As It Happens

As It Happens: Friday Edition

Friday, Jan. 19, 2018

Full Episode Transcript

Part One

Lac-Mégantic Verdict
Three rail workers are found not guilty of criminal negligence for the deadly disaster in Lac-Mégantic — but the lawyer for the train's engineer says his client is still devastated. 

Gas Plant Ruling
The chief of staff for former Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty is found guilty, for deleting emails after the cancellation of two major gas-fired power plants.  

Kit Kat Restaurant Owner
To express his anger to City Hall, a Toronto restaurant owner puts a big ice sculpture outside his place: it's a hand with the middle finger extended — and its central point is clear. 

Part Two

Cape Town Water
Cape Town, South Africa, is in the grip of a drought so severe that it threatens the city's water supply — and the taps could run dry within ninety days. 

Cancer Study 
A new study shows how a "promising" experimental blood test might enable doctors to detect cancers at an early stage — and one of the authors explains the results so far. 

Part Three

Philippines Shutdown
A top Philippines news editor says she's being bullied out of covering her country's president — after her site becomes the subject of three federal investigations in just one week. 

Kazakh Apostrophe 
His country is switching from the Cyrillic to the Latin alphabet, and if the president of Kazakhstan gets his way, there will be an explosion of apostrophes — which is giving linguists there a lot of painful contractions. 


As It Happens was produced this week by:

Jeanne Armstrong
Imogen Birchard
Chris Harbord
Katie Geleff
Sheena Goodyear
Sarah Jackson
Samantha Lui
Kevin Robertson
Julian Uzieli 

and Kate Swoger

Our technicians is Reynold Gonsalves. The show director is John McGill. Chris Howden is our writer. And our intern is Noushin Ziafati.

John Perry is the Senior Producer. And the Executive Producer of As It Happens is Robin Smythe.

We'd also like to thank some other people who helped us out this week: 

Nick McCabe Lokos in Toronto
Peter Sheldon in Yellowknife
Keith Hart at Radio Archives
Mary-Catherine McIntosh in Halifax
Susan McKenzie in Montreal
Kristin Nelson in Ottawa
Ashly July and Luke Williams — also in Toronto
Suzanne Dufresne in Winnipeg
Michael O'Halloran in Calgary
and Anne Penman in Vancouver. 

As It Happens will be back again on Monday. Good night and good weekend.