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The AIH Transcript for September 24, 2018

Hosts: Carol Off and Jeff Douglas

Prologue

CAROL OFF: Hello I'm Carol Off.

JEFF DOUGLAS: Good evening. I'm Jeff Douglas. This is As It Happens.

[Music: Theme]

JD: Tonight…

CO: Small miracles in a huge catastrophe. When a family is left homeless after tornadoes in Ottawa and Gatineau, a fire chief steps up and offers them his house.

JD: The devil's in the details. The government of Cameroon initially said a video in which women and children are brutally killed by soldiers was ‘fake news.’ A painstaking BBC investigation finds it's all too real.

CO: Obstacle course. According to recent coverage, getting an abortion in Nova Scotia was easier than ever. But when she needed one a Halifax journalist found it more difficult than she imagined.

JD: Confiding about confinement. Annie Kenney was the first suffragette to be jailed in the U.K. for fighting for women's right to vote. And now a previously unknown letter from her has been found in a Canadian archive.

CO: Family values. In South Korea. It's 600 bucks and up to hire yourself a so-called ‘uncle’ — actually a menacing professional gentleman who will convince a bully to stop menacing your child.

JD: And…Pillow fight. A Calgary artist was happy to have her painting up in a local West Elm store — and then the company issued bedding that matched the design of that very painting. As It Happens: The Monday Edition. Radio that frowns on the use of cheat sheets.

[Music: Theme]

Part 1: Ottawa tornado, Nova Scotia abortion, West Elm painting

Ottawa tornado

Guest: Nicole Lowden

JD: On the heels of Friday's tornado, officials in Ottawa are now bracing for rain. Right now for volunteers and firefighters are racing to cover damaged homes with tarps. They're boarding up windows in time for showers expected tomorrow. Friday's twister left homes and buildings in Ottawa and Gatineau destroyed, power lines and poles were snapped and some streets are still littered with broken glass, cinder blocks and lumber. There were no fatalities but several people went to hospital with injuries. One of the worst hit areas is Dunrobin, a small community 35 kilometres from downtown Ottawa where at least 60 buildings were either destroyed completely or damaged. Nicole Lowden and her family live in one of the homes that was destroyed. We reached Ms. Lowden in Ottawa.

CO: Nicole, can you describe what your house looks like today?

NICOLE LOWDEN: Well, it's missing a roof and most of the second floor is completely wiped out. It's a complete wreck on the first floor — tree branches and pieces of lumber that belong to the house across the road are in the living room.

CO: Where does the rest of your street look like?

NL: Our neighbours look like us. And then the people across the road, their house has been taken right down to its foundation. And then if you went five houses further west they’re untouched almost.

CO: Now I want to talk about to Friday when this heavy wind started up, you knew a storm was coming. Did you have any idea what you were in for?

NL: Not even a little inkling. I was upstairs in my room and all of a sudden my cell phone went off. I actually heard my son's cell phone go off first. He works in construction and he came home and was having a nap. I thought ‘Oh, maybe he set an alarm for himself to wake up,’ and then I looked out the window and went, you know, ‘Well it's windy.’ So I was in the process of walking around upstairs closing windows when my husband yelled out like I've never heard him yell before to get downstairs. He's like ‘Get down here. Get down here. Get Daniel. Get down here right now.’ He was standing in front of our front window and across the street were two large trees. One was bent one way touching the ground and the other was the complete opposite direction.

CO: He said get downstairs but you didn't have a basement in this house, so why the kitchen? Why did you think the kitchen was the best place to go to?

NL: I don't know. Him doing that, I can honestly say, saved our lives. He yelled and yelled for us to get down there and he could hear me struggling with my son. He wasn't waking up. So all of a sudden I just saw him take the stairs like four by four. Running up the stairs and grabbed Daniel by the shoulder and dragged him down. As Daniel and I tossed the front door it blew open and I tried to close it and then a four-by-four came flying through the door from the house across the road. I almost watched my son be impaled in front of my very eyes. It was absolutely horrifying.

CO: So you got into the kitchen and then was this a safe place to be you, say it was safe. This is a good place. What happened into the kitchen?

NL: We huddled there together but it was the only corner of the house that really remained untouched. To give you some perspective, the corner that we huddled together there's a calendar hanging on the fridge just by like refrigerator magnets. And that was still there hanging there Friday night, yet everything else had been blown off the walls.

CO: Moments earlier your son was nearly hit by a flying post and now you're in a room where nothing is moving. It's just bizarre.

NL: Well there was a lot — like we were huddled together in that corner of the kitchen, but the rest of the kitchen was blowing apart. The cupboards were all blowing open and closed the back door was blown out. When we were huddled there I just remember looking up and seeing branches and insulation and drywall flying around the kitchen, and not comprehending like how is this stuff blowing around in my kitchen. Obviously once settled fell down we realized the roof had come off the house.

CO: How long did all of this last in the sense of what time we’re talking about?

NL: It was minutes. You know, it's one of those things that feels like, you know, it was 10 minutes. I think in reality it was probably about three. And how nobody died in this storm, I don't know. When you see the devastation around. Well it was the first thing my son did, like when the winds died down I just saw him run out the front door and it was still quite windy and I was yelling at him. ‘Where are you going?’ And he said ‘We have to check on others.’ There was a whole house that had been taken down to its foundation and across the road half of that house was missing.

CO: But for your own family, if you hadn't come home and you didn't get your son out of his nap and got him downstairs — you have other children, another daughter could have been home too, is that right?

NL: Yeah. Well, my daughter's room is completely gone. So had she been home and in her room, you can clearly see my son's room that's all exposed. But right beside that is supposed to be another room.

CO: And you found some of her things a distance away outside.

NL: Yeah, probably 200 to 300 yards finding some of my daughter's tops and pajamas and some things that are very important — a quilt that a friend has made for her in a tree. So I'm trying to get out the message, if you find anything to please turn it into our local West Carlton High School. Because, you know, some families don't have anything large that belongs to them.

CO: There's a kind of a nice turn in this, isn't there? Because you are renting this house you have to, you can't stay there. How did you — where did you find a place to live?

NL: Well, I'm a paramedic and apparently word got out through our Paramedics Association and the head of a Paramedic Association Darryl Wilton, within minutes she said he got a call from the Ottawa Fire Chief Kim Ayotte, and he said ‘You know, my wife and I were just talking about wanting to help out and we have a house in Dunrobin that is up for sale and empty because he moved closer to work and he would love for us to move into that.

CO: That’s lovely.

NL: Yes, it’s just incredible.

CO: And you need some place to decompress and just think all this through. It's extraordinary.

NL: Yeah. Sit and catch your breath type of thing.

CO: I’m not going to put you through more of this. But I thank you so much for telling us the story and it's just, I'm so happy that you're safe and your family is safe.

NL: Yes, thank you. Thank you.

CO: All right, take care.

NL: You too.

CO: Bye-bye.

JD: Nicole Lowden’s home in Dunrobin was destroyed in Friday's tornado. We reached Ms. Lowden in Ottawa.

[Music: Ambient Bass and Guitar]

Talkback: Maxime Bernier

Guest:

JD: If you were listening to the program on Friday chances are you heard the in studio interview between Carroll and Maxime Bernier. Mr. Berneir, you'll recall, left the Conservative Party of Canada to start his own political movement — the People's Party of Canada. We asked him about Canada's immigration system, asked about refugees, about what he means when he talks about ‘extreme multiculturalism.’ It turns out you listeners had as many comments about the interview as Carol had questions.

CO: Waldo Berg wrote in from Warman, Saskatchewan he had a problem with Maxime Bernier’s comments on so-called ‘Canadian values’ and wanting immigrants to hold those values when they come to Canada. Mr. Berg wrote “Let us not be so insecure and paranoid as to think that our Canadian values would be destroyed. And if they are well perhaps they were so good in the first place. I still believe that most immigrants come to Canada because they admire our values. My hope is that the People's Party of Canada will be so short lived it won't even get a line in our history books.”

JD: Leslie Lavers from Lethbridge had a different perspective and wrote to say quote “I do agree with Maxim Bernier about one thing, we should be very explicit with newcomers to Canada about who we are and about the values of this country, which cannot be open to compromise. Multiculturalism is more than just ethnic food and beautiful costumes. We ignore that at our peril.”

CO: And Lynn Coburn in Kelowna had a visceral response she wrote, “Listening to that interview made my stomach go queasy. I can only breathe deeply and hope for the best. I just hope people listen and common sense prevails.”

JD: You also called into our talkback line with your thoughts on that interview. Here are some of the calls we got.

SOUNDCLIP

ANNE PIPER: Hello there, my name name's Anne Piper I'm calling from Toronto. Tonight, I listened to the interview was Maxime Bernier and I am absolutely in favour of immigration. Apart from where people walk over the border — because there's a reason they have a refugee process for people that are oppressed from other countries. And that is what Mr. Bernier is saying.

SOUNDCLIP

NORMAN WHITESON: Norman Whiteson, I’m calling from BC I thought Mr. Bernier gave only glib and simplistic answers to complex problems that require open-mindedness and generosity of spirit. I thought Mr. Bernier exhibited none of these.

SOUNDCLIP

RALPH TYLER: Hi my name is Ralph Tyler. I'm calling from Prince George, British Columbia. I agree with him 100 per cent. I think he was saying we can't afford these immigrants that walk across the border when we have elderly — our own people here in Canada, they're living on the streets. You know, it blows me away that we're helping everybody in the world but we're so far in debt we can never get out of it.

JD: Some voices on Talkback giving their two cents on the Maxime Bermier interview that we did Friday evening on this program. And you can call us about anything you hear on. As It Happens (416) 205-5687. Just leave your full name, where are you calling from, and, of course, your comment.

[Music: 90’s Hip-Hop]

Nova Scotia abortion

Guest: Jessica Leeder

JD: It is supposed to be easier now. That is what Jessica Leeder thought as she tried to schedule an abortion in Nova Scotia. However, instead of that she faced barrier after barrier to obtaining the legal procedure. Until finally, she left the province to access a medical service that is supposedly available across this country. Ms. Leeder is the Atlantic bureau chief for The Globe and Mail. This past weekend she published a story about her experience trying to get an abortion in Nova Scotia. We reached Ms. Leeder in Halifax.

CO: Ms. Leeder, when you first realized you were pregnant did you have any idea how difficult it would be to access an abortion?

JESSICA LEEDER: I had no idea. Everything happened very quickly but in my mind the difficulty would come with making the decision whether to abort or not. And it turned out that was actually the easy part.

CO: I know you do write about this in your article so I feel okay asking you, but what were the reasons, why did you seek an abortion?

JL: It was an unexpected pregnancy. I figured that I was pregnant about five weeks along, I'm in my mid-30s and I already have two small children. And as soon as I took the test I was flooded with panic. I suffered postpartum depression with one child and pregnancy depression with another. My immediate worry was really about the impact on them and about our home life with another baby on the way that I wasn't really sure that I wanted.

CO: And you discovered you were pregnant when you were in Toronto, but you decided to go home first before because, as you know, it's fairly easy to obtain an abortion in Toronto. Why did you decide that you're going to go home and give it a try there?

JL: Well it was by happenstance that I found out I was pregnant in Toronto. I had been there working for a week. I was just going to go and catch my flight home to Halifax. I'd been away from my kids. Naturally I was ready to go home and I thought, you know, it was eating at me, ‘I'm just going to take this test and I'll see.’ But I had a pretty strong feeling I knew that it was going to be positive.

CO: And now you presumed, as many do, that it's relatively easy or easier to get an abortion in Nova Scotia. We did a number of stories in the past about how many barriers there were, that Nova Scotia was one of the most difficult places in Canada to actually obtain an abortion. But things had changed, didn't they? I mean there was a whole bunch — the government put in place a number of things that was going to make it make it easier for women. What did you discover?

JL: Yeah. So I was really into the impression that there were not barriers in Nova Scotia anymore. I had never had an abortion before. So actually when I was leaving Toronto I didn't have the sense that I was compromising my access to this procedure. I was stunned and shocked. I spent a couple of days researching right when I got back, and I realized pretty quickly that I shouldn't have gotten on the plane if I wanted to take care of it quickly.

CO: We know that the safest time to have an abortion, to have this procedure is in the first eight weeks of the pregnancy. And yet you wrote in your article that you discovered that it is really basically impossible to get an abortion in the first eight weeks of a pregnancy in Nova Scotia. Why is that?

JL: So, I would say this is partly from research and partly from going through the process as a patient that it largely due to the fact that you need to have an ultrasound to date your pregnancy. Here in Nova Scotia that doesn't occur everywhere. And in Nova Scotia ultrasounds are done in hospitals and there are long wait times. And unless you're in an emergency situation, the fact that you need an abortion isn't going to put you at the front of the queue necessarily. So I was told by several doctors, as I was calling around essentially begging to get in or the service, that they could give me an appointment but I would start to get an ultrasound and that would take two or three weeks and by then I would have been on the borderline for medical abortion, which would allow me to take a pill and basically trigger a miscarriage in my own home. And I would be in line for a surgical abortion. But once the ultrasound had happened it's not like I would have had the surgical appointment in the same day. There's even more waiting on top of that. I spoke to one woman who found out she was pregnant at five-and-a-half weeks and she couldn't get her abortion here in Halifax until she was 12 weeks.

CO: You mentioned the pill and this is the Mifegymiso, which is supposed to be something that can trigger a miscarriage and you do it in the early weeks of your pregnancy. Nova Scotia has announced that they have a toll free number now that you can call and get advice and get connected with doctors who can prescribe for you a number of things have been put into place to make it accessible to women. Why wasn't it available to you?

JL: So when I called the hotline it had only been operating for a couple of weeks. I called and I was told that the doctors whose name had been given out the week before were so overwhelmed with the number of people asking for that help that they'd ask staff not to give their number again the week I was calling. And so I asked if there was a list of doctors in and there wasn't one. Not every doctor is willing to do it. To sum it up really what I learned is that even though it's technically available it's actually still very hard to get.

CO: In your article you describe your feelings of frustration, your feelings of anger in you are a journalist to do research, you know, how to get around things you know how to find things out. And if it's like that for you, you speculate as to what it's like for so many other women.

JL: I think for all of my faults I am a trained researcher and if I couldn't find a solution — an actual workable solution — how could people who aren't used to doing this type of work figure it out. How does a teenager from Cape Breton figure it out? Or someone who has fewer resources or more demands on their time? And that just made me angry because through all my searching and all my questions nobody could really give me a medical reason for why these services weren't more accessible and why the wait was in place. And to me what that felt like were a series of barriers that were just unfair and they are invisible until you go through them. They seem small but when you stack them all up it prevents you from getting what you need. Ultimately it just robs you of choice as a woman I just don't think that's where we want to be in Canada in 2018.

CO: You did finally get an abortion. How did that come about?

JL: I did. I did eventually decide that I would fly to Toronto and I would pay for the service and the blood tests and the drugs. That was because I didn't want to wait until I was eight or nine weeks pregnant.

CO: What did it cost you finally, do you think?

JL: Rounding it would have been like $2,000-$2,220 ballpark by the time you add up the cost of flights and hotel and the service and the drugs. There is a part of me that hesitated almost in solidarity. I don't even know if that makes sense but it bothered me that I could sort of step out of this situation if I was willing to put down my credit card. Even though I was willing to do that, it was still really difficult. I didn't sleep all night in that hotel room in Toronto because I was so worried there would be yet another reason to deny me the service. I know that I was lucky because I could pay for it and I decided to. And there are just tons of women who can't and won't — but also just shouldn't have to.

CO: We will leave it there. Ms. Leeder, Thank you.

JL: Thank you.

JD: Jessica Leeder is the Atlantic bureau chief for The Globe and Mail. We reached her in Halifax. You can find her story about trying to get an abortion in Nova Scotia on the Global Mail's website.

[Music: Piano]

Ludacris/Keith Urban

Guest: Jill Paddock

JD: On their website the global home decor brand calls it an organic abstract petals duvet cover. But Calgary artist Jill Paddock isn't buying it — because she says it's already her design and that the store, West Elm, copied it without her permission. We reached Jill Paddock in Calgary.

CO: Ms. Paddock, first of all, just if you would, describe your painting?

JILL PADDOCK: Well, it is an acrylic piece of art. I used a palette knife to create some strokes that sort of look like abstract petals and it's yellow, blue, beige, white — many of the same colours that are on this bedding.

CO: And, it could be called abstraction but it looks like flower petals, doesn’t it?

JP: Yeah, it's definitely an abstract painting but it is meant to look like flowers.

CO: You're painting appeared on the showroom floor at your local West Elm store, is that right?

JP: Yeah it is. I did a pop-up shop there in the summer of 2017, and then shortly after that they had asked me if I would like to display and sell my artwork in the store. So I had several pieces up in the store there and this was just one of them.

CO: Okay. Can you describe the duvet cover that West Elm is now selling online that looks a lot like your painting?

JP: Yeah. Well, it also has a lot of the same sort of strokes that look like they were done with a palette knife, same color scheme. There are a few differences, obviously, and it is a repeated pattern, but it definitely to me looks like it was inspired by my work and it seems like it wasn't a coincidence that my artwork was in the store and then something very, very similar showed up on their bedding.

CO: Did you know this was going to happen?

JP: No, I didn't have any idea.

CO: How did you find out?

JP: A friend of mine sort of in early September texted me a picture because she had received an email, just one of those emails that you sign up for when you want to know about products from a company. She got one of those emails and was looking around at what they had that was new and saw this and she knows me quite well so she knows what my artwork looks like and she saw it and thought it was mine, she thought I had done a collaboration with them. So she sent me a text and said ‘Oh, you never told me about this. Is this yours?’ And I said ‘No, it isn't.’

CO: She thought it was so alike, your painting, that she thought you were collaborating with West Elm?

JP: Yeah, she definitely recognised it as something that she thought was mine when she saw it.

CO: So what did you do when you learned about that?

JP: Well, the first thing I did was sort of panic a little. I was quite shocked and had this sinking feeling, just going quite bad. But because I have worked with the local store and I have a good relationship with the people there, I thought the first thing I should do was maybe call them and find out if they knew about it or if it was actually being sold in the local store. So I did call and speak to somebody and they had no idea that this new bedding existed because it was really only being sold online. It is brand new, so they had no idea and they were able to put me in touch with who I should contact next.

CO: And where did that go?

JP: Well, I sent an email to I believe it was district managers and I heard back from them right away saying they've passed it on to the proper channels. And then about two weeks passed and I still hadn't heard anything, trying to wait patiently for them to respond and hopefully be able to resolve this fairly and have an explanation of what happened. And I got a call from them from the lawyers earlier this week. It was after two weeks had passed, and they denied any infringement and basically said that they had a purchased pattern that they drew inspiration from and it wasn't mine. They did send me this purchase pattern and from the looks of it it's like — my artwork looks more like bedding than the purchase pattern does. So I still feel very frustrated with that response and I've tried to get a hold of them again since and have been pretty much ignored.

CO: Is West Elm saying that is just a coincidence that looks like your painting?

JP: Yeah, I would say so because they're denying that mine has anything to do with what they've produced.

CO: And now I've seen both side-by-side — your painting and the bedding — and well, it's pretty similar isn't it? I mean, it is as you say, it's not identical, it’s not like it was lifted from there and printed onto a duvet cover, but yes it's pretty close. So where's the wiggle room as far as rights go? I mean, if they say well it was inspired by something but not really taken from something, where does the line go?

JP: I honestly don't really know. And that's been one of the most frustrating things is you know — they're a big company and I'm, you know, I'm a mom, I've got three kids, I don't have the time or the money to really invest in a lawyer to fight them. I'm not really sure what my recourse is. I just I feel like sharing it in the media and everything at this point is just my way of being able to sort of say like ‘This isn't fair.’ I don't think this is fair and it doesn’t sound right to me and I'm really disappointed with their response.

CO: Well we will, I think we've think already posted some images. We will make sure people can take a look and see them side-by-side so they can draw their own conclusions. But Ms. Paddock, I appreciate speaking with you, thanks.

JP: Yeah, thank you so much for talking to me as well.

JD: Jill Paddock is an artist in Calgary. That is where we reached her. Snd we called the Calgary West Elm store. It declined to comment. We also reached out to Williams-Sonoma, which owns West Elm. We did not hear back by air time.

Part 2: Cameroon video, Suffragette letter

Cameroon video

Guest: Aliaume Leroy

JD: A video was shared widely on social media earlier this year. And what happened in the video is described in a new investigation by the BBC.

SOUNDCLIP

NARRATOR: These women and children are being led to their deaths. The soldiers accused them of belonging to the jihadist group Boko Haram. In the final scene of this video — too graphic to show here — they are blindfolded, forced to the ground and shot at close range 22 times. One of the women still has the baby strapped to her back.

JD: After the footage was widely shared there was horror and there was controversy. While some said it was taken in Mali, others placed it in Cameroon. But the government of Cameroon rejected those claims and called the video ‘fake news.’ The BBC Africa Eye was not convinced by that dismissal. Its journalists examined the video with remarkable thoroughness trying to find out where that shooting took place, when it took place and who did it. Aliaume Leroy is one of the investigative journalists who was involved in that research. We reached him in London.

CO: Aliaume, we’ve just heard an audio clip from this documentary and even that is just so deeply disturbing — to see it is devastating — and you spare us the last moments of this. But even with that it's two women, two children shot, killed brutally. How did you come to have this video?

ALIAUME LEROY: So in July of this year, in July of 2018 this video went viral and a couple of hours before that happened we also received the video on WhatsApp through some of the contacts we had worked with previously on Cameroon. And there were actually a few reports about — media reports about that video.

CO: You must have yourself found it deeply disturbing to watch that?

AL: Yes, yes. It is really one of the worst videos I had to watch in my work. It was very hard to watch it but it's also why we thought it was really important, you know, to work on this video to verify it and to prove who were the perpetrators. Also because the government initially dismissed — the government of Cameroon initially said it was it was ‘fake news.’

CO: And this is important because Cameroon said ‘No, this isn't ours.’ Many said this happened in Mali. These aren't our soldiers. This isn't our war. So what is it that led you to believe that you could actually solve this as a crime? This is actually a crime scene, wasn't it? And you said you saw things in this video that led you to believe you could actually figure out who they were and what they did. So how what were the clues that you were working with?

AL: So yes, as you say, it's exactly what we approach this is a very forensic analysis. So we had a crime scene of those two women and children being murdered and the evidence was in the video. So when we approached this and using new methods of investigation, which we call open-source forensic analysis or open-source investigation, sort of applying forensic analysis to information publicly available. The first question was do you find clues to help us determine the location of the crime, the atrocity. And in that case there were obviously people claiming that it was from Mali or others saying from Cameroon, but because of the fatigues of the soldier our first guest was Cameroon and we also had some comments made on Facebook and Twitter that were saying it happened in the far north of Cameroon. In the video you can actually see a ridgeline of a mountain, that's very specific. So we thought let's try to see using Google Earth because you can see the topography of some regions. Let’s see whether we can find that mountain or ridgeline in the far north of Cameroon. So we started looking for it for hours and hours and hours and at some point the breakthrough happened when one of the people we were working with had a tip off that maybe that video that crime happened and that video was shot near the town of Zelevet in the far north of Cameroon. Then we started looking there on Google Earth. We actually found a ridgeline and that was very similar to the one we saw on the video. And then a truck, buildings and trees that were also visible on the video and we matched every single element on satellite imagery to what we could see in the video and that helps determine with certainty the exact location.

CO: This is really extraordinary because, of course, the eyes in watching this is just completely taken with the horror that's happening in the foreground. But as you point out, that there is a ridge in the far distance you could match up. There are buildings that you could match up and you could actually then figure out the possible date or the probable date of this crime because some of those buildings were not there are or not as they were. So you actually started using some other forensic tools.

AL: That's correct. Once you have sort of the location you can start trying to answer the question of when this happened. And, as you say here, we had other satellite imagery for different dates of the same area. So we could compare the presence of buildings in the video to those different dates that we had in the satellite imagery. By doing sort of this comparison we could reduce a time range to November 2014 to early 2016. And then there was also a footbath in the video, which only appears in the hot dry season in far north Cameroon. So that means we were looking at the hot dry season is between January and May. So we we're looking at January and May 2015. So that was or range but we can actually go much, much, much — be much more precise by doing a solar analysis. By doing a simple calculation using the shadow of a soldier and it's heights and the length of his shadow — by doing a simple calculation that give us the angle of the sun to the horizon. And once you have this angle — because the angle of the sun towards your reason for a certain location changes over the months in a year — so because we knew we were in 2015, then we have to find the sort of dates or the date range within which we could get that angle similar to the one we found by doing the calculation. And that give us the time range of March 20 to April 5th 2015.

CO: The most important question, of course, is who did it. And Cameroon initially denied these were their soldiers because they said they weren't in the right uniforms, didn't have the right guns. Your investigation found that wasn't true. But you went even further than that. You figured out who some of the men are in the video. How did you do that?

AL: So we were able to identify the three men who actually pulled the trigger. So there were three men who fired into the woman and the children and we were able to identify who they were. So there were three layers of evidence. One was using the audio of the video because in the video soldiers would mention nicknames of two of the perpetrators. There was one name is Tchotcho and the other is Tsanga. And so we had this as a clue and so we looked for Tchotcho and we tried to find profiles on Facebook and for Tchotcho there was a Facebook profile of a soldier from Cameron named Tchotcho Cyriaque Bityala. And that was interesting because actually in the statement that was released by the Cameroon government about the arrests there was actually a Cyriaque Bityala mentioned in there. So that's how we could identify one of the men. And also we had the source confirming that this was indeed Tchotcho Cyriaque Bityala. So we we're confident about his identification. And then the other we also had a mix of what we could hear in the video and as also what a source told us, the same source told us who also who used to be a former Cameroonian soldier and also what we could see in a statement from the from the Cameroonian government.

CO: So now the Cameroonian government has had to backtrack and say ‘Okay, we have arrested some men now.’ Did you feel you solved the crime, the Cameroon government is now going to deal with this?

AL: Well then it all depends how the investigation goes. And we don't have information at this stage about this investigation will unravel over time. At this stage The Cameroonian government still has to respond to the allegation we made in our video. And also the Cameroonian government still has not made an official statement to say that the crime actually happened on the Cameroonian soil or that it was done by Cameroonian soldiers. They still haven't made an official statement saying those two arguments.

CO: And what about the women and children? They were accused as we can hear in the video of being part of Boko Haram. Do you know their families? Have you been able find out who they are and any of their background? Do the families know about this investigation that you've done?

AL: So we tried to get information on the victims but sadly we couldn't find anything.

CO: All right. Very disturbing but good work on your part. Aliaume, thank you.

AL: Thank you.

CO: Bye-bye.

AL: Bye.

JD: Aliaume Leroy is an open-source investigative journalist with the BBC’s Africa Eye unit. We reached him in London. And if you are interested in seeing the documentary that they have put together it's on our website: www.cbc.ca/aih. As part of its investigation the BBC published a statement by Cameroon's minister of communications about the military personnel who were arrested which said the seven men would receive a fair trial with the presumption of innocence.

[Music: Ambient Bass]

Suffragette Letter

Guest: Lyndsey Jenkins

JD: The letter begins "My Dear Nellie, You may be surprised when I tell you I was released from Strangeways yesterday morning." It was written in 1905. The author was Annie Kenney, a working class woman from Manchester who was the first suffragette to be jailed in the UK for fighting for women's right to vote. That letter to Ms. Kenney's sister is the first known testimony from a suffragette about her experience in prison. And it was found in an archive in British Columbia. Lindsay Jenkins is the University of Oxford historian who made the discovery. We reached her in London.

CO: Ms. Jenkins, what did Annie Kenney do to get thrown into Strangeways prison?

LYNDSEY JENKINS: So this was actually the first moment that women had ever gone to prison for their vote. This was a very deliberate choice by them. So Annie Kenney and Christabel Pankhurst went to a Liberal Party meeting and they stood up in the meeting and demanded ‘Will the Liberal government give votes to women?’ And women just didn't do that kind of public debates at that those times. They get booed, they keep asking — and eventually they're thrown out of the hall. There's a scuffle, Christabel Pankhurst spits at a policeman and that's committing assault — that's enough to get them arrested. And they're given a choice between paying a fine or going to prison, and they choose prison because they know that's the thing that will have most impact.

CO: Cristabel Pankhurst was the daughter of Emmeline Pankhurst, the founder, I guess, of the suffragette movement in England, is that right.

LJ: That's right, yes. So there are three daughters in the Pankhurst family, all of whom are very involved in the suffragettes, Cristabel leads to WSPU, Sylvia is kind of more radical, more lefty in a way, works very much among working-class women in the East End of London. And then Adela, who is often the forgotten daughter, ends up going to Australia and there's a lot of falling out among the Pankhusrts. They don't have a very harmonious family relationship.

CO: How did Annie Kenney get involved with the Pankhursts? I mean, she comes from a working-class background. What led her to join up with Cristabel?

LJ: The Kenney family were always very interested in politics, but in a particular kind of socialism. They weren’t very interested in labour activism or trade unions or kind of factory organization. But what they were interested in was a different way of life that promised greater opportunity. They almost saw politics as more of a moral and spiritual cause and they were always on the lookout, I suppose, for people who inspired them and ideas that inspired them. Christabel Pankhurst is very much that sort of person — extremely charismatic, very dynamic and Annie and her sisters heard Cristabel Pankhurst early in 1985 talking about the importance of votes for women. And they were just so moved and struck by the force and the fervor of her commitment. And at that moment they sort of decided ‘Yes, this is what we've been looking for.’ They were very independent women, you know, working outside of the home gave them a sense of a sense of themselves, access to money — but they also saw the problems of unequal pay, of mothers in the home doing extra work, the way that women had no control over the legislation that shaped their lives. So they were looking for an answer to those kind of big political and social questions and Cristabel Pankhurst provided it.

CO: It’s one thing to get involved politically — another thing to get yourself thrown into prison. So how did Annie Kenney’s family feel about her? She was a pretty young woman.

LJ: Actually, what's really striking about the Kenney family is that in the main they were very supportive of what she was doing. Actually, one of things that she said in the letter is how grateful she is for all the support that most of the family have shown. She's just concerned about this one sister, Alice, who she's concerned that this particular sister is going to be awfully angry about the whole thing.

CO: And in this letter, which is really quite extraordinary, what does our Annie Kenney say about what it was like to be in prison?

LJ: She doesn't really say much about prison at all, but it's a real common theme in Annie Kenney's writings and her speeches. She, I think, finds it quite difficult to articulate how difficult it is to be in prison. And one of the things she writes in her autobiography is every time she goes, she never gets used to it, it is appalling the conditions that women had to experience. And, you know, all of a sudden they are the lowest of the low, made to wear these horrible clothes like sacks with arrows written on them, really marked out as a different and other and it's extremely degrading. I do think she found it difficult to talk about it and certainly to write it down.

CO: And, of course, this is before — these are the first women who went to prison in the suffragette movement, and, of course, we know what happened is that eventually lots of them did, they were force-fed, they went on hunger strikes, they were tortured. It was just horrible what they went through, isn’t it?

LJ: Absolutely, and it's a real mark of their, you know, commitment to the cause that this was something that women were prepared to put themselves through. Annie Kenney herself was force-fed extensively. In 1913 she was arrested on charges of conspiracy and force-fed. We had an act called The Cat and Mouse Act, under which women would go on hunger strike, they would be force-fed, they would get to the point of death, then government would release them so that they wouldn't die in prison and the government wouldn’t be blamed for it. So then the women are let out and they’re supposed to come back to prison when they're well enough to endure it, but, of course, they don't — they go on the run. And so that kind of cycle that Annie Kenney went through in 1913 — of hunger strike, force-feeding, release, go on the run, rearrested. It's incredibly draining and it has a massive impact on her health and well-being for the rest of her life.

CO: How did this letter end up in Canada — in British Columbia?

LJ: Two of the sisters actually moved to Canada, one to Montreal as a teacher, and one — Nell, the recipient of the letter. Now Nell, as I said was also a suffragette in the UK, but eventually married a journalist who had rescued another sister from an anti-suffrage mob and the two of them ended up moving to Canada for — they're looking for the promise of a better, more fulfilling life. Nell Kenney is known under her married name as Sarah Ellen Clarke. She keeps all her suffrage papers, you know, she has a real sense that this was something important and significant. She gives them to her daughters who also kind of share that feeling. And so they give them to an archive, but it wasn't until I was looking into the whole family background that I realized these two people — Sarah Clarke and Nell Kenney in the UK — were the same person.

CO: The letter itself, just back to that, is just — it's quite lovely, isn't it. It's a really touching communication between two sisters. And so what will happen with that letter now?

LJ: So the letter is on loan to the Oldham Gallery, which is where Annie was originally from a little town outside Oldham. The Royal British Columbia archives have very generously lent it to Gallery Oldham so that people can experience this unique piece of suffrage history for themselves.

CO: Well, it's a really interesting story. What a woman. And I appreciate you telling us about her Ms. Jenkins. Thank you.

LJ: Thank you very much.

JD: Lyndsey Jenkins is an art historian at the University of Oxford. We reached her in London England. And we are more on this story on our website: www.cbc.ca/aih.

Dellen Millard verdict

JD: In 2012, Wayne Millard's death was ruled a suicide. Today, Ontario Justice Maureen Forestell said it was first degree murder and found his son, Dellen Millard, guilty. In a Toronto courtroom, almost six years after Wayne Millard was found dead in bed, Justice Forestell said quote “I am satisfied that Dellen Millard killed his father by shooting him in the left eye as he slept. I can find no theory consistent with innocence.” Dellen Millard will be sentenced for this murder later this year. He's already been found guilty in the deaths of Tim Bosma and Laura Babcock. And after today's verdict Ms. Babcock's father Clayton Babcock spoke to the media.

SOUNDCLIP

CLAYTON BABCOCK: This has been another emotional day for many people. It's been proven that, not only have the Bosma’s and ourselves lost a loved one, the Millard family must live with the fact that this heinous individual murdered his own father. We feel for Wayne's relatives — save for one. It has been a difficult ordeal to attend this trial. Every day, Linda relived the horror of Laura's murder trial, but she had to be there to represent all of his victims. She wanted to make sure that Wayne always had someone present in the court who cared about him and the results of the trial. For all those out there who believe that the sentence of an additional 25 years to Mr. Millard’s 50 years is too harsh, we say: You haven't dealt with this kind of sorrow. We live with a cloud of sadness and loss over us every day. Like all people who have lost a close loved one through tragedy, there will be not a day in our lives when the loss of Laura, Tim or Wayne won't be felt.

JD: That was Laura Babcock's father, Clayton Babcock, speaking today outside a Toronto courtroom.

[Music: Somber Guitar]

Part 3: Yemen children, Contaminated blood

Yemen children

Guest: Helle Thorning-Schmidt

JD: In New York today, Helle Thorning-Schmidt declared Yemen the world's most dangerous place for children. As the CEO of the charity Save the Children Ms. Thorning-Schmidt had just witnessed firsthand some of the horrors of war between the Saudi-led coalition and Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen. But it was Ms. Thorning-Schmidt’s status as Denmark's prime minister but she leveraged this afternoon in New York. She was there to buttonhole world leaders as they gathered for the United Nations General Assembly. We reached Helle Thorning-Schmidt in New York.

CO: Ms. Thorning-Schmidt, why do you say that Yemen is now the world's most dangerous place for children?

HELLE THORNING-SCHMIDT: It is the most dangerous place for children because every day 75 per cent of the population — an estimated 22 million people, at least 11 million children — wake up and they don't know where their next meal is coming from. On top of that you have 400,000 children who are acutely malnourished, which is basically the most life threatening form of extreme hunger. These children can die from famine. I was in Yemen a month ago and I met some of these children. I sat with a baby in my arms, she was eight months old but she didn't weigh more than a newborn. And I don't think she would have survived that week if her mom had not come to our health clinic so we could help that littlr girl. This is a situation for so many children in Yemen. So not only is it the most dangerous place to be a child right now, it is also perhaps the most forgotten place because we don't know what's going on in Yemen. We don't talk about it so much anymore. So I'm hoping, of course, the world leaders gathered here this week will start taking steps to stop these things that are happening to children.

CO: We've seen the pictures, haven't we? We've seen people who've documented the children, the conditions they’re in. You just gave a very, very passionate and powerful account as to why something has to be done. You're at the United Nations ,at the General Assembly you're talking to other nations. What are they saying to you? Are you are you making an impression upon them? Do they care?

HTS: I think they care. I think everyone cares about children. And I think that goes for all world leaders. And I have seen now, just today, that people talk more about Yemen than I've seen for many weeks and months, because I think people are finally realizing that this is very serious. The thing is also that we are in a situation now where things can go from bad to worse in Yemen because there is a port city of Hudaydah, I know that many of your listeners will never have heard of this place, but that is the place where most things come into Yemen — food, medicine, everything that the Yemeni people need — and that is on the brink of being besieged over the next few — now basically, and over the next week. So we're trying to prevent that. We are trying to make sure that even though there's war going on in this city of Hudaydah, they will still be able to have access with humanitarian assistance to the children in Hudaydah. Roads are being blocked. It's very difficult to get in there. It's very dangerous for children. I spoke to our people in Save the Children on the ground today in Hudaydah and things are actually getting worse.

CO: You say everybody cares about children — that's probably true except for the fact that where is the political will. Where do you see the political will coming from to actually stop this?

HTS: Well, I don't see that much political will and I'm as frustrated that everyone, particularly because I've seen what's happening. And what is making things worse is we're talking about besiegement of cities. I mean, this is almost like from the Middle Ages that we're talking about that. Let's not forget when a city is besieged it means that food cannot get in, there's very limited access to water, very limited access to health services and who suffer most — that is, of course, children. So that is why, even though I don't have a lot of hope, I think we still have to urge both the warring parties to come to the negotiation table. Let's not forget this is a purely manmade situation. So it is not beyond our capacity to come back to the negotiating table. The UN now has sent in a very, very good envoy to try and bring the warring parties back to the negotiation table. I’m urging now for a ceasefire and that we try to find a political solution and, of course, all the UN member states who are one way or another backing these warring parties to also help getting the two warring parties in Yemen back to the negotiation table.

CO: We saw in August the attack on a school bus, 40 boys twins six and eleven years old were killed — another 56 wounded and many other people killed and wounded as well. That bomb, we understand, was supplied by the United States, that the weapons and munitions that are being used by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in this war fighting the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels, we know that much of those munitions, if not most, are coming from the United States and the United Kingdom. Isn't that where you need to go to put pressure to get them to stop supplying the weapons?

HTS: I think there has to be pressure on both sides. I represent Save the Children I try to represent or try to speak for the children and I don't think it's serves anything to take part in this these conflicts. In Yemen, for example, we've seen grave violations on both sides and that is why we are urging both sides to come back to the negotiation table. There's no point in starting to point fingers here but, of course, I want to urge any government who is talking to any of the warring parties to urge them to come back and start talking to each other.

CO: I know that it's politically difficult to point fingers and you say you don't want to, but we know that there are a lot of pressure on Iran and a lot of pressure on the Houthi rebels. The same time what we're seeing is that for instance Spain had cancelled a contract with Saudi Arabia to supply bombs similar to the one used the school bus attack, and then they changed their minds after they had pressure from Saudi Arabia. We're seeing powerful forces who are encouraging countries to keep supplying armaments — including Canada supplying armoured vehicles to Saudi Arabia. Don't you have to go after those countries and say ‘You need to stop supporting this war?’

HTS: I don't think we have to go after anyone, I think we have to urge member states of the UN who are supporting either of these sides to put pressure on the warring parties. And I think it's really important that we as an international NGO like Save the Children, that we don't take sides. One thing I'm most concerned about right now is to get humanitarian access Hudaydah. I just want to get past those roadblocks, past checkpoints and get into Hudaydah with the help that these children so urgently need. For that we need a de-conflicting of the situation, a ceasefire and then the next steps, of course, that we come back to negotiation table.

CO: And just finally, if you can't get access to Hudaydah, what happens to those children?

HTS: They will suffer immensely. Don't forget this is a city where they don't have access to clean water anymore, things are bombed out. I heard about a grandmother who came into one of our health clinics yesterday — it's awful — but to have her gold teeth taken out so she could pay for food and medicine for her grandchildren. This is the situation, people are starving and when children are starving and they are experiencing extreme hunger they will end up dying of that famine. I've seen it for myself.

CO: All right, we'll be watching. Ms Thorning-Schmidt, Thank you for your time.

HTS: Thank you for having me.

JD: Helle Thorning-Schmidt is the CEO of the Save the Children charity. She is also Denmark's former prime minister. We reached her in New York.

[Music: Strings]

Paul Gosar siblings’ ad

JD: Wow to be a fly on the wall at the Gosar family Thanksgiving dinner this year. Paul Gosar is a Republican congressman in Arizona. He's currently running for re-election — and there are attack ads against him. And they're hitting awfully close to home — because they're coming from members of his own family. Here is one of the ads in the series called ‘A Family Defends Its Honour.’

SOUNDCLIP

DAVID GOSAR BROTHER: None of this is pleasant for any of us.

JENNIFER GOSAR SISTER 1: It's horrible to have to do this.

JOAN GOSAR: To speak up against my brother, it brings its sadness to me.

GRACE GOSAR: This isn't just about Paul. This is about their family.

JG: I think my brother has traded a lot of the values we had at our kitchen table.

GG: I couldn't be quiet any longer nor should any of this be.

GASTON GOSAR: We’ve got to stand for our good name. This is not who we are.

TIM GOSAR BROTHER 2: It's intervention time and intervention time means that you go to vote and you go to vote Paul out.My name is Tim Gosar.

JG: My name is Jennifer Gosar.

GG: Gaston Gosar.

JG: Joan Gosar.

DG: David Gosar.

JG: Paul Gosar is my brother.

ALL IN UNISON: My brother, my brother, and I endorsed Dr. Brill, Dr. Brill, Dr. Brill — and I wholeheartedly endorse Dr. David Brill for Congress.

DAVID BRILL: I'm Dr. David Brill and I approved this message.

JD: Wow. Six of Arizona Congressman Paul Gosar’s nine siblings in an ad endorsing his brother's opponent. Since that ad was released Bernadette Gosar — the matriarch of the Gosar clan has weighed in. She told The New York Times she was shocked and crushed by the video, which Congressman Gosar was quick to rub in his brothers and sisters faces. He Tweeted, “I guess I really am mom's favourite.”

[Music: Guitar]

Trump Russia meeting: Rob Goldstone

JD: The man who brokered a meeting at Trump Tower says he has regrets about setting it up in the first place. In June of 2016 Donald Trump's election team — including Donald Trump Jr. — met with a Russian lawyer to get dirt on Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. That meeting, of course, would go on to become central to the Russia collusion inquiry in the United States. The person who set that meeting up was British publicist Rob Goldstone. Mr. Goldstone also happened to be in Moscow for the Miss Universe pageant with President Donald Trump back in 2013 — before, of course, he was President Trump — where an upset unsubstantiated claim emerged that Mr. Trump had been filmed in his hotel room with prostitutes. In an interview today the BBC’s New York correspondent Nick Bryant asked Mr. Goldstone about all of this. Here's a clip.

SOUNDCLIP

ROB GOLDSTONE: Having sat in on that meeting I think you'd be hard pushed to believe that that meeting in itself in its entirety was evidence of any form of collusion but I'll be interested to see what the Mueller Report thinks of that.

NICK BRYANT: They were offering dirt on Hillary Clinton?

RG: They were offering — I hate that word dirt — but they were offering in criminating information. And not only were they offering it, they presented it, but it seemed that it was very generic dirt.

NB: You’ve been questioned for many hours by Robert Mueller, the special counsel who was looking into allegations of Russian collusion between the Trump campaign and with Russia and the Kremlin. What were they interested to find out from you?

RG: I think they looked upon me as the only independent voice in that meeting because you have half the room who have some relationship to Russia — and the other half have some relationship to the Trumps.

NB: Let's talk about when your clients brought Donald Trump over to Moscow in 2013 for the Miss Universe pageant there. You were with him that weekend, that weekend has become famous, infamous because of the allegations in the famed Steele dossier, that Donald Trump procured prostitutes while he was in Moscow.

RG: Trump flew to Moscow, arrived, began work with us, attended a reception with dignitaries and at about 2:00 in the morning got back to his hotel at the Ritz Carlton. At 7 that morning, he came down to do Emin’s music video, which I'd set up. So there's about a four-and-a-half, maybe a five-hour period between say two or two thirty and 7:00 in the morning when this, for sure, could have taken place. But it's odd that no one ever mentioned it. I would have heard some gossip. I'm convinced of it.

NB: Do you regret sending that email?

RG: Sitting here today with everything I've learned, I would write that e-mail, I would read that e-mail and I would go, ‘no, no, no’ and I would hit delete.

JD: British publicist Rob Goldstone speaking to the BBC’s New York correspondent Nick Bryant in an interview this week.

[Music: Accordion]

Contaminated blood

Guest: Jason Evans

JD: Evans was just a boy when his dad died. Just one of thousands of people who lost loved ones they were victims of tainted blood-clotting agents in Britain. Today a public inquiry into that scandal began. In the UK, during the 1970s and 80s, as many as 5000 patients with hemophilia and other bleeding disorders were given a treatment called Factor VIII — but the clotting agent had been manufactured from contaminated human blood and many of the people who received that treatment were infected with HIV and hepatitis viruses. Decades after the problem was identified questions remain about how much was known about the risk and why the tainted blood product was used for so long. This public inquiry seeks to answer those questions. Jason Evans heads an advocacy group for victims and families affected by the scandal. We reached him in London.

CO: Mr. Evans, you were there today at the launch of this inquiry. What was that like for you personally?

JASON EVANS: I think it was very vindicating because this day has been a long time in the making. For me personally, I've been researching and campaigning on this issue of contaminated Factor products since 2015, so today was really vindicating to finally have this inquiry happening. And, you know, it was very moving actually, and I think the whole community that was there today were happy. I think overall the feeling was probably a sense of cautious optimism, as I call it.

CO: You were just four years old when your dad died in 1993. What happened? Can you tell us the background?

JE: Sure. So my father was a hemophiliac, and like most hemophiliacs in this country in the 70s and 80s he began using a new treatment for haemophilia called Factor Concentrates. And unlike the previous treatment cryo-precipitate, which came from a single volunteer blood donor — these new products came from mixing blood plasma donations of tens of thousands of donors. And the problem when you did that was that it only took one donor to contaminate the entire batch. And so my father was infected with hepatitis C and HIV — and he died in 1993 as a result of those infections.

CO: Where had the blood plasma come from?

JE: So the blood plasma donations were collected in prisons, Skid Row locations from I.V. drug users, from prostitutes — and these were paid donors. And the problem when you pay blood donors for their donation is that it gives them a motive to lie about their health status or their lifestyle. And that's what was going on, and so you had what traditionally was a volunteer service in this country turned into a commercialized for-profit system. And actually, I believe, you had much the same situation going on in Canada at the time, which the Krever Inquiry in Canada looked into.

CO: It was extraordinary, the Krever Commission into Canada's tainted blood disaster and led to many changes. But you've had inquiries, have you not? I mean, this won't be the first. Why was this never investigated properly at the time?

JE: Sure. Well, as for why it was never investigated properly at the time, I suspect it was probably because the government and the ministers here were looking at what was happening in France in the early 90s when an inquiry should have happened, where the former head of the French National Blood Transfusion Service, the CNTS, yes he was actually jailed for two years. Ironically, he was an English doctor from Cambridge originally. And I think the government and the ministers here were looking at this situation in France and they were very distressed by it. So I would allege that a cover-up ensued. There have been previous inquiries here. We've had a Scottish inquiry, the Penrose inquiry. However it was restricted to Scotland — circumstances between Scotland and England do differ. It couldn't compare witnesses or documentation from outside of Scotland and all the decisions at the time were being made in England. The only other inquiry that's been had here was an independent, privately funded inquiry called the Archer Inquiry. It didn't have any statutory powers. It wasn't made by the government, and so it was much like if you were to decide yourself ‘Okay, I'm going to have my own investigation or inquiry into whatever subject you like.’ You can go and do that if you wish but you're going to have no powers to compel witnesses or documentation and very little funding.

CO: And then why have they decided to do it now? Why has this inquiry been launched?

JE: Well, I think it's interesting that just the November of 2016 the prime minister, Theresa May, had actually written a letter saying there will be no inquiry into contaminated blood. And it will reach this pinnacle in the July of 2017. All within the space of one week three big things happened. We lodged a group litigation at the High Court against the government for their role in infecting people with these viruses. We hit the front page of the most read newspaper in the country. And thirdly, we had a letter that was signed by all opposition political parties saying there should be an inquiry into this scandal. And so I always say to people we have three parts of action — we had the press, we had political and we had legal — and those three things together really force the government to announce this inquiry.

CO: You are part of a group that is fighting to get this, you're successful. How many people died? How many other people like you who want to know what really happened?

JE: Well, in terms of the numbers of people who were infected, at the time there was anywhere between three and five thousand hemophiliacs who received these contaminated treatments. We know that around 1,200 of those were infected with HIV and the majority were dead by 1996. But the main organization, which I'm involved with is called Factor VIII and then under that we have a group called The Fatherless Generation with people like myself who have lost a parent to these infected pharmaceutical products. And within that group were aware at the moment of around 110 people who have lost a parent.

CO: You now believe that you finally have an inquiry that's got some teeth, that has some powers to get people to talk to get the testimonies you need. What do you hope comes out of this?

JE: I think what we hope for is one very simple thing and that's the truth. Following that Scottish inquiry that I told you about, there was a conclusion reached from my inquiry that said there was little that could or should have been done differently. My personal goal when I began campaigning was to change that phrase to say there was a lot that could and should have been done differently and to show that this scandal that happened almost wiped out an entire generation of people with hemophilia, was actually completely avoidable if it was not for the profit-making mentality of the pharmaceutical companies and the money-saving mentality of the British government at the time.

CO: We will be watching. Mr. Evans, I appreciate speaking with you, thank you.

JE: Thanks.

CO: Good night.

JD: Jason Evans is a campaigner for victims and families affected by the contaminated blood scandal in the UK during the 70s and 80s. We reached him in London.

[Music: Somber Piano]

Korean ‘Uncle Service’

JD: There is a lot of confusion over the origin of the phrase ‘say uncle’ which is the thing bullies used to say when they put their victims in a headlock or put their head in a toilet. According to one theory in ancient Rome a bully wouldn't set a kid free until the kid yelled “Patrue, mi Patruissimo,” which means ‘uncle, my best uncle.’ Apparently uncles were esteemed back then so bullies loved being called uncles. Which seems weird, but if you've seen what the words were like in ancient Rome you'd understand — you'd say anything to get your head out of one. Well times have changed. In South Korea you don't call uncle to a bully, you call uncle on a bully by calling the Uncle Service. According to a poorly translated Korean news site, for a fee the Uncle Service will send a big scary man to school with you — a hired uncle to confront whomever is picking on you. Or he'll deliver a video of your tormentor tormenting you to the school administrators. And if you spring for the deluxe package the uncle will stand outside wherever the bully's parents work and holler quote “the parent of a bully works here.” The costs range from about $600 Canadian for the uncle school visit package, to about $2,300 Canadian for the workplace shaming package — not exactly avuncular pricing. Plus, as an expert points out in the article, this is no substitute for addressing bullying inside the school system. But in the meantime if this expensive system works for you, Bobs your uncle, or Mike or Tim — whoever is available, I guess.

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Sept. 24, 2018 episode transcript

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