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The AIH Transcript for December 4, 2019

Hosts: Carol Off and Karen Gordon

Prologue

CAROL OFF: Hello. I'm Carol Off.

KAREN GORDON: Good evening. I'm Karen Gordon. This is As It Happens.

[Music: Theme]

KG: Tonight...

CO: The pre-disappearing act. Frustrated by uncooperative police, an Ontario woman undertakes her own investigation and finds disturbing clues about what happened before her father vanished in Mexico.

KG: Shaken faith. We speak to the whistleblower who leaked documents showing a Buffalo bishop kept a secret list of clergy accused of sexual abuse -- now he's resigned.

CO: Snark contrast. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau spoke grandly about Canada's commitment to NATO -- but all anyone wants to talk about today is the footage of him gossiping about Donald Trump.

KG: Showing the big picture through lots of small ones. Panel-by-panel, the late artist Howard Cruse told stories that had never been told before in that medium, which is why he was called the Godfather of Queer Comics.

CO: She took offense and then confronted one. A British politician scrambles out of a climate change event to avoid further interactions with a hostile audience and then finds herself trapped in a schoolyard.

KG: And eel is calm -- eel is bright. This year, the Christmas tree at the Tennessee Aquarium is being powered by an electric eel, and its keeper hopes the kids will see that the tree and her beloved fish are 'lit." As It Happens. The Wednesday Edition. Radio that delivers a tannenbaum-shell.

[Music: Theme]

Part 1: How a CBC producer caught Trudeau on a hot mic gossiping about Trump

Mexico: Canadian missing

Guest: Brooke Mullins

KG: Last week, Brooke Mullins stood before an Ontario court, and it's something she never wanted to do. She requested that her father, Malcolm Madsen, be declared dead. Mr. Madsen's body has never been found. But Ms. Mullins has no doubt that he was murdered in Mexico. The story of Mr. Madsen's disappearance and his daughter's extraordinary journey to get to the bottom of it was detailed in a feature story published in the Toronto Star last week. The story describes what Ms. Mullins found when she did her own investigation after her 68 year old father vanished last fall. And what she discovered was deeply disturbing. We reached Brooke Mullins in Port Hope, Ontario.

CO: Brooke, how difficult was it for you to make this decision to ask an Ontario court to declare that your father is dead?

BROOKE MULLINS: It was very hard. I'd been holding onto that 15 percent still that he might be alive somewhere out there being held. When the lawyer said, you know, Brooke, we know he's gone, don't we? And there was a pause between us and it was very emotional. But I do know he's gone.

CO: And I know you have been trying to find out what happened since he disappeared last October. What was he doing in Mexico? He was a snowbird. He'd been down there. Where was he the last time he was seen?

BM: The last time he was seen, he was at a very popular bar in Puerto Vallarta called Andale's. He was there celebrating his girlfriend's birthday. And we know this because we've discovered video surveillance of him there that night.

CO: And tell us about this girlfriend that he had.

BM: So he met her in the end of 2012. He had some friends and he made it known that he would like to meet someone. He'd been going to Mexico for a few years. And I guess these friends introduced the two of them and they hit it off.

CO: And they had been at this bar where he was last seen. At what point did you wonder what was happening to you father? At what point did you realize something was wrong?

BM: My dad's friend Rob, who also lives in Mexico, was trying to reach him. And Rob's wife messaged me to say, you know, we can't get a hold of Malcolm. Have you spoken to him? And my father text me on the 27th. So I knew he was going to go out to his treehouse. And I knew that the Internet -- I mean this is a tree house with no walls. It's very rustic. You jump into the ocean to get there. There's no dock. So I wasn't worried. And by Friday, I realized he had not made it to the treehouse and then it was full of panic.

CO: And did the police believe that this was suspicious?

BM: Not at all. They thought maybe he wandered off or taking a break from his life. They were not interested at all.

CO: And what did Marcela, the girlfriend, have to say about this?

BM: Her story is that they went out to the Andale's bar and restaurant and went home. And that my father took a cab or a vehicle she didn't look at around 2:00 p.m. in the afternoon to go to his treehouse with all his belongings.

CO: Okay. You decide at some point that this isn't working, that you're not getting answers, and you're going to start finding out -- you're going to do some investigating of your own. You made a shocking discovery when you got hold of this surveillance video at that bar. What did you come up...

BM: So I made the choice to go to the bar that Marcela had told us she'd attended. The day manager was kind enough to take me up this spiral staircase up into this little room. And he let myself and some other people that were with me watch the video surveillance of that night. We found a section in the bar. At the time, I couldn't tell what was going on, but I could see that Marcela was fidgeting with something in her lap, hiding it under the table. And it was until a bit later when we were able to view the whole video -- we can see that Marcela blocks my father's view and then puts a powdery substance in his drink.

CO: When you saw that video and you saw her put that in his drink, what went through your mind?

BM: Well, I mean, obviously, I felt physically ill. I also felt, to be honest, validated because I didn't feel good about this relationship from day one. But I felt really strongly in the past few years that this was not a healthy relationship for him.

CO: And this is not the only highly suspicious thing you discovered. Your father had a GPS tracker on his car. Marcela said that the vehicle had not left the garage, her garage, in the house that your father provided for her. And so you discovered, that there's something there was something on that GPS tracker that contradicted that. What did you discover?

BM: My father had installed a GPS from a company called Trackimo on his vehicle. I don't believe he told the family, Marcela or her family members that lived there at the house, that he had done this. Because I also felt that he didn't like how much they were driving the vehicle when he wasn't there. So he wanted to keep an eye on it. And then the amazing thing about this device is every time the car moves, it will send an email to his account. And the night that my father went missing, it made a lot of stops all night and some kind of scary areas, like an area near a very jungle spot and the marina.

CO: Wow. So you have this video. You have this information on the tracker. What did police say when you took it to them?

BM: The first time they saw it -- it was obvious it was the first time they saw that part of a video of the drugging. And one of the police officers there accused me of doctoring it.

CO: And what about the GPS?

BM: I changed the password on the GPS so that I was the only one who could get into it. And when I went to the police, I gave them the password. And then later when I went back into it, everything had been deleted.

CO: Wow. So you've spoken to Canadian officials in Mexico and the Canadian government. What are they saying about this?

BM: I'm not satisfied with the help I've received from Canada. And I've spoken to everyone you could possibly imagine. I even tried to speak to Trudeau. I shook his hand and tried to grasp it to talk to him. But it wasn't to be.

CO: And what have Mexican police said? How did they characterize your father's disappearance?

BM: They do acknowledge it's suspicious and they do believe that they also have an idea of who is involved in his disappearance. But it's just dragging. And I truly believe they're waiting for me to run out of money or go away.

CO: It's interesting that despite to how a Mexican police and Canadian authorities are dealing with it, you have a court that has agreed that your father's dead, which is very unusual, isn't it? I mean, there usually has to be reason to believe that the person is not alive and there has to be circumstances of peril in order to have such a quick decision. So what does that tell you that the courts have concluded that he's probably dead?

BM: Well, I would like for Mexico -- I mean I am aware that global affairs has updated the DA in Mexico of this that Canada has declared him dead. And I would like them to do that there and to move the file from the missing persons bureau to like a different bureau that will deal with people that actually have been murdered.

CO: Brooke you told the Toronto Star when you saw your father before he left for Mexico in October -- you had a premonition that you wouldn't see him again. Why do you think you had that feeling?

BM: My father always walks me out to my car when I leave. He stood there and I started to back my car out. I just had this intense sadness in my gut or my heart. I felt like maybe he felt it too. We never discussed it after. And as I pulled away, this weird sob erupted out of me. And I thought, you know, I don't have my mom -- I need my dad. And I thought, what does that mean? I just never that I wasn't going to see him ever again. My mother passed away when I was 29 years old.

CO: Brooke, I'm so sorry about your dad. And I really hope you get at least some answers soon.

BM: Thank you so much. I really appreciate this opportunity.

KG: Brooke Mullins is the daughter of Malcolm Madsen, a 68 year old Canadian man who went missing in Mexico in October 2013. We reached Ms. Mullins in Port Hope, Ontario. We also reached out to Mr. Madsen's girlfriend in Mexico for a comment, but did not receive a response.

[Music]

NATO Trudeau tape

Guest: Chris Rands

KG: Justin Trudeau was hoping to save face before leaving London today, especially after US President Donald Trump called him "two-faced." At the NATO summit the Prime Minister said Canada is contributing another six fighter jets and another frigate to the NATO readiness initiative -- and it's prepared to chip in more than just jets. Here's what he said today at a press conference.

SOUNDCLIP

JUSTIN TRUDEAU: Every country needs to step up in different ways and make sure that we are contributing fully to NATO. As we have shown over the past year -- not only are we increasing our defense spending by 70 percent over these this decade to ensure that we are able to provide to the men and women of the armed forces, the tools they need to engage in the world the way we and our allies expect us to. We've continued to step up in leadership roles, whether it's being the first leaders for the first two years of the NATO training mission in Iraq, whether it's leading the enhance forward presence battle group in Latvia, whether it's engaged in a broad range of NATO operations and and initiatives in Europe and around the world. Canada has a history of stepping up around NATO and we will continue to.

KG: Make most of the questions at today's press conference, though, we're about something the PM said in private rather than in public. Footage from Buckingham Palace yesterday shows Prime Minister Trudeau commiserating with world leaders over US President Donald Trump and his behavior at the summit. It's caught on tape and remarkably on mic. The viral moment wouldn't have surfaced at all if it wasn't for Chris Rands. He's a parliamentary producer with the CBC in Ottawa.

CO: Chris, this rather candid footage of Justin Trudeau chit-chatting at Buckingham Palace has gone around the world at this point. And you were the one who discovered it. How did you come across it?

CHRIS RANDS: Well, Carol, one of my jobs as a field producer is to put pictures to voice or pictures to the story. And I was trying to put together an item by our correspondent on the PM's trip for television to Evan Dyer. And I was looking for footage. And there was a reception at Buckingham Palace that seemed to be happening live or almost live around 3:10 yesterday afternoon. And I was scrolling through the footage, which is sent to basically anyone who buys it. So 29 member NATO nations, all the network TV networks in there are probably picking up this feed, including six in Canada for sure. And I was scrolling through and there was a beautiful little grouping of UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, President of France, Emmanuel Macros, the Prime Minister of Canada, the Dutch Prime Minister, Mark Mutte, I believe his name is -- and a little later, Princess Anne. And it was this great little grouping. And I thought, wait a sec, I see the prime minister's face on the camera. He's animated. He's gesticulating. And I put on my headphones and I can hear his voice.

CO: And is that something that you've noticed before? I mean because you've watched a lot of footage and seen a lot of Mr. Trudeau -- can you tell when he is when he's exercised about something?

CR: Yeah. I've spent enough time looking at footage of the prime minister and those before him that I'm used to his mannerisms. And he seemed to be on and he was talking about something. But he was talking about something in a way that was sort of like, "you can't believe it" or you know, "look at this" or "did you see this guy?" It was that type of conversation around with a pint at the local sports club.

CO: It didn't look like a bunch of statesman's standing around talking about NATO. This was something else. So you zoomed in on the sound. Were you surprised you could actually make out what they were saying?

CR: Well, yeah. Because the one camera that was capturing all this had a really good microphone. And microphones from my time in radio and in your time in radio and TV -- some of us know that to capture sound at that distance, they're very directional. They sort of point in one way. So you could hear the prime minister because he was facing the microphone. The other leaders had their faces away or to the side. So their voices were sort of drifting off somewhere. And I could hear enough to sort of pick out what he was saying and discovering they seemed to be about his time with President Trump.

CO: Coming out of it you said that there was the understanding among the people who were talking that they had been delayed because Mr. Trump was holding an impromptu press conference. Do you know what the context was? What was he referring to? Do you know?

CR: Well, I believe what he had been referring to was there were two photo opportunities which stretched in the press conferences, usually photo opportunities where the two leaders, you know, do the handshake, "Hi, it's nice to meet you." Usually they're about two minutes in length. The president in his desires extended one to about 30 minutes with Prime Minister Trudeau. And I think into the 40 minute range with the President of France. They were long. They were detailed. And in the case of the French president, quite combative.

CO: And then there is another remark which is about the jaws dropped on the aides around President Trump. This is something Mr. Trudeau said. Another animated statement. What is he referring to there? Do you know?

CR: Well, Carol, the word that we could hear was the word "Doral." And I may be mispronouncing it. But I believe that is the Trump Golf Resort in Greater Miami, which was supposed to host the G7 summit. And I believe during the extended availability between the Mr. Trump and the prime minister, he mentioned that it was going to be held at Camp David. And that seemed to be news. I hadn't heard that. And that's what I believe Prime Minister Trudeau was describing.

CO: The suggestion there is that his aides either didn't know that the venue had changed or that they weren't expecting President Trump to be announcing it at this impromptu press conferences...

CR: I would say it's the latter, because anytime you're moving that many world leaders into a location, the security concerns alone let alone diplomatic -- and there's probably several thousand people involved. They knew they had picked Camp David. They just weren't deciding to tell the world at that exact moment.

CO: And it's interesting that that that candid moment, another one that gets captured without Mr. Trump in this case, knowing what he's saying. He says that was funny when I said the guy's two faced, you know that? Referring to Mr. Trudeau, I guess, that he is that guy. So there were a lot of candid moments that got captured.

CR: You know, Carol, a flash back to the TV series The West Wing, and there was an episode where Jed Bartlet is doing a series of TV interviews and he just let something slip while the camera's on but he's not on air yet. And it becomes a big thing. And at the end, his press secretary turns to him and said, you knew what you were doing, didn't you sir? He smiled. You know, sometimes people let something slip at the end because they're trying to correct something or they're trying to do something. It's quite a game -- politics at this level.

CO: And do you think that this thing that you captured -- this moment -- do you think it has legs that will last? Or this is just one of those moments that will just be recorded and then we'll move on?

CR: That is as they taught us not to say at Ryerson Journalism School -- only time will tell.

CO: Chris, thanks for speaking with us.

CR: You're welcome Carol.

KG: Chris Rands is a parliamentary producer for the CBC in Ottawa. And that's where we reached him. There is more on this story on our website: cbc.ca/aih.

[Music]

Electric eel tree

Guest: Kimberly Hurt

KG: Shocking around the Christmas tree. The holiday season is as merry and bright as usual at the Tennessee Aquarium. But what's generating that merry brightness is unusual: an electric eel. Which in my memory anyway, is not included in the endless Carol "The Twelve Days of Christmas." That's kind of the point, though. The aquarium wants us to include these frankly weird creatures in our thoughts this year, which is why they've enlisted Miguel Watson -- that's the eel's name -- to light up the facility's Christmas tree with his natural voltage. Kimberly Hurt is the aquarist at the Tennessee Aquarium. She takes care of Miguel. We reached her in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

CO: Kimberly, how are people reacting when they see a Christmas tree lit up like this?

KIMBERLY HURT: So I think people are really enjoying it. And we're doing a program once daily focusing on Miguel and the Christmas tree. And people do seem really interested in it. They stop a wait and listen for the whole program. And I get a lot of really intelligent questions after the program is over as well. People really do seem generally interested in what is happening between the eel and the Christmas tree.

CO: And how is Miguel Wattson doing it?

KH: So as Miguel produces electricity -- we have sensors in the tank that pick up when he produces it and then translates it to the Christmas tree. So every other portion of the year except for December, he's got a soundboard and a light board that shows us out in the gallery space when he's producing electricity. So you can see lights lighting up. You can hear the sounds. And now with him hooked up to the Christmas tree, when he produces electricity, you can actually see the lights flashing on the tree.

CO: They flash? How does it how does it look actually?

KH: So in the gallery, it looks like the lights are on constantly on the tree. But as Miguel produces electricity, it will make the lights flicker and flash. So when he produces low voltage shocks, it's kind of a gentle kind of a blinking on the lights. And when he's producing his stronger, his high voltage shocks, it's a very dramatic bright flash on the light that you can tell the difference between those low voltage and the high voltage shocks.

CO: What creates that? What makes him give these shocks out?

KH: He uses the different shocks in different ways. The low voltage shocks are used for things like communication between eels and they also use it for electro location. People are more familiar with the term echolocation, how dolphins do. And these guys kind of do the same thing with electricity. So they send little bits of electricity out into the environment. And as the electricity comes back to them, they can sense it and kind of feel the environment through the electricity.

CO: When the Christmas tree really lights up -- what's going on with the eel?

KH: So when we're getting really bright flashing on the Christmas tree that's usually around feeding time. When we drop pieces of food in Miguel gets really excited and he goes with those high voltage shocks after the food items trying to stun them. And we're feeding him frozen food. But he still does get really excited about those food items and he produces those strong high voltage shocks at that time.

CO: How do they transfer out to the Christmas tree? Is it hitting the side? You can see them in the aquarium. How are the actual volts getting out onto the tree?

KH: So the way we have it hooked up is there's a probe in the water that picks up when Miguel produces electricity and then it's run back through some electronics and it makes the lights come on on the tree. It's not that he's necessarily powering the lights, but we've got it hooked so that as he produces electricity, we translate it when the sensor picks it up and that causes the lights to come on.

CO: But these electric eels actually do produce electricity?

KH: Yes, absolutely. The way it works, they have special cells within them called electrocytes that use ion potential to create electric charge. I'm not an electrician, so I don't fully understand the science of it. But I can tell you for sure he's definitely creating electricity in there.

CO: When they send this off, would you get a shock if you had your hand in the tank and close to Miguel?

KH: Yes. So they can shock people. It's not enough to kill you. It could knock you unconscious. But anytime I'm working in the tank, we have these electricians gloves that we wear and they go all the way up to your shoulder and they're made out of really thick rubber. So I am protected anytime I'm working in the tank. So never been shocked, thankfully.

CO: Okay. How shocking is it -- pardon the pun -- to see an eel light up a tree?

KH: So it's then really interesting. I think in the past, a lot of people would just kind of walk by Miguel's exhibit. But now that we've got the Christmas tree and people can see that he's actually causing the lights to change on the tree, people really do seem interested in what's going on. And they spend more time looking, trying to figure out what's happening in the exhibit.

CO: It's a teachable moment. You can tell them about the eel.

KH: Yeah, exactly. We try to impress upon people that the freshwater that these animals depend on is the same freshwater that we depend on to keep us healthy and thriving too.

CO: Now I understand Miguel is also powering his own Twitter account. How does that work?

KH: Yes. So the same sensor that's hooked up to the light and soundboard and the Christmas tree, when his electricity passes a certain threshold of voltage, it will trigger a pre-written tweet. It then gets posted to his Twitter feed. So it's usually on onomatopoeias that people have sent in like "boom" and "pow" and "pop."

CO: Okay. But he didn't write them?

KH: No he is not writing them. It is controlled by one of our PR guys. But we like to think that Miguel has his own internet personality anyways.

CO: Okay. It's all very interesting, Kimberly thank you.

KH: Of course.

KG: Kimberly Hurt is the aqaurist at the Tennessee Aquarium. We reached her in Chattanooga, Tennessee. And if you'd like to see pictures and videos of the eel powered tree in action go to our website: cbc.ca/aih.

[Music]

Nancy Bikson

SOUNDCLIP

NANCY BIKSON: Thank you very much for having me and thank you very much for not pelting me with eggs.

KG: That's Nancy Bikson with a not super inspiring opening line. The event was a climate crisis debate at a school in the British town of Lewes on Monday. Candidates for the major parties were there except the local Conservative candidate who was "busy." So Nancy Bikson, a local Conservative councillor, stepped in. As you heard, it didn't start well. And then it didn't go well. And frankly, it didn't end well. So citing her lack of preparation, Ms. Bikson asked to be excused.

SOUNDCLIP

NANCY BIKSON: Whether you like my party or not know it's not fair to me to make a botch of it. So with your kind permission, after this little segment, I will take my leave.

VOICE 1: Why didn't you go now?

[Crowd shouts]

VOICE 2: Respect please.

VOICE 1: She doesn't want to answer the questions.

VOICE 2: Would you mind letting Nancy see what she has to say and then making your point argument.

KG: So Ms. Bikson didn't feel welcome. She left before the Q and A. In her haste, she took the fire escape and found herself stuck outside at the gate, which was locked. The only exit was back through that auditorium of hostile people. Nancy Bikson considered her options thoroughly. In fact, she stood there outside at a locked gate, considering options for 45 minutes. We know this because a student finally walked by and Ms. Bikson asked her for help. Saying, according to the young woman, quote, "They all despise me. I don't want to go back in there." And when a caretaker came, Ms. Bikson finally lurched into action -- she clambered up on some garbage bins and climbed over the gate rather than face her critics. Nancy Bikson told The Evening Standard that she didn't want to disrupt everybody. Okay. So instead she stood there for nearly an hour reliving her discomfort. And unlike the fence, it seems like she never got over it.

[Music]

Part 2: Whistleblower slams early retirement for N.Y. bishop accused of sex abuse cover-up

Buffalo bishop abuse

Guest: Siobhan O’Connor

KG: He was accused of protecting Catholic priests accused of sexual abuse. And today, Bishop Richard Malone of Buffalo, New York, finally resigned his post. Mr. Malone says he stepped down freely and voluntarily, but the bishop was under increasing pressure after a whistleblower released documents to the media showing that the bishop kept secret files of clergy members accused of abuse over decades. That whistleblower is Siobhan O'Connor. We reached her in Buffalo.

CO: Siobhan, as you know, Bishop Malone resigned today, but he still did not admit he did anything wrong. Does that feel like a victory for you?

SIOBHAN O'CONNOR: It's really not a victory. It feels more like a necessity. And I must say, I'm not surprised that he would leave the way he did with a three page self-defense documents. It's disappointing that he chose to exit in that way. But I must say, it's not surprising.

CO: You are regarded as the whistleblower in this case. How did that come to be? What's your role in revealing what Bishop Malone was up to?

SIOBHAN O'CONNOR: Well, I used to be Bishop Malone's right hand girl. And I initially was a huge fan of his. I certainly respected him and even admired him. But I began to recognize that he wasn't the man I thought he was. And that what he was saying publicly did not match what he was doing internally.

CO: Just to clarify your were his executive assistant, is that right?

SIOBHAN O'CONNOR: That's correct. And myself and his Priest Secretary Father Ryszard Biernat both of us began to realize that basically Bishop Malone was deceiving the public and survivors in particular. And for me, I just could no longer abide by it.

CR: All right. Bishop Malone, released a list of 42 priests accused of abuse. Then what did you do?

SIOBHAN O'CONNOR: Well, when I became aware of the fact that there were so many more priests on the draft list, and then I was also privy to two particular cases the Bishop Malone had direct influence on and had made the decisions regarding two priests accused of abuse. And those two cases were particularly troubling to me, especially because Bishop Malone was going to let one of those abusing priests go off into retirement and he wasn't going to deal with it at all. And so it was those particular cases that I wanted to bring to light because they were priests who were either actively ministering or had just been actively ministering. And I thought it was important for our community, Catholic and otherwise, to be aware of what was really going on inside the chancery.

CO: And what was the most troubling case that you wanted to reveal?

SIOBHAN O'CONNOR: The most troubling one -- both Father Yetter and Father Smith, they were the two that I highlighted. Father Yetter was particularly important to me because he had been accused by three young men of sexual abuse. And this priest was the one the Bishop Malone was publicly lauding him just months before his retirement. And then they were going to move up the retirement date, but they still weren't going to actually address the allegations or hold Father Yetter accountable in any in any manner at all. And meanwhile, Bishop Malone had lied to one of those victims and said, you're the only one -- when in fact there were multiple accusations. So it was cases like that that showed me that Bishop Malone wasn't departing from the previous manner of handling these cases. He was actually doing exactly what had been done in the past. But he just tried to make it look otherwise to the public.

CO: In addition to your releases, there was a secret recording released of Bishop Malone. What is he heard to be saying on those tapes?

SIOBHAN O'CONNOR: Well, on those tapes, he's very directly referring to one particular priest as being sick and even dangerous. And yet not doing anything about this priest who is still in active ministry. The bishop is heard to be laughing about a very serious situation. He refers to some priest as the bozos. He called one of the priests a sick puppy. It really gave you a sense of what he's really like -- distressing as that may be. And I think those recordings really shed a great amount of light on his true character which was very unsettling for everyone here in Buffalo.

CO: What was the public reaction when that was released?

SIOBHAN O'CONNOR: Total shock initially. And then when he stayed in office, everyone kept thinking, well, gosh, what is it going to take? We have documented proof. Now we have audio proof. So I think people started to feel a great deal of frustration when he did a press conference that week and tried to skirt around the major issue which was again his lack of leadership, his lack of accountability, and most importantly, the lack of transparency.

CO: This is really regarded as the second phase of dealing with sexual abuse within the church, isn't it? I mean it was the priests who were responsible for i. But then those who covered up the enablers. And Bishop Malone is alleged to be one of those people. So why do you think he did it? You got to know this man. You respected him. Why do you think he was covering up and enabling these priests?

SIOBHAN O'CONNOR: Well, I wish I had full insight into that. I do know that he was a protege of Cardinal Law in Boston. And we know Cardinal Law from the situation there, and he was resigning in disgrace himself. And I know that Bishop Malone considered him a role model and he was an auxiliary bishop under him back in the early 2000s. And it does seem as though he really did model his own episcopacy after Cardinal Law. He lawyered up and he seemed to follow the same kind of protocol.

CO: After everything that you have seen by virtue of this and knowing what the church was doing to cover up these cases -- has this shaken your own faith in the Catholic Church?

SIOBHAN O'CONNOR: Definitely in the church itself that I've struggled with. I'm very grateful that I haven't lost faith in Christ and his teachings. I still believe in him and love him. But it has really shown me a part of the church that I certainly never wanted to know about. But I'm grateful to have that awareness because for me it is just a motivation to fight for true change in the church, because I know that this isn't how Christ wanted it to be. This is the opposite of what he wanted. Men who are more concerned about their [inaudible] and their mansions than about the people they serve. So I really do hope that it can just be a motivation to encourage me to keep fighting for the church because I want to believe in her again, as I do in her founder.

CO: Siobhan, I really appreciate speaking with you. Thank you.

SIOBHAN O'CONNOR: Oh, thank you so much. It was a pleasure. Thank you.

KG: We reached Siobhan O'Connor in Buffalo, New York. For more on this story go to our website: cbc.ca/aih.

[Music]

Law Professors

KG: In Washington, the public impeachment process continues to grind along. And today, the procedure got especially procedural. The Democratic members of the House Judiciary Committee summoned law professors from Harvard, Stanford, and the University of North Carolina to help explore the constitutional grounds for impeachment. And Republican members called upon George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley. In his remarks, Mr. Turley argued that impeachment proceedings against US President Donald Trump are being rushed. And the reason for that haste appears to be anger.

SOUNDCLIP

JONATHAN TURLEY: I get it. You're mad. The president's mad. My Republican friends are mad. My Democratic friends are mad. My wife is mad. My kids are mad. Even my dog seems mad. And Loon is a golden doodle and they don't get mad. So we're all mad. Where has that taken us? Will a slipshod impeachment make us less mad? Will it only invite an invitation for the madness to follow every future administration? That is why this is wrong. It's not wrong because President Trump is right. His call was anything but perfect. It's not wrong because the House has no legitimate reason to investigate the Ukrainian controversy. It's not wrong because we're in an election year. There is no good time for an impeachment. No. It's wrong because this is not how you impeach an American president.

KG: George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley called by Republicans to testify before the House Judiciary Committee today. Mr. Turley was one of four legal experts called upon by the committee. He was joined by Stanford Law Professor Pamela Karlan, one of three experts invited by the Democrats. And her opinions and tone differed significantly from her colleagues. When Republican committee member, Doug Collins, claimed that the legal experts might not have had the chance to properly prepare, Ms. Karlan got, well, angry.

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PAMELA KARLAN: Everything I know about our Constitution and its values and my review of the evidentiary record. And here, Mr. Collins, I would like to say to you, sir, that I read transcripts of every one of the witnesses who appeared in the live hearing because I would not speak about these things without reviewing the facts. So I'm insulted by the suggestion that as a law professor, I don't care about those facts. But everything I read on those occasions tells me that when President Trump invited, indeed demanded foreign involvement in our upcoming election, he struck at the very heart of what makes this a republic to which we pledge allegiance. That demand, as Professor Feldman just explained, constituted an abuse of power. Indeed, as I want to explain in my testimony, drawing a foreign government into our elections is an especially serious abuse of power because it undermines democracy itself.

KG: Stanford law professor Pamela Karlan testifying before the US House Judiciary Committee today.

[Music]

Howard Cruse obit

Guest: Jennifer Camper

KG: He was the Godfather of Queer Comics, and one of the greatest cartoonists of his generation. That's how one writer described the late Howard Cruse in the magazine, The Comics Journal. Mr. Cruse was best known for his graphic novel "Stuck Rubber Baby" -- and for his strip called "Wendel" which told the story of a young gay man. Mr. Cruse died last week. He was 75 years old. Jennifer Camper is a cartoonist and the founding director of the Queer and Comics conference. Mr Cruse was her friend and her mentor. We reached Jennifer Camper in New York.

CO: Jennifer, what was most special about Howard Cruse's comics?

JENNIFER CAMPER: His comics were ground-breaking. He told stories that had never been told before in comics form or in much of literature. He opened the door for people who were not represented in the comic industry, and that included queer people, women, and people of colour. And his technique was amazing. He did things in comics and nobody had really tried before. And that was really exciting to see.

CO: And let's start with the stories themselves. What was the story he was telling through his comics?

JC: In his comic "Wendel" he was telling us a story of a regular gay person and what they go through in their day-to-day lives. And he brought in all the issues of the time. And Wendel was published in the 80s. So we were dealing with Reagan politics and the AIDS crisis and just the day-to-day lives of regular gay people in America. And as simple as that may sound, that was spectacular because nobody else was doing it.

CO: It's hard to imagine that now what it was like in the 80s, isn't it? Because now there is so much freedom, so much openness, and yet at the time when he started his career, homosexuality was still criminalized, wasn't it?

JC: It was. And he started doing openly gay cartoons during the 70s in the underground comics world where it was completely filled with straight white men. And Howard was the first that I know of that had an openly queer character. And then in 1980 he started editing Gay Comics which was an anthology comic book that was with queer men and women. And Howard always opened the door to have equal representation for women.

CO: And also, you mentioned the HIV/AIDS crisis -- 1980s -- people were losing friends at a rapid rate and it was a huge crisis for people. How did he depict that in the comics?

JC: He depicted in his comics as the reality that we were living with. It was very personal to him and to all of us. And he had that visceral experience of everyone's fear of losing their loved ones, losing their community, and of their own health and preciousness of their lives. And then fighting, at the same time, the political repression that was going on at the time.

CO: How open was he in these -- well, his graphics to being sexually graphic? Was there eroticism or explicit sexuality in them?

JC: Yes, his comments were very sexy. And in all his comics, there was a great deal of warmth and humor and sexiness. And he was being published in the gay publications that allowed that kind of storytelling. And it was exhilarating for people to see their own lives and their sexuality represented. And also the way he drew people was just very exuberant. And his character were all sort of bigger than life.

CO: And so it was playful as well, was it?

JC: Very much so. Very much so. And then his ground-breaking work was "Stuck Rubber Baby" which he published in 1995. And that was a graphic novel about a gay man coming-of-age in Birmingham during the civil rights movement and activism of the 1960s. And there he brought in all kinds of historical and personal references to the civil rights movement and the early gay movement -- and had incredible insights in how they intersected.

CO: How did you become friends with Howard Cruse?

JC: I met Howard originally through his work. I saw his work in his early underground comic called "Barefootz." And then when he created Gay Comics in 1980, I saw those first issues and I submitted work to it. I was a young cartoonist just starting out and had only been published in a few gay newspapers. And he accepted my work and he was my first editor who corrected my misspellings and did all those wonderful things that an editor did. And he became my mentor. We later met in real life, and he was there for me all through my career and for so many people -- a huge number of queer cartoonists and other cartoonist turned to Howard whenever we had a question. He was a tremendous mentor to a number of cartoonists.

CO: Is there of a particular memory or something of how you'll remember Howard?

JC: He was such a southern gentleman. He was so generous and so humble. And so many times all of us would gush about how grateful we were to him and he would sort of laugh at us. But he was always able to give us time. And any number of techniques I use today that I refer to as the 'Howard Cruse method.' I remember an afternoon in my apartment where he painstakingly showed Alison Bechdel how to do cross hatching on my coffee table. He offered Ivan Velez a table at a early Comic Con when nobody would have queer cartoons at a comic convention. There's just any number of generous actions he took. And I still reread all his work and it's still very powerful and relevant today.

CO: Jennifer, I'm sorry for the loss of your friend.

JC: We will miss him so much. And it's hard to imagine a world without Howard Cruse. Thank you. [Chokes up]

CO: Thank you.

KG: That was cartoonist Jennifer Camper in New York speaking about her friend Howard Cruse, who's been called the Godfather of Queer Comics. Mr. Cruse died last week at the age of 75.

[Music]

Sandi Boon

KG: One of the largest nursing home operators in Nova Scotia now says clients without family doctors may be readmitted to the residences after hospital visits. But that each one will be assessed on a case by case basis. The clarification comes after Shannex warned families yesterday the residents without a GP might not be let back into their nursing homes if they had to go to a hospital. The company says that's because its facilities are facing a shortage of in-house doctors. That's got families concerned -- despite the company's reassurances today. Sandi Boon's 84 year old grandmother, Mable Keyes, lives in one of the affected Shannex homes. Ms. Boon spoke with the CBC's Preston Mulligan earlier today.

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SANDI BOON: So my grandmother was admitted to Debert Court back in 2010. At that time, she was told that the facility doctor would assume her care. And they've had numerous doctors at the facility and all of them have left and now they're without a doctor.

PRESTON MULLIGAN: Tell me about the letter you got from Shannex this week.

SANDI BOON: So the letter stated that any residents that had to be sent to hospital for assessment or for care would not be readmitted to the facility if they didn't have their own family doctor.

PRESTON MULLIGAN: How concerning is that for your grandmother and your family?

SANDI BOON: It's very concerning. I mean, the hardest decision we had to make was to put her into long-term care. And now we have to decide whether or not it's worth if she needs to go to hospital for an assessment. Is she going to have a place to go to when she gets back?

PRESTON MULLIGAN: Shannex is clarifying today, saying that in a situation like your grandmother's that they would take a look at each case on a case by case basis. Does that give you any bit of comfort?

SANDI BOON: Not at all. Not at all.

PRESTON MULLIGAN: Why not?

SANDI BOON: Case by case -- that's not a definitive answer for me.

PRESTON MULLIGAN: What do you think the solution is here?

SANDI BOON: The government needs to do something. There's doctor shortage everywhere. I'm a visiting nurse and I go into people's homes. And I can't tell you the number of people that I see on a day to day basis of people who don't have a doctor. And, you know, if anything arises, it's like, well, I'm sorry, you have to go to emergency. Well, then they're sitting in emergency for however many hours to get seen. And lots of times they end up coming home because they've sat there for 13 hours and haven't been looked at. So, I mean it's terrible.

KG: Nova Scotia resident Sandi Boon says she's fearful that her 84 year old grandmother could lose her spot in a Shannex nursing home if she has to go to the hospital. Premier Stephen McNeil says he's looking into the issue, which stems from a lack of in-house doctors in care facilities across the province.

[Music]

Sounds of the reef

KG: The Great Barrier Coral reef is dying. And of course climate change and pollution is to blame. But some marine biologists may have found a way to give it a boost. And it sounds like this.

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[Popping sound]

KG: That's the reconstructed sound of a healthy coral made by marine biologists as a way to attract fish to dead coral. Over 40 days, the scientists played the sound through underwater speakers and the results were promising. They found that there were twice as many fish living in the areas where the sound was played. Tim Gordon is the main author of the study and he spoke with BBC Radio 4 about his research.

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TIM GORDON: Most people think of the underwater world as silent, but in fact it's a very noisy place. So you hear the background crackle of a lot of shrimp clicking their claws. You hear the percussive sounds of fish calling to each other. They can be like a chatter or like a buzz or even like a hum or a high pitched woop as well. So all sorts of noises going on underwater.

REPORTER: Your exercise is to play this noise of a healthy ecosystem around a coral reef, and that in itself attracts more fish and makes the coral reef healthier.

TIM GORDON: We can attract more fish by playing sound. Absolutely. You can hear a really healthy coral reef from a long way away. It sounds very busy. It sounds very bustling. You can hear that there are lots of animals on it. The opposite is true of a degraded reef. You hear it's much quieter. It's a much emptier sound. Fish are attracted by the sound of a reef. They can tell a reef's healthy by how it sounds. And so if there is a lot of noise going on, a complex soundscape, then that reef will sound more attractive to fish and will attract more of them.

REPORTER: Yeah, it's interesting. I wouldn't have thought the fish were using the noise to decide where to locate themselves. But how important and how helpful is it to a slowly degrading reef to attract more fish? How much does that save the reef?

TIM GORDON: Well, fish are really important in unhealthy reefs. They're really important for maintaining the balance of the ecosystem by controlling food chains. They graze away seaweed, and they clear detritus and that allows coral to regrow, and they cycle nutrients and that keeps the whole system in balance. So it's true that when you have a healthy reef, there are many fish on it. And the opposite is also true. If a reef doesn't have a lot of fish on it, it's a reef that's in trouble.

REPORTER: But to what extent can the system of playing this sound into the ocean -- to what extent can you fool fish to make her reef healthy? Is this a solution to dying reefs?

TIM GORDON: Listen, we have to be realistic about this. This isn't a solution on its own. Attracting fish in using sound is a really powerful way in which we could recolonize reefs. But that has to come in combination with a host of other restoration techniques to bring back the coral, to protect the water quality and keep that high, to control fishing in the area. All of those together might help to accelerate natural ecosystem processes and accelerate recovery of damaged habitats. Of course that in itself as well will only be useful if we can stop the original cause of the damage in the first place and in many places around the world that is warming seas and climate change.

REPORTER: Yeah. You're going to need very big speakers on you to make a big noise in a vast place like around the Great Barrier Reef.

TIM GORDON: The Great Barrier reef is enormous now. That's right. For us we see this rather than as sort of a panacea solution where we put the loudspeakers all over the whole Barrier Reef. We see this as a technique that works really well on the local scale, combined with local active management, and perhaps replanting of corals in specific areas. If we could bring fish into the right place, we hope that we could kickstart natural recovery processes. At the start of that process as those fish arrive, the system might generate new life in itself as well.

KG: That was marine biologist Tim Gordon speaking with BBC Radio 4 host Evan Davis.

[Music]

Part 3: Logging roads report

Logging roads report

Guest: Trevor Hesselink

KG: Trevor Hesselink has spent years looking at forests in a way that few of us do: from the sky. And today, Mr. Hesselink and his colleagues at Canada's Wildlands League have released a startling report that points to a little known and long lasting impact of logging in Ontario. We reached Trevor Hesselink in Toronto.

CO: Mr. Hesselink when you fly over northern Ontario, what do you see that disturbs you?

TREVOR HESSELINK: Well, what I notice is areas that have been logged, that have roads and operating areas along them that look like -- I call them scars as just a way of referring to them.

CO: And how much of the scarring do you see?

TH: Well, that was one of the key research questions of this work. And what we are finding is that on average, that infrastructure takes up about 14 percent of the area that was originally locked.

CO: So if you add it all up -- I mean, of course, when you see them in isolation, they don't look like much, do they? But if you add it up just in Ontario, northern Ontario, how much land is actually deforested by these roads and by the clearing areas on the side of those roads?

TH: It works out to about 650,000 hectares that are probably in that state after 30 years of this type of logging. 650,000 hectares for reference is about 10 times the size of Toronto -- if you're a Torontonian. Or if you're in the Study Area, there's a large lake called Lake Nipigon. And it's one and a half times the size of that very large lake.

CO: And is this recorded? If it's barren, if these strips where these scars don't have trees, is that recorded that that is deforested?

TH: Well, unfortunately, it hasn't been. There is a place holder for it in the forest management planning, but it's a great or a small place holder. And from a national perspective, we don't consider it deforested. So in terms of deforestation -- only the very very largest haul roads are being counted, which weren't really part of the study at all. But all the operational sites, roads, and landings are not captured.

CO: And those operating areas, what are they for?

TH: So the operating areas are where the heavy equipment that's used to actually cut the trees and drag them to roadside complete. They cut them from the stump and then they bring the whole tree to the roadside and then they separate the parts that are desired and the parts that aren't using heavy equipment. And so you need a fair bit of space for that. And that's really those areas that we're talking about.

CO: We also estimate in Ontario and other places, we estimate how much the trees are absorbing the CO2 emissions because that's what they do. That's the benefit. The boreal forests of Ontario are a huge magnet for those CO2 emissions. So does that mean that we're overestimating how much is actually happening in the boreal forest?

TH: Yes. I mean, I think that the problem is that by not counting the loss of productive land is that we're imagining that it is renewing forest instead of being in a state that it's in. And so we think it is actually also sequestering carbon. But when it's not, then that is a forgone carbon removal that would be very helpful if we had it. But when we don't, we're going to feel that.

CO: So by virtue of these forest roads and what you've discovered, 650,000 hectares, that are not being re-forested -- what does that mean for our effort to reduce CO2 emissions?

TH: Well, unfortunately, it means that there's a good chance that that area currently is costing us about 16 and a half megatons. And it's on track by 2030 just using the same kind of progression of logging which will probably cost us more like 41 megatons by 2030. That's just over one year's worth of the passenger vehicle use in Canada. And indeed, the important thing is to also note is that that's only after about 40 years of that problem. It takes 80 years for those trees to regrow. And each year that they grow, they would be removing more and more carbon as well. So it's actually an accelerating problem there.

CO: Just today, the Ontario government released a draft report on forestry and what its plans are. The headline -- which is, Ontario takes next step in making forestry open for business. And lots of encouraging messages in this report for the industry, for the forest industry in being able to grow the industry in Ontario. Do you think that anything will change in the way the forests are managed or not managed in this province?

TH: Well, I certainly can't really speak to it. I have been tied up quite a bit getting this report out. At this point, all I would hope is that the intention is for revisiting the system and reconsidering sort of how we go about doing it, that we're completely transparent about all the risks at hand and that we're building a system that can take care of that.

CO: But you've just looked at northern Ontario. So what do you think is happening across Canada?

TH: Yeah, this study does not estimate what's going on in Canada. And I'm sure every region has their own story. But I think that what it is, it's instructive in the sense of we have been looking at sustainable forestry for a long time. But there's a new nuance in town when we're thinking about carbon and it's a little bit more precise. It sort of demonstrates that cumulative effect, the sort of problems by a thousand cuts. Because when you're driving across this landscape, you know, endlessly and in a pickup truck, you just notice trees and it looks reasonable. But that's a particular perspective. And so what was really instructive for me was to think about it spatially and get up above those trees and look at the gaps, because when you're standing on the road, it's hard to account for it in your mind.

CO: Mr. Hesselink I appreciate speaking with you. Thank you.

TH: My pleasure. Thank you very much Carol.

KG: Trevor Hesselink is the lead author of a study released today by the Wildlands League on what he calls "Logging Scars" in northern Ontario. We reached him in Toronto.

[Music]

Jim Clarke

KG: In this case, good news travels excruciatingly slowly. Last night, Jim Clarke and his family finally heard what they'd been waiting to hear for 15 years. They live in Paradise, Newfoundland, and they've been dealing with their basement flooding for a very long time. Then in August, things went to a whole new level. Mr. Clarke told us his family was sprayed with sewage when they walked out their front door. On Tuesday night though the family learned that their saga was over. The town agreed to purchase their property for 430,000 dollars. Mr. Clarke told the St. John's Morning Show how the family got the news.

SOUNDCLIP

JIM CLARKE: We had a phone call last night after the meeting and we were told that everything was passed in the budget to buy us out. And the mayor is going to sign the papers right after the meeting. So, yeah, this morning. And now I'm waiting to hear from the council again. But it's all a done deal.

REPORTER: Was that phone call a surprise to you, Jim? Or were you kind of sitting by the phone waiting for that?

JIM CLARKE: Well, I was kind of waiting for it because that was the last meeting. And it was a public meeting. And the public support has been absolutely fantastic. And the media support has been out of this world right across Canada. So we're ecstatic over.

REPORTER: How did last night go for you after that phone call? What did you and your family do?

JIM CLARKE: An absolute huge relief. Our bodies just kind of crumbled. It was just 15 years of going through that. It was amazing feeling. Amazing.

REPORTER: Well, I think everybody really leaned in on your story. You were speaking with us here on the show and you described a situation that you walked out to in your backyard. I mean, this was an explosive situation, literally landing on your face.

JIM CLARKE: It was pretty terrible. It was absolutely horrible. But, you know, we got through it. And it all panned out in the end.

REPORTER: Where are you staying now, Jim?

JIM CLARKE: We're staying at a rental property that the council rented for us and they're going to continue renting that until the end of January. So that we're not lost out and we can get Christmas out of the way.

REPORTER: So 2020, things really going to change. Any idea where you're going to settle down?

JIM CLARKE: We're stay in Paradise.

KG: That was Paradise, Newfoundland resident Jim Clarke speaking with Krissy Holmes, host of the St. John's Morning Show. He and his family dealt with sewage in their yard for 15 years before the town of Paradise agreed to buy their house for 430,000 dollars last night.

[Music]

Chechen separatist murder

Guest: Gustav Gressel

KG: At the beginning, it seemed like an open and shut case. In August, Zemlimkhan Khangoshvili was murdered in broad daylight in a Berlin park. And the alleged gunman was quickly apprehended. But now German authorities are saying the shooting is of, quote, "the highest relevance to state security." They say evidence now suggests the killing of the Chechen separatists was an assassination ordered by Russia or Chechnya. It's being compared to the case of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal, who was poisoned in London. Gustav Gressel has been following the case. He is a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations. We reached him in Berlin.

CO: Mr. Gressel first of all, can you tell us about this crime? What exactly happened in that Berlin park on the day of the shooting last August?

GUSTAV GRESSEL: Well, there was a man passing by on a electric scooter, drawing a pistol, aiming at another guy, shooting him in the heart and on the face with a silent pistol, then driving away with this electric scooter. He has been followed by people who watched the scene. They call the police immediately. They saw that he threw his weapon and wig that he was wearing the Spree River. And trying to change vehicle -- probably to get to the airport.

CO: And the person that was shot -- this is Zemlinkhan Khangoshvili. He is a Chechen man.

GG: Yes. He is an ethnic Chechen who is a citizen of Georgia. He fought in two Chechen wars on the Chechen side. And later on helped out the Georgian intelligence force. This guy seems have to been part of the effort to fight radical structures amongst ethnic Chechens in Georgia.

CO: Now, why is it that the German authorities believe that the murder of Mr. Khangoshvili was a political assassination?

GG: The sentenced identity was very murky. So he appeared only very shortly before traveling to Germany in Russian registries. Information on him on public access was blocked with a remark keys under the protection of Russian law. His passport was very fresh. The company he supposedly worked for actually was already bankrupt and never employed him.

CO: Just so people understand -- this person Vadim Krasikov, believed to be his name, he was sought over a murder of a Russian businessman in Moscow previously. Tell us a bit more about the link between Vadim Krasikov and the Kremlin and the Russian authorities.

GG: Well, Krasikov seems to have been an ordinary criminal. And he seems to have been arrested in Moscow for this murder. However, Krasikov actually should still sit up prison sentence in Moscow. So he probably choose to get free if he cooperates with the Russian authorities on this particular case. Why that for him? Of course, it makes perfect sense. He gets out of Russian prison and even if he would sit the rest of his life in a German prison, German prisons are definitely arguably better than Russian prisons.

CO: Just so understand -- that you believe that the deal...there's some suspicion that the deal, his release was predicated on him doing a job here: going in Germany and assassinating Mr. Khangoshvili?

GG: Yes. This was not a falsification. So the passport, travel documents, the visas they were not falsifications. He had a proper passport issued by Russian authorities by the same passport authorities that issue passports for other state agents as well. So this was not a forgery. So if this had been a crime and set up, if he would basically be allowed to do a job for, let's say, the Russian mafia, his passport probably would be forgery and there would be questions on how he would have gotten out of the Russian jail.

CO: Now, it's been compared, this assassination of Mr. Khangoshvili is compared to the attempted murder of Sergei Skripal in Salisbury, England. Two Russians also traveling with documents -- that were not their own names. They were accused of having attempted to poison Sergei Skripal in 2018. Does it seem to you to be very similar in these cases?

GG: Well, there are some multiple differences. First, Litvinenko and Skripal were former Secret Service agents. Their murders were much more brutal in terms of using very dangerous substances to send a message to other Russian operatives to leave the rank. This murder in Berlin was of course not the case because he never was part of the Russian administrative and secret service system. The other thing is probably because of Salisbury attack went horribly wrong and revealed a lot of details about Russian operatives, passports, etc -- the reports on the open internet must have been a huge embarrassment for Moscow. They did not choose a prime assassin, but rather recruited a criminal to do the final job. However, still, this criminal probably has acted after somebody had or many people had observed the target or person for a considerable amount of time. To see where he is going along. Where he lives. What is his daily routine. Because Berlin is still a fairly large city. We have almost four million people inhabiting it. To find one person on an electric scooter in almost four million people...the chances are pretty random. So somebody must have tipped him off where he's going to be at what time, the routine, and how to find him.

CO: He's now in a Berlin prison cell apparently not talking. But the development now is that Germany has expelled diplomats, Russian diplomats. What message does that send to Russia? And do the Russians care?

GG: The Germans are utterly dissatisfied with how the Russians behaved. And they're now working quite by the book. So they added five people who were connected to the case, who engaged either with the suspect or facilitated his travel to Europe. So now we have two members of the Russian embassy who were under diplomatic protection expelled. Otherwise, we'll see how far the Germans get to reconstruct the case. As I said, it's far from finished.

CO: We will leave it there. Mr. Gressel, thank you.

GG: You're welcome.

KG: Gustav Gressel is a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations. We reached him in Berlin.

[Music]

Tomato or Tomawto?

KG: The great "Satchmo" Louis Armstrong with Ella Fitzgerald and a musical tribute to the big difference, a tiny difference, in pronunciation of a board like "Tomato" can make. But occasionally it's the very sameness of a word that leads to irreconcilable differences. Take the word "aceto" for instance, or even more specifically, "aceto balsamico." If you're in aficionados of tomatoes or tomatoes, if you prefer, you're probably familiar with the acetos balsamico or balsamic vinegar because it happens to pair beautifully with tomatoes. What pairs badly, however, is a German producer of balsamic vinegar whose desire to label their product aceto balsamico. And the wish of The Consortium for Balsamic Vinegar of Modena for them to not do that. The organization of Italian producers argues that balsamic vinegar that doesn't originate from the city of Modena in Italy or the surrounding region is just plain balsamic vinegar. It can't be called aceto balsamico. Because it's not aceto balsamico di Modena. So the consortium of Balsamic Vinegar of Modena sued the German company "Balema" on the grounds that giving their product that special designation violates the geographical designation of origin rules established by the European Union in 2009. But today, the judges at the EU's Court of Justice ruled that Balema's "Deutscher balsamico" brand can stand since it makes no mention of Modena. So like tomato or tomawto -- this case will forever be ripe with controversy squashed or not.

[Music]

CO: We are at the end of this edition of As It Happens. Our show can be heard Monday to Friday on CBC Radio One. And if you want to listen to our program live or on demand anytime, make sure you download the CBC Listen app. I'm Carol Off. Thanks for listening.

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December 4, 2019 Episode Transcript

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