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The Current Transcript for August 4, 2021

Host: Rosemary Barton

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

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Provinces lifting mask mandates

Guests: Alex Wong, Crystal Dougan, Rod Russel, Brent

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Three to four day is the hours that we attend. Since Friday, BC has responded to an average of 14 sudden deaths a day. Quite simply, it's stretching our resources very thin.

ROSEMARY BARTON: During this summer's heat wave in British Columbia, emergency services were strapped. The loss of life linked to extreme heat was on a scale we hadn't yet seen in Canada. But this has been a problem many communities have been grappling with for years. In 30 minutes, the chief officer of heat in Athens, Greece, will be here to explain what her city is doing to keep people alive. Then.

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What we are attempting to do is to bring into operation aspects of a patient's own personality. We are not trying to impose upon the individual, and our problem is to ensure that that improvement is lasting.

RB: In an hour, we return to our presentation of the CBC podcast, brainwashed fellow host, Michelle Shephard as she uncovers more of the mystery behind CIA mind control at a Montreal psychiatrist. Plus, we'll hear why activists are risking their lives in Belarus to speak truth to power. But we begin with the Great mask debate, again. Some provinces are lifting face coverings, but is it too soon with covid variants still at large? I'm Rosemary Barton, filling in for Matt Galloway. And this is The Current. Canada is one of the most vaccinated countries in the world now surpassing the United States and Israel, and with that, public health restrictions have become a bit more lax. Today, Yukon joined several other provinces in lifting their mask mandate. Manitoba will join them on Saturday. Chief provincial public health officer there, Dr. Brent Roussin, had this to say about the move.

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Public health will no longer require mask use in indoor public places. However, we know that covid-19 will be with us. So we are still highly recommending that Manitobans wear masks in indoor public places for everyone, 12 years in age and older who is not fully vaccinated. So again, we're moving from public health restrictions to recommendations.

RB: Meanwhile, Ontario plans to keep their mask mandate indefinitely even after they've fully opened. All this unmasking comes while covid variants are still a threat. Rod Russell is the vice president of the Canadian Society for Virology. He's also a professor of virology and immunology at Memorial University in Newfoundland and Labrador, where they are planning to end the mask mandate on Monday. Rod Russell, good morning.

ROD RUSSEL: Good morning, Rosemary. How are you?

RB: I'm good. So so tell me, this is sort of the plan so far that Newfoundland will get rid of its mask mandate as well. Do you think that Newfoundlanders will say, OK, I'm done with it?

ROD RUSSEL: Oh, that's a good question. I've talked to a lot of people recently who say they will still wear masks if they go to a grocery store or if they're going to be in a crowded area indoors where they don't know everybody's vaccination status. So it's going to be interesting.

RB: What do you think of the decision to to end the mask mandate?

ROD RUSSEL: It has to happen at some point, right? The show must go on. Life has to get back to normal at some point. You know, you're never going to know that it's absolutely perfectly safe. And, you know, with with this virus and how it likes to change and create new variants, you know, we have to do it at some point and we have to play it by ear. I think, at least for here in Newfoundland, you know, cases are very low right now. So I think anywhere, you know, you have to look at your local risk and then decide based on, you know, how things look where you are.

RB: But but as you just said, the virus is smart in the way it changes and mutates. And the Delta variant has now made it so that even people fully vaccinated can fairly easily transmit the virus, from what I understand. So does that not worry you that the Delta variant has become a factor in or should become a factor into whether people are wearing masks or not?

ROD RUSSEL: Yes, of course. I think it's it comes down to personal risk at some point. And, you know, it's really hard to it's impossible right now to give one size fits all advice, because I could tell you for a fact that not everybody responds the same way to these vaccines. Some people probably won't get infected at all because they made a really good immune response with lots of antibodies, lots of T cells in the air ready to go. But some people are, you know, at the other end of the spectrum. And it really is a spectrum. You fall somewhere in the middle. Some people are making almost no responses and but they don't know what is the problem. So some people probably should wear masks. And whether or not they know it depends. They might not know what is the point. So when you have this variant now with this really recent data saying that it's the viral loads are as high in vaccinated people as in unvaccinated people, you know, that's a big factor because the viral load is really, as far as we know, what determines whether or not you can spread. So it's literally the amount of virus that's in your nasal cavity.

RB: So I guess my question would be, should people who are double vaccinated be questioning how protected they are from the Delta variant and wearing a mask because of that?

ROD RUSSEL: Yes, I mean, I it's again, it's hard to give advice, but I would say, you know, if you have any chance of any immunocompromised state, if you've if you're on any medications that might affect your immune response and might have dampened your response to the vaccine. If you're an elderly person who may not have responded as well as some of the some younger people, I would still wear a mask, at least indoors for the next few months to until we see, because I think, you know, the fourth wave is starting in some places. And I think, you know, it's clear that as cases go up, hospitalisation rates aren't going up as fast. So the vaccines are working. You know, they're keeping people from getting sick, but it's still early. And this is a new variant. And I think we're right at the point now where the vaccines are about to get tested against the strongest variant we've seen yet. So I would say at least for the next few weeks as mass get lifted, I would say most people probably shouldn't take them off, throw them away until we see what's going to happen with the with cases and hospitalisations in the next few few weeks.

RB: Well, doesn't that suggest then that these provinces that are scrapping mask mandate should not that perhaps this is happening just too quickly?

ROD RUSSEL: Perhaps, you know, we've seen the US they they threw away a few weeks ago and now they're, you know, they're all putting them on again. So, you know, I think I still feel like we have to reward people. You know, people have been dealing with this. Everyone's tired of this. You know, people have gotten vaccinated and worn masks until they get vaccinated. And there has to be a reward at the end of all this pain. Right. So I think, you know, the summer is the best time. You know, if this virus typically decreases a little bit in prevalence in the summer, you know, all of these seasonal viruses do. If there's a time to give people a break from masks, it's going to be now because I am sure the virus is going to surge to some level everywhere in the fall, if not already. So I feel like giving people a break for masks is is an absolute need. And right now is it's the best time to do it because it's summer. People are outdoors, kids are in school, a lot of people are on vacation. So it's the best time to do it. But it could be temporary.

RB: So. So what do you think is the likelihood that the mask mandate will be brought back in Newfoundland and Labrador, for instance?

ROD RUSSEL: I think the part of the reason Newfoundland has not had many cases, the reason Newfoundland hasn't had many cases, you know, throughout this whole thing is because we've been very conservative. Our public health has been, you know, really careful. And I think the masks will go back out very quickly if cases start to go up fast at all.

RB: OK, redressal, I will keep my mask handy. You should, too. It sounds like

ROD RUSSEL: I will leave me for now. I'm going to wear it if I go to the grocery store or something because no one likes it. But it's not that bad. It's better than getting sick.

RB: Yeah, it works. OK, Rob Russell, thank you so much. OK, Rod Russell is a professor of virology and immunology at Newfoundland and Labrador is Memorial University and vice president of the Canadian Society for Virology. Well, what happens when the masks come off and then they kind of have to go right back on again. Health officials in British Columbia lifted the mask mandate on July 1st. But just four weeks later, a spike in cases in the Okanagan Valley saw a mask once again mandatory in public indoor spaces in that area. And that includes restaurants like the little hobo soup and sandwich shop in downtown Kelowna. Crystal Dougan is the owner and chef. I believe we've reached her in the kitchen this morning, already. Good morning to you, Crystal.

CRYSTAL DOUGAN: Good morning, Rosemary. How are you doing this morning?

RB: I'm good. And thanks for I don't know if this is your regular early start. There probably is. It is, yeah. What was your reaction when you heard that masks were going to be mandatory again in Kelowna?

CRYSTAL DOUGAN: Oh, my goodness. Well, I'm a little disappointed. You know, you look forward to taking them off. I look forward to taking them off as much as anybody else does. That's for sure. Mm hmm.

RB: And what did it mean for your business? First of all?

CRYSTAL DOUGAN: Well, it meant for my business. We had already gone to no masks in within the business. And it was a little relief when we took them off because it has been so hot with the heat wave coming here in Kona. But it meant that, you know, just that bit of discomfort, but nothing that's not doable.

RB: And how are people following the rules? Because that's the other part of this that's kind of hard for people who own businesses, right?

CRYSTAL DOUGAN: Yes, that is very difficult. That is extremely difficult. So we are how are people handling it? Well, yesterday was a good example. You know, some people are very accepting of wearing masks and some people are not. It's become quite a political thing, I guess. But I just people are pretty good about it yesterday. Lots of people coming in wearing the masks. No problem at the door. We supply them at the door if they had forgotten because, you know, just sometimes you can't remember a darn thing and, you know, there's some inappropriate wearing a mask still where people aren't fully covered, that kind of thing. And you have to kind of do the covid police thing and ask people to wear it properly. But things are things seemed yesterday for me when I was in scene. Some things seemed to go smoothly.

RB: Good. Given that you're running, you know, a busy restaurant, obviously a tourist destination for many Canadians during a Cobert outbreak. How do you feel about having the masks back?

CRYSTAL DOUGAN: I am currently feeling quite happy about it. I'm willing to wear a mask. No problem. I, I will wear it any time I have to. When numbers go up and I feel that my customers or my staff or my business may be threatened by that

RB: and how I'm. Yeah. How challenging is it when the rules keep changing like this. You know, you didn't have it, now you have it. You might go back to not having it.

CRYSTAL DOUGAN: Yeah, there's a feeling of no control of not knowing what the day holds on a daily basis. You come in and you're like, oh well, wonder what's going to happen today. So there's a lot of variety to what we're experiencing. It's it's different, that's for sure.

RB: Never know who did what. What has what is the pandemic revealed to you about about the place you live in and your business, I guess, and how hard it is to to run a business in moments like this?

CRYSTAL DOUGAN: Yeah, well, the place I live is amazing. Coloma is beautiful with many beautiful people who are good on the inside and out. It's a sense of community here. We all stick together, we all work together and we all take care of one another. We really support local. And at this time, I can't tell you how much Colonia has stepped up and has been supporting local, been coming into the little shops that just, you know, maybe would not make it. And we are.

RB: Yeah. And the fact that masks might come off again and there might be some of this back and forth flip flopping as we adjust to things. Do you think that that's something Helena can live with? Is it something you can live with?

CRYSTAL DOUGAN: Oh, my goodness. I absolutely. I mean, Kelowna is resilient. It's a great tourist destination. People should be coming here all the time, whether it's mask on or mask off. I think it's going to be I think it's going to be a great rest of the summer no matter what. And I hope people are coming to Kelowna. And but, of course, following the rules, you know, we have a little travel restriction on right now that people should be aware of.

RB: OK, what's the soup of the day?

CRYSTAL DOUGAN: Oh, my goodness. The soup of the day is mulligatawny. Curry. Coconut milk. Oh, yeah.

RB: And rice. You're speaking my language. All right, Crystal, stay safe. Stay with your mask on for now. Thank you so much for talking to us this morning.

CRYSTAL DOUGAN: We'll debate. Thank you. All right. Bye bye

RB: Bye. Crystal Duggan is the chef and owner of the little Hobo Soup and Sandwich Shop in Kelowna. Sounds good there. Saskatchewan hasn't just dropped its provincial mask mandate. It's also scrapped the required self isolation for anyone who test positive for covid-19. Alex Wong is an infectious disease physician and associate professor at the University of Saskatchewan. Dr. Wang. Hello to you.

ALEX WONG: Morning, Rosie, how are you? I am good. Nice of you to make the time this morning. So Saskatchewan was the first province actually to lift public health restrictions. A lot of people don't know that because Alberta took up a lot of space last week. Yeah. What do you make of other provinces, Alberta, now, Manitoba, Newfoundland and Labrador moving in that direction?

ALEX WONG: As a as Dr. Russell mentioned at the beginning of the segment, I think it's it's a move that's necessary. We need to find ways to move forward and and progress at the same time. I think governments and policymakers need to be nimble with regards to Delta. We're obviously learning a lot more about Delta and how it's different, you know, compared to Alpha and compare it to the ancestral strain of covid-19. And it's it's kind of changed the calculus once again in terms of risk and benefit. So, you know, masking, you know, isolation requirements, all these other pieces are still things that are going to need to flip flop, I think, as case numbers rise and as hospitalisations rise again. And certainly here in Saskatchewan, we're hopeful that, you know, we vaccinated enough of our population, that we're not going to see that significant surge of hospitalisations that we did in the spring.

RB: Right. Saskatchewan's Health Minister Paul Merriman has said that this was based on the province's vaccination rates as opposed to a number of cases of covid per day, I guess. Is that a good way now to to look at the lifting of covid restrictions, not based on the case count per day, but rather the vaccination rate in in areas?

ALEX WONG: I mean, those those types of decisions were made probably around May, June, and, you know, again, at that point in time, we didn't really have a very good understanding of what Delta was. I mean, again, I think we made certain assumptions that it was going to act similarly to the other strains that we've kind of dealt with here in Canada and around the world. And we're learning now, obviously, that it's far more contagious and that there's ramifications for people. And so, you know, now, obviously, PIAC and the federal government is talking about needing 90 percent of persons vaccinated. And again, as the contagiousness of the strains increases, you need a much higher proportion of your population vaccinated. And so, again, I think that there's this need for governments and and policymakers to be nimble and to recognise that as the science changes, policy has to change to make.

RB: The province has, perhaps not surprisingly, seen a rise in cases since restrictions were lifted. There are, I think, almost about 500 active cases. What's what's behind this uptick? Is it purely related to the restrictions?

ALEX WONG: No, actually, what's happening is, is that most of the cases are actually being driven by relatively large outbreaks in the far north of of of the province. And unfortunately, the far north and certain parts of the south are areas of the province which are less vaccinated than, for example, the urban areas like Saskatoon and Regina, for example. So we haven't seen a big spike as yet in other parts of the province. But we know certainly here locally in Regina, we had a big surge in March and April. Internal data, you know, just we were just looking at it a couple of days ago. And it's pretty much all Delta now here in Regina. So we know it's here. So the question is going to be not really if it's going to surge, but when. And hopefully, as I say, we've got enough people vaccinated that we're not going to see that big jump in hospitalisations.

RB: Yeah, it does. I have to say, as a as a regular person, it all seems a little confusing, right, that the rules are sort of not there. But at the same time, people are saying, well, maybe you should wear a mask if you go out or the health minister, Mr. Merriman, even saying, you know, you have the responsibility to isolate as an individual if you test positive. What do you make of that? And the fact that people are almost like at the beginning of this having to make decisions for themselves?

ALEX WONG: You know, I think it's been sort of the mantra of of at least our provincial response to push the responsibility of the decision making on to on to individuals and on to the public. I think there's times where that makes sense and there's times where that works. And then there's other times where, you know, it might be easier to make things a little bit more clear. For example, regarding isolation, for example, there was a lot of confusion around isolation requirements and mandates, you know, on July 11th when they were removed and they weren't really clarified until just late last week. So, you know, individual responsibility, I think, can only carry us so far, especially when there's a significant surge in cases. There's obviously been a significant backlash in Alberta. You know, a lot of people upset with the approach that Alberta is taking, you know, here in Saskatchewan. Honestly, I was just at the local Littlefair and the parking lot. Nobody was wearing masks. I had my kids and, you know, my son my son was like the only child to actually be wearing a mask. He insisted on asking because he wanted to protect other people. I actually didn't think there was a mask that was needed. You know, we've got the writer game coming up. There's 3000 people in the stadium. So it's going to be a test. We're going to see how it is and go from there.

RB: Yeah, that's on Friday. I was going to ask you about it because it is sold out. I know Roughriders fans are intense, but. But does it worry you that it's going to be a sold out at capacity event on Friday?

ALEX WONG: I, I have to be honest, I am a bit worried. I mean, I'm super, super excited to watch the game and to, you know, to finally kind of I think every everyone in the province is thrilled at the same time, man, 33000 people packed together. Yeah. You know, again, our vaccination uptake rates are amongst the lowest in the country. We need to really work on getting those high. So you know what? It's going to be a test we're going to see. And again, we just kind of have to be able to respond as we need to if we start to see cases and hospitalisations rise.

RB: Is that an event where you yourself would wear a mask if you I don't know if you have tickets, but if you had tickets, would you wear a mask there?

ALEX WONG: I would again. Again, there's a lot of situations in the stadium, for example, like when you're at the when you're waiting to basically check in, you know, when you're waiting for the washroom, when you're waiting for concessions, where you're going to be packed pretty tight, where you're not necessarily going to be, you know, sort of outdoors, persay. So, again, it comes down to a personal risk calculation. I think basking in that kind of situation in other situations like indoor public spaces here makes a lot of sense. That's me. And I know that's not necessarily the view that's going to be shared by everybody, but we need to be

RB: nimble little band on this if restrictions had to be brought back in because God forbid, you know, there's a serious outbreak, would they be effective? Would people respond, given that they've now been sort of all removed, essentially?

ALEX WONG: Yeah, you know, I think the overall approach and attitude, I think of much of the population, I mean, it's been about three and a half weeks since all the restrictions were removed. And honestly, you go out and there's virtually nobody wearing masks at this point in time, outdoors or indoors. There's no distancing. It kind of pretty much feels like everyone's gotten back to normal. It's going to be tough. But I think if we see those numbers rise, you know, and we need to intervene, then, you know, that's just going to be required. It's going to be tough for the population, but it's going to be necessary.

RB: OK, Alex Wong, thank you for your time this morning. Enjoy the football game on Friday.

ALEX WONG: Looking forward to it.

RB: Thank you. Well, appreciate it. Alex Wong is an infectious disease physician and associate professor at the University of Saskatchewan. The CBC News is next. And then as extreme heat continues to become more deadly, cities and countries around the world are trying to figure out how to keep people safe. Certainly it's something we've seen in this country. In a moment, we'll hear from the first chief health officer of heat for Athens, Greece, about what her city is doing. I'm Rosemary Barton and you're listening to The Current.

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Activists face government crackdown in Belarus

Guest: Franak Viacorka

RB: Hello, I'm Rosemary Barton, and you're listening to The Current.

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RB: Still to come, we return to our presentation of the CBC podcast, Brainwashed, plus how cities are grappling with keeping people safe during extreme heat. But first, we head to Belarus, where activists are risking their lives speaking out against the government.

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That's Belarusian sprinter Krystsina Tsimanouskaya, asking the International Olympic Committee for help in a video posted Sunday. She says Belarusian officials forced her to the airport to board a flight back to Belarus after she complained about being entered into the four by 400 metre relay race a further distance than she was used to. The IOC is now investigating and demanding Belarus respond to the allegations. This comes after a year of unrest and demonstrations over what many see as a rigged election by President Alexander Lukashenko. Lukashenko has retaliated, cracking down on anyone who shows opposition or criticism to the government. Just this month, roughly 50 NGOs in the country were shut down. And on Tuesday, the head of a Kiev based organisation that helps Belarusians fleeing persecution was found dead hanging in a park in the Ukrainian capital, Kiev. Phrenic V. Choko, via Choko, is a former journalist and now senior adviser to an exiled politician. Svetlana Tikhanovskaya. Franak Viacorka. Hello.

FRANAK VIACORKA: Good morning.

FRANAK VIACORKA: How are you?

FRANAK VIACORKA: I'm good, I'm good. I know many things are happening. It's difficult to read the news and to check, you know, how many of your friends are detained today?

RB: Well, I can't imagine what that feels like. Let me start with the headline of this Olympic athlete, because it was it's such a strange story. She doesn't want to go back to Belarus because she fears for her safety. She's now on her way to Poland, where this morning we're told her her husband will meet her there. She fears for her safety. What what would have been the risk for her if she had returned to Belarus?

FRANAK VIACORKA: I think she ought to repeat the fate of the which the young journalist, also my friend, who was kidnapped from Ryanair flight, which was diverted by Lucashenko regime two months ago. So she might spent three or four days in KGB prison and then she could appear on the state television criticising democratic forces and praising Lukashenko. This is what often happens to activists who are kidnapped by KGB.

RB: I want to ask you, too, about Vitaly Shihof, who was found dead in a park in the Ukrainian capital. We don't we don't really know the details of what happened there. Of course, many believe that he was targeted because of his opposition to Lukashenko. What did you make of his death?

FRANAK VIACORKA: Honestly, I'm shocked and bit scared somehow I manage, I got used to the idea that there is a constant threat to everywhere, even if you are outside of Belarus. But, you know, this death was a shock and awe to me and to my colleagues to to the whole team of Politkovskaya, because she sure was the guy who was helping with the relocation. Many initiatives, organisations, outlets were moving to Kiev to reorganise their activities. And suddenly he's that. And I hope that Ukrainian investigators will will find we'll find out what happened. But but still, it's scary.

RB: I noticed that this morning Ukraine says that it will not only investigate what happened, but order extra protection for Belarus exiles. Do you think that that might have to happen in other places? Are exiles now in danger even in other countries?

FRANAK VIACORKA: Yeah, we are in touch with the fate of Lithuania, Poland also I was speaking to and I think the queen yesterday about protection for our people, activists and primarily journalists, because journalists are the most often target of the security services and KGB in particular. So it's kind of like herself the winner of presidential elections, who is an example with whom I work. She has the protection from Lithuania. So she's under protection 24/7. And this security guards are near her home. And when she's travelling, they're travelling with her as well.

RB: Back in May, some sanctions by the U.S., the E.U., Canada, of course, and the U.K. were put in place after that interception of the Ryanair flight that you were talking about there, where there was the arrest of the journalist. Has that made any difference to how the government deals with opponents, vocal opponents?

FRANAK VIACORKA: This is very, very important, and it was very strong message to Belarusian society of those who are behind bars and those who are still fighting. It was like the spark of hope and the energy to Belarussians that there will not be impunity. But unfortunately, there are still loopholes and the sanctions, for example, some of the crude oil products or potash products were not targeted by the sanctions and Lukashenko cronies Lukashenko because, well, it's managed to circumvent that and the sanctions. This is why we are asking right now, Brussels, Washington, London, to close this loopholes and make sure all those involved in corrupt schemes who bring money to Lukashenko regime are will be deprived of such opportunity.

RB: Are you asking Canada to do that as well?

FRANAK VIACORKA: You know, we met a few weeks ago. I mean, you still got a in the wilderness when he visited the Green Reform Conference. It was very important conversation. And he promised to support and help to the ultrasounds, fighting for freedom, but also civil society groups. Canada is not a big trade partner for Baylor. It was. But Canada has symbolic political power. And, you know, it's it's also part of the G7 and and other international alliances organisations. So if Canada will be vocal about whether it was will put boots on the international agenda, we would be much, much grateful.

RB: As we've mentioned, you're currently the senior a senior adviser to the exiled Belarusian opponent of the government, Svetlana Tekin Niscayah. I believe she met with U.S. President Joe Biden last week, talked to the UK prime minister, Boris Johnson yesterday. Was the purpose of those talks really about trying to get multilateral pressure placed on Belarus? How much of the conversation also centres around Russia?

FRANAK VIACORKA: Indeed, the goal is to aggregate the international support for Belarusian cause, because Belarus can be a success story. You know, when Joe Joe Joe Biden mentioned, he said that there is an ongoing fight between autocracy and democracy in the world. And the task force the U.S. and Belarusians on is on the front line of this fight. This is why you should help us and the Russians role. This is quite controversial here because Russia was not prepared for this revolution in Belarus and it didn't prepare any pro-Russian candidate. And the only person they know how to deal with is Lukashenko. And they are closing the eyes on Lukashenko crimes, Lukashenko atrocities because they don't have anyone better and unfortunately, longer. Russia supports Lukashenko less and less supported in Belarus.

RB: It does seem as though and perhaps this is what happens in in countries like yours, that we sort of go up and down with with protests and pushback from from citizens. Given all that's happened over the past 12 months, what do you think might happen next? How will Lukashenko respond if there's another uprising by by the people of Belarus?

FRANAK VIACORKA: There will be a next wave of protest of the revolution, definitely because there are many processes that are happening behind the scenes. We see the dynamic within the elites, more and more people who were loyal to Lukashenko before, they're very unhappy because right now they lost their possibility to gain money to participate in the political processes. They don't like the status quo. So I think there will be a prise and we are preparing a nationwide strike. We are working with workers and we are trying to create multiple points of pressure. This crackdown we have seen last weeks, it's not a sign of power when you're in control of the situation. You don't need to arrest the journalist, kidnap athletes. It's a sign of fragility and an insecurity of the regime.

RB: Well, particularly in the case of the Belarusian sprinter, surely Lukashenko and his regime knew what would happen on an Olympic stage, that the world would be watching and that this would become an example. Did they just expect her to to to take it? And why would they have played that hand with such a big spotlight?

FRANAK VIACORKA: I think you overestimate their ability to throw count to predict the reaction in, all right, and they're hijacking, that was not the result of the well thought plan. It was very irrational, spontaneous decision of Lukashenko because he wanted to get this journalist to say, guys, you should get me. He he's this guy as soon as possible. And what they did, they they were in the plane. Same with this athlete. You know, they they don't call they don't have time to count. They just want especially those officials who tried to be loyal to to show their loyalty. They are competing in their loyalty to Lukashenko.

RB: Right. What is life like in Belarus? How difficult is it to to live if you have any issues with Lukashenko?

FRANAK VIACORKA: It's it's tough, you get used to the idea that any moment you can be jailed, me personally, I was four times in prison and spent almost a year and a half in the military zone, a fight in they every day. You know, they were seen as that NATO is going to attack us. And this brainwashing machine, it's working 24/7. And at some point you stop thinking critically and this is the biggest problem. But last year, we've changed people to realise that government don't care about themselves. Covid pandemic showed that full neglection of lukashenko towards covid and they were given to themselves and they self organised people, created the initiative structures, charity funds. And this uprising became possible only because of the people self organisation. And this is this is magnificent. This is very cool. And they think this is we have the very new quality of our society right now. Franac Viacorka. Thank you for speaking with me this morning. Appreciate it. Thank you, Phrenic via Choko is a senior adviser to exiled Belarusian opposition leader Svetlana Ticona SKYA. I'm Rosemary Barton, sitting in for Matt Galloway, and this is The Current.

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Athens appoints first chief officer of heat to keep things cool

Guests:

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RB: Athens, Greece, is in the middle of its worst heat wave in over 30 years, the Acropolis was closed to tourists at times this week because of the punishing temperatures. The city's citizens protection minister has told everyone to avoid any unnecessary travel or work, leaving people few options but to stay home, sweat, stare at the rising mercury. It's a story that sounds familiar this summer because anywhere people live, it is getting hotter. And that's a threat to lives, livelihoods and even the futures of cities themselves. Athens has thought about this already. Just last month, the city named its first ever chief heat officer. It's the second city in the world to name someone to that position after Miami-Dade County in Florida. Eleni Myrivili is Athens new interim chief heat officer and she joins me now. Good morning, Lenio.

ELENI MYREVI: Good morning, Rosemary. Thanks for having me.

Yeah, thanks for being here. You are, as I said, in the middle of a heat wave, temperatures above 40 degrees. What does it feel to live in Athens right now?

ELENI MYREVI: It feels breathless. It feels a little bit post-apocalyptic because we also have these fires at the north of Athens. There's many fires all over Greece right now because we had a summer that was extraordinarily dry. As you said, it's a historical series of heat waves that have started hitting Athens and the country since June, early June, which is very unusual. Usually heat waves go at the end of July and into August. So we've had a summer that felt like it was a continual heat wave with just a couple of weeks of respite in between. But the last 10 days or I don't remember, maybe it's eight days, the temperatures have been steadily rising until yesterday, I think was the peak. And outside the air was I mean, they said it was like up to forty three degrees Celsius. And I took a taxi and the taxi driver said that, that he's their moment there of the car outside. I was saying forty seven degrees. So so this was... It was really horrible. I mean, you can't breathe. I think we're very lucky that we don't have humidity because I know in other countries you have these crazy temperatures with humidity, at least here it's very nice heat, but it feels like you can't breathe.

RB: Yeah. And the other thing complicating the breathing part of living there is the wildfires happening on the outside of the city. Lots of people, thousands of people evacuated, hundreds of firefighters out there fighting the fires. How is that affecting living there?

ELENI MYREVI: So last night, I went outside and met a friend in a cafe. We decided to go like after 8 in the afternoon, hoping that the temperatures would be a little bit less pressing. It was still extremely hot. But as we sat there at the cafe and chatted, there was ash that was falling on us. And it was and then and the skies were had these grey and red clouds. We've seen these images from from Sydney and from California with this ash rain. And it feels really apocalyptic. It feels horrible. And last night at some point, both my husband and I, we woke up in the middle of the night because we couldn't breathe from the smoke. And I had I actually had to wear a mask to to go back to sleep because I felt that I my my lungs were burning. I wore one of those and ninety five. Wow. It felt like you had a bird. And t.

That sort of explains why they've created this role of chief heat officer. But tell me more about what that job is.

ELENI MYREVI: So this job is the way I see it. It has three aspects. The the one aspect has to do with protecting the vulnerable populations of the city. We have Right now we open up specific cooling stations for people to go to, but that's not enough. And we know cities are talking. We are talking with other cities as well. There's very few people that actually go to these stations. And it's there's a big issue about transportation, like how do we get people there? There's a big issue about making them attractive to people to go and stay there for hours and hours. There's a big issue about the night, the evenings. I mean, if you have really, really hot evenings, we don't have we don't have a capacity to have beds for people to sleep in. So we have to make a whole series of policies that actually go and find the people where they are and make sure that they have access to air conditioning and to cooling their bodies down.

RB: And what what would that be like? What kind of changes would you want to see to help people deal with this?

ELENI MYREVI: During COVID, we had this programme called Help at Home Plus, where we went to old people that had problems leaving their homes to go shopping because they were super vulnerable to COVID. So we have this whole mapping of older people and vulnerable people, and we need to extend that and make sure that we have people actually checking with older people and pregnant women and houses that have like, for example, another vulnerable category is anybody who lives in informal housing or in how in too many people in one house. We have, for example, immigrants that live in apartments in Athens, and there's like a lot of people living in one apartment and often they live under energy poverty, which means they can't actually turn on air conditioning or they don't even have air conditioning or they live in in camps where where they live in containers or tents against containers often have air conditioning that it's really hard with these types of temperatures keep to keep a container. That's a metal thing, actually a cool. Then we have workers. Thank God the government has put in measures to actually limit the hours for fair work for industrial workers. We know that there's a lot of injury related to industrial and manual work. So all of this needs really good planning for next year, figuring out how we really are ready to move fast before the heat wave rolls in.

RB: We've been dealing with our own extreme heat this summer. I mean, large parts of the country, but more particularly in Lytton, British Columbia where heat records were broken. What do you take from that when you see that happen in other places, in Canadian cities?

ELENI MYREVI: It's I can't even imagine because it's it's so scary to see it happen in a place that is totally unaccustomed to high temperatures. So you can leave it in. The first thing that I think of is that it must really take an amazing toll in morbidity and mortality, which is really I mean, it was very painful to watch this happen and know that your temperatures were so much lower than what you had to deal with suddenly and totally unexpectedly. So for us, in a way, we are much more accustomed. We had the heatwave at eighty seven, nineteen eighty seven where thousands of people died because we really everybody was on a cross and nobody had air conditioning. Nobody knew anything about it. So that was so this is always what I think about when I, when I think of the heat waves of the Pacific Northwest in the beginning of it must have been really. How was it you should go?

RB: Well, I was I was I'm in Ottawa, so it wasn't it wasn't quite as hot, but I was in the prairies over the past week and. Thirty to thirty three degrees, which is also very, very hot, but they are prepared for it. But I guess I guess that would be my question for you is Athens is is usually hot. Greece is known for heat. But are you afraid that at some point Athens, for instance, might become uninhabitable?

ELENI MYREVI: Yes, I am. And this is why for years now I've been really kind of fighting to make sure that Athens is one of the hubs that attracts attention, attracts funding, has strategies for adaptation that are ready for for financial or for financial tools to kind of be linked to them, because I'm really worried about the future of this city, not just of the city, but this is my city. So I would but I I'm I'm very worried about heat is going to affect cities in general. And I'm planning and I'm already working with other cities as well. So so This is a really devastating aspect of climate change, extreme heat. And and it it is the the deadliest one of all the other weather related extreme phenomena that climate change is is feeding and creating. And we know that that this this particular one extreme heat claims more lives than all of the others put together. I think the data was from the US. So so and we we've done very little about it. We've been talking about sea level rise or flooding or other extreme phenomena, but very little about how to deal with heat, with the rise of heat in cities. So this is the time to talk about it and start changing cities and bringing it much more dramatically and much more bravely. I mean, Politicians really have to start changing the way cities look. Otherwise, I am afraid that cities will not be viable, like Athens. We're really going to suffer a lot.

RB: Ellin Myreve, thank you for speaking to us today. Stay cool if you can.

ELENI MYREVI: Thank you so much. Thanks for having me.

RB: Lenio Maravilla is the newly named chief heat officer of Athens, Greece. Climate change and rising temperatures really the defining issue of our time, and it's inspired many to act, including artists, artist, AI n'goni. Here she is with the song Four Degrees.

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[Song]

RB: That's Anonhi with her climate change anthem, 4 Degrees coming up after your regional update. We return to the CBC podcast, Brainwashed CIA Mind Control A Charlatan Doctor and lives ruined in the name of science. Stay with us. I am Rosemary Barton and you are listening to The Current.

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Episode two of Brainwashed

RB: I'm Rosemary Barton and this is The Current. This week, we are bringing you the original CBC podcast, Brainwashed. It's an investigative series into the CIA's covert experiments in mind control. Some of those experiments took place at the Allan Memorial Hospital in Montreal under psychiatrist Dr. Cameron. Yesterday, we heard some of the brutal effects of his treatment. Today, host Michel Shephard delves into his files to find out how he came to develop his controversial therapies.

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Michelle Shephard: Hi. How are you?

Michelle Shephard: Hi, Michelle Shephard.

Michelle Shepard: This is Chris.

Michelle Shephard: The American Psychiatric Association Archives is on Maine Avenue, in Washington, DC. They moved into this location in 2018, and everything about it feels new. Fresh white paint, huge, clean windows with sweeping views that include just a sliver of Capitol Hill. I'm here to find out all I can about Dr. Ewen Cameron. Dr. Cameron was once the president of the American Psychiatric Association. And he went on to lead the Canadian and World Psychiatric Associations too. Cameron had also been the doctor in charge of the devastating treatments given to unwitting psychiatric patients at Montreal's Allan Memorial Institute. We know his resume, but we wanted to know what motivated him, what exactly he was doing at the Allan? And why? Deena Gorland, the APA Foundation's archivist and librarian, is our guide.

Deena Gorland: Here's the library, I'll show it to you later. But let's get you guys down to business... Michelle Shephard: We're sorting through hundreds of pages. Speeches Dr. Cameron gave, carbon copies of his correspondences, reports he wrote.

Michelle Shephard: This is so incredibly well organized. The opening address at the Allan Memorial Institute. It's his actual speech. God, this paper is so thin. July 12th, 1944, Professor Dr. Ewan Cameron. The institute is now opening its doors and those who've come here to attend this event must reflect upon what this may mean. The setting into action of a new center of inquiry and of healing is always an occasion of importance and solemnity for passing forward in time. One can conjecture upon and in some measure foresee the later consequences. I think he needed a bit of an editor. Sound Clip: [Larry Henderson] This is CBC News Roundup. Tonight, Matthew Halton discusses the fate of the men in the dock at Nuremberg.

Larry Henderson: Today at Nuremberg the 21 defendants heard the justices read in relay the 250page judgment, which pronounced Naziism a criminal system and condemned its leadership for conspiracy, crimes against peace, war crimes, and crimes against humanity.

Michelle Shephard: The doctors found that he suffered from psychoneurosis and there was some genuine amnesia, but he faked the rest. They concluded; he was sane enough to stand trial.

Matther Halton: It's judgment day at the Nuremberg trial. The greatest trial of all time is nearing its end.

Michelle Shephard: And the tribunal later found him guilty.

Matther Halton: They're accused of crimes on a scale so vast, of an evil so black, that the world has not seen before. Michelle Shephard: It's ironic that Dr. Ewen Cameron was involved in the evaluation of Hess at Nuremberg, especially considering the trial that followed. The prosecution of Nazi physicians who conducted cruel and often deadly experiments on prisoners and civilians. It was known as “The Doctor's Trial.” Their crimes shocked the world and the scientific community leading to the creation of the Nuremberg Code, a promise that this kind of human experimentation would never happen again. A promise that would be broken again and again by Dr. Cameron himself.

Michelle Shephard: I'm Michelle Shephard. And this is Brainwashed, Episode Two: Psychic Driving.

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[SFX News Reporter]

VOICE: Let this trial be a warning. Let it be a milestone in the long, hard road from barbarism to universal peace. Michelle Shephard: The Nuremberg code is actually a set of ten principles, ethical and legal guidelines for experiments conducted on humans.

Harvey Weinstein: The first principle of Nuremberg states that the voluntary consent of the human subject is absolutely essential, that means the person involved should have legal capacity to give consent, should be able to exercise free power of choice, and that they should know the consequences of participation in this.

Harvey Weinstein: Unfortunately, yes.

Harvey Weinstein: It is. I usually introduce myself by saying Harvey Weinstein, the other one.

Michelle Shephard: This Harvey Weinstein is a doctor, a psychiatrist, and he has spent a good part of his life thinking about and researching Dr. Cameron and the Allan.

Harvey Weinstein: So Nuremberg, they also say that the duty and responsibility for ascertaining the quality of the consent rests upon the individual who carries out the experiment. That's the bedrock. And that's what did not happen at the Allan.

Harvey Weinstein: I would certainly assume so, yeah. Michelle Shephard: Dr. Cameron's patients came to the Allan, willingly, hoping to seek relief from their psychiatric ailments. They had no idea they were going to be a part of a medical experiment, essentially human guinea pigs. Dr. Cameron's goal was to determine whether something he'd developed called psychic driving could fundamentally alter the minds of his patients.

Harvey Weinstein: The story is that he heard about these language courses where you put a loudspeaker under your pillow at night and you learn Spanish or French or whatever...

Michelle Shephard: Around 1948, there was a fad called sleep teaching. The idea being, that you could master a new language or to break a bad habit, if you just listened to tapes played during the night. Dr. Cameron was curious.

Raymond Hasan: Would you describe the new treatment, Dr. Cameron?

Ewen Cameron: This is essentially an attempt to modify and improve our methods of carrying out psychotherapy. In the institute, we have been attempting to find ways of speeding up psychotherapy. And one of the ways is to find methods of bringing out into action important and valuable parts of a patient's personality that have hitherto been repressed.

The driving consists in the repetition on a tape or a record of a statement, which deals with the desirable repressed characteristics. A good example of this.

Michelle Shephard: Here's one of the recordings Dr. Cameron used on a patient who came to him with what would now be known as postpartum depression.

Audio playing: You can get along with people by now. You are not afraid of others, and you are very pleased to be with them. People like you, and your relationship with people is good. You are an adult, and you want to accept the responsibilities of a wife and a mother. As you feel better, you like to see things neat and tidy. If you see things disorderly, like papers on the floor, you pick them up. You look after things, as you look after yourself.

[Audio playing] A wife and a mother...

Michelle Shephard: These voices were played through headphones, helmets, or speakers, sometimes installed right inside patient's pillows. The positive and negative messages would be repeated over and over, for periods of up to 20 hours a day, whether they were asleep or awake. So, patients could sometimes hear the same messages up to half a million times.

Ewen: No, it certainly doesn't, because what we are attempting to do is to bring into operation aspects of a patient's own personality. We are not trying to impose upon the individual things which are probably quite, might be quite foreign to him and which would be a marked variance as in the case of brainwashing with the kind of person that he naturally is.

Raymond Hasan: Does it have any adverse effect on the patient's health or mental outlook after he's been treated with it?

Ewen Cameron: No. Otherwise we wouldn't use it to. The patient is usually very much better afterwards. And our problem is to ensure that that improvement is lasting.

Michelle Shephard: Well, we just read through the whole psychic driving one, it's really interesting.

Michelle Shephard: Deena goes on to tell us that a year before we visited, she had another request for those files.

Michelle Shephard: Deena had a lot of empathy for Dr. Cameron's son, Duncan. It's understandable.

Deena Gorland: Psychiatry has a very ugly past. You know, there's Hannibal Lectertype machines. You know, you had lobotomy, you had, you know, bloodletting was huge. We didn't know...nobody knew.

Michelle Shephard: It can't be easy living with your father's legacy, when the only story told is what he did to patients at the Allan.

Deena Gorland: You know, and he's just like, my father was such an intelligent man and they keep bashing him and bashing him….

Duncan Cameron: Hello.

Duncan Cameron: Oh, yes. Hi, Michelle.

Duncan Cameron: Fine. I'm in a little room here with all sorts of little electronic equipment around me.

Duncan Cameron: Yeah, I think I am.

Duncan Cameron: OK. Well, my name is Duncan Cameron. I'm the oldest son of a Dr. Donald Ewen Cameron. And I live in Washington. And I have spent most of my life practicing law.

Michelle Shephard: And you mentioned on the phone to me that you had a Canadian connection, but you wanted to wait to tell me in person. He moved to Montreal in 1943, and became the director of the Allan.

Michelle Shephard: And how old would you have been around that time when you moved there?

Michelle Shephard: What are your recollections of your, of your dad?

Michelle Shephard: How so? What do, what do you remember?

Michelle Shephard: And what happens then?

Michelle Shephard: Duncan said he was happy to talk with us, but only if we focused on his father's character, not his work specifically.

Duncan Cameron: He did love the outdoors.

Duncan Cameron: Yes. He can be. I mean, the ladies loved him. He always had some good jokes. On the other hand, he was not sort of a somebody that just liked to go out have a drink with the boys or. He was busy most of the time.

Some colleagues said Dr. Cameron's life ambition was to win a Nobel prize.

Duncan Cameron: I think the work that he was engaged in, trying to find some solution to the problem, schizophrenia, that work in Montreal, was it was unfortunate that people then concluded that the treatments that he gave were reflected on his character.

Duncan Cameron: Well, he was not a harsh, unfeeling sort of person. I think he was ambitious. And I think he was genuinely excited by the field of psychiatry and the opportunities that it provided for breakthroughs in many areas. I've admired most of the things he's done, not all.

Michelle Shephard: I know it's hard to talk about somebody else's motives, but I think among the guests that we're speaking to, you probably have researched the most about what Dr. Cameron was doing and talked to the most people who knew him. How would you best describe his motivations for this?

Harvey Weinstein: Complicated question... I also have to acknowledge that initially he wrote quite clearly about the brain as a biological entity and trying to understand issues related to memory, etc. So, all that's really good. But what happened, it seems, is that he became motivated by a desire to be famous, to win a Nobel Prize. He was very ambitious and known to be very ambitious, and in many ways, he was very successful in terms of being recognized around the world as an amazing psychiatrist. The second thing is that Cameron was invited to evaluate Rudolf Hess at Nuremberg after the Second World War ended and became heavily influenced by what he surmised had happened in Germany in the '30s and '40s, that evil people had taken over, the people who were sociopaths or were very passive or very ambitious or whatever. And one of his takeaways, interestingly enough, was that social scientists, psychiatrists, psychologists and other sociologists needed to be very careful to control those people and to decide who should be in power, basically, and who shouldn't. It is just a very interesting kind of takeaway in which he assumes power to particular disciplines, and that's very troubling. So, you have a combination of a very ambitious man, somebody who thinks that psychiatry should be the discipline that determines the kind of future for society. And being the person to cure schizophrenia. And I think he got carried away.

Donald Hebb: They were asked to lie on a hospital bed with a plywood cubicle built around it, to lie wearing goggles over their eyes, the goggles were translucent. They had light, but they saw nothing. They had a small speaker embedded in a foam rubber pillow around their ears, which had a small buzzing noise. They wore cuffs on their arms, so their joints could move freely. They would have no joint pains, but still couldn't explore the environment. And apart from that, they were asked to lie still...do nothing, be calm and peaceful on this hospital bed. The result of that experiment was with the subjects who stayed more than three days, they found it very difficult. We were paying them twenty dollars a day, which at the time was the rate at which you'd pay an associate professor. But when they stayed for three days or so, they began to see things. They had some magnificent hallucinations of squirrels marching across a snowy field wearing snowshoes and carrying packs over their backs, or little men in bathtubs rolling into the scene, rolling across the bathtub on wheels.

Michelle Shephard: He said he wouldn't go through with it again, even if he was given $400 a day. Dr. Cameron was inspired by Hebb's work with sensory deprivation. But unlike Hebb, who paid students well for being his test subjects and let them stop the experiment as soon as they wanted, Dr. Cameron used unwitting psychiatric patients. The longest any student lasted before asking Hebb to stop the experiment was five days. One of Dr. Cameron's patients spent 35 days in a sensory isolation chamber, which is basically a box that he had built in the converted stables behind the hospital.It's personal. His father, Lou Weinstein, was one of Cameron's patients.

Harvey Weinstein: Reading about sensory isolation is one thing. And then recognizing that my father is in this room for two months in sensory deprivation with, you know, his eyes covered, and his hands covered and hearing voices hundreds of thousands of times. I mean, it's mind boggling. When I finally got his records, it just corroborated what I had been reading about in terms of Cameron's papers. But the actual wording, the nursing notes, the lack of empathy shown by Cameron was astounding. The pitiful pictures of my father that are painted in the notes are a little difficult to read, frankly. And the it's unbelievable to hear the aggressive attempts to break down my father and to basically turn him into a two year old. I mean, he was soiling himself, urinating, just sort of an experimental animal, unfortunately.

Duncan Cameron: He died climbing a mountain with my youngest brother.

Michelle Shephard: Dr. Cameron died at the age of 65, just three years after resigning from the Allan.

Michelle Shephard: A year before he left the Allan, Dr. Cameron did admit that psychic driving those repetitive messages did not work. And once he left the Allan the next director launched an evaluation of depatterning, the extreme electroshock treatments. What if these experiments weren't really about advancing medicine and finding a cure for schizophrenia? What if there was another goal behind learning to control people's minds that went way beyond the Allan? On June 1, 1951, a meeting took place at Montreal's Ritz Carlton hotel, which brought together the military, medical and scientific elite from Canada, the UK and the US. Cameron's colleague, Dr. Donald Hebb, was invited to that meeting because there was great interest in his work on sensory deprivation.

Donald Hebb: We were asked by the Defense Research Board to see if we could find any means of defense against the brainwashing procedure for the Canadian soldier that fell into the hands of an enemy.

RB: We've been listening to Brainwashed, and we will bring you Episode three tomorrow, that is our programme for today, though. Stay tuned to Radio one for Q. But before we hand it over, it's time for something completely different. Did you see the story about Monty Python and other actor John Cleese? He was the victim of a lodging snafu like so many of us this summer. Turns out the Airbnb accommodations he booked were actually given to someone else. So the actor took to Twitter writing, quote, Does anyone in Huntsville, Ontario have a nice place I can rent to live in while I make a film? Airbnb took our money, but now say they've given our house to someone else. Lots of people obviously offered up their homes or cottages. One guy even offered his brother's girlfriend's parents, OK, hopefully Mr. Cles find somewhere to stay. Ottawa's a little far, but I could probably squeeze him in. In the meantime, it did make us think of something similar from his hit show Fawlty Towers, where he, of course, played curmudgeonly hotel owner Basil Fawlty. We'll leave you with a bit of that today. I'm Rosemary Barton. Have a great day. Thanks for listening to The Current.

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VOICE 1: Now, listen to me. I booked a room full of bath.

VOICE 2: You've got a bath.

VOICE 1: I'm not paying seven pounds, twenty pence per night plus VAT for the room without a bath.

VOICE 2: That is your bath.

VOICE 1: This is not a bath. It's not big enough to [unintelligible].

VOICE 2: I wish you were a massive [mumbling].

VOICE 1: I asked for a room with a view.

VOICE 2: Deaf man and blind. This is the view as far as I can remember, madam. Yes, yes, this is it.

VOICE 1: When I pay for a view, I expect something more interesting than that.

VOICE 2: That is tall key, madam.

VOICE 1: It's is not good enough.

VOICE 2: May I ask what you were expecting to see out of a tour key hotel bedroom window. Sydney Opera House, perhaps? Hanging Gardens of Babylon, buildings sweeping majestically.

VOICE 1: I expect to be able to see the sea.

VOICE 2: You can see the sea, it's over the between the land and the sky. Telescope to see that. Well, may I suggest that you consider moving to a hotel closer to the sea or preferably in it.

VOICE 1: Now, listen to me. I'm not satisfied, but I have decided to stay. However, I shall expect a reduction.

VOICE 2: Why? Because Krakatau is not erupting at the moment.

VOICE 1: Because the room is cold. The bath is too small, the view is invisible and the radio doesn't work.

VOICE 2: No, the radio works. You scary old...

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Wednesday 4 August, 2021

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