Deadly school disaster in Pakistan

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. Listen to Choiceology at schwab.com slash podcast or wherever you listen. It's everything your business needs in one place, saving you time, headaches and serious money. Stop paying for missing pieces. Go to odoo.com. That's O-D-O-O dot com to learn more. This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. Hello, I'm Ankur Desai and at 16 hours GMT on Thursday the 15th of October. These are our main stories. A school roof has collapsed in northwestern Pakistan, killing more than 1,000 children. 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 behaviorists 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 got the latest from a 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 dilapidated conditions because there were a lot of students there. But police have told us that about. 910 students were over there and they were in the classrooms over there. And at that time, 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, a part of that building was collapsed. When 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 the rest of it was constructed with the mud and the wooden things. So it cannot be. The weight of the students, because there were 110 students 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 Reading Hospital in Peshawar. This is one of the congested areas over here in Peshawar, the capital of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. The hospital says that they have received 33 dead bodies, whereas about 22 were injured. And still they say that the death toll can. the death toll can be getting higher because some injured were in critical conditions over there. 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 are a lot of students, mostly poor students of this area. I have spoken to the local people and I talked to them and they said that 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 out how it happens over here. Similarly, I have spoke to the information minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pramish Samar Haroon, below and she says that this inquiry is going to be conducted and we will find 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 it 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 Verify's 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 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 Hind Rajab, the killing of 15 Palestinian emergency workers and the killing of World Central. 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 used AI to help get through some of these reports as well. How did you use AI? 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 incidents, 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. So it was essentially the beginning jumping off point to help us gather the possible leads. OK. And I guess in terms of accountability, can the Geneva Convention therefore add pressure on the IDF 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. Partial 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. Thomas. Prince Harry and his wife Meghan Markle are carrying out their first joined 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 Royal Correspondent Norn Angie 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 Meghan has kept a 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 relaunch. She is hugging a few of the fans who've been waiting, taking 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 Meghan 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 out at a 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 Meghan 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 they 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 we're looking at as well. Harry and Meghan are meeting them and you know there are a lot of well-wishers here who are really looking forward to seeing them. One of the most shocking court cases of recent years the Pellico trial is to be represented on stage in London next month. Dominique Pellico 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 anonymity 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 a large council chamber. One of those involved is the actress Juliet 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 turns 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 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 Rao 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. 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 and 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. 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 Pellicot earlier this year in the Festival Hall which was packed with women and some men too. When Giselle Pellicot 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, you know, 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 been able to tell their stories. That's what she's speaking to, but also men. I mean, you know, it's, we need men to hear this story and we need men to consider what they, 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 and women's relationships to each other, about society's relationship to these forms of violence. And these are subjects which everybody needs to address. Juliet 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. We'll vote us just blame him for the high prices. I think so. Ahead of the key mid-term elections in the US, we gauged the mood with voters in Iowa. Investing with Schwab is like spending a Saturday at a great farmer's market. You can fill your reusable tote with a bit of everything. Maybe you go for some free range, self-directed investing, or perhaps you pick up a few farm fresh trades while you peruse. 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Here's the global news podcast. Ukraine has attacked one of Russia's biggest oil refineries hours after President Volodymyr Zelenskyy 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, Dmitry Peskov, has accused Ukraine and Mr. Zelenskyy of being unwilling to pursue peace or engage with US peace efforts. The governor of Russia's Ryazan region said a massive Ukrainian drone assault had set the refinery ablaze. Meanwhile, EU leaders are meeting in Brussels. The Dutch Prime Minister, Rob Yetten, 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 unlasting 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 Zelenskyy 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 Starshield 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 connections. 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 been destroyed. And they're not going to do anything about it. 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 civilians ability to get through the winter just briefly then joe president selensky 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 a certainly a task that he will be achieving along with many others in europe i'm sure joe inward the u.s president remains his usual defiant 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 take vulnerable seats in the house of representatives and take control of the u.s senate the state of iowa has voted three times for donald trump a sign of a deepening conservative 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 but this year's opinion polls are suggesting an over-summing vote for the president's party and that's because voters blame 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 and we're going to have a good time the hawkeyes are the clearly acknowledged underdogs here winding his way through the crowd is josh shurik 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 in hurting and so i think they're ready for change i mean the the tariffs have hurt iowa more than iowa i think they're ready for change i think they're ready for change i think 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 when i'm not on the ballot 45 percent fewer people show up so i'm asking you to do me one favor pretend i'm 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 harvester to speak to me he voted for donald trump two years ago and has since seen his own costs 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 for somebody for me voting for him i've heard repeatedly across iowa from voters who feel their country is on 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 will create a legacy for africa sebastian co 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 co spoke to peter muangangi beginning with that decision to choose nairobi as a world champion for women's sports he said the country was making progress in its fight against doping 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 those championships and more championships going forward what is your assessment of what needs to be done by kenya between now and 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 percent of our revenues and those revenues are critical because it allows us to build our development programs our competition programs and our programs innovation certainly to fund as well as we possibly can our member federations and award 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 university of kenya has given us the opportunity to do the work that he has done in the past two years and i think that's what we need to do because 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 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 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 remain some challenges in the road events part of your legacy has been the introduction of the sry gene 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 they have done the 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, our box office, you know, in Kenya, athletes like Faith Kip 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 Coe. Finally, animal behaviourists have found that dogs, just like humans, connect sound. with shapes. And it's related to the so-called Booba Kiki effect, as I learned from my colleague Charlotte Gallagher. The scientists, they inspired me, Ankur, to do my own experiment with you. So surprise. I have two drawings in front of you. You're a very talented artist. 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 Booba and which one is Kiki, do you think, Ankur? Booba, I'll go with the splatty one. 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 Booba with the splat shape and Kiki with the star shape. Right. 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 Booba, 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 Booba 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 speakers. And over about 15 minutes, the speakers said either Booba 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 Booba as being that shape and the Kiki as being the spiky, sharp shape. And here's Professor Joanne Artuli again. When presented with the Booba 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 globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk. 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 Verrico. The editor is Karen Martin and I'm Ankur Desai. Until next time, goodbye.