The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Invasion or Ceasefire - What’s Next in The Middle East?

Episode Date: October 24, 2023

Is the pressure shifting to a ceasefire in the Middle East? France and the EU are now pushing for a ceasefire. The US and the UK remaining supportive of Israel’s right to defend itself after the October 7th attacks. Meanwhile, what is the thinking on the Arab street to all this?  Dr Samantha Nutt is just back from Yemen and Jordan and joins us to talk about what she’s seen and heard.

And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. You are just moments away from the latest episode of The Bridge. Invasion or ceasefire? What's it going to be in the Middle East? And hello there, welcome to Tuesday right here on the bridge, and we're looking at the Middle East situation again today with a special guest. We'll get to that in a moment. First, some, I don't know, context of where we are right now. It was 17 days ago that Hamas entered Israel from Gaza, and they went on a killing, murdering spree. They butchered hundreds of Israelis. I think 1,400 was the latest count from that day on

October 7th. There were Israeli soldiers killed, but there were mainly men, women, and children murdered, butchered on October 7th. Some to the point of having their heads cut off. Yesterday, the IDF, the Israeli Defense Force, showed what images they've been able to collect from that day through everything from cell phones, from dashboard cameras, from security cameras. And they put it together to show the media what had happened on that day. Why are they doing that 17 days later? Well, they're doing it because some within the Israeli community

feel that the Hamas side is winning the propaganda war. And that Israel has got to get that story out front again about what happened at the beginning on October 7th. Because since then, almost predictably, the story has shifted from what happened on October 7th to what's happening in Gaza

as the Israelis prepare a full-scale ground invasion. They've been attacking Gaza almost consistently since October 7th from the air and some ground forces. And they've had the support of the United States and to a large degree the United Kingdom. They're losing some of the kind of worldwide support they'd had United States and to a large degree the United Kingdom. They're losing some of the kind of worldwide support they'd had right out of the gate.

Losing may be too strong a word, but they are seeing the fact that France and the European Union are saying ceasefire. It's time for a ceasefire. We've got to have a ceasefire. Too many innocent civilians are dying. What's going to happen? It's unclear what's going to happen at this stage, but those are the competing forces. Where's Canada on this? Well, Jagmeet Singh, leader of the NDP, wants a meeting with Prime Minister Trudeau because he says we don't have the position of ceasefire and we should have. And he's demanding a meeting to try and talk about that with the Prime Minister. We'll see where that goes.

It's obvious that the Liberal caucus is to a degree split on this issue. Just as I imagine so are a lot of other people in different parts of the world. And generally where the people stand, you know, the Telegraph has a piece today in the British papers. I'll just read you a couple of sentences. Take a step back, and the morality of the matter should be simple. A jihad group carries out what may be the worst terrorist atrocity in history against the civilians of a liberal democracy. Facing an existential threat, that country,

which for almost two decades has been providing the enclave with electricity and water, while its leaders spend their funds on terror infrastructure. It launches defensive military action. Civilians die in the crossfire. Such is the hell of war. There are only so many beheadings a nation can take. And the final part of this telegraph opening to their story is this.

Yet YouGov polling has revealed that the sympathies of the great British public are divided. Of those surveyed, 21% support Israel, while 17% side with the Palestinians. Even this level of support is likely to collapse in the coming weeks as Hamas gains ground in the propaganda war. Mass rallies are being held on the streets of our major cities, while on social media, hashtags like Palestinian genocide are trending. If that sounds familiar to you, it probably should, because we've seen the same kind of thing happening in Canada in the last week.

Rallies, big rallies. Social media. So where's this heading? Well, here on the bridge, what we've been trying to do on this story in the days we have discussed it over these last 17, we're trying as best we can to place some things in context and give a sense of, in some cases, the sense of history on this story. And I greatly appreciate the fact that many of you have written to me appreciating what we've done. There have been some who, you know, are not happy, but the overwhelming majority of you who have written are greatly appreciative of the discussions we've been having and the interviews that we've had.

And I appreciate that. So today is similar along that vein. We're going to talk to somebody we've had on the bridge before a number of times, Dr. Samantha Nutt, the president and the founding member of the War Child Canada organization. It's charity, humanitarian work, goes in and out of the most dangerous places places in the world, trying to help children. Dr. Nutt, Samus, we call her, has been in and out of war zones for the last two decades. All over the world, many of those places in the Middle East and Africa. She's just come back from her latest trip to Yemen and Jordan. And I wanted to talk to her to try and get a sense of not only what's happening in those two countries, especially in Yemen, because we hear about

Yemen every once in a while, right? The Houthi rebels have fired missiles aimed at Israel and aimed at American warships in the last week, which surprised a lot of people. But shows they're part of this story too. But I wanted to get a sense from Sam as to how this is playing out on the Arab street, because she's closer to it than many because of the work she does. So, enough from me, as we like to say.

Let's get to this conversation with Dr. Samantha Nutt and get a sense from her, what she's hearing, what she's seeing, what she's feeling as a result of the work she does. Here we go. Sam, I want to start with the situation that you saw last week, you witnessed last week in Amman, Jordan, the capital of Jordan. Sort of the sense of what the Arab street and how it's reacting to what's going on in Israel and Gaza.

What can you tell us? Well, Peter, I was there right when Biden was expected to arrive. And so I landed from Yemen on the UN humanitarian flight in the evening, and it was just hours before his expected arrival. And so to say that it was chaotic with both the traffic and protesters and just the sort of general level of confusion around that would be an understatement. But certainly having been there for those couple of days before coming out of the country, I had the opportunity to really listen to people, to watch the protests that were taking place. And it's very clear that there is a great deal of grief and rage and confusion and distress around what's happening in Gaza in particular. Do they talk at all about what happened before the Israelis started, you know, attacking Gaza? What happened before the Israelis started attacking Gaza? What happened on October 7th in Israel by Hamas?

They do. And remember that there is a sizable Palestinian population within Jordan itself who have been refugees, who've been streaming across over the last several decades. And so certainly within Jordan, which is very much a US ally, there is a recognition and an understanding of the atrocities that took place and the nature of Hamas in terms of engaging

in this kind of guerrilla style warfare and they have been doing that for many, many years now. And so there is certainly you do hear expressions of of sadness and grief and a recognition of what happened within Israel. At the same time, watching the news feed every day in terms of what's been going on within Gaza and the level of suffering that that speaks to the very heart of Jordanians, especially Palestinians living in Jordan. And it's very clear that they are in a lot of distress and that they feel a lot of commonality with Gazans who are going through incredible hardship and struggle right now.

So it's that hardship and struggle that is, is feeding the rage more than anything. Yeah, I would say it's a mixture of rage and distress. One of the most consistent things I heard both in Jordan and in Yemen, and this is the first time I've really heard this with such scale and frequency, particularly among men between the ages of 16 and even into their late 60s, is that if this intensifies and turns into a ground war, many of them would make comments that they had never thought about picking up arms before to go and defend Palestinians, but that they are feeling so moved and so upset about the images that they're seeing and the loss of civilian life, that this is the one time when they would consider doing that. Now, you can't generalize. I mean, these are conversations that you have in cafes and in taxis and, you know, on the street and that kind of thing. But that level of rage and concern and grievance is something that I had not seen in the Middle East since the Iraq war in both 1991

and then in 2003, because I've been going in and out of the region for many, many decades now. I'm old. But you used to hear that kind of rage being expressed towards the United States, particularly in Iraq in the early 2000s. And that you're hearing that again, it's very, very palpable. And it's, it's, it's very real. So, you know, the next few weeks, as this crisis unfolds, if you do see, when we do see the ground war, when we see the neighboring countries being dragged into this crisis, it certainly would not surprise me if you then have an escalation of foreign fighters who are gravitating towards the region to help support Hamas, even among those who would not normally consider

themselves to be allies of Hamas and who still nevertheless condemn the tactics that Hamas deployed against Israel. Okay. The reason I was asking the questions the way I was asking them is I'm trying to get at another point that we, before we get to Yemen, which I know is your particular interest, certainly on this last trip, but here's my issue, I guess, if it's an issue. There's been much discussion in the Western world about the kind of media coverage that's existed on this story, and whether or not it's accurate and fair and in context and unbiased. There's a lot of discussion around all that. What I guess I'm wondering is for those on the Arab street, whether it's in Amman, Jordan, or wherever it may be in the Arab world,

what is the sense of the way they're getting their information about what's going on in Israel and in Gaza? Well, Peter, they're certainly not watching CNN, most of them. And if they are watching CNN, it's usually because they are expressing discontent with the way that that coverage is manifesting. Many of them watch Al Jazeera. When you're in the airports, when you're in lobbies, when you're just hanging around, it's Al Jazeera that is the news feed that is streaming. And it is a very understandably Arab-focused look at the situation and how it's transpiring. around the way in which this story is being covered by Western countries, and that they see our coverage and the language that is being used as inherently biased and not recognizing the extensive history and geopolitical realities of the region. So it's, and there are, there is some truth to that, right? I mean, we saw

this, even, we have seen this around the bombing of the hospital, and it became extremely polarized. And even before there was any evidence that had been released around who is likely to blame for that, unfortunately, the way that that has been covered here by Western media, even if there was strong, robust evidence that this was a misfired rocket coming from within Gaza itself and not an Israeli strike, the perception is that there's so much propaganda coming from the West, so much propaganda coming from Israel, that those images have been manipulated in some way, and that proof will never be enough. So I don't know if I've explained that in a way that's going to be clear for your listeners. But the point is that the distrust is so real, that it doesn't matter what you can prove. The perception is that the West in and of itself is not supporting Palestinian

civilians to the extent that they need to. And there's just an incredible amount of anger and resentment surrounding that. But there is not that same kind of cynicism about their own media, the Arab media, whether it's Al Jazeera Arab that they're watching or whatever they're reading. There isn't that cynicism about the kind of coverage they're getting through their own media. It's always hard to generalize. I think it's like us at home watching CNN or watching any news feed. There are little things that pop up and you go, well, I'm not sure if that's entirely, if that's entirely accurate, or, or because it's

this is the nature of breaking news as well, right? The narratives can change, the realities on the ground can change. Frankly, though, I've never seen a conflict playing out in real time, where everything is so polarizing. Everything is seen as propaganda coming from one side or the other, including the number of people who have died, who have been killed, who are being injured in different strikes. It is impossible to talk about this story, and I think even to report on the story without getting attacked in every single direction and that's unfortunate because I think that that really prevents people from understanding the nuance the complexities and and also feeling that there is a middle ground here that that can be

walked particularly around the humanitarian impact if we're willing to sit down at the table and have and have conversations around it. And the humanitarian impact is devastating and, and, and deepening with every passing day. All right, and we're going to get to that right after this last question on this point. As you know, there is a great deal of mistrust in the media generally in the West right now. It's, you know, the trust factor has plummeted in the last 10 years or so to the point it's unrecognizable, the kind of numbers it used to get in terms of placing their trust, viewers, listeners, readers in the media. But trust in media in the Arab world,

I mean, I guess it's unfair to ask you this because it's not like you went over there to study media, but would you sense there's more trust there from what you've witnessed in the media, their media, than there is here in our media? That's always very difficult to assess, honestly. But what I would say is that this crisis, when you talk about Gaza, there are very few people in terms of the regional implications that don't have some kind of direct contact with people on the ground.

So there are a lot of Palestinian families who, as I mentioned, have been displaced, who are living in Jordan, who are living in other neighboring countries, and in Egypt and elsewhere. And so they're not just getting their information from Al Jazeera, they're getting information from their loved ones, from their relatives that are on the ground. And so in that sense, they are feeling, I think, the intensity of it and the fear for those who have been left behind. And so they're not, I would say for most people, it's not that they're just getting it from groups like Al Jazeera. They're getting information directly verified by friends and loved ones and reacting accordingly.

All right. Let's talk Yemen for a few moments. You've been to Yemen, I don't know how many times, just in the last year, three or four times in the last, well, since we've been talking about it with you over the last eight or nine months. Most of us probably couldn't find Yemen on a map. You've been there. We've been hearing about Yemen as a result of this story,

the Israel-Gaza story in the last few weeks. Where does it fit in the big picture and why are you going there? Obviously, there's a humanitarian issue in Yemen with a war that's been going on for a number of years now. Tell us what you saw and how this fits into the big picture. Well, Yemen has faced one of the worst humanitarian catastrophes in the world over the last, very pronounced over the last decade when the war started. They've lost more than 350,000 people, but more importantly than that, Peter, they have, it's one of the countries that is at the highest risk of famine in the world. They have more than 2 million children who are facing acute starvation and 17

million people who are entirely dependent on food aid. And so in terms of the humanitarian risk right now, part of what we're seeing as an organization, Warchild, is that as a result of Ukraine, as a result of now the war in Israel and in Gaza. We're seeing a massive redirection of humanitarian resources, funding and effort towards those crises, frankly, at the expense of many other equally, if not more so high risk environments throughout the world. And so one of the reasons why I've continued to go back to Yemen, and we've got programming in

Sudan and South Sudan and elsewhere, is if you look at, for example, the global humanitarian appeal, it's about 30% funded, and children are starting to die as a result of this. And so it is all interconnected. It's interconnected from a humanitarian perspective within the region, because Yemen is incredibly vulnerable and Yemeni civilians are very vulnerable. 80% of them are dependent on humanitarian aid, about 25 million people. And then even militarily, obviously with this conflict heating up in the other part of the Middle East, that has pulled Yemen into it as well. And we saw this in the northern Houthi areas, which are backed by Iran.

The day that I was leaving Yemen, we saw missiles that were being launched by the northern Houthis towards US warships and towards Israel. So when we think about the regional implications of this crisis, both from a military perspective and a humanitarian perspective, Yemen, given its proximity and given the scale of need, becomes quite important. And yet it's a crisis that we have dramatically overlooked over the last, certainly over the last five, six years. And why should we, aside from it being a humanitarian crisis, which should be all one needs to get involved, Often, Western countries like to find other reasons why they should be involved as well,

why they should prime that pump on the humanitarian side, because, in this case, Yemen is important to them. Is Yemen important to us? And if it is, why? Yemen should be important to us, because anywhere, as this conflict drags on between Gaza and Israel, there will be a, I think, a mass movement of various forces towards Gaza to provide, to buttress their support, both in terms of personnel on ground, as well as military support. And given Yemen, especially in the northern part of the country, given their close alliance with Iran, and then in the southern part of the country, where you have al-Qaeda, you have a cap al-Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula,

and then you also have some ISIS elements, there are, there's a very real risk that if this conflict spills over borders, that it's going to pull in some of these actors and become a crisis on a level that we have not witnessed, certainly in in many decades now, possibly not even in my lifetime. full-scale regional war. Yemen is important because they have been at war for the last almost decade. They have tens of thousands of soldiers that have been trained. They have a tremendous amount of military equipment. A sizable part of the north is aligned with Iran. So this is where some of these fighting forces are going to be drawn from, not just Hezbollah, not just from Syria. It's going to include some of these other actors as well. And they're upset and they're angry and they are increasingly desperate. And there's no question that they are aggrieved when it comes to U.S. foreign policy, the Western world, and our lack of engagement on the humanitarian front there.

Obviously, you're not there to give military analysis or advising that situation, but you are there to try and help on the humanitarian front. You told us that the situation there is desperate. I hate to ask it this way, but how desperate is it? Tell us about that situation. Honestly, I have not seen anything like it of certainly of that scale, since I was in Somalia in the early 90s during the famine, working for UNICEF. been cut back year over year over year and Canada's hardly contributing anything at this moment in time. I think it's about 25 million dollars in total. What that does in a practical sense on the ground, so groups like the World Food Program, when you've got 17 million Yemeni civilians who are entirely dependent on food assistance. World Food Program was providing

food rations to high-risk groups, like people who have been displaced. They're called internally displaced people living in camps. They were providing food baskets once a month for those high-risk groups. Now they are reduced to twice a year because of the limited availability of resources. And what that looks like in a practical way is when I was in that IDP camp, internally displaced persons camp, the two people that I met with the moment that I arrived, one was a young boy who was 12 years of age, who looked like he was about eight because of the chronic malnutrition and he came in and he was a right arm amputee he had lost his arm a few months before and part of his face and had a big scar across his chest because his family was running out of food and what they were doing is they send the children out to, and often women, to scrounge garbage. So they collect plastic bottles. They try to bring them to, you know, hand them in so they'll get

pennies for these plastic bottles so that they can feed themselves. And he came across a munitions box that was actually an anti-aircraft missile, which he didn't know. And so he thought he would make a lot of money by being able to resell it, but he didn't know. And so he thought he would make a lot of money by being able to resell it, but he wanted to know for sure it was inside. So he started taking a rock and was pounding it. And as he was pounding it, it exploded on him and he lost his arm. And immediately after that, a woman walked in with her one-year-old daughter, who was very clearly in acute starvation. I mean, she was dying in front of us in the most horrible, horrible way. She was too tired and too dehydrated from famine and diarrheal disease to even produce tears as she was barely crying. And this was a family who the daughter who was slightly

older, the older sister, she had just passed away a few months ago. And again, this was a family that their food rations had been cut back. So when you look at a crisis like Yemen, and you it's very easy to intellectualize the stuff and to turn around and go, well, you know, we've got donor fatigue and and how much more can we possibly give? But there has been a very, very direct impact on the entire humanitarian sector in every other crisis throughout the world as a result of Ukraine, as a result of this current crisis. And people are dying, and it's very difficult to be confronted with that and to know that it is entirely avoidable. And yet we don't seem to be able to harness the level of compassion and concern that would be required to prevent that kind of outcome. And within that, I think the other big tragedy of this is when we think about what's happening in Gaza and Israel, when you have populations like this who are aggrieved, who are dying,

whose children are wasting away in front of them. It's not difficult for them to feel upset and angry with a Western world that they feel has abandoned them. And that is a very dangerous proposition. And I guess, given the world's attention in these last couple of years, so much on Ukraine and clearly now on Israel, that's all diverting away from places like Yemen. It is. It is. And famine know as well, because there's been massive food insecurity everywhere in the world as a result of the war in Ukraine and the decline in the availability of fertilizers. So the food production has decreased throughout the world. Food prices are going up. And it is the global south, especially, that is paying the biggest price within that. I mean, we're looking at a food crisis again, heading into the end of this year and into 2024, that will be on an unprecedented scale. And at the same time, if you look at, you know, there's this thing called the Humanitarian Aid Tracker on the UN OCHA website,

which is the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. And you can go down that list, Peter, and you can see Afghanistan, Somalia, Yemen, Congo, Sudan, South Sudan. And none of those crises, and here we are in October, are over 40% funded. I mean, most of them are hovering under 30% funded. And that affects millions upon millions upon millions of people. It also disproportionately affects women and children because then they end up like that young boy Abdullah who lost his arm. They end up engaging in increasingly high risk activities that threaten their lives. And, you know, and ultimately that is

a, it is, it is a horrific price to pay. And, and yet, you know, there's so much cynicism around humanitarian aid. But it is a necessary part of peace and security throughout the world. How do you address that? How do you address the cynicism that exists beyond just saying what you just said, that it's needed to deal with some of these, you know, global issues? But how do you address it on a, you on a more person-to-person level? You have to keep talking about it. You have to keep speaking about it and writing about it and trying to shine a light on it

and help people understand that these kinds of outcomes are not inevitable. There are ways to intercede that will, frankly, create peace and security through investments in education, through investments in food security type programs, whether that's food aid or cash vouchers or farming and cultivation and trying to work with groups to ensure that they have a stable pipeline of food. I mean, all of this can be done. It's just if there's the political will to do it. And, you know, we, I think, unfortunately, we disproportionately fund the military interests around these kinds of crises,

often at the expense of the humanitarian protection that has to take place. And we're seeing that in Gaza as well. I mean, we're seeing that right now play out. I mean, 20 trucks, eight trucks went in yesterday, 17 went in today. That is not even a fraction of what's going to be required in order to ensure that people survive this. And it reminds me when I'm watching this, it reminds me of being in Iraq, immediately after the Shaka Naa campaign of 2003. Also in 1991, with the complete economic sanctions that took place, the decimation of the electrical infrastructure, the water becomes contaminated, there is the immediate, there are the immediate numbers of people who are killed as a result

of the bombardment. But the aftermath of that bombardment in terms of the numbers of civilians killed is on a scale that is 10 times, a hundredfold even greater because vulnerable groups start drinking contaminated water. They start getting diarrheal diseases, they don't have access to medications that they require, they're exposed to, to, you know, pneumonia and other things that disproportionately affect children and the elderly. And that's when you start to see death tolls that get into the 10s of 1000s and the 100s of 1000s. So not having that humanitarian corridor right now in Gaza in a way that will meaningfully keep people alive is deeply problematic. And that lack of concern on the humanitarian front is the same in Yemen. It's the same in Sudan. It's the same in Somalia. It's the same. We're facing the worst refugee crisis since World War II. We have 117 million people displaced from their homes. And if we're not paying attention to that, it's going to be absolutely catastrophic, not just from a humanitarian perspective, but also from a peace and security perspective. I'm sorry, that was a long answer. No, no, no.

Listen, I mean, one can't but sit here stunned listening to you about what the situation is globally, and in particular in certain countries, and Yemen where you've just been. I mean, Yemen is, and has been for the last decade, one of the most dangerous places on earth for anyone to go to. We understand why you go. This is what your life has been dedicated to beyond your own family. But how do you stay safe? Like, I mean, this is a dangerous,

dangerous place and you, you keep going back. Very carefully. We have really good security networks on the ground that we're a part of and the part of the UN security briefings and that kind of thing. I did have to change elements of my, of my visit because we have programming in some locations that now have been infiltrated by ACAP, as I mentioned, Al-Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula. There have been attacks on aid organizations. There have been hostages, kidnap and ransom that have been taking place,

particularly in the southern part of the country. So you need to be extremely careful and need to make sure that you're doing little things like not leaving at the same time and returning at the same time every day and not being predictable. I mean, look, the reality is that what we do is dangerous. What we do as an organization is becoming increasingly dangerous. We are in Sudan. Our staff in Darfur, Sudan, we're one of few organizations remaining in Darfur

when the April war struck and our staff were displaced. And fortunately, everybody has survived that attack, but there are mass atrocities that are taking place there, mass migration across the borders into the CAR, into Central African Republic, Chad, South Sudan. And again, I mean, the humanitarian response for Sudan is 30% funded. So we have to be there. We have to support our teams. 99% of our staff are local. They need resources. They need the world to be paying attention to it. So that's why we're there.

But, you know, I mean, to be honest with you, it's, I think when you've been doing this kind of war zone work for a very long time, you're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't. Because you can't sit here and just watch it happen and at the same time um putting yourself back into it understandably comes with certain risks but it also becomes the only way you can sleep at night dr samantha nut we um we admire you and we appreciate your time uh and talking us about this story in the detail you do. So thanks very much.

Well, thank you, Peter, and thanks for drawing attention to it. I'm very grateful. Dr. Samantha Nutt, pretty special person, just like all those people who are similar to Sam Nutt, who are traveling different parts of the world trying to help in what is an exhaustingly difficult situation. If you want to help War Child Canada, this is how you do it. Go to their website, warchildild.ca. Pretty simple. warchild.ca. Warchild, one word, dot ca. And there are areas there that you can help and you can

donate. So if you feel so moved, please do. Alright, we're going to take a quick break. When we come back, a couple of end bits for you to try and shift the, I don't know, it's been a pretty hard couple of days here at the bridge in terms of the stories we've been dealing with, so we're going to try and shift focus a little bit, give you something else to think about for, if only for a minute or so. That's right after this.

And welcome back. You're listening to The Bridge, the final segment here on this Tuesday. I'm Peter Mansbridge. Good to have you with us. You're listening on SiriusXM, Channel 167, Canada Talks, or on your favorite podcast platform.

Okay, here's a question for you. Let's see whether this name rings a bell to you. The Cape Grim Baseline Atmospheric Pollution Station, or as it's known, the CGBAPS. Ever heard of that? You have any idea where it might be? Well, the Cape Grim Baseline Atmospheric Pollution Station is on a cape in Tasmania. All right, Tasmania is that big chunk of land, that island south of Australia, right?

And Tasmania has a, this is not what this story's about, but I always, whenever I think of Tasmania, I think Sir John Franklin, right? The Franklin expedition in the Canadian Arctic on the two ships, the Airbus and the Terror. Sir John Franklin's posting, the last posting before he was captain of that expedition that went into the Arctic looking for the Northwest Passage,

his last posting was governor of Tasmania. And you know what? You know who came to visit him? Two ships, the Erebus and the Terror. So that was in the early 1840s before he eventually became named the captain of the expedition to the Canadian Arctic where he had those two ships, the Erebus and the Terror.

So anyway, that's not what this story is about. This story is about the testing that goes on at that station on Tasmania, a remote Cape area that the station is based on. That station plays an integral part in the world's climate change research. I told you I was going to try and say something about climate change every week. That station chronicles stratospheric ozone depletion, as well as valuable weather and climate information, such as temperature, rainfall, wind, humidity, and solar radiation.

These measurements are particularly important, as they define how the composition of the global atmosphere has changed and how it continues to evolve. If you say, gee, Peter, it sounds like you're reading. I am. It's a BBC story. But here's what it's about. There's been a search on for the cleanest, purest air in the world. And guess where it is?

It's right where that Cape Grim Baseline Atmospheric Pollution Station is. It's the northwestern tip of Australia's island state of Tasmania. Wildly remote peninsula with a bleak name, Cape Grim. That's pretty bleak, all right. Few chalmers make it to this region, known as the edge of the world.

But those who come find dramatic cliffs, windswept heaths, and black sand beaches, in striking contrast to the verdant patchwork farmland on the hilltops. Cleanest air on earth according to the air pollution station located on the Cape. It's been there since 1976

collecting data and that's what it's found. It's been there since 1976, collecting data. And that's what it's found. So there's something you didn't know. Maybe you did know. Maybe some of you knew. But you can dazzle people at dinner tonight when you say, where's the cleanest air on earth?

Here's the other end bit for today. What do you think Europe's, this is a vote that's taken every year, what do you think Europe's best tourist attraction of 2023 has been? Top. The best. Well, I know you probably say, the best well I know you probably say

the Eiffel Tower in Paris no it's not the Eiffel Tower in Paris been there, done that want something different how about the Acropolis in Athens it's pretty special. But no, that wasn't it.

The Colosseum in Rome? No. Not it. Well, here it is. Europe's top travel destination this year. The best tourist attraction of 2023 in Europe. Here it is. The Guinness Storehouse in Dublin.

The number one tourist attraction, period, in Europe for 2023. The Guinness Storehouse wasn't the only Dublin attraction up for the prize. The Irish Immigration Museum also made the nomination list. But it was the Guinness

and its iconic beer that was the most appealing it's less a garden this is from the piece in it's called Mental Floss this online story it's less a garden variety brewery than a theme park. You can print a selfie in your beer froth, latte style,

and become an expert at pouring a pint of Guinness the right way. It's a six-step process, by the way. You can also tour the premises, underground tunnels included. Guinness' more than 250-year-long history is teeming with fascinating facts. There you go. Now you know where to go. If you're going to Europe and you're looking for the top tourist attraction, you're going to Guinness in Dublin.

All right, my friends, that's it for this day. If you've got thoughts on any of this stuff we've talked about in the last couple of days, the Mansbridge podcast at gmail.com, the Mansbridge podcast at gmail.com. I go through them all. Some of them end up on Thursday's Your Turn program, along with the Random Ranter. Tomorrow, it's Smoke Mirrors and the Truth with Bruce Anderson.

Friday, Good Talk. Chantel, Hebert, and Bruce joins us once again. That's it for this day. This Tuesday, I'm Peter Mansbridge. Thanks so much for listening. We'll talk to you again in 24 hours.