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Crowd sets Ebola hospital tents on fire in DRC
00:29:42
Protestors angry they could not retrieve the body of an Ebola victim
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A
This is the global news podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Celia Hatton and in the early hours of Friday, 22nd May, these are our main stories. A hospital treating Ebola patients in the Democratic Republic of Congo has been partially set ablaze by a crowd trying to retrieve the body of someone infected. Not long after he removed troops from Germany and Poland, Donald Trump says he's sending 5,000 soldiers back to Polish territory. Also in this podcast, the US says Cuba has agreed to its conditional offer of $100 million in aid.
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B
We're not going to do humanitarian aid that falls into the hands of their military company that they have.
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A
But Cuba says it fears the Trump administration is planning to attack it. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, more than 150 people are believed to have died in the current Ebola outbreak in country. The actual figures are still unclear as the authorities try to assess the spread of the disease. But as the number of cases are rising, tensions are too. On Thursday, part of a medical facility in Rampara in the east of the DRC was set on fire when relatives and friends tried to retrieve the body of a young patient who said to have died of Ebola. Also hoping to claim the body of a family member was Benjamin Benduka, who found a group of people gathered outside the health clinic. When he arrived,
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C
they became angry, demanding to know why the young man had died. This caused a commotion ending in the youth setting fire to the treatment center
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D
which was built for Ebola patients.
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C
And inside was the body of my own brother which was burnt beyond recognition. His body remains there now. He hasn't even been placed in a coffin or buried.
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A
The arson attack reflects a big challenge health workers face in the DRC trying to curb the virus by using strict disease control measures that might clash with local customs such as burial rites. The BBC's Emery Mcumeno explained what happened when the family connected with the arson attack asked for the body to be released.
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E
This is against the protocols when it comes to Ebola related case, so the response team denied to release the body. And then some angry young men started storming the hospitals and it wasn't as bad as setting fire to the isolation tent. Two of them were completely burned and there were some six patients inside and even one additional body.
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A
Wow, Emery, it sounds like emotions are really running high. Is that the case in a lot of parts of the drc?
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E
Unfortunately the case from the beginning of this outbreak because the presumed index case died in Bunya on 24 April and the body was brought to Mungualu which is where the majority of the dead have been recorded. It is during that funeral in Mongolu that many people contracted the disease. And at the very beginning, those who were dying believed that it was due to touching the coffin. So at the very beginning people even called this phenomenon coffin. It means everyone who touched the coffin had a curse or a spell and that's why they were dying. So people were going rather to seek the help of traditional healers or going to churches to pray instead of see the health of the medical teams.
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A
Are the authorities trying to spread more information about how Ebola is contracted and how dangerous it is?
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E
In big cities like Kinshasa, where TV and radio a lot authorities are communicating, but Ruampara is a partially rural area with limited mass communications. They are doing something, but the majority is not aware that when the death is related to Ebola, safe burials done by trained health workers or the Red Cross is recommended. And you shouldn't touch a dead body because of the bodily fluids which are super spreader of Ebola. So that message is not really cross.
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A
Some videos coming out of the drc, though Emory, are showing people wearing face masks, some people going to hand washing stations. Is that what you're seeing?
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E
That's the case in all the six officially recorded health zones. Some are starting to wear facial masks and washing hands. But the public gathering, the schools and markets are still going about their daily business.
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A
Are people scared? Emery?
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E
Some are scared. Especially you will find them in people who have lost their loved ones. But in cities like Bunya or Wampara, where the incident happened, you do still people who are very skeptical. There's mistrust among the community. And one of the reasons was that in Rampara today, people who were protesting or insisting to get the body were telling the response teams that they don't believe in Ebola. This is the NGO and international donors business to try to make money. So that is the understanding in some of the communities.
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A
Emory McNa in the DRC's capital, Kinshasa, President Trump says the United States is sending an extra 5,000 soldiers to Poland. In a post on social media, Mr. Trump said the move was based on his relationship with the right wing Polish President Carol Nosky, who he endorsed in last year's election. This latest decision may be seen by some as a possible U turn. It comes just days after the U.S. vice President J.D. vance had said the U.S. was canceling a planned deployment of 4,000 troops to Poland. U.S. troop numbers have also recently been reduced in Germany. So what's behind Donald Trump's latest decision on Poland. I asked our correspondent in Washington, Joel Gunter.
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D
It's a slightly confusing picture. We had this surprise announcement from Donald TRUMP that 5,000 troops would be going to Poland. He said it was because of his very good relationship with Poland's fairly recently elected conservative nationalist president, Carol Noski. It comes, as you mentioned, just a couple of days after The Vice President, J.D. vance, announced that a planned 4,000 strong troop deployment to Poland was being put on hold. Now that was really a surprise because those troops were ready to go. There was already military equipment on the ground in Poland for them. And that also got quite a bit of pushback from defense officials and lawmakers here in the US across the aisle. It wasn't a very welcome statement. There are Republicans and Democrats here who are concerned about the US Force posture in Europe, concerned about Russia and Russian influence in Europe and see the troops stationed there as a really important part of U.S. strategic defense and foreign policy. So Trump has credited his relationship. But as you mentioned, it does feel like a bit of a U turn after an unwelcome announcement.
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A
Joel, can you help us fill in the picture a little bit more? I mean, what role do US Troops play in Europe?
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D
Yeah, I mean, a very varied role. There are somewhere between 80 and 100,000 US troops stationed across Europe. So the numbers we're talking about are relatively small and in some ways a bit more symbolic at the moment. Primarily they function across Europe to deter Russian aggression, support the NATO alliance across Europe and any obligations that might be triggered by that. The US has forward based issues in Europe connected to nuclear weapons. So there's a certain amount of US Forces around running and protecting those global crisis response. Also training and support for things that are going on with the Ukrainian army in the conflict there. So a very varied role and one that is strategically and geopolitically seen as important for us in of countering Russian aggression and influence.
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A
Interesting. Just to focus on Poland a little bit more, President Trump has a complex relationship with Poland, doesn't he? He supports the president, as we've said, but he has a pretty contentious relationship with the prime minister, Donald Tusk.
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D
Yeah, I mean, his relationship with the Polish president has been good. He endorsed him last year in his election when he won. He is a conservative nationalist. He is certainly more aligned with Trump's politics. General. He has clashed with the Polish prime minister, Donald Tusk. As you mentioned, Donald Trump is not someone who takes kindly to being criticized. Donald Tusk has condemned what he sees as the potential disintegration of NATO as a result of U.S. actions, and he's been critical of U.S. posture on NATO. And that obviously has just not sat well with Donald Trump.
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A
Joel Gunter in Washington. In our previous edition of the podcast, we covered the news of the dramatic verdict. In a long, drawn out legal saga over an air crash that happened in 2009, Air France and Airbus have now been found guilty of manslaughter over the crash which killed 228 people. The Paris Appeals court found the airline and aircraft manufacturer solely and entirely responsible for the incident. A flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris which went down into the Atlantic Ocean. A court had previously cleared the companies in 2023, but they were found guilty on Thursday after an eight week TR. Both companies have repeatedly denied the charges and say they will appeal. For many years, relatives of those who lost their lives have been waiting for this verdict. Danielle Lammy's son Eric was one of those killed in 2009. She gave her reaction to Thursday's verdict to Paul Henley.
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So we're extremely satisfied with the judgment. We're very proud that the French justice system has finally held both Airbus and Air France responsible and culpable. They have enough evidence now to convict.
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C
How do you think Airbus and Air France have behaved in recent years?
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F
Yes, so the behavior of Airbus was unacceptable during the inquiry in 2012. In 2022, however, there was a trial at the Paris Correctional Court and the attitude of Paris Airbus was totally hateful. Airbus always ignored the families. Since 2009, they've never sent any messages of condolence or sympathy to any of the families of the victims, not even to the association. This wasn't the case for Air France, who always kept in touch with the families. Airbus behaviour during the appeals process was considerably better. Of course we had the feeling that they respected us until this evening when they were found guilty and told the press that they were going to take the case to the appeals court. They really did have an indecent attitude.
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C
If you can tell us a little bit about Eric, what was he like?
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F
So Eric. Eric was an entrepreneur. He co founded Tiktak.com, an Internet site that had great success. It sold, it still sells show tickets. It was he who created the site alongside his partner. He was really the guy who came up with the idea. You know, he was a brilliant young man, really intelligent, also very handsome. He went scuba diving all over the world and unfortunately it took a lot of flights to do it. And he was about to turn 39 years old, but he was 38 when the accident happened. It happened on the 1st of June, 2009. And we were going to celebrate his birthday on the 22nd.
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C
And what next in the light of today's judgment? What are you going to do now?
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F
So what we're going to do is that we're going to read the judgment very closely. It's going to be sent to our lawyers, who will send it on to us. We want to know all the details. We hope then that Airbus will give up its challenge at the appeals court. The whole world now knows that Airbus has been convicted. This will set a precedent. It's a historic decision for French justice
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Daniel Lammy, whose son Eric died in the plane crash in 2009. She was speaking to Paul Henley. Still to come in this podcast, beluga
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whales, these beautiful white whales, they're aware that the image they see in themselves is them, and they use the mirror as a tool to view themselves.
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Scientists discover that beluga whales can recognize themselves in a mirror. This is the Global News podcast. As speculation mounts that the US May be preparing to carry out a military operation in Cuba, the island's communist rulers have condemned the Trump administration's announcement of murder charges against its former president, Raul Castro. The 94 year old, the brother of the late leader Fidel Castro, has been indicted in connection with the downing of two planes 30 years ago. Since the start of the year, Cuba has been enduring a crippling fuel blockade imposed by the U.S. but the American Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, says it has now accepted an offer of $100 million in aid. But speaking to reporters in Miami, Mr. Rubio said the likelihood of a peaceful agreement between the United States and Cuba is not high right now.
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B
There just doesn't seem to be people over there in charge of the regime who are in any way open to any of those changes. And the things they talk about economically are cosmetic in nature. They're not real, because that's what they've gotten used to all these years, is just buying time and waiting us out. They're not going to be able to wait us out or buy time. We're very serious, we're very focused. The President's preference is always a negotiated agreement. That's peaceful. That's always our preference. That remains our preference with Cuba. I'm just being honest with you. The likelihood of that happening, given who we're dealing with right now, is not high. But if they have a change of heart, we're here.
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A
For his part, the Cuban Foreign Minister, Bruno Rodriguez, has accused Mr. Rubio of lying about the threat Cuba poses to the US as a way to instigate a military aggression against the island. Our correspondent in Havana is, Will Grant,
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C
the concern in the government in Havana is that this will be a pretext, a pretext to some form of military action, a pretext to forced political changes on the island. A reason by which Washington and the Trump administration can claim that it had every legal right in the world to force those changes, whether or not that be from through troops on the ground, through some kind of action similar to what we saw in Venezuela or some other action, that this is part of the legal framework, the legal reasoning for that. Now, that's one perspective, of course. The other perspective is that it could simply be a negotiating position. It could simply be a way of ramping up that pressure by saying, look, this is one of the options we have on the table.
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And given that it is Cuba's state
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run government that's been blamed by many for the awful state of its economy even before the US Fuel blockade, would
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Cubans welcome some kind of arrangement like
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the one in Venezuela?
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C
I've spoken to people who are more than ready for that to happen, people who've told me openly I would like Trump to take control of this now on camera and have said, use it. A lot of people are open to some kind of significant, significant change that could involve kind of a version of what Venezuela's been through or going through. If, of course, it actually made ordinary life better for ordinary Cubans. And I don't know necessarily we can say the case yet whether or not the changes in Venezuela have made ordinary life better for ordinary Venezuelans. Certainly the Trump administration is playing it up, that the money from the sales of Venezuelan crude will go back to the Venezuelan people in ways that they didn't in the past and so on. It's, it's a little tricky to say whether or not that's the actual case. But look, I think people, if they felt that whatever change is coming in Cuba led to the ability to earn at a rate that was therefore reflected on the supermarket shelves, that they had purchasing power with whatever currency they're being paid in so that, you know, there isn't this total black market operating in dollars and Euros, that has no reflection of, with the Cuban peso, the distortions in the economy began to ease, that they could only own maybe a couple of businesses rather than just one. They could own property. Things just became a little more normal, a little easier. And those who really are suffering simply want to know the lights are going to be on, there'll be enough food Their kids can go to school, they'll be looked after in their elderly care, and so on and so forth forth. Other people just want to be able to get to the end of the month knowing that they'll have enough food and enough money for the following month.
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Will Grant in Havana, who was speaking to Janat Jalil this week. Israeli settlers in the occupied west bank have established an illegal settlement next to a Palestinian village that has already been threatened with demolition by the Israeli government. For the past month, settlers and the Israeli army have blocked Umm Al Khair's children from reaching their nearby school. Palestinian farming communities are facing increased threats throughout vast rural areas of the West Bank. Our correspondent Amir Nadir reports.
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This is the sound of the heavy machinery that's reshaping the landscape in the hills of Hebron. Diggers, cranes and six lorries delivering high end caravans. Around them, a fleet of Israeli workers moving rapidly to install the new homes. But we aren't in Israel. We're in the occupied west bank where a new illegal settlement is being built over the fence from a Palestinian village. Khalil Al Hathelin is the head of the village council.
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The work started last night at 2am we were surprised by them arriving with diggers. They brought the caravans after them. They started working extremely quickly.
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Now the Palestinian residents of this village, Umm Al Khair, they've been here since 1948 and they say that this new expansion was all part of a plan to make their way of life as shepherds impossible and to force out the 300 residents of the village from their homes.
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Umm Al Kher doesn't have any type of service. It's a simple village. The settlers have taken all our land. They've left nothing for us.
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H
Khalil says the settlers plan is to encircle their homes and cut the village into half. We head down to the edge of the village and try to speak to some of the settlers driving into the site. What's the plan? What's the plan? Tell us the plan. Are you trying to kick out the Palestinians from here? This is a classic case of the intimidation used by settlers in the West Bank. Palestinians here are too scared to go and speak to the settlers who've arrived in the middle of the night. They're scared to be beaten or arrested. And us, when we try to ask them a question, they shout us and tell us to get lost. So we're standing at the edge of Umm Al Khair village. Here we can see down below some olive groves and land where the residents would take out their sheep to pasture. They say in the past few months, this fence directly in front of us, barbed wire fence, was built to prevent them from accessing their land below. This village has been long threatened by settler expansion, but its children are the latest victims. For over a month, the 55 pupils here have been blocked from walking to school. Images of them with their rucksacks and school books in front of freshly installed barbed wire, Israeli soldiers stood behind. It went viral last month. The settler council said at the time the barrier was put in place to protect the residents of the neighboring settlement. The Israeli military told us the students have another route to school. Residents told us that one isn't safe. The boys of Umul Khair are playing football on the small football pitch that's here. Just at the edge of the village. 10 metres on the road behind them, there is a settler slowly driving his digger down to where the new caravans are being installed this morning.
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They don't want us to go to school.
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Why?
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They want their children to learn and become smarter and for us not to know anything so that they know more than us.
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The message we want to send to the world is firstly, stop the demolition of Umm Al Khair and secondly, we want to return to school.
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But it's not just the settlers. Now the village is threatened by the authorities too. It's been here nearly eight decades and residents say they own the land. Israeli authorities don't recognize their claim and are due to rule in the coming days whether to demolish the village for being built illegally without permits. The future for Khalil and Umm Al Khayr's residents is uncertain.
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The village is threatened with demolition at any moment. Every single building, there's nothing that we can do to stop it. So we're waiting. But it's out of the question. Whatever the conditions, whatever the decision of the government, it's out of the question that we leave our land.
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On one side of the fence, an illegal settlement built in the morning. On the other side, a decades old village threatened with demolition at any moment. The life of Palestinian farmers in the occupied west bank is being made more impossible each day.
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That report by Amir Nader. In a statement to the BBC, the IDF said the barrier was not placed by the idf, but by the settlement within its municipal boundaries. The statement added that students from Ummal Kher have an alternative route to school that does not require passing through the settlement. The US technology giant Meta has settled a lawsuit brought by a school district in the U.S. state of Kentucky over claims that its social networks are designed to be addictive, leading to harm in children. Meta owns Instagram and Facebook. Our tech correspondent in San Francisco is Lily Jamali.
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J
This was a case that was brought by Breathit County School District. This is a district in the US state of Kentucky, and it was one of about 1200 school districts across the United States that was suing Meta for pretty much the same thing. This issue of social media harms. They said that they had had to incur costs dealing with a youth mental health crisis that stemmed from addictive social media apps, including Meta's Instagram. And so theirs was considered a test case. It's also known as a bellwether, where they take a couple of these cases of this big group of 1200, put it on trial. That trial was supposed to start next month in Oakland, California. And it's worth noting this same school district settled with three other social media companies last week. So as it stands now, that trial will not take place. This settlement terms were not disclosed. But because this was just one of many test cases, this issue does not go away for Meta. It's just one of several cases that's been settled. The rest will proceed, at least for now.
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A
Have we heard any response from Meta on this?
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J
We have. They said that they settled this case amicably when I was in touch with them earlier today. And they also highlighted that they are committed to kind of, you know, mitigating this issue. They have a tool called Instagram Teen Accounts, which they say is there to help, you know, limit the time spent by young users on Instagram, gives parental controls, just basically makes sure, to the extent possible, that they limit the harms. But researchers have also been quite critical of Instagram Teen Accounts, saying that it's window dressing more than anything else, really doesn't address some of the root causes and is pretty easy for young users to find workarounds for.
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A
This is a massive issue right now, isn't it, Lily? In the United States and elsewhere, for parents and teachers, how does it relate to the future of online safety?
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J
This is a huge issue. I mean, we're seeing social media bans for young users taking hold all around the world. Australia kick things off in December. This is a really upsetting issue for a lot of parents. And it's not just them. I mean, I was just at UC Berkeley campus a couple weeks ago where there was a protest led by students who say they, you know, years into being affected by these apps, feel that their lives have been upended by this, that they have experienced what it's like to be addicted to these apps. But there is a movement afoot in the United States. Not the kind of regulations that we're seeing in Australia and parts of Europe, or at least the discussion around that, but we are seeing changes happening through litigation like the one that was settled today. There are going to be more bellwether cases and then there's going to be some US States also bringing cases in that very same courtroom in Oakland. So much more to come.
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A
Lily Jamali American researchers have published the first scientific evidence of beluga whales recognizing themselves in mirrors. The study focused on four female whales looking in a two way mirror in an aquarium. They're the latest additions to a growing list of species, including great apes and Asian elephants who have demonstrated this ability, once thought to be something only humans could do. The marine mammal scientist professor Diana Reese from City University in New York led the study.
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What we found is that like us and a handful of other species, beluga whales, these beautiful white whales show the cognitive ability and the level of consciousness that we call mirror self recognition. They're aware that the image they see in themselves is them and they use the mirror as a tool to view themselves doing different kinds of things. We can't get into their heads. All we see is their behavior. So we have to interpret that. But they use the mirror in many ways like we do. If you move a certain way, you want to check yourself out in what you look like when you're doing that other dance move or something like that. If you want to look at parts of your body that you can't see without the mirror, this is what we see them doing. They even bring objects over and play with objects in front of the mirror. They'll often blow bubbles and bite them in front of the mirror. Mirror sort of watching themselves. It's really fascinating. I did two studies previous to this with bottlenose dolphins in which we showed that they also do this. And we did a study with elephants as well. And what we see are these striking similarities across apes. Those were the first animals that they showed. Dolphins, elephants and beluga whales, they show very similar patterns of behavior. You know, we don't know the ingredients that lead to animals being self aware like this in the at this. But what we tend to see in most of the animals that do this is they have large and complex brains, large brains compared to their body size. So for example, magpies that are really smart birds, you know, they're members of the corvid family crows. Their brains are much smaller than ours, but relative to their body sizes, they're big and they're highly social animals. And many of these animals show empathy for others.
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Professor Diana Rees and that's all from us for now. If you want to get in touch, you can email us@globalpodcastbc.co.uk you can also find us on X@BC World Service. Use the hashtag globalnewspod. And don't forget our sister podcast, the Global Story, which goes in depth and beyond the headlines on one big story. This edition of the Global News Podcast was mixed by Zabihullah Kourosh. The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Celia Hatton. Until next time. Goodbye.