--:-- Asma Khalid: This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. America is changing and so is the world. But what's happening in America isn't just a cause of global upheaval. It's also a symptom of disruption that's happening everywhere.
--:-- Tristan Redman: I'm Asma Khalid in Washington, DC. I'm Tristan Redman in London. And this is The Global Story. Every weekday, we'll bring you a story from this intersection where the world and America meet. Listen on bbc.com or wherever you get your podcasts.
--:-- Katie Watson: This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Katie Watson, and at 1300 hours GMT on Wednesday the 9th of July, these are our main stories.
--:-- Katie Watson: Ukraine's Air Force says Russia launched its heaviest bombardment of the war overnight, attacking the western city of Lutsk with more than 700 drones and missiles.
--:-- Katie Watson: President Trump and Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meet again, raising hopes of a ceasefire in Gaza and the return of hostages to their families.
--:-- Katie Watson: A study says a recent heatwave across Europe led to the deaths of more than 2,000 people. Our cities are still not designed to be able to really withstand these extreme heatwaves that we are frequently seeing now.
--:-- Katie Watson: Also in this podcast, Elon Musk's X platform has removed posts by its AI chatbot Grok after it made several comments praising Hitler.
--:-- Katie Watson: In response to a question asking which 20th century historical figure would be best suited to deal with such posts, Grok said to deal with such vile anti-white hate, Adolf Hitler, no question.
--:-- Katie Watson: And Taiwan embarks on its largest ever military exercise in an effort to ward off growing threats of a Chinese invasion.
--:-- Katie Watson: But first, Russia shows no sign of wanting to end its war with Ukraine. Ukraine's Air Force says that overnight, Russia launched a record number of drones, targeting primarily the northwestern city of Lutsk.
--:-- Paul Adams: I heard more from our diplomatic correspondent, Paul Adams, who's in Ukraine's capital, Kyiv.
--:-- Paul Adams: This was another very typical night, even though the numbers are kind of eye-watering. 728 recorded drones, although it's worth noting that about half of those were proper explosive drones. The other half are decoys.
--:-- Paul Adams: And that's very, very typical of the way Russia mounts these large-scale aerial attacks. It launches waves and waves of drones, real and fake, designed to overwhelm and confuse Ukraine's air defence system.
--:-- Paul Adams: And then it launches a number of ballistic and cruise missiles as well. And those are the ones that are really designed to do the most damage.
--:-- Paul Adams: Now, given all of that, it seems as though the Ukrainians had a pretty good night. They say that they either shot down or diverted huge numbers of drones and shot down seven cruise missiles.
--:-- Paul Adams: We do know that the targets in Lutsk were hit. The military is a bit cagey, in fact, very cagey about exactly what the damage was.
--:-- Paul Adams: We know there's a military air base there which has been attacked before. It's also a logistics hub. It's very close to the Polish border. So it's a significant strategic location, which is why the Russians were clearly intent on trying to attack it.
--:-- Paul Adams: And what's been the reaction from President Zelensky? Well, for him, it is just a reminder of two things.
--:-- Paul Adams: One, as you said in your introduction, you know, proof that Russia still hasn't abandoned its war aims, that all talk of ceasefire, which was obviously dominating the news for quite some time earlier this year, is really being rebuffed on a pretty regular basis by Russia.
--:-- Paul Adams: And of course, underlining once again the importance of Ukraine securing enough air defence equipment. And on that front, I think the Ukrainians are feeling slightly more sanguine this week than they were last week following the news that the Pentagon was suspending delivery of key bits of equipment.
--:-- Paul Adams: They will have been reassured by the language from Donald Trump about the resumption of supplies and indeed by the kind of talk that we heard from Donald Trump in the last 24 hours in which he is expressing more and more frustration with Vladimir Putin.
--:-- Paul Adams: I mean, I think the Ukrainian view is what's taken Donald Trump so long to reach the conclusion that much of the rest of the world reached a long time ago.
--:-- Paul Adams: But still, they will be relieved to hear him talking in those terms.
--:-- Katie Watson: An unscheduled White House meeting between President Trump and the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has raised the stakes at talks to secure a ceasefire in Gaza.
--:-- Katie Watson: It was the second time in as many days that the two men had met. It took place as a Palestinian official told the BBC that talks in Qatar on a possible deal to end the fighting and free Israeli hostages were deadlocked over Israel's refusal to allow the unrestricted entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza.
--:-- Benjamin Netanyahu: Speaking before he met Donald Trump, Mr Netanyahu was adamant that Israel wouldn't budge from its demands.
--:-- Benjamin Netanyahu: We have still to finish the job in Gaza, release all our hostages, eliminate and destroy Hamas's military and governance capabilities because Gaza must have a different future for our sake, for everyone's sake.
--:-- Benjamin Netanyahu: And no country will settle for less. We certainly will not. These are all things that I discussed with President Trump. I may discuss further with him.
--:-- Katie Watson: The US plan is believed to include the staggered release of 10 living hostages and the bodies of 18 dead hostages in exchange for Palestinians held in Israeli jails.
--:-- Katie Watson: El-Hajmi's husband, Tal, was killed fighting Hamas on October 7, 2023, in the kibbutz that was his home. His body was taken into Gaza, where it's still being held.
--:-- Katie Watson: She says hostages' relatives are enduring a rollercoaster of hope and disappointment.
--:-- Katie Watson: I thought this is an opportunity for hope, maybe, to end this war, to bring all of them back and to start to build some kind of new life.
--:-- Katie Watson: And this time it seems like it's going to be real. It's going to happen this time. And maybe it will, but at the moment it seems like nothing.
--:-- Katie Watson: So is this surprise second meeting between Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu a sign that the ceasefire negotiations in Qatar are making progress?
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: I think it's certainly an indication that that's how they want to portray it. They want to show it.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: But we haven't had any real comments from either of the two meetings that the two men have had, which give any sense of real movement forward.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: And what Mr Netanyahu said in his latest comments after that meeting that he had with President Trump, I mean, he talked about the importance of getting the hostages released alive and dead, but also about the equal importance of making sure that Hamas, its military and governing capabilities are completely destroyed.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Now, that can't really be achieved through a ceasefire without a resumption of hostilities afterwards. And that has been the sticking point again and again that Hamas wants a guarantee that there won't be a resumption of hostilities.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: We're also hearing from the talks themselves that there are technical details, important ones, that are still being discussed.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: The Hamas team, from what we're hearing, a Palestinian official close to the talks, saying that the feeling is that the Israeli negotiating team really doesn't have the authority to make any decisions itself.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: It's referring anything that it hears from Hamas These are indirect talks and messages passed backwards and forwards between the two sides, that it can take any decisions on that without referring to Mr Netanyahu.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: So that sense we're getting from the Hamas side, the Palestinian side, is very, very different, far more downbeat.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Certainly when we're hearing from the American administration as you were saying, what Steve Wyckoff has said, supporting what President Trump said a few days ago, that a deal might be done within days.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: I mean, if Mr. Wyckoff does go off to Doha in the next two or three days, that might be a sign that things are getting closer.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: It might also be a sign that he's needed in order to try to really shake things up and get them moving.
--:-- Katie Watson: How crucial do you think the relationship is between President Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu in all this?
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: It's been hot and cold, hasn't it, over the years? I mean, there have been times when they've seemed pretty much in lockstep and times particularly with President Trump when he's seemed very displeased with the Israeli prime minister.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: And that was the same in his first term. A lot of it, what's happening at the moment, does seem to be very much an initiative from the Trump administration, from President Trump himself.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: And as with everything connected with him, it's complicated because although he's clearly pushing very hard for this, he's also giving mixed signals.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: And some of the things which may get in the way of any agreement are things that President Trump has said, in particular, the idea he first put about weeks ago, that people from Gaza might have to be moved out of Gaza at the end of the war.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: That has come up again just in the last two or three days. And I think it's something which, again, is really having a very negative effect on the Hamas side in the talks.
--:-- Katie Watson: The former prime minister of Bangladesh, Sheikh Hasina, authorised her security forces to use lethal weapons against protesters, a BBC Eye investigation has found.
--:-- Katie Watson: In a leaked audio recording, which has been verified by the BBC, Hasina is heard saying she's sanctioned her security forces to shoot protesters wherever they were found.
--:-- Katie Watson: Around 1,400 people were killed and 12,000 were injured in weeks of violence that rocked Bangladesh in July and August last year, after students took to the streets to protest against a new law restricting access to government jobs.
--:-- Katie Watson: BBC Eye reporter Ridi Jha has the details.
--:-- Ridi Jha: This is where the bullet struck. It hit right here. When the protests started, he joined in for the country.
--:-- Ridi Jha: A bereaved father holds up the share of his son, Miraj Hussain, who he lost last year on August 5th.
--:-- Ridi Jha: It was a day that the Prime Minister of Bangladesh, Sheikh Kassina, had resigned. It should have been a day that Miraj celebrated, as his brother Pavel explains.
--:-- Ridi Jha: August 5th was a joyous day for everyone. But hearing that my brother had died, it's impossible to explain how difficult it was for us.
--:-- Ridi Jha: For 15 years, Bangladesh was ruled by Sheikh Hasina and her Awami League party. Critics say her reign became increasingly corrupt and authoritarian.
--:-- Ridi Jha: But she struck a nerve with young people, igniting protests all over the country, when last year she reinstated a controversial job quota system.
--:-- Ridi Jha: About 30% of jobs were set aside for the families of veterans who fought in the country's war of independence.
--:-- Ridi Jha: 23-year-old Abu Saeed was the youngest of nine children and the first in his family to go to university.
--:-- Ridi Jha: His goal was to get a government job. A lone figure with his arms wide open, he was protesting on 16 July when he was shot and killed by police officers.
--:-- Ridi Jha: His death sparked the revolution. The killings by the police continued and a few days later, Sheikh Hasina says she authorised an order to the police and security forces in a leaked call that has been verified by BBC Eye.
--:-- Ridi Jha: I have ordered all of them to be arrested tonight. Everyone has been informed. Wherever you find them, catch them.
--:-- Ridi Jha: I have issued an open order now. Now they will use lethal weapons. Wherever they find them, they will shoot.
--:-- Katie Watson: A spokesperson for Hasina's Awami League party said they couldn't confirm whether this was an authentic recording but insisted it didn't show any unlawful intention or disproportionate response.
--:-- Katie Watson: One of the main flashpoints in the capital, Dhaka, was Jatabari. It was where the climax of the protests, known as the March for Dhaka, occurred on the 5th of August.
--:-- Katie Watson: Among those protesting that day were two friends, Shawan and Miraj.
--:-- Katie Watson: Shawan explained the reasoning to join. Miraj believed that change was necessary.
--:-- Katie Watson: He felt that the problems plaguing Bangladesh required solutions, especially discrimination in jobs and unemployment.
--:-- Katie Watson: Whenever he saw injustice, he protested against it. That day was one of the worst incidents of police violence in the country's history.
--:-- Katie Watson: Analyzing hundreds of videos, photos and eyewitness accounts, the BBC found that police officers indiscriminately fired at protesters for over 30 minutes.
--:-- Katie Watson: As news came in that Sheikh Hasimna had fled to a military airbase, the army who had been outside the police station left.
--:-- Katie Watson: Mirage was filming all of this when the police opened fire. He was one of 52 protesters killed that day.
--:-- Katie Watson: As anger erupted, protesters stormed inside the police station, killing at least six officers.
--:-- Katie Watson: In response to the BBC investigation, the Awami League said mistakes were made by some of the security forces, but it was not a plot by the political leadership to commit violence against their own people.
--:-- Katie Watson: The Bangladesh police says it deeply regrets what happened and has launched criminal investigations.
--:-- Katie Watson: Hasina has been given a safe haven by the Indian government. In Bangladesh, she has been officially charged with facilitation, conspiracy and failure to prevent crimes against humanity.
--:-- Katie Watson: For Miraj's family and friends, the grief is still raw, but they cling to the hope that his death might help free the country from tyranny.
--:-- Katie Watson: You can watch the iDocumentary, The Battle for Bangladesh, on BBC iPlayer or the BBC World Service YouTube channel.
--:-- Katie Watson: Elon Musk's artificial intelligence startup says it's working to remove inappropriate posts made by its chatbot, Grok.
--:-- Katie Watson: That's after users shared screenshots showing it making positive references to Adolf Hitler.
--:-- Katie Watson: The BBC's Chris Vallance is following the story and told me more about these anti-Semitic and pro-Hitler posts.
--:-- Chris Vallance: If you remember the early days of chatbots, so many of them carried a warning saying this may produce inaccurate or offensive answers.
--:-- Chris Vallance: The Grok chatbot, which is integrated in X, certainly came up with some offensive posts. I mean, there are a lot of them.
--:-- Chris Vallance: Among the most troubling statements by Grok were in response to other offensive posts celebrating the deaths of children in the recent Texas floods.
--:-- Chris Vallance: In response to a question asking which 20th century historical figure would be best suited to deal with such posts, Grok said to deal with such vile anti-white hate? Adolf Hitler, no question.
--:-- Chris Vallance: And according to reports, at some point, Brock started referring to itself as Mecca Hitler
--:-- Chris Vallance: The posts were according to the ADL a not group formed to fight anti irresponsible dangerous and anti plain and simple
--:-- Chris Vallance: And what has X been saying? Obviously, they've removed them. Yes.
--:-- Chris Vallance: I mean, XAI, which is Elon Musk's AI startup that sort of became the parent owner of X and associated businesses, said it was actively working to remove the inappropriate posts.
--:-- Chris Vallance: Since being made aware of the content, XAI has taken action to ban hate speech before Grok posts on X.
--:-- Chris Vallance: And it also said that thanks to millions of users on X, we were able to quickly identify and update the model where training could be improved.
--:-- Chris Vallance: How do you think a chatbot like Grok might have started to produce messages like this?
--:-- Chris Vallance: Well, in a sense, we're going to be involved in a bit of speculation here because one of the problems with these AIs, these large language models is to a certain extent they're black boxes.
--:-- Chris Vallance: It's not entirely clear how they work.
--:-- Chris Vallance: On Friday, Musk said that Grok had been improved.
--:-- Chris Vallance: And according to one tech publication, The Verge, the changes included telling it not to shy away from making claims which were politically incorrect, as long as they were well substantiated.
--:-- Chris Vallance: I mean, whether those changes in some way inadvertently led to what we're seeing, we don't know.
--:-- Chris Vallance: I think one thing to say, though, is the timing really couldn't have been worse because it came as XAI was due to launch its next generation language model, Grok 4, on Wednesday.
--:-- Chris Vallance: So, you know, they'll want to have everything fixed before that happens.
--:-- Katie Watson: Still to come, the power of the emoji. We'll be discussing the impact of the pictures used in electronic messages on how we talk to one another.
--:-- Katie Watson: They're like this new thread through language. They're not language as such, but they are changing the way that we communicate.
--:-- Katie Watson: America is changing, and so is the world. But what's happening in America isn't just a cause of global upheaval. It's also a symptom of disruption that's happening everywhere.
--:-- Katie Watson: I'm Asma Khalid in Washington, D.C. I'm Tristan Redman in London, and this is The Global Story. Every weekday, we'll bring you a story from this intersection, where the world and America meet. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.
--:-- Celia Hatton: China's influence stretches far and wide from its global economic power to its expanding regional military reach.
--:-- Celia Hatton: But nowhere is its clout more keenly felt than close to home in Taiwan.
--:-- Celia Hatton: The growing threat of invasion across the straits that separate the island from the People's Republic of China lies behind Taiwan's decision to carry out its biggest ever military exercise.
--:-- Celia Hatton: For more on this, I spoke to our Asia-Pacific editor, Celia Hatton.
--:-- Celia Hatton: Well, we're seeing the largest number of troops take part, 22,000 reserve troops.
--:-- Celia Hatton: But Katie, we're also seeing a lot else. We're seeing new weapons being tested out for the first time.
--:-- Celia Hatton: So mobile rocket artillery launchers that have been given to Taiwan by the U.S.
--:-- Celia Hatton: We also have Taiwan's own surface-to-air missiles that were developed inside Taiwan.
--:-- Celia Hatton: And I would say that the scope of these exercises has grown over the years.
--:-- Celia Hatton: So the first phase of these exercises just to take place in the next few days will simulate what the Taiwanese troops should do if central command is just wiped out and what they need to do if they have to make their own decentralized decisions.
--:-- Celia Hatton: And then later on in this 10 day exercise, they're going to simulate what to do if there is a full scale invasion.
--:-- Celia Hatton: So they're not mincing words anymore. That's really what they're practicing for.
--:-- Celia Hatton: And these exercises are taking place at particularly tense time, aren't they?
--:-- Celia Hatton: Absolutely. I mean, tensions between mainland China and Taiwan, some would say, have never been worse.
--:-- Celia Hatton: We've been seeing almost daily patrols sent by Beijing across air, land, and also a lot of cut cables, communications cables, whether that's an accident or whether that's deliberate remains to be seen.
--:-- Celia Hatton: But we've also been seeing Beijing has been unveiling new weapons lately.
--:-- Celia Hatton: So picture huge barge ships that can lower pylons into the water to create huge offshore bases just off Taiwan, can connect to each other by bridge.
--:-- Celia Hatton: And they've also just unveiled a new graphite bomb that can take out whole communication systems.
--:-- Celia Hatton: So no matter how impressive the exercises are, is this about military might or is it a propaganda?
--:-- Celia Hatton: It's propaganda on both sides, really.
--:-- Celia Hatton: I mean, every time Taiwan or Beijing unveils a new weapon that reportedly can do X, Y or Z, you know, it is a bit of a propaganda exercise because both sides want to show the other what it can do.
--:-- Celia Hatton: I would say the unknown quantity here is the United States.
--:-- Celia Hatton: Would the United States step in to defend Taiwan if need be?
--:-- Celia Hatton: Under law, yes, it's supposed to, but it also maintains a bit of ambiguity as to when it would step in and what it would constitute an attack on Taiwan.
--:-- Katie Watson: A show about the life of a working-class family in a former mining town in Nottinghamshire in central England was a huge hit at the National Theatre in London last year and is now transferring to the West End.
--:-- Katie Watson: It's also been translated and performed around the world. Till the Stars Come Down centres on the wedding day of Sylvia and Marek, a Polish immigrant, and explores themes of unemployment and migration in a so-called Red Wall area, where the majority of people, until the 2019 general election, had always voted for the Labour Party.
--:-- Katie Watson: The play was written by Beth Steele, whose father was a miner from the area.
--:-- Katie Watson: He was one of the last dinosaur. So he worked in Welbeck Colliery and then later Thorsby, which shut in 2014.
--:-- Katie Watson: And the whole of Nottinghamshire really is pit village after pit village.
--:-- Katie Watson: And it has recently obviously undergone huge change with the closure of the mines and de-industrialisation generally.
--:-- Katie Watson: It's a place which turned Redwall under Boris Johnson, voted Brexit overwhelmingly 70% and has just recently voted for reform.
--:-- Katie Watson: I mean, these are tiny towns that actually have a huge national story.
--:-- Katie Watson: But the only time we look at that story is at the time of a general election, when we want something from these people and then we put a microphone under someone's face or we write an article with a few quotes.
--:-- Katie Watson: The amazing thing about a play is that as an audience, you sit with these lives of these people for two hours and you get to see them living their politics, not just arguing about it over a dinner table.
--:-- Katie Watson: They are shaped by this. So you fall in love with these people. You get furious with these people.
--:-- Katie Watson: But what you don't do is walk away dismissing them. And that is the value of theatre.
--:-- Katie Watson: The play has productions going on all around the world. I mean, last month I was there in the opening in Japan.
--:-- Katie Watson: You cannot get a more different culture than Mansfield versus Tokyo but actually because yes this is a specific place yes this is working class lives but guess what that can be universal too it doesn't actually have to be succession.
--:-- Katie Watson: It can be people that have as much to say as much love as much loss.
--:-- Katie Watson: If the play and the drama has big emotional heart, then that actually translates.
--:-- Katie Watson: And you can be in Tokyo. And I sat there on the opening night and at the final 20 minutes, I heard people weeping behind me.
--:-- Katie Watson: And I was like, OK. That was Beth Steele.
--:-- Katie Watson: Areas of Europe have been experiencing record-breaking heatwaves this summer.
--:-- Katie Watson: The soaring temperatures have led to the deaths of more than 2,000 people, according to a scientific study.
--:-- Katie Watson: Frederica Otto is an associate professor of climate science at Imperial College London.
--:-- Katie Watson: She contributed to the report and says it highlights the need for change.
--:-- Katie Watson: Our cities are still not designed to be able to really withstand these extreme heatwaves that we are frequently seeing now.
--:-- Katie Watson: It is so important to adapt to the climate change we already see, but also to stop burning fossil fuels.
--:-- Katie Watson: Because out of three deaths, two would not have happened if it wasn't for climate change.
--:-- Danny Eberhard: They were looking at 12 cities across Europe, Milan, London, Barcelona, Madrid, Paris, Lisbon, Athens, Rome, to mention a few of them.
--:-- Danny Eberhard: And they took 10 days, the end of June, beginning of July, which was this time of this extreme heat wave, the worst heat wave in Western Europe on record.
--:-- Danny Eberhard: So they said 2,300 people died of heat-related causes in that time.
--:-- Danny Eberhard: But the important thing they extracted using historical data from climate change is that 1,500 of those 2,300 died because of the difference that climate change has made.
--:-- Danny Eberhard: So they're talking about a rise of between two and four degrees on top of what would have normally been a heat wave that would have killed some people.
--:-- Danny Eberhard: So that is significant that's basically effectively two-thirds of the people who died of heat-related illnesses in that time in those cities were because of climate change they say.
--:-- Danny Eberhard: And they're calling this kind of thing a silent killer aren't they?
--:-- Danny Eberhard: Yes absolutely so silent killer because they make a comparison with big disasters for example the floods that hit Valencia earlier this year those get a lot of media attention heat waves don't a
--:-- Danny Eberhard: A lot of the people who die are elderly people with underlying health conditions. 88% of these people fall into that category.
--:-- Danny Eberhard: Also some young people, but they're often not listed officially as having died from heat. So these are estimates.
--:-- Danny Eberhard: They're not official figures yet, but they've tried to turn this around quickly to show the impact of this silent killer.
--:-- Katie Watson: June in general was the third hottest month globally on record, the hottest month in Western Europe.
--:-- Danny Eberhard: Speaking to Valerie Sanderson.
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: Now, do you write with emojis or occasionally deploy the little pictograms when sending messages?
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: If you're partial to expression via emoji, what's your icon of choice?
--:-- Valerie Sanderson: And what can our use of certain emojis tell us about ourselves?
--:-- Emma Barnett: Emma Barnett, who loves a strong arm emoji herself, spoke to Keith Houston, author of the book Face With Tears of Joy, which tells the story of emojis.
--:-- Keith Houston: They're like this new thread through language. They're not language as such, but they are changing the way that we communicate.
--:-- Keith Houston: I think they are doing this, if I can use a very zeitgeisty term, I think they're changing language so that it's very vibe-based.
--:-- Keith Houston: I think you can read a word and your brain sees the word and it translates into some meaning that you hold for the words in your head.
--:-- Keith Houston: But I think emoji, because they're graphical, I feel like it's beamed straight into your brain in a slightly more direct sense.
--:-- Keith Houston: There's some emoji that you would never read them out. You would struggle to know how to read out hands with painted nails, for example.
--:-- Keith Houston: But you instantly know what the sender means.
--:-- Susie Dent: Yeah, or not. I mean, there's confusion, isn't there?
--:-- Susie Dent: I mean, Susie, let me bring you into this. You know, when someone sends you an errant aubergine, you need to know what the context is, don't you?
--:-- Susie Dent: You absolutely do.
--:-- Susie Dent: And I think that was actually banned for a while. And so people started writing out the word aubergine. So that's an example of language, of a word replacing an emoji.
--:-- Keith Houston: Yeah, sometimes I think they are ambiguous.
--:-- Keith Houston: So you're flexing biceps, Emma. I think you could be doing a playful flex yourself or you could be conveying something much more profound, you know, mental fortitude and determination, etc.
--:-- Keith Houston: So you need the context almost to understand the emoji.
--:-- Keith Houston: So I don't think they're always shortcuts.
--:-- Keith Houston: No, and I think there can be confusion.
--:-- Keith Houston: And I think, I mean, I think I'm just tired quite a lot of the time at the moment with small children and strange hours where I just want to say, yeah, strong, we're still going to my fellow mothers in particular at times.
--:-- Keith Houston: But some people really don't like it as well, do they, because they want words, they want more.
--:-- Keith Houston: Yeah, I think it's seen as quite unprofessional in some cases.
--:-- Keith Houston: So you see them a lot, even at work, at work as a software engineer, and lots of people use emoji in messaging apps, but it's very rare to see one in an email, for example, or a more formal document.
--:-- Keith Houston: So there are definitely contexts where they're not really acceptable yet.
--:-- Keith Houston: But I think it's hard to deny that they're accepted in everyday language.
--:-- Susie Dent: I definitely think they have their place.
--:-- Susie Dent: Because you know we're speaking with our fingers nowadays we're tapping away on our screens etc and we really need sometimes to add context.
--:-- Susie Dent: I think we've all come become a cropper sometimes if we send something and it's interpreted because we haven't got the body language or the voice tone to add that kind of context.
--:-- Susie Dent: So I do use them but I don't think as Keith said I don't think they're ever going to become a language because they're not emerging organically by democracy.
--:-- Susie Dent: You know, there's a committee, a consortium that decides on them.
--:-- Susie Dent: And if it grew exponentially, it becomes a bit like an instruction manual.
--:-- Susie Dent: So I definitely think they have their place.
--:-- Susie Dent: I think Keith's right. They're kind of creeping into context.
--:-- Susie Dent: We might not want them to be famously in Trump's government, for example.
--:-- Susie Dent: I think there are places and that's the case for language always.
--:-- Susie Dent: You know, we are experts at code switching. We are generally speaking respecters of context and we know when to use things and when not.
--:-- Katie Watson: That's all from us for now. There will be a new edition of the Global News Podcast later.
--:-- Katie Watson: If you want to comment on this podcast or the topics covered in it, you can send us an email.
--:-- Katie Watson: The address is globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk.
--:-- Katie Watson: You can also find us on X at BBC World Service. Use the hashtag Global News Pod.
--:-- Katie Watson: This edition was mixed by Hannah Montgomery and the producer was Vanessa Heaney.
--:-- Katie Watson: The editor is Karen Martin.
--:-- Katie Watson: I'm Katie Watson. Until next time, goodbye.
--:-- Asma Khalid: America is changing. And so is the world. But what's happening in America isn't just a cause of global upheaval. It's also a symptom of disruption that's happening everywhere.
--:-- Asma Khalid: I'm Asma Khalid in Washington, D.C. I'm Tristan Redman in London, and this is The Global Story. Every weekday, we'll bring you a story from this intersection, where the world and America meet. Listen on bbc.com or wherever you get your podcasts.
