Your hosts this week, Lynn, Levon, Marc
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The nerve gas attack in Syria and the terrible images of dead and dying children has shocked the world.
It also provoked an attack by the US on the Syrian airbase from where the gas attack is thought to have been carried out.
Although shocking, such poison gas, or nerve gas attacks are not uncommon in that civil war.
Lynn spoke to Chicago-based Dr Zaher Sahloul the founder of the American Relief Coalition for Syria
In their conversation he says several smaller poison gas attacks have been happening at a rate of about one per week.
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This month a CBC journalist in the national capital, Ottawa, made a surprising discovery.
With a special phone, she discovered that there was spyware operating in extremely sensitive areas of the capital. This is a type of spyware that can capture all wireless signals, device ID, phone numbers, texts,and audio conversations.
Called IMSI catchers, they can be easily concealed in car and collect data etc from a bout a half kilometer radius by imitating cell phone towers.
It is possible to capture all kinds of sensitive information from indiscreet phone calls for example. Apparently the security service in Canada themselves had been unaware of this spying activity.
Marc spoke with Michel Juneau-Katsuya, CEO of the Northgate Group, a security consulting agency, and a former senior intelligence manager with Canada’s Security Intelligence Service.
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Lorne Grabher was quietly going about his life in Dartmouth Nova Scotia when just before Christmas he got a letter from the provincial registrar of vehicles.
Now Lorne has what is known as a “vanity” licence plate for his car. By paying a bit more you can get one of these personalized licence plates with a name or some kind of very short message on it. Lorne bought the plate as a gift for his father over 20 years ago.
Eventually Lorne inherited the plate. There had been no problem until Donald Trump mentioned grabbing women inappropriately. After all those years someone suddenly misinterpreted Grabher’s plate as being mysongynistic and complained to the registrar who insists now that Lorne must give up the plate. Lorne says it’s not fair.
Levon had this snippet from the Nova Scotia Transportation Minister Geoff MacLellan who says the decision stands.
Images of the week
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