Suicide bomber blamed for deadly attack in Islamabad

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Speaker 5 This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service.

Speaker 5 I'm Nick Miles, and at 16 Hours GMT on Tuesday, the 11th of November, these are our main stories.

Speaker 5 The authorities in Pakistan say at least 12 people have been killed in an explosion near a crowded courthouse in Islamabad.

Speaker 5 Indian officials say at least eight have been killed as a result of Monday's car explosion in Delhi. Thailand has suspended its ceasefire agreement with Cambodia.

Speaker 5 Also in this podcast, as the UK plans to phase out experiments on animals, we look at the alternatives.

Speaker 7 There's a real opportunity because of things like data, AI,

Speaker 7 the ability to make organs grow in 3D structures to really reduce the use of animals.

Speaker 5 And we look at evidence that the ability to speak more than one language can delay the aging process.

Speaker 5 We begin with the impact of two deadly explosions at the heart of the capitals of India and Pakistan. Explosions that happened within 24 hours of each other.

Speaker 5 In a moment, you'll hear the latest on the investigation on Monday's car blast in Delhi, which killed eight people.

Speaker 5 But first, to Islamabad, where officials say a suicide bomber killed at least 12 people near a crowded courthouse.

Speaker 5 Our Pakistan correspondent, Caroline Davis, has been to the judicial complex in Islamabad where the bombing took place.

Speaker 8 This explosion happened at around lunchtime when there would have been lawyers, there would have been journalists, there would have been defendants milling around here outside the court's area when this explosion happened.

Speaker 8 The police have cordoned off this area, but you can just about make out between the partitions the chassis of a burnt-out vehicle, of a burnt-out car.

Speaker 8 There's also still a fire engine in place, obviously police tape too, and there are still some emergency ambulance vehicles here on the site.

Speaker 8 Now despite the fact that this area has been corded off with

Speaker 8 barbed wire, we can make out that there are bloodstains on the road from those who were caught up in the explosion.

Speaker 8 The Interior Minister of Pakistan has already visited this site and spoken to local journalists.

Speaker 8 He has claimed that this was a suicide bombing and said that the suicide bomber was attempting to try to get inside the judicial complex but was unable to and instead targeted a police vehicle outside of the complex.

Speaker 8 We know that people have died in this explosion and that people have been injured who are being cared for at a nearby hospital but we are still waiting for more information from the authorities.

Speaker 5 I asked our global affairs reporter Sanjay Dasgupta what more we've learned about this blast.

Speaker 9 What we know is what we have from the authorities. The Pakistani Interior Minister Mohoshin Nagvi says 12 people have died, 27 are injured.

Speaker 9 Pakistani media are quoting hospital sources as saying some of the injuries are very serious.

Speaker 9 The Pakistani Interior Minister has also said, interestingly, that he thinks this is not just another bombing. I quote him Verbatim.

Speaker 9 And it was being investigated from different angles, he said.

Speaker 5 And Sanjay, this is the first such bombing in Islamabad for a number of years, isn't it?

Speaker 9 This is the first such bombing in the capital in about six years, yes.

Speaker 9 And this is what is particularly worrying the authorities.

Speaker 9 I think the Pakistani Interior Minister actually mentioned that, that this is in the heart of the capital, hence not just another bombing, as he says.

Speaker 5 And briefly, there are clearly a number of militant groups that have carried out attacks in the capital. Before, what will the authorities be looking at in terms of a group that's responsible?

Speaker 9 I I am sure the authorities will be trying to look at

Speaker 9 what has caused this. Already there are straws in the wind, shall we say.

Speaker 9 The Pakistani media is quoting their Prime Minister, Shah Baz Sharif, as blaming neighbouring India without providing any evidence.

Speaker 9 There is, as you've just said, there was a similar blast in the Indian capital, Delhi, Monday afternoon, just 24 hours ago.

Speaker 9 There is as yet nothing, absolutely nothing, to link the two incidents other than the blood of completely innocent people in two different capitals, where two different governments sit, eyeing each other with hostility and suspicion.

Speaker 5 Sanjay Dasgupta.

Speaker 5 We go now to Delhi, where a high-level security meeting has been held to try and establish the cause of the car explosion outside the Red Fort on Monday night, one of the city's prime tourist destinations.

Speaker 5 Officials say eight people were killed. The country's Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, has said the nation stands with the victims and that those behind the attack will be brought to justice.

Speaker 5 This is how Indian TV news networks have been covering the attack.

Speaker 13 News coming in of an explosion in a car near Delhi's Red Fort. The Delhi police team is on the spot.

Speaker 14 Well, our live and continuing coverage of the events that have unfolded since the tragic explosion last evening outside Delhi's Red Force Fort, which has left multiple injuries and multiple questions as far as investigators are concerned.

Speaker 15 If what the Delhi police say is true, this is shocking. This is shocking to say the least that they're plotting the murder of innocent Indians living in India, studying in India.

Speaker 5 Our correspondent Davina Gupta is in Delhi and gave us the latest on the investigation.

Speaker 13 I'm at the site right now where the explosion happened and I have seen multiple security agency teams going in and out of this place.

Speaker 13 It's still heavily barricaded and when I was here last evening I could see cars and motor-driven rickshaws that were reduced to charred husks and they are still at the same spot.

Speaker 13 What we've been given to understand is that the investigators are now trying to trace the route of the car where the explosion had taken place. They are scanning CCTV footage

Speaker 13 around the area at this place and also in the adjacent state of Uttar Pradesh. from where they believe the car traveled from.

Speaker 13 The police have also confirmed that no sharpennel has been found at this site, but a case has been registered under the country's main anti-terror law, the UAPA.

Speaker 13 And we've seen security agencies repeating that they're exploring all possibilities at this moment if this is a terror act or not.

Speaker 10 What if any arrests have been made at this stage?

Speaker 13 There haven't been any arrests directly linked with this case that have been confirmed by security agencies.

Speaker 13 There are, however, local media reports of another conspiracy that the media has been covering about a terror module that originated from Indian-administered Kashmir is what they believe, and they have been conducting multiple raids around the country and arresting people in that regard, but there is no official confirmation linking that with this incident.

Speaker 13 But what we do know is that at least six bodies have been identified so far.

Speaker 13 There were health officials who were saying that there are several body parts that were also found at the spot, unfortunately, and they were trying to give information about them and trying to piece it together.

Speaker 13 But so far out of the six who have been identified,

Speaker 13 it is the families have been informed. Someone is a bus conductor who had just finished his shift and was going back to work.

Speaker 13 There was an e rickshaw driver who had come to Delhi to earn money for his family, and there was also a businessman who was visiting this area.

Speaker 13 These are people who were just in this locality going about their everyday business and now their families are mourning not only their loss but are also demanding answers about what exactly has happened.

Speaker 5 Davina Gupta, speaking to Julian Warwicker. The latest United Nations climate change summit, COP30, is underway in the Brazilian city of Belém.

Speaker 5 The talks aim to deliver concrete action on cutting global emissions. One of the big issues facing negotiators is how to help people adapt to the impacts of rising temperatures.

Speaker 5 Long seen as less important than cutting emissions of carbon, adapting to climate change is becoming more and more critical for people, especially in Africa and Asia, as extreme weather events linked to climate change take an ever bigger toll.

Speaker 5 Our environment correspondent Matt McGrath has been speaking to Patrick Vakoyen from the Global Center for Adaptation.

Speaker 16 Between now and 2050,

Speaker 16 620 million young Africans come to the labor market.

Speaker 16 620 million between now and 2050. We also know that African nations on average lose 3% of GDP because of climate shocks today.

Speaker 16 They also lose 3% on average of GDP on paying back their debt. So that's 6% of GDP already gone.
These young folks come to the labor market. The economy is not basically

Speaker 16 resilient to the climate shocks. Where do you think those folks are going to? Obviously at some point, they may migrate up north.

Speaker 16 So it's not just a climate story, it's not just an economic story, it's a migration story.

Speaker 17 How is that landing with the leaders that are here? I mean, we had some leaders come last week, we have some, you know, we have negotiators here, but they're dealing with multiple

Speaker 17 mosaic of problems in the climate world. And you want them to say, look, guys, put at least

Speaker 17 up at the top because

Speaker 17 that turns the whole thing on its head in some ways.

Speaker 16 Exactly.

Speaker 16 So basically my central message is you're missing the point right if you just ignore adaptation finance because it's adaptation finance is about jobs is about growth is about health is about economic prosperity you cannot well you can you can build new highways and airports and what have you but if they're being washed away by the upcoming floods it's not really a smart development so to say right so you need this resilient development and that's unlocks the jobs for the future how do you think that's going i mean you've got a couple of weeks here Do you think there'll be sufficient in the end result of whatever kind of a deal or not deal we get here that will send that kind of signal to the markets and will say, actually, you know what, we're really taking adaptation seriously now.

Speaker 17 We're putting more money into it. We are hearing the argument.

Speaker 16 The wind is at our back, but at the same time, the wind is also at the back of increasing temperatures. So it's like we're in a sprint, right?

Speaker 16 I mean, I'm accelerating as the adaptation agenda, but the emissions and the temperature is also accelerating. Are we catching up in that sprint? And that is the question.

Speaker 16 At the moment, we're not, right? I mean, the climate impacts are escalating. The climate adaptation agenda is indeed sort of progressing, but not fast enough and not at the scale enough.

Speaker 16 That is the litmust for Balem.

Speaker 5 Patrick Vakoyan. Thailand has announced the suspension of a ceasefire agreement with neighboring Cambodia, signed last month with President Trump in attendance.

Speaker 5 The announcement follows a landmine explosion on Monday that injured four Thai soldiers. Jonathan Head reports...

Speaker 12 new landmines, resulting in injuries to four of its soldiers. Cambodia has denied the charge.

Speaker 12 The Thai Prime Minister has now ordered a halt to the various confidence-building measures in the deal, including a return of 18 Cambodian soldiers captured during their five-day conflict in July.

Speaker 12 He also warned communities near the border to prepare to evacuate in case hostilities resume. Cambodia says it's still committed to the deal.

Speaker 12 The new Thai government is under pressure from nationalists and its own military not to make concessions.

Speaker 12 the previous government collapsed after a leaked phone call suggested a willingness to compromise with Cambodia.

Speaker 12 With all political opposition crushed and no independent media, the Cambodian government does not have this problem.

Speaker 5 Jonathan Hayden.

Speaker 5 Still to come in this podcast, Ronaldo, one of the most famous footballers of all time, says he's going to hang up his boots. But not until after next year's World Cup at the earliest.

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Speaker 5 To Sudan now, and the BBC has spoken to a doctor and a patient from El Fasha's main hospital, who fled the site shortly before one of the worst alleged RSF massacres as the city fell.

Speaker 5 The UN has condemned what it says was the mass killing of around 500 patients and staff at the Saudi hospital.

Speaker 5 As the paramilitaries seized the city last month, a medic and a patient who fled to Tawila tell the stories of their escape and reflect on the horror at the hospital.

Speaker 5 As the Sudan Doctors Network tells us a number of senior doctors remain missing, and one has been executed by the RSF. Our Africa correspondent, Barbara Bledasher, has sent this report.

Speaker 21 Alhamdulillah, Sirul Tawila, about Ma'ana Shadeed.

Speaker 3 Mohammed Abdutiyah was in hospital the day Al-Fasher fell to paramilitary troops.

Speaker 3 He'd been injured by shelling, yet, even with a broken leg, he managed to flee the city on foot, eventually making it to the town of Tawila. Stopped by the RSF, but not detained like many others.

Speaker 22 They didn't beat me, but they questioned me a lot because of my injury, I think.

Speaker 22 They said, We know you're a soldier, but you're finished.

Speaker 22 You will die on the road anyway. So just go.

Speaker 3 But many who stayed at the Saudi hospital did not survive. This video was filmed by RSF fighters at a university building nearby that doctors say was used to treat patients.
Bodies cover the floor.

Speaker 3 Those still living are shot dead.

Speaker 3 Abdurrabu Ahmed is a lab technician who worked at the hospital. He fled towards Tawila shortly before the RSF arrived.

Speaker 23 Right now, I feel extremely hopeless.

Speaker 1 I've lost my colleagues, the people whose faces I used to see smiling.

Speaker 23 There is no happiness anymore.

Speaker 1 It feels as if you've lost a big part of your body or your soul.

Speaker 3 The RSF denies the massacre, disputing the claims by filming this video inside the hospital grounds, showing female volunteers tending to patients.

Speaker 3 And at a different location, a man stands next to others dressed in hospital scrubs, saying doctors are now available to treat people in al-Fashir.

Speaker 24 All these medical personnel and cadres, they are not hostages. They are not hostages.
We are not taking them. They are free to practice medicine.
We need them.

Speaker 3 Doctors' groups dismiss these videos as propaganda. Mohamed Al-Sheikh is the spokesperson for the Sudan Doctors Network.
He says several senior medics from the Saudi hospital remain missing.

Speaker 25 One of them, his family managed to pay the ransom and he arrived safely to Tawila town. The other is being executed.

Speaker 25 And the rest, the four remaining medical personnels, until now, we have no information or updates about them.

Speaker 3 Nearly 90,000 people have fled Al-Fashar so far. Here, state TV shows the Sudanese army chief visiting some who've made it to safety.

Speaker 3 But there are fears that tens of thousands more remain trapped in the city.

Speaker 3 Back in Tawila, for those who escaped, like Abdurrabu, there's relief tempered by trauma.

Speaker 23 I do not see any hope of returning to El Fasha. After everything that happened and everything I saw, even if there was a small hope, I remember what happened in front of me.

Speaker 3 The battle for El Fasher is over, but it has left lives in ruin, and Sudan's war continues elsewhere.

Speaker 5 Barbara Plett-Usher reporting.

Speaker 5 Now, can the ability to speak more than one language delay the aging process?

Speaker 5 It's a question scientists have been trying to answer in a study of more than 80,000 people across 27 European countries, people aged in their 50s and above.

Speaker 5 Because of the numbers involved, the findings are seen as particularly significant, and they may encourage people to go out and learn a second language, or at least keep active the one they already speak.

Speaker 5 Lucia Amoroso is the co-author of the study. She's based at the Basque Foundation for Science in Bilbao, Spain.
So what have they discovered? She told Julian Warcake.

Speaker 26 There have been many studies before showing some effects of protection triggered by bilingualism or multilingualism, but these studies were based on small sample sizes and what we found here is that actually speaking more than one language can protect you not only right now but also in the future because we were conducting not only cross-sectional analysis but also longitudinal analysis showing that being multilingual today is going to protect you in the future.

Speaker 26 So I think that this study is very robust. We replicate these findings in the cross-sectional and in the longitudinal analysis and we run this across 27 European countries and more than 86,000 people.

Speaker 26 Because, of course, we expected to see some protection, but not something so robust across such a large sample.

Speaker 10 And just on that word protect, when you say it will protect you, what does that mean? So, elements of the aging process are what slowed down as a result?

Speaker 26 What we did basically was training a machine learning model with a lot of data from national surveys. These data were based on protective factors like preserved cognition or functional ability, so

Speaker 26 how independent you are in doing everyday activities,

Speaker 26 the years of education, but also risk factors like cardiometabolic conditions or sensory impairments. So from all these data, the model learned to predict age.

Speaker 26 okay the age of someone but this age might

Speaker 26 match or not not with your actual chronological age so you might be i don't know 50 years old but your brain and your cognitive profile may look like someone that is 40 right so you look younger actually than you are so basically what multilingualism is doing is delaying aging so it's protecting against this accelerated uh decline it's exercising our brains more is that yeah i mean i don't think that there's just one mechanism, right?

Speaker 26 But one of the hypotheses is that, I mean, when you speak multiple languages, all these languages are active at the same time.

Speaker 26 So you need to inhibit the one that you don't want to use to communicate in the other.

Speaker 26 So this is like fine-tuning or boosting these networks that are the attentional control network, the executive networks that are the ones that actually decline with age.

Speaker 26 So multilingualism seems to be boosting these very same networks in your brain.

Speaker 10 There are lots of factors in play, aren't there, about aging and what might slow it down and they might be connected to health, to wealth, to the environment that you live in.

Speaker 10 Can you be sure that this can be isolated to the extent that you're doing here, that this is a key factor in all of this?

Speaker 26 In this study, we actually tried to control for as many things as possible, and the effect was still there, strong and robust.

Speaker 26 There were some nuances, for instance, when you're speaking multiple languages, but you control for the immigration patterns, the effect is actually disappearing.

Speaker 10 One reaction I've read to your study comes in the form of advice to people who are over 50 and maybe only speak one language that they should still take the time to learn another one.

Speaker 10 Are you putting that forward now as a recommendation here?

Speaker 26 It's not just that. I mean, it's to stay mentally, socially and physically active.
So learn new languages, but learn new things in the sense of challenge your routines and engage with others.

Speaker 26 Multilingualism is a very effective way to combine all these dimensions.

Speaker 5 Lucia Amoruso from the Basque Federation for Science in Bilbao, Spain, speaking to Julia Waraka.

Speaker 5 No matter how much you care about animal rights, when it comes to mainstream medicine, avoiding animal-tested drugs is very difficult indeed.

Speaker 5 But here in the UK, there are plans to phase out experiments on animals, except in exceptional circumstances.

Speaker 5 The government wants companies to use things like lab-grown tissue or AI modelling instead. Here's the science minister, Patrick Valance.

Speaker 7 There's a real opportunity because of things like data, AI, the ability to make organs grow in 3D structures to really reduce the use of animals and still get the same effect of being able to invent new medicines both for patients, human patients, and for animals.

Speaker 5 I asked our science correspondent Pallab Ghosh whether eliminating animal testing altogether would ever be possible.

Speaker 20 Well, that is the big question. Who knows?

Speaker 20 That's the stated aim of this government and this science minister, who incidentally was head of research for GSK, a big pharmaceutical company, before he took on this job.

Speaker 20 So when I asked him precisely that question, he surprisingly said, it is possible, but not for the foreseeable future. But should we try and do that? Yes, we should.

Speaker 20 So it is definitely an aim, but the question is how far we can go and how quickly we can go with using AI, using some of these lab-grown tissues.

Speaker 20 Because the context of it is that the UK had a huge surge in animal experimentation, 4.14 million procedures, that's experiments, were taking place in 2015.

Speaker 20 That dropped dramatically to below 3 million in 2020, but then plateaued. And so what this government wants to do is to restore that downward trend using these new technologies.

Speaker 20 As to whether it's going to get to near zero is an open question.

Speaker 5 Now, the United Kingdom really much is very much at the forefront of this, leading the way to a certain extent.

Speaker 5 But on a global scale, there are fears that it could lessen the UK's standing with farmer companies.

Speaker 20 Well, a number of farmer companies have either withdrawn or paused funding from the UK, citing a lack of investment in the UK.

Speaker 20 And there are some scientists who feel that if this country is going to be pushed into unnecessarily stopping animal testing, then that will dissuade them further from investing.

Speaker 20 And other countries, such as China will benefit.

Speaker 5 And China, at the moment,

Speaker 5 along with many other countries, is not making this commitment, this pledge,

Speaker 5 to phase out animal testing the way that the UK is.

Speaker 20 The UK is very much a leader in this field, but it has to be said that there are some scientists that do work with animals that feel that having lab-grown chips and lab-grown organs is no substitute for using entire animals.

Speaker 20 Because how can you test the effect of a a drug on a cancer without testing the effect on the entire animal is their argument.

Speaker 11 Palabgosh.

Speaker 5 Big news now for football fans. The Portuguese superstar Ronaldo says next year's World Cup will be his last and it's likely he'll retire from football altogether in the next year or two.

Speaker 5 Here's at BBC World Service football reporter George Addo.

Speaker 27 I think it's just one that we as football fans and maybe football connoisseurs were definitely looking out for. It's very close to that.
He's 40 years at the moment.

Speaker 27 Surely at the next World Cup he'll be 41 and if he has any plans for you know the World Cup after next year that's probably 45.

Speaker 27 So it just looked like definitely he was getting to the end of his career. You look at what his contributions have been on the pitch.

Speaker 27 He's not as fast as he used to be before because at the age of 40 there's very little that you can do but of course he's been trying his best and scoring the goals as much as he can and and it's also about giving himself maybe the final chance to see if he can win the trophy that he's not been able to win which happens to be the World Cup.

Speaker 27 When you look at the statistics at Al-Nasser in Saudi Arabia you clearly see that he has he's on the end of scoring goals, doing more upfront but in terms of how he helps the team all of that has come down.

Speaker 27 It's good to see him still running around and playing football. But surely this was something that we have been expecting and not too surprised it's finally come out from him.

Speaker 5 So, what's been the reaction to this news? Our global affairs reporter Mimi Swebe has been taking a look and spoke to Janat Jalil.

Speaker 28 There's been sadness for many fans. He's played across four clubs now, so many clubs really see him as one of football's greats, but one of their own as well.

Speaker 28 And they've come out, the fans on social media, saying they're very sad to see his kind of career start to slow down. And again, what George was hinting to, but it hasn't come as a surprise.

Speaker 28 Questions about retirement have been increasing over recent years, and perhaps the way he's kind of dealt with the questions and in the circumstance,

Speaker 28 maybe people weren't expecting for him to announce at a tourism forum in Saudi Arabia about this really big career moment. Maybe that was going to come in the form of an on-pitch talk for many.

Speaker 28 That's what kind of they viewed this announcement to be like. So, maybe the shock of how it came about as well, fans are kind of deliberating over and chatting about.

Speaker 28 But many happy moments are being remembered and shared and goals and things like that. But, yeah, mainly happy, but with a tinge of sadness as well.

Speaker 29 Because Cristiano Ronaldo is about a lot more than football. He's the most followed person on Instagram and his wife even has a Netflix show.

Speaker 28 Yes, and I am actually a big fan of that Netflix show. So Georgina, I am Georgina, had three seasons on Netflix and was a huge success.

Speaker 28 She was the executive producer as well, which went down a storm with supporters.

Speaker 28 And the idea was to open up the life, their couples, the couple's life, but the life of Cristiano Cristiano Ronaldo, this kind of superstar in football, but give a kind of insight into his personal life as well.

Speaker 28 And it has done really well. So it's kind of gone down as being the top, one of the top shows in more than 45 countries it appeared in on Netflix.
And that's just one aspect.

Speaker 28 So that is, you know, the kind of pop culture following for Georgina, his now engaged fiancé, but also as a footballer, he has a, you know, very successful modelling career.

Speaker 28 He has many things going for him. In Forbes, recently, they said that on and off the pitch, his field earnings will be around $280 million.

Speaker 28 And that is more than double of his second-place rival, Messi, for this upcoming season alone. So it gives you an idea of kind of the personality he is, both on the football field, but off it as well.

Speaker 28 And, you know, that's probably why he's become such a global icon as well.

Speaker 5 Mimi Swaby.

Speaker 5 And that's all from us for now, but there will be a new edition of the Global News podcast later on. If you want to comment on this podcast or the topics covered in it, you can send us an email.

Speaker 5 The address is globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk. You can also find us on X at BBC World Service.
Use the hashtag GlobalNewsPod.

Speaker 5 This edition was mixed by Sid Dundon, and the producers were Charles Sanctuary and Alice Aderley. The editor is Karen Martin.
I'm Nick Miles, and until next time, goodbye.

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