BBC Sounds Music Radio Podcasts. Hello, welcome to the program. This is News Hour from the BBC World Service and we're coming to you live from London. I'm Paul Henley. There are still no dates set for new talks between the US and Iran to try to resolve the conflict that's currently frozen in a temporary ceasefire. Pakistan's Prime Minister has said he's met the de facto Saudi ruler Crown Prince bin Salman in Jeddah before a possible second round of negotiations. Iran's targeted US allies in the Gulf in retaliation for US-Israeli strikes on Tehran that triggered the war. The BBC's chief international correspondent, Lee's Doucet, is now in Tehran, reporting from there on condition that none of her materials used by the BBC's Persian service, these restrictions apply to all international media organisations operating inside Iran. She spoke to the BBC's Justin Webb. Well, we've only just arrived in the early hours of the morning. Airports are still shut in Iran, so it means the only way to get to the capital is by road, so it's a more than 12-hour journey. But we, at the crossing into northwestern Iran from Turkey, we spend quite a lot of time at that crossing, and so we're able to speak to quite a big flow of Iranians coming back to their country, some saying, well, they had to come back to work. They want to be with their families. But when you ask them about the ceasefire, you really sense that the enormity of this pressure that they just don't know whether it's going to hold or not. It's beyond their control. It's in the hands of Washington, in particular President Trump. One man said to me, shouting, well, President Trump will never leave us alone. He wants to swallow Iran. And then others saying they were a bit scared, but they wanted to be back. And so you really feel that this is a people living with war. Before the war, they were living with 60% inflation. They have been living for decades under sanctions, so they really are taking it one day at a time. And as we made this long journey by road, I found myself looking at every bridge that was still standing, because even yesterday, President Trump threatened again to see that he could destroy every single bridge in Iran in one day. But then he said, but I really don't want to do that. And one major bridge in the north had been destroyed by Israeli fire, which meant that we had to take a winding rural road because it'll take some time to repair that bridge. We could see to all along the highway that there was the evidence of the damage caused by five weeks of strikes, flattened bases of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, some military barracks. But we also saw factories to the concern that even though the US and Israel kept saying, oh, we're only focusing on military targets, that civilian infrastructure also took a hit. They've hit the military targets, Lise. Have they, from what you can see, at all shaken the ability of the authorities to impose their security on the population? Well, it's too early for us to make a judgment about that. But certainly the reports have been consistent that even through these weeks of war, when the country was under fire and in particular Tehran was targeted, the Basi, the primary military forces were still out on the streets. They were patrolling, still arresting. And of course, there's the reports of the executions of the protesters who had been involved in the nationwide protests in January, which had been put down with lethal force. And you'll remember that at a certain point in the war, Israel in particular moved away from targeting the big military bases and went right down to street level, attacking the posts of the Basi, who are really the ones, we saw them on our last visit, roaring on their motorcycles through the streets to send this message to Iranians, don't you dare, think of coming out to protest, don't you dare make a step wrong. And we ourselves, when we stopped to do some reporting on the road, albeit it was two in the morning, but people came up as they often do, no uniform, asking what we're doing, checking our identities. And President Trump keeps saying that he's brought about regime change. There's really no sign of that. And the Iranians would be the first to tell yes, the faces have changed, but it's still, it's still the same order. And I think these talks, first high level face to face talks that took place last weekend in Islamabad, with a US delegation headed by JD Vance, they will give us the first indications of what kind of a leadership this is going to be and what they will do for their people or indeed against their people. The BBC's Lee's du set in Tehran. Well, in the last hour, the American Defense Secretary, Pete Hegseth has been speaking at a news conference at the Pentagon. He gave this warning to the Iranian regime, if it didn't agree to a deal, the you he refers to in this clip is Iran. We are locked and loaded on your critical dual use infrastructure, on your remaining power generation and on your energy industry. We'd rather not have to do it, but we're ready to go at the command of our president and at the push of a button. Well, according to the government in Jerusalem, the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will hold direct talks today with the Lebanese president, Joseph Aoun. If they happen, these would be the first face to face negotiations in decades of conflict between the two Middle Eastern nations. President Trump also says the talks will happen, but the Lebanese government still says it's the first it's heard of them and that the president won't be talking to Benjamin Netanyahu in the near future. Alex Gander is a spokesman for the Israeli Embassy here in the UK. When I spoke to him earlier, I asked him if he knew if the talks would take place. Same as you, we also heard about these talks through the media. There's nothing that I know of that can indicate that a call like that is supposed to happen. If it will, it would probably be on the level of the Prime Minister and the president of Lebanon. And do you want them to go ahead? Yes, I think there's a lot of optimism coming from Jerusalem regarding any agreement with the state of Lebanon. The Prime Minister himself talks about the fact that it's a positive moment and Ambassador Leiter, who was in Washington meeting with his counterpart, also suggested of widespread optimism regarding these talks. We don't have a quorum with Lebanon. There are no claims from either side. The problem was always the interference of the Islamic Republic of Iran and its proxy Hezbollah. It's widely assumed that Israel is under a lot of pressure from the US to have these talks because without an agreement between Hezbollah and Israel, there can be no peace in Iran. At least so says the Iranian government. What is that pressure and is the Israeli government feeling it? Well, we have very good coordination with our American counterparts in regards to Operation Rising Lion on our side and Epic Fury on the American side. There are conversations between us. We don't feel a particular pressure from our American counterparts. It's something that is to the positive of Israel to have this these conversations, something that we wanted to do in the past. But Israel is not the dominant partner in the US coalition. If Washington says to Jerusalem, you must have talks, will it? That's not what I'm aware of regarding those kind of statements coming from Washington. At the end of the day, we do have very meaningful and equal conversations between us and Washington. And Washington is also a great venue to have those conversations, as we saw between our ambassadors. Are you telling me Washington's not in a position to say have the talks, make a peace deal? Oh, it is definitely in that position. It can definitely talk to us and ask us to do that as well. But at the end of the day. Yes, and Israel can refuse. Is that what's happening? No, it isn't because Israel is actually working to have those peace talks. We accept advice from our friends and we're happy that our friends care about what we have to think. Obviously Israel wants Hezbollah disarmed. The Lebanese government's failure to disarm Hezbollah isn't down to lack of will, though, is it? They don't have the resources. Yeah, I think you're right about that. I think there is will within the Lebanese government. And that's one of the prerequisites for these talks between the two governments. And it is probably not in the position or doesn't have the resources to disarm Hezbollah. But Hezbollah was also very weakened in the last two years. So Israel is in a better position now to help the Lebanese government together, maybe with other partners as well, to disarm Hezbollah, move it further away from Israel's border and maybe disband it all together for the good of the Lebanese people. That was spokesman for the Israeli Embassy here in the UK, Alex Gandler. Joining me now live is Anshil Pfeffer, who is the Economist Israel correspondent. He's on the line from Jerusalem. Welcome, Anshil. How big a diplomatic moment would it be if these talks between the Lebanese president and the Israeli prime minister happened? I don't think there would actually be talks that would probably be a gesture in which had been stage managed by Donald Trump, by the American administration. And the key issues won't change if Benjamin Netanyahu and President Owen have have a chat over the phone. The key issues remain that Israel and Lebanon both have an interest in disarming Hezbollah. Hezbollah no longer being an armed presence in them. Obviously to remain a political party and no longer being an instrument of Iranian power projection. But for the Lebanese currently, the biggest priority is a ceasefire and being able to operate and to begin this very long process of disarming Hezbollah. And Israel's, at least until now, has been unwilling to end the bombardment of Hezbollah targets and what has been the depopulation of around a million people in southern Lebanon. It doesn't sound as if even a chat on the phone will happen. Are you hearing the Lebanese president is saying no to that as well? When Donald Trump posted this early in the morning here, also Israeli officials were surprised, at least the ones I've spoken to, they didn't know about this. So it looks as if Trump may be trying to bounce the two leaders into having a call, not quite sure what he thinks that that will achieve. But the main engagement here is between Trump and Netanyahu and Trump has been pressuring Netanyahu to tone down Israeli attacks or to accept some kind of a ceasefire for a week now, basically ever since he agreed to a ceasefire with Iran. And that is what we're waiting to see here. And the expectation is that Israel will accept at some point under American pressure some kind of a ceasefire. It may not. It probably won't include the withdrawal of Israeli troops from southern Lebanon right now, but at least a cessation of most of the airstrikes. But there is no sign at the moment, Issa, that Israel is willing to do what the US tells it to. You just heard Alex Gander playing down the idea that Israel was under real pressure. Well, that's not what I'm hearing. I am hearing from Israeli officials here that there is significant pressure from Trump. So, Netanyahu is withstood that pressure. He's convinced Trump to say publicly last week that the situation with Iran, the Iranian ceasefire is not connected to the Lebanese ceasefire. But we all know it is. That is what the Iranian government and Speaker Ali Baft, the one of the leaders of Iran, said as much yesterday, they're demanding that this be part of the conditions for continuing the ceasefire between America and Iran. And both Israelis, and I think also Lebanese government wants to do is to decouple the issue of Lebanon from what's happening in Iran. We'll see if that can work. Many thanks. That's Anshil Pfeffer, who's from the Economist in Israel. You're with the BBC World Service. Live from London, this is NewsHour. Coming up. These staccato clicks of sperm whales, sounding like meaningless background noise to human ears, but a new study suggests they could be part of a communication system that mirrors human speech. More on that later. The headlines. Pope Leo has said the world is being ravaged by a handful of tyrants in extraordinary comments during his visit to Cameroon days after he was criticized by Donald Trump. Lebanon's President Joseph Aoun says a ceasefire should come before direct talks with Israel, despite Israeli assertions that he will speak to Benjamin Netanyahu today. And Turkish police have ordered dozens of arrests over social media posts about this week's deadly school shootings. I'm Paul Henley, and this is NewsHour, live from the BBC. The South African opposition politician Julius Malema has been sentenced to five years in prison for firing a rifle during a rally in 2018. The leader of the economic freedom fighters was found guilty last year of several offenses. Let's speak live to Lunga Mazangwe, who is a politics reporter for the Mail and Guardian, a South African newspaper and website. He joins us from the Eastern Cape in South Africa. Lunga, welcome. Tell us a bit more first about Julius Malema and why he is such a controversial figure in South African politics. Good afternoon Paul. Yes, indeed. He's seen as quite a person that is very controversial when you speak about the issues of the land, injustice of the past. He seems to be a person that does not hold back in saying what others might find to be uncountable in saying. And you would remember from his days from the Udlik, he has been like that and he quite hold a number, a serious following in South Africa. And his political party, I think it's just the fourth biggest, if I'm not mistaken. But yeah, he's quite an interesting figure in South African politics. What does he say that others don't dare to say? Look, if we can look at the issue, I think there was one of the issues that President Trump was speaking about at the get the over office or no, speaking about that he was calling for black, white genocide and things like that. So he had been asking to say, why is a person like this not been arrested? So in many communities, they view him as racist. If you ask a lot of communities where there's Africans, South Africans, they view him as someone who's very racist. And you would know that there is a political party called the Democratic Alliance and went into a coalition at the ANC to try and actually prevent him from getting into any sort of government position because there's a fear that he might not run the country properly. This incident that he was jailed for dates back to 2018. What happened? So in 2018, they were celebrating there. I think they started the party. I think it was formed in 2013, if I'm not mistaken. So it was their fifth year anniversary. So they were celebrating five years anniversary. So what then we saw, what then a video image on social media where he shot a rifle and upwards during those celebrations. So the case stems from that incident in 2018. Reaction in South Africa to the sentencing? Look, there's a mixed reaction with some saying that everyone is equal before the law and no one is bigger than the other. When there are some who say arresting him or sending him to prison might cause chaos of what we saw in July 2021 when the variety here in South Africa, when the former president Jacob Zuma was arrested. So there's quite a number of sentiments that people are sharing. Some are saying there's no need for this person to be jailed, can just be fined and people move on from it. But some are saying if those are not being held accountable, they'll be difficult to hold anyone accountable if you can't do, you can't hold the leaders accountable. Many thanks for joining us. That was Lunga Mazangwe, who is a politics reporter for the Mail and Guardian newspaper live from Eastern Cape in South Africa. To Sweden now, which is one of the most technologically advanced countries in the world and in its classrooms, laptops or tablets, every pupil have been the norm for almost a decade now. Now those schools are pivoting back to physical books, pens and paper. The shift follows government concerns about falling international test scores and the impact of heavy screen use on pupils learning. Not everyone though is convinced this is the right approach, as Maddie Savage reports from Sikla just outside Stockholm. In this former industrial suburb near Stockholm, high school pupils are unpacking laptops, alongside things that weren't around as much a few years ago, physical books and printed coursework. Here's Alexis and Ludwig, who are 18 and in their final year. In some classes, for example mathematics, I've noticed we've used more books during later years than computers. What about you? For me, there's definitely been a big change. So basically my whole life I've been using tablets, computers, phones, when we have a pencil and a paper and a book, you need to do it all yourself. My name is Karina Mikkel, I teach English and Spanish. So 15 years ago the government said use laptops, now we're in the digital era in Sweden, whereas now we're going more towards the 60s again. It is more books, pens, papers. This U-turn in one of the world's most digital societies started here at Sweden's parliament. In 2023, a new right-wing coalition made this announcement. Perme. From huaam til peam, it's a catchy rhyme in Swedish and in English it translates to from screen to binder. Ministers ask teachers to cut screen time for school pupils and reverse the requirement for preschools to use digital devices. Changes to the school curriculum are due in 2028, designed to support more textbook-based learning. My name is Joaf Shal and we're in the Swedish parliament just outside the chamber. Joaf is education spokesperson for the Liberal Party, which oversees Sweden's education ministry. He says the change is being driven by academic research about screens potential to distract pupils, impact how they process information and even affect brain development. I think Sweden is usually early adopters, we think that's a competitive edge for Sweden, so I think we jumped on that train very fast. There was a mistake but we're changing it back. Schools have been given extra money to buy textbooks and asked to employ librarians again and mobile phones are set to be banned from all classrooms from this August. The government hopes the approach can help reverse Sweden's tumbling test scores in the world's largest school survey, PISA, run by the OECD. I'm Andreas Schleicher, I'm director for education and skills at the OECD. So what does the OECD make of the government's back to books strategy? Will it improve the results? Will it lead to more concentration, less distraction? It's quite possible, it's very hard to predict but Sweden used to be at an extreme and so there are I think good reasons to believe that this more mainstream approach is probably going to lead to improved outcomes. But the dramatic shift is attracting some criticism in this tech savvy nation. Last year 27 education and computer science academics wrote a newspaper column arguing that a strong digital curriculum is essential even for primary school pupils. Critics also argue the back to books policy is a distraction from other issues that could be impacting school results like teacher training, the marketisation of some schools and rising inequality and segregation. Back at the school in Sikla, teacher Karina says many of her pupils are more focused in lessons without laptops but she's calling for more nuanced debates. There's been so many rash decisions now and in the past where we either embrace digitalisation or we exclude it completely and I don't believe in either. Maddie Savage reporting from Sweden, you can hear more on that story in the documentary entitled Back to Books. Don't forget if you want to listen to News Hour but miss the live broadcast there's an online version of the program available updated twice a day. BBC News Hour podcast is what you need to search for and you can subscribe to the feed if you want to get it on a regular basis. I'm Paul Henley and this is News Hour, live from London from the BBC World Service. Welcome back to News Hour and our drugs that are said to slow the progression of Alzheimer's disease make no meaningful difference to patients according to a new review. There's even new evidence that drugs increase the risk of swelling and bleeding on the brain. Anti-amyloid medicines are designed to bind to the protein that builds up in the brains of people living with Alzheimer's and clear deposits slowing down cognitive decline. Joining me in the studio is James Gallagher who is the BBC's Health and Science correspondent James. Welcome, this report comes from something called a Cochrane collaboration. Who are they? What did they find? Well they're a body that has the goal of not being tied to any pharmaceutical company or any industry. They take the step back and they do the independent authoritative review of all of the available evidence so they don't base their findings off one trial. They look at every single trial and what they've done in this instance is they've looked at all the drug trials into an approach known as clearing amyloid from the brain. Now this is a toxic sticky gungee protein that builds up in the brain to people without Alzheimer's disease and one of the big ideas if you use drugs to clear that from the brain in Alzheimer's that will improve symptoms. They've looked at all the evidence on it and they have concluded not without controversy but they have concluded that the benefit that is there is so small that it wouldn't actually be meaningful for patients. And the controversy is that some scientists disagree. Yeah, exactly. So as I described they pulled together all the different pieces of research. Now some scientists would say that's not completely fair. Obviously Cochrane denied this. But they would say it's not fair because you're looking at older experimental drugs as well as the newer drugs that have been shown to have some effect and therefore it's not a very good idea to smash all of those together. Cochrane say no, this is the way that you should be doing it. Where it leaves everybody is a whole other question. Well it seems like bad news in a long running saga and Alzheimer's has been recognized for what over 100 years it's obviously proving extremely difficult to find a cure. It is proving extremely difficult to find a cure and it's worth remembering that these drugs even in the most optimistic sets of data if you were to cherry pick those they don't cure Alzheimer's disease, they don't stop Alzheimer's disease, they slow the pace of progression so you get worse more slowly with the medication than you would have done anyway. And that's what I'm saying the difference isn't really there for. Sorry to interrupt. Is there a scientific reason why it's so tricky? There are many, one of which is actually trying to figure out what it is that you want to tweak that is actually going to change the course of the disease. So there's like you know if it's blood pressure you know you know what needs to lower blood pressure but in something as complicated as the brain what's the thing you actually need to alter the dial on in order to change the course of Alzheimer's disease that's part of the problem. Another part of it is it's inside the brain which is not a particularly easy part of the body to get drugs into and start to manipulate. And another thing is the slow burn of this disease. If you have the symptoms of Alzheimer's disease that's actually quite a long way into this disease you will have had well over a decade of brain cells dying so it's also about being able to get in early enough that you can actually change it before people become symptomatic at which point it may be quite late in the disease. James Gallagher many thanks. You're with NewsHour from the BBC I'm Paul Henley. Now Israel is thought to be coming under pressure still from the US to end its offensive against Hezbollah in Lebanon in the interests of securing a peace deal mainly with Iran. Meanwhile BBC analysis of satellite images and videos shows that more than a thousand four hundred buildings were destroyed in southern Lebanon by Israeli strikes and demolitions since the start of March. Well over a million people in Lebanon have been forced out of their homes. More than two thousand have been killed in the latest conflict. Firas Abiyad was Lebanese Minister of Public Health for four years until 2025. He's now a surgeon at the American University of Beirut and when I talked to him shortly before we came on air he told me first about his experience of the aftermath of the worst day of Israeli bombing last week. You know I was in the emergency room on the Black Wednesday this is what we call it now when we you know suddenly we had like 70 patients brought to the emergency room in a period of you know probably around an hour in succession and there was you know clearly civilians we had a child or an infant I think nine months was the youngest and we had a lady 85 year old who ended up losing both her legs and it was mayhem it was really madness and you could see people who had been injured from the rockets themselves tentrating injuries. We also had a lot of crush injuries and this kept coming during the day as people were removed from under the rubble. You know we witnessed whole apartment buildings being brought down to the ground without any warning so that's why you know from a single day the toll till now is around 350 people who have been killed and they say that there are a lot more that are still under the rubble. Look Lebanese people have been hoping for a long time now haven't they for a ceasefire. Yes they have. I think if you look at Lebanon specifically over the past five to six years we have been going from one crisis to the other financial crisis the pandemic war then another war and and so on and I think that the people are really exhausted we've run out of resources and I think that people really want to have some calmness and they could resume their normal lives. Ordinary lives are completely disrupted for for many people in Lebanon are they. Well you have one quarter of the population have been displaced from their homes many of them are living in tents on the streets at the beachfront or under a bridge that I've just passed a few minutes ago. You have a large number who have been killed almost 2000 have been killed in the last war and almost 8000 have been injured. So the events of the past month have been truly held for a large portion of the Lebanese community and I think that you know people just want all of this to stop. I mentioned analysis by BBC Verify about the scale of destruction in southern Lebanon nearest Israel tell us more about that. Well I've seen the report this morning and we're talking about in some areas thousands or tens of thousands of houses have been completely destroyed now for people who know the south you know the south is not a highly dense area like Beirut so when we're talking about this number we are talking probably almost about 30 or 40 percent of the house units there that have been destroyed in addition to the destruction of the infrastructure and what that means is that if you know each household let's say have an average of five people living there we're talking about probably 200 people who will be displaced for a long period of time. I've talked to Lebanese citizens who've given up following news of peace talks they have little on no faith that Israel is willing to sign anything on the dotted line. Yes you know we've been there before this is as they say Degevou all over again this is not the first ceasefire that Lebanon and Israel have reached and every time you know we find that Israel then restarts the raids under different pretences and also we hear ministers from the Israeli governments going out and saying that the true aim of the of the war is to annex the southern part of Lebanon south of Litani and to expand greater Israel so that's why people are extremely skeptical of the real intentions of the Israeli government in Lebanon. Firas Abiyad former Lebanese minister of public health now a surgeon at the American University Hospital of Beirut. Let's talk now to Nader Homsi who is a correspondent at the National which is a UAE state-owned English language daily newspaper published in Abu Dhabi. Nader joins us from the paper's Beirut bureau. Nader welcome to the program the news from Beirut seems to be that there will be no talks with Israel not even a phone chat between the president and the Israeli prime minister what what are you hearing? That was the most recent thing but now we've just seen on Israeli media that Israel might be preparing for a ceasefire that may begin between 7 p.m. and midnight that hasn't been confirmed this has just been floating around in Israeli media so I think it needs a little bit of time for us to understand exactly what's going on if it's true it would be a very big deal and I think it would bring a lot of goodwill to the Lebanese government because it was being perceived previously as undergoing these kinds of negotiations with Israel before even it got them to stop doing to stop to cease fire essentially they were being accused of going into these negotiations while Israel was continuing to bomb the country and displace people and so on but again you know we don't know what's going to happen if this ceasefire does take place does it mean that Israel is going to withdraw is it going to maintain its positions is it going to stop firing it's not doesn't have a great reputation for maintaining ceasefires as well so so far it's too early to say but what we do know is that there were attempts to make president to there were attempts for president Joseph on Lebanese president Joseph on to speak with prime minister Netanyahu of Israel and Joseph on refused outright due to the perception that he would be speaking directly to Israel's leader while Israel was still attacking Lebanon very very intensively and what is the Lebanese government's approach to Hamas does it want to disarm the militant group yes i think you misspoke you meant hezbollah but i know what you mean sorry i i i did miss speak i meant hezbollah thank you for correct me don't worry yeah yeah of course uh so the Lebanese government's approach towards hezbollah is that it wants to disarm hezbollah and it wants to have a monopoly of weapons it says the only people the only power that should have weapons in Lebanon is the country's sovereign army uh the catch 22 is that hezbollah is also in the Lebanese government now they're not against the idea in theory they say that as long as Israel is attacking us um and you have to recall also that there were 15 months of a so-called ceasefire period before this war started where Israel was launching daily attacks on uh lebanon on lebanon as well as maintaining a military occupation in several points of southern lebanese territory uh so hezbollah keeps saying that as long as israel is attacking uh we cannot disarm so essentially israel's attacks are in a way preventing the lebanese army from undergoing the process of disarming hezbollah at the same time when israel is pushing for these negotiations with the lebanese state uh for a ceasefire while it's also attacking lebanon it lends to the perception publicly that uh the lebanese state is willing to undergo this process of disarming hezbollah while israel is uh attacking uh the lebanese the very that very state itself so in a sense kind of helping them in disarming hezbollah so it's uh very complicated and uh difficult situation for the lebanese state and they really have to toe the line as well thank you nada and thanks for keeping me on the right track nada honsi from the national in bay root new research suggests that the clicking noises that sperm whales make when they're communicating with each other have a complex similar a complexity rather similar to human language this is a sample of those noises now a linguist from the university of california berkeley has led a study of the sounds emitted by these huge undersea mammals which not only have the biggest teeth of any predator but also the biggest brains the sperm whales bursts of clicking are called coders and according to the research they contain nuances and actual grammar patterns let's hear live from professor john copley marine biologist at the university of south hampton has been looking into these findings professor welcome sperm whales don't have voices as such do they how do they make the noise no that's right they don't sing like some other whales do they communicate with these clicks and they make those sounds in a very different way to how we make noises like we're talking right now because when they dive they have to close their mouths and keep their noses shut if you like and they don't store air in their lungs because they dive very deep so they store air in little sacks in their noses and they pass the air between those sacks over something called phonic lips which is a bit like our vocal cords but it's it's in their nose so it's very different and yet they produce sounds that have some similarities to some of the sounds that we have in human spoken languages what similarities it's been actually compared to latin or mandarin i think so we've known that they communicate through the pattern of clicks that's one way of encoding information to communicate something but what this research shows is that individual clicks vary basically these researchers have been able to show there are two key types of click which they call vowel coders and they can vary those clicks one of them they can make longer a little bit like when you lengthen a vowel sound in some languages it's like arabic i think if you lengthen a vowel sound in some words it can change the meaning and you can also have different intonations as well so it shows there's another layer of complexity in the communication that these whales are using so you know they live such rich lives culturally it's fascinating to imagine what it is that they're sharing and the ultimate prize would be decoding yes what they are actually saying how far are we from translating if it as it were well of course we're still an incredibly long way off that and even if we were able to identify individual elements that would be analogous to words that's a long way from any meaning because it could be that their communication is all through metaphor or cultural reference or so on so as we gradually get closer and closer to these things you know and we get these these insights eventually even if we were able to understand more we'd have to do so much listening a vast amount of listening before we could develop real understanding difficult when they inhabit a different realm and i suppose if if sperm whales lived on land we'd know a lot more absolutely i mean you know they spend a lot of their time in the deep ocean so they can hold their breath for more than an hour they can dive more than a kilometer deep because they feed on deep living squid so you know they come up to breathe but they're spending most of their time in those dark ocean depths thank you very much for coming on the program professor john copley who's a marine biologist at the University of Southampton here in the uk you're with the bbc world service we're live from london we are news hour i'm paul henley and this is news hour live from the bbc well he isn't letting it lie two days after president trump posted and then deleted an infamous ai image of himself as a jesus-like figure he has reposted a different image showing jesus embracing him the radical left lunatics might not like this but i think it's quite nice he wrote it's a sign that he is doubling down on his argument with pope leo who's been an outspoken critic of the war in iran today the pope addressing worshipers at st joseph cathedral in the city of bermenda in the northwest of cameroon during his during his africa tour said it was time to move away from war he must make a decisive change of course a true conversion that will lead us in the opposite direction onto a sustainable path rich in human fraternity the world is being ravaged by a handful of tyrants it is held together by a multitude of supportive brothers and sisters well john yepp is a trump supporter in arizona in the u.s and president of a group called catholics for catholics what was his reaction when he first saw the first ai generated image posted by mr trump he's been speaking to the bbc's james kumarasami it was one of sadness and just a disappointment you know uh as the leader of a major catholic movement here in the united states that worked very hard to get president trump elected giving him the largest catholic landslide in u.s election history we were dismayed you know this falls on the heels of uh holy week service that he had the white house where he had his pastors basically say president trump whatever you do will be blessed by god and that's really a dangerous position to be in as a leader where you have your close advisors tell you essentially you can do no wrong and then followed by that the social media posts on east ur morning the most sacred day for all christians around the world as a vulgar rant about attacking iran and then you have of course this broadside against the holy father pro blio and then lastly this picture uh equated himself in a perhaps jokingly mannered jesus so it's um you can't understand this out in a vacuum this is the context of the iran war and it's left a lot of christians like myself a little bit dismayed what attracted you to president trump in the first place you know president trump has been uh someone who's an outsider uh who promised to really um drain the swamp right and obviously the catholic our bishops teach very clearly that the number one issue that we should look at when choosing two candidates is the preeminent issue the fence of life in the womb and president trump still remains a much better option than vice president kamala harris he's done a lot to protect pro life of babies in the womb we're grateful for that we're also grateful for the president securing the border and other matters like that but and there's a big but clearly there there definitely is a but and this is the role of uh what's important as a catholic american is you vote for somebody but that does not mean you keep your mouth quiet later on during the administration if there are things that need to be addressed you speak up for it and this is precisely one of those moments we had president trump kind of taking an unnecessary um attack on po blio po blio is doing precisely what he's supposed to be doing as the vicar of christ in the world which is to speak up on issues of morality and with regards to this iran war which is very unpopular among the american base we sense the immoral nature of it and we're grateful that pope leo is speaking up about this well that was john yepp catholic trump supporter in arizona the conflict with the pope continues the u.s vice president jd vance who is a practicing catholic himself has like trump taken issue with the pope at an event held by the conservative organization turning point usa i think it's very very important for the pope to be careful when he talks about matters of theology i think one of the issues here is that if you're going to opine on matters of theology you've got to be careful you've got to make sure it's anchored in the truth and that's one of the things that i try to do and it's certainly something i would expect from the clergy whether they're catholic or protestant jd vance there let's talk live to oliver mcternan who has spent more than two decades working in conflict resolution in the middle east he is now director of forward thinking which is a mediation and conflict resolution charity he's also a former catholic priest welcome to the program oliver as a catholic and as a mediator first what do you think of president trump's religious messaging recently deeply disturbing paul and the gentleman you had on the catholic who supported trump because he believed in being um anti-abortion in other words protecting life before birth i think what all of those supporters should now realize that it's equally important to protect life after birth and i think that's what um poplio is emphasizing the traditional legal and moral norms that are there to protect us all from the sort of dangers of this philosophy of east true strength and john yepp talked about sensing immorality in the nature of the war with iran is that at the heart of the standoff between the pope and president trump yes i would think it's very deeply um ingrained in the pope's position um i don't know if you had an opportunity to read the new york times um insiders account of the decision making process that led to this current war with iran what was deeply disturbing was the fact that at no time was any mention made of the legal and moral constraints that should be taken into place before a decision is made and in particular the just war theory which underpins i would say much of a modern international law and especially the urin charter and the geneva conventions and as a mediator what do you think of donald trump's tactic which is apparently to strong arm the iranians into accepting a peace deal on his terms well he's a foolish man if he thinks the iranians will bow to that deep in the iranian culture is the desire to preserve dignity that's the most important and to avoid humiliation and i think the iranians that then of course is strengthened by their shaiyid belief that um humiliation is is something to be avoided at all costs lost to dignity in fact it's better to lose one's life than lose one's dignity so i think it's a culture that goes back almost 6000 years mr trump is is trying to use tactics that may work in you know when you're dealing with estates and swapping land that doesn't matter to people but it's certainly i don't think will bring the results he wants in in iran might his tactics work on the lebanese government well no there won't either because again we're dealing with a deep culture and what worries me what's going on in lebanon one of the mp's i was speaking with um recently she said you know her great fear is the pressure that israel is putting on and the emphasis now of getting the army to um disarm espela that there is a real risk of sparking off the sectarian violence again in in um lebanon and we recall those of us old enough that it's now 51 years since the civil war began okay just god help us all if that happens again many thanks oliver mcternan former catholic priest that was news hour thank you for listening
