The propoganda poster featured a woman wearing a burqa, standing in front of a Swiss flag punctured by numerous missile-shaped minarets. And, evidently, it was effective: yesterday, nearly sixty per cent of residents in twenty-two of Swiss twenty-six cantons voted to ban the construction of minarets on mosques.

It's a decision that has enraged Muslims throughout the world, and stunned many within Switzerland itself.

The campaign to ban minarets in the country -- of which there are currently four -- was led by the right-wing Swiss-Peoples' Party. Martin Baltisser is the party's general secretary, and we reached him in Bern.

Pretty much everyone entering this country is greeted by a big sign that says, "Welcome to Canada." But sometimes it seems that officials on this side of the border haven't read that sign.

On Friday, we spoke to Amy Goodman about her recent not-so-warm welcome at the border. The American radio host was driving to Vancouver to give a speech. The border guards pulled her over and questioned her about whether she would be talking about the Olympics. They also demanded to see her notes and examine her laptop.

Well, that definitely crossed a line with Talkback. Almost all our calls and e-mails were on this story. And many of the messages were from Americans.

Here's a sampling:

. ARMY FAMILY

(DF)

NOV. 30/09

PRONOUNCER:

Bach = as in: Johann Sebastian, the composer

BB:

This past weekend, Patty Bach spent American Thanksgiving with her two sons, Justin and Adam. It's the first time they've celebrated the holiday together in four years. That's because both Justin and Adam are in the U.S. military, and both were posted abroad.

Tomorrow, President Barack Obama, is expected to announce a troop surge in Afghanistan. And there's a chance that Justin -- who has already served there once -- will be deployed there again. We reached Patty Bach and her twenty-two year-old son, Justin Bach, in Clemmons, North Carolina.

For the last thirty days, an alarming trend has taken the world by storm, and it's not pretty. In fact, in most cases, it's a little creepy.

I am, of course, speaking of the moustache.

This burgeoning of hair on the upper lip can take many shapes and forms -- the "Dali", the Handlebar, the infamous Fu Manchu -- and the decision to grow one is made by only the bravest of souls. Because should a fellow try to sprout one, he'd better do it quickly, because resistance may grow faster than his whiskers.

Even Lucy Ricardo had a plan, when her hubby tried to one on for size.

Well, crazy or not, this month, men and women across the country and around the world have embraced the moustache. That's because during November, or "Movember" as it's known in certain circles, charitable souls donate their upper lips to a higher cause, hoping others will respond. For this annual moustache-growing charity event, hirsute teams and individuals raise funds and awareness for men's health, specifically prostate cancer.

So, should you see a moustache today, please stop and appreciate its burly beauty and the sentiment behind it. Because you know what they say: hair today, gone tomorrow. Literally, in this case.

In these fleeting, final moments of Movember, we pay tribute to the moustache, and all those who have outsourced their sub-nasal areas in its honour. Among them, Rocky and Balls, the ukeule-playing duo who donned false moustaches this month, and recorded a song for charity.

Here's the U.K.-based band with "The Mo Song."

Let the church cells ring out again! That, effectively, was the message to an unnamed church in New Zealand's largest city, after it was fined for jamming cell phone signals.

In an effort to prevent interruptions from the mobile phones of careless parishioners, the church used a device to block cellphone transmission within its vicinity during its Sunday service. But last week, the country's Ministry of Economic Development slapped a fine of twelve-hundred-and-fifty New Zealand dollars -- or about nine-hundred-fifty Canadian dollars -- on the church.

A Ministry spokesperson explained that obstructing cellphone signals poses a risk to the community at large, because emergency calls might be affected. Thus, the manufacture and sale of jamming devices in New Zealand was made illegal in August. Currently, only the country's Corrections Department is authorized to use the equipment, to inhibit illicit cellphone use in prisons.

Which suggests that when it comes to mobile phones, New Zealand ministries everywhere ought to follow the this economic Ministry's golden rule: leave the chime-fighting to the professionals, or you may wind up being punished yourself.

In the end, the whole mess in Honduras may amount to a "coup de blah".

Yesterday, Hondurans went to the polls. And when the results were tallied, a conservative businessman named Porfirio Lobo was declared their new president. And although Washington has come out supporting the election results, many countries in the region are still crying foul -- because of that nasty coup that took place in late June.

Sally O'Neill is the Latin America Director for the Irish aid agency Trocaire. She's been living in Honduras for the last decade, and was out on the streets of the capital to observe the polling stations first hand yesterday. We reached her in Tegucigalpa, Honduras.

When it comes to football concussions, and the dangers associated with them, safety advocates have had a hard time convincing the National Football League to go the whole nine yards.

In the past, the league has been hesitant to admit its approach to the brain injury is flawed. But in the past few months, after a study linked concussions to dementia and depression in retired football players, the league has been submitted to a blitz of bad publicity -- including a heated Congressional hearing.

And so this weekend, as teams prepared for the playoffs, the players on the bench began to seem as important as the players on the field.

Christopher Nowinski is the president of the Sports Legacy Institute and author of "Head Games: Football's Concussion Crisis". We reached him in Boston.

When Gilles Carle burst onto the Quebec film scene in the mid-'Sixties, it was as if the province's movie industry moved from black and white to Technicolour. Mr. Carle has been described as Quebec's most prolific and important filmmaker, an artist whose work deeply influenced the province's culture. His films won international praise and put Quebec on the cinematic map.

Gilles Carle died early Saturday. He was eighty years old.

Over the course of his career, Mr. Carle produced more than thirty works. He created movies for the big screen and television, and documentaries as well. Among his films are such milestones as La vraie nature de Bernadette (The Real Bernadette), Les Plouffes (The Plouffes) and Pudding Chomeur (Bread Pudding).

Back in 1992, Gilles Carle spoke to As it Happens host Michael Enright about his relationship with Roger Lemelin -- the author whose 1948 book, Les Plouffe, Mr. Carle turned into an award-winning film. The two men were longtime friends. Here is part of that interview, from March sixteenth, 1992.

Christmas is fun. Christmas shopping is not. Especially when it comes to the hand-wringing over what to get one's children. Should it be a life-sized, remote-control robot of that sulky guy from the "Twilight" movies? Or would a high-quality whoopee cushion suffice?

Fear not -- for I bring you tidings of great joy. Help is at hand -- from British psychologist Cliff Arnall. He has constructed a mathematical formula to help struggling parents find that perfect toy. We reached Dr. Arnall in Cardiff, Wales.

On the morning of Friday, November 19th, 2004, in the community of Palm Island, Australia, a thirty-six-year-old indigenous man named Cameron Doomadgee was walking with his dog. He passed two policemen, and said something. One of the policemen, Senior Sergeant Chris Hurley, claims Mr. Doomadgee swore. A nearby friend of Mr. Doomadgee claims he was singing "Who Let The Dogs Out". Whatever the case, Senior Sergeant Hurley arrested Mr. Doomadgee on the spot. And forty minutes later, the arrested man died, in a jail cell, of horrific internal injuries.

A week later, there was a riot on Palm Island. Three-and-a-half months later, an inquiry. Two years later, Senior Sergeant Hurley was charged with assault and manslaughter. And then the trial began.

The death and its aftermath hauled a country's tortured and tortuous relationship with its native people into the light. And Melbourne author Chloe Hooper's astonishing book Tall Man: The Death of Doomadgee illuminates the whole story, in heartbreaking detail.

On July second, Carol spoke with Chloe Hooper about the book, from her home in Melbourne, Australia. Here now is a repeat broadcast of that conversation.