess in terms of accountability, can the Geneva Convention therefore add pressure on the idea of to investigate and prosecute their own, for example?
There are rules of war and the ICRC has guidelines on what they can do in terms of investigating these things.
And, you know, there are set rules on those.
For example, they set out that investigations into possible unlawful acts should be thorough, prompt, impartial and as transparent as possible.
Now, one international law expert actually told me that when it comes to investigating incidents of harm,
Israel has relied heavily on the argument that it's a rule of law country in order to delegitimize attempts by the international community to investigate.
And she told us that if we have any reasonable grounds to believe that they get kicked into the long grass, these incidents,
then that would undermine the narrative that Israel is fully capable of taking care of providing accountability.
Merlin Thomas.
Prince Harry and his wife, Megan Markle, are carrying out their first joint engagement since returning to the UK in August.
They're visiting the city of Nottingham in the English Midlands where they're meeting well-wishers
and seeing the work of three charities that support young people and local communities through music, sport and by tackling food poverty.
Our all correspondent, Nornangi, is in Nottingham.
These are causes that are really close to the couple's heart.
And I think choosing Nottingham obviously says a lot about that,
harking back to some of the causes that they really championed while they were working royals.
And of course, Nottingham is a really significant place for the couple as well
because it is here back in 2017 when they made their first joint public appearance,
joint official engagement.
Her team will have been thinking very carefully about where to relaunch her into UK public life.
Since moving back to the UK, I think Megan has kept relatively low profile.
She has been mostly showing her life on social media
as opposed to actually being out and about,
whereas Harry has actually attended a number of public events
related to Invictus and his charity work.
But this is, of course, the first time that she's going to be officially seen in public
at a public event.
This is a special city for them,
and they've chosen very carefully to make this the place where they have that reaunch.
She is hugging a few of the fans who have been waiting,
some selfies and so is Prince Harry of course by her side.
I mean I think people will have expected that perhaps she might be feeling
slightly nervous about this return to UK public life because I think it's fair to say
that Megan has had a difficult relationship with the UK and of course they moved back
at the end of August we haven't seen her officially outside of the public event so this
is the first big relaunch onto the scene and as I say she has possibly been feeling
slightly nervous about it.
But speaking to sources close to the couple, they say that they weren't worried about the reception to Megan when she arrived here.
They say that since moving back to the UK, when she has been out and about, you know, presumably around where she lives,
that the reception has always been quite positive.
People have been very pleased to see her.
So they say that she weren't worried about the response.
And clearly you can see she's got a lot of fans who have turned up here.
and also some children now are looking at as well.
Harry and Megan are meeting them.
And, you know, there are a lot of well-wisheders here
who are really looking forward to seeing them.
Nornangi reporting.
One of the most shocking court cases of recent years,
the Pelico trial, is to be represented on stage in London next month.
Dominique Pelico was jailed for 20 years
for drugging and raping his wife, Giselle,
and allowing at least 50 other men to rape or sexually assault her
while she was unconscious.
She waived her right to Ananese.
saying that shame should fall on her abusers, not her.
The performance by the Young Vic Theatre is taking place at the former home of London's government,
a grand Edwardian-style building with the large council chamber.
One of those involved is the actress Juliette Stevenson, who told Sarah Montague more about it.
The event that is a four-and-a-half-hour reading of many, many documents that have been gathered and accumulated,
these comprise police reports, you know, many, many testimonies from the trial.
There were 600 hours of court time that the director went through.
Psychiatric reports, all sorts of different documents.
And 30 of us will take it in terms to read these documents out over four, four and a half hours.
Can you give us a sense of the effect of the way that this has been compiled and put together?
I mean, this is the most human of stories.
It's not going to be dry material.
People are being invited to watch an incredibly extreme human experience being played out in the form of these testimonies.
These are people talking about this woman's life being completely transformed from a private one to a extremely public one.
And so, you know, I think it's a human story.
It's not a dry legal story. It's going to be a very, very human event.
Indeed. I mean, the director and playwright, Milo Rau behind it,
described it as more of a political act almost than anything else.
What do you think it says about our society that there are things like this happening?
The degree of misogyny that is allowed to run rampant in the world is terrifying.
And we know it's on the increase, violent porn available to even young boys.
And misogyny is very tied up with authoritarian politics as well.
You know, we've seen Andrew Tate.
We've seen the misogyny emerging from the hard right wing.
So, you know, in that sense, yes, it's a political event.
But also there is a connection between these things.
I think it's always been my feeling and a source of much anger that I think violence towards women is something that exists in society and just never manages to get a purchase on anybody's idea of what really matters.
You know, it doesn't, it just is always somehow absorbed.
There is still so much work we have to do to persuade people, societies, that this needs to be addressed by everybody and not just women who are trying to find the courage to come forth about their own stories.
this is everybody's responsibility and societies need to take it on.
The kind of people that you might want to reach with what this political event does
are probably not going to be the people who are buying tickets for it.
And I just wonder what your thoughts are on how you reach beyond, in some sense, to beyond the audience.
Sarah, I stood on stage with Giselle Pellicoe earlier this year in the Festival Hall,
which was packed with women and some men too.
when Giselle Pelicoe walked onto the stage,
that audience rose as one
and gave her a standing ovation that nobody could stop.
Nobody could stop it.
It went on and on and on and I in 47, 48 years of being on stages,
have never known an event like it.
And the power came from that audience,
the hunger and the need from those women in the audience
to hear her story and to acknowledge what she has done
in telling their story for them.
It's not just about audiences listening to this trial
and thinking whether or not they agree with it
or not. It is about her speaking for women all over the world who have not had the opportunity
or the courage or being able to tell their stories. That's what she's speaking to, but also men.
I mean, you know, we need men to hear this story and we need men to consider what they find
acceptable in their own behavior. You know, we need to redefine a lot around men's sexual
behavior about, you know, men and women's relationships to each other about society's relationship,
to these forms of violence.
These are subjects which everybody needs to address.
Juliette Stevenson.
Still to come in this podcast.
He's got us in the war.
He's got prices, groceries, high, gas, sky high.
I can't call them what I'd like to.
Will voters blame him for the high prices?
I think so.
Ahead of the key midterm elections in the US,
we gauge the mood with voters in Iowa.
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And with interests ranging from ports to airports to power generation and green energy,
he's become one of Asia's wealthiest individuals.
On Good Bad billionaire from the BBC World Service,
we're delving into the life and fortune of billionaire businessman Gautam Adani.
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Here's the Global News Podcast.
Ukraine has attacked one of Russia's biggest oil refineries,
hours after President Vladimir Zelensky said his country would resume strikes.
He accused Moscow of failing to respect the energy truce, which President Trump declared on Sunday.
But the Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitri Peskov, has accused Ukraine and Mr Zelensky
of being unwilling to pursue peace or engage with U.S. peace efforts.
The governor of Russia's Riazan region said a massive Ukrainian drone assault had set the refinery ablaze.
Meanwhile, EU leaders are meeting in Brussels.
The Dutch Prime Minister, Rob Yetton, said they had to put pressure on Russia to end the war against Ukraine.
There is only one reason why this senseless war of aggression is continuing,
and that's because Putin chooses to do so.
He's the one that can end-this war by starting negotiations for just en-lasting peace,
and as long as he doesn't, the Ukrainians will have to defend themselves and defend European values.
Our Europe correspondent Nick Beek told me what Europeans can do,
to help Ukraine.
These European leaders are meeting at a time
when the relationship between President Zelensky
and President Trump really is in a very bad condition.
It's probably the worst it's been
since that infamous bust-up in the Oval Office
in February of last year.
So in the short term, I think they're going to be trying
to build bridges if they can,
if they've got any sort of ability to do that
with President Trump,
if they're able to reach out to him.
But no, it's sanctions really
that I think they're talking about
a 23rd round of sanctions
that would really
squeeze the Kremlin and its ability to pump money into the Ukraine wars. But if you're talking about
sanctions and tighter pressure coming on Moscow, if you look at what happened just a few weeks ago,
France fought quite hard actually to successfully get a Russian Uzbek billionaire taken off the
existing EU sanctions list. And this happened. And a day later, a French national was released
from prison in Azerbaijan. So the French really were accused of politicising
this process. So let's see what these European leaders work out over the next couple of days.
Ukrainian officials say Star Shield satellite systems used by the military to guide drones
and protect the skies have been restored and are operational.
Kiev had accused the US government, which manages the military system of restricting connectivity,
disrupting Ukraine's battlefield missions. The Ukrainian military has also said
the usual American warnings of incoming Russian strikes were absent for two nights.
President Zelensky raised concerns about potential new limits to US intelligence sharing
in an interview with the Financial Times.
But how difficult is it for the Ukrainians to fend off Russian advances?
Joe Inwood is our World Affairs correspondent.
The Russians have said that a oil refinery south of Moscow has already caught fire to some extent.
We don't have a full picture of the damage there.
But yeah, if the Ukrainians adopt this strategy and they said they're going to targeting Russian oil facilities, that's really quite significant.
It damages Russia's ability to export oil, which is a big revenue source for them.
And so if the Ukrainians can effectively restart that strategy, that has an impact.
But I think it is worth pointing out what the Ukrainian strikes will do is damage Russia's ability to fund the war.
What the Russian strikes on power plants, what they do, is they damage Ukrainian's ability to get through the wind.
Just briefly then, Joe, President Zelensky and Donald Trump don't see eye to eye at the moment. Who can possibly bring them together?
That's a really, really good question. I think a fair understatement about the situation between the two men. Of course, it's a role that Andy Burnham, the British Prime Minister, has said he is keen to take on. He was asked in the House of Commons yesterday if he should be standing up to President Trump, and he said very explicitly his role was not to grandstand, but was to try and bring the two sides together. So I know it's certainly a task that he will be achieving, along with me.
many others in Europe, I'm sure.
Joe Inwood.
The US president remains his usual defiance self,
but inside there might be some trepidation
ahead of next month's midterm elections.
Recent polls show an advantage for Democrats.
Both chambers of Congress are currently controlled by Republicans,
but Democrats are now hoping they can flip vulnerable seats
in the House of Representatives and take control of the US Senate.
The state of Iowa has voted three times for Donald Trump,
a sign of a deepening consensus.
base. But with prices rising and policies that some voters may not like from President Trump,
could the state switch to the Democrats? Our North America editor, Sarah Smith, reports from Iowa.
It's often the case that the sitting president's party takes a battering in the midterm elections,
that this year's opinion polls are suggesting an oversized advantage for Democrats,
and that's because voters blamed Donald Trump directly for the cost of living and the war in Iran.
Game day at the Kinnick Stadium in Iowa City
sees the Hawkeyes taking on Ohio State
at American College football.
And the party starts early,
hours before kickoff in the car park.
There is beer, hot dogs,
and even a whole alligator roasting on a barbecue.
We smoked it for about four, four and a half hours.
Now we wrapped it in bacon.
The Hawkeyes are the clearly acknowledged underdogs here.
Winding his way through the crowd is Josh Turek,
the Democratic candidate for Senate from Iowa.
He's a former Paralympian basketball player who's in a wheelchair, shaking as many hands and trying to win over as many voters as he can, because this is a really tight race here in Iowa.
I think that Iowans are uniquely struggling and hurting, and so I think they're ready for change.
I mean, the tariffs have hurt Iowa more than any other state, the war in Iran, gas prices, diesel prices.
When I'm on the ballot, people show up and you always win.
not on the ballot, 45% fewer people show up. So I'm asking you to do me one favor.
Pretend them on the ballot, please. We got to go and win this.
Donald Trump is insisting on leading the Republican campaign, even if many of his candidates
don't want to be seen anywhere near a president with record low approval ratings.
He could well be deterring more voters than he attract.
I think it definitely puts voters off. There's no doubt about that. And I do think it probably
raises the Democratic side.
Oh, he's got us in the war. He's got prices, groceries high, sky high, gas sky high.
Prices are up everywhere and families are getting squeezed. So here's what I'm doing about it.
The Republican Senate candidate, Ashley Hinson, has voted to support the war in Iran seven times in Congress.
But like other Republicans in tough races, she's now trying to distance herself from the conflict.
It's why I've called for an immediate and successful end to the war in Iran so that families can
see some relief at the pump and at the checkout line.
We're driving through Iowa, and there are cornfields to the left of me, cornfields to the right
of me, just about as far as you can see. This is absolutely classic American Midwest agricultural
state where farmers are really feeling the pain from petrol, diesel, fertilizer price
increases.
Farmer Jason Rogers stepped off his combine high.
Harvester to speak to me. He voted for Donald Trump two years ago and has since seen his own
cost rise due to a war he doesn't believe the U.S. should be engaged in.
He did start the war in Iran, which I will say I don't think we probably should be in that one.
If you were looking at Republican candidates who had supported the war in Iran, would that
affect your thinking? No, it's not just one thing that's going to disqualify somebody for me voting
for him. I've heard repeatedly across Iowa from voters who feel their country is on the
the wrong track, but who, like Jason, don't plan to change their vote as a result.
Opinion polls do suggest a surge for Democrats, but they may not be able to rely solely on Donald
Trump's low approval ratings to boost their vote.
Sarah Smith, with that reports.
The World Athletics President says he hopes holding the 29 World Championships in Nairobi
will create a legacy for Africa.
Sebastian Coe made the comments during a visit to the Kenyan capital.
He said the country was making progress in its fight.
against doping. He also insisted that the gene testing system he introduced to regulate female
competition beginning with last year's World Championships in Tokyo was working and remained
critical to defend women's sports. Lord Coe spoke to Peter Muangangani, beginning with that
decision to choose Nairobi as a world championship venue. We always said that at the right time
in the right city, with the right structures, with the right government support, with the right funding
in place, have that opportunity to build our sport to an even higher level in the continent.
And the legacy behind it is important because it's a hard legacy of a new facility,
but it's also the softer legacy, the human capital that you build up, because it's really
important that countries are able to deliver both championships and more championships
going forward.
What is your assessment of what needs to be done by Kenya between?
now in 2029? A lot, but I would be saying that at this stage to any host city. The World Championships
is hugely important to World Athletics. It accounts for well over 90% of our revenues. And those
revenues are critical because it allows us to build our development programs, our competition
programs, innovation, certainly to fund as well as we possibly can, our member federations.
And a World Championships is complicated. You know, the 46 different disciplines,
It's over nine days, 2,000 athletes, and you want the kind of operational integration
that gives every opportunity for the athlete to perform as well as they possibly can.
Last week, the president of the World Anti-Doping Agency, Vitoch, Tava, was here,
and he said that Kenya must demonstrate that it is clean for those world championships to be seen
as credible. Now, since 2017, more than 140 Kenyan athletes have been seen.
suspended for doping. Given all of this and some criticism, how worried are you about the credibility
of the 2029 World Championships? Look, I'm always worrying about all issues related to integrity
in our sport. When I became president, the first thing I did was to create the athletics
integrity unit. And at operational level, we work very, very closely with Kenya, and that's
beginning to work. The challenge, of course, is the more tests you do and the greater levels of
funding and the more sophisticated you become with the technology, the more you're probably going
to catch. I think over the long haul, number starting to reduce. We've certainly seen it in track.
There still remains some challenges in the road events. Part of your legacy has been the introduction
of the SRY gene testing for the female category. The new regulations have had a restrictive
impact on the ability of certain African athletes to compete. I wonder how happy you are with the impact
of those regulations and do you believe that they have done their job that they were supposed to do?
The implementation of SRY testing is absolutely critical that we defend and we defend properly
women's sport. Our women are box office, you know, in Kenya. Athletes like Faith Kit Yegan
can't walk through city centres in Europe without people wanting to take photographs. They're
very big, big figures. And the SRY testing was there to make sure that we are able to uphold
female eligibility that we can be absolutely clear about that demarcation.
And also, none of those policies were implemented with anything in mind
other than giving some certainty and the foundations of that integrity in all of our six continents.
Sebastian Co.
Finally, animal behaviourists have found that dogs, just like humans, connect sounds with shapes.
and it's related to the so-called Buba Kiki effect,
as I learnt from my colleague Charlotte Gallagher.
The scientists, they inspired me, Anka, to do my own experiment with you.
So surprise, I have two drawings in front of you.
You're very talented artists.
I mean, they are beautiful, aren't they?
I'll sign them if you want.
One's a spiky kind of star shape and the other is a round, blobby, splat shape.
Which one is Buba and which one is Kiki, do you think, Anker?
Buba, I'll go with the splattie one.
Mm-hmm. Congratulations.
So I'm as intelligent as a dog.
You are as intelligent as a dog.
I think they're still smarter than I am, but yeah.
So this experiment dates back to the 1920s.
And what's really interesting is this shape recognition also works across different languages.
So they did the research on 917 people who spoke 25 different languages
and also had different writing systems.
And the vast majority of them matched the word booper with the splat shape and Kiki with the star shape.
And they also carried it out on children as well
and children as young as two and a half.
They came out with the same result.
So Professor Joanne Archuli is from the University of Flinders in Australia
and she can tell us a bit more about the dogs.
Researchers are wondering whether it might have something to do with the shape of your mouth
when you make certain sounds.
So when you say Uber, your mouth is making more rounded shapes.
Whereas when you say Kiki, the mouth is not making round shapes,
if that makes sense.
And then when we think about the way these words might be written, certainly in English, the letters in Buba are more round and the letters in Kiki are a bit more angular and sharp.
Interesting. Okay. So that does make a lot of sense, especially given your experiments as well. So given that dogs can't speak, how did they then work out how they understood that?
Very good point. They cannot speak. But they experimented on 70 dogs and they sat them individually in a room. They had two screens in front of them and two sets of.
of speakers. And over about 15 minutes, the speakers said either Buba or Kiki. And they used a
GoPro camera and also an AI tool to track which way the dog was looking. And in the vast
majority of cases, they identified Buba as being that shape and the Kiki as being the spiky,
sharp shape. And here's Professor Joanne Artudie again. When presented with the Buba sound,
they tend to look at a screen showing a rounded sort of a shape more than they would look at a
screen showing a spiky shape. And vice versa with Kiki, they tend to look, when they hear that,
they tend to look at the screen with the spiky object more than the screen with the round object.
I mean, it wasn't a huge study and they only, as I said, looked at 70 dogs and they didn't
take breed into account, age, training or anything like that. But it does tell us about how
dogs are really quick to pick up on human language and perhaps give us some clues as well
about how they domesticated themselves. Charlotte Gallagher.
And that's all from us for now.
If you want to get in touch, you can email us at global podcast at BBC.co.
You can also now watch our episodes in full.
Just search for the Global News podcast on YouTube.
This edition was mixed by Tom Waterworth, and the producer was Nikki Verico.
The editor is Karen Martin, and I'm Ankara Desai.
Until next time, goodbye.
An Observatory in Space.
This is the real deal.
This is going to revolutionize astronomy.
capable of capturing light from the dawn of the universe.
It could be real exciting for the astronomical community, I guess,
and for the whole world to see what Hubble really can do.
From the BBC World Service,
13 Minutes Trouble with Hubble, the story of the Hubble Space Telescape.
Listen now on BBC.com, the BBC app,
or wherever you get your BBC podcasts.
