It was created to maintain peace around the world.

But today the United Nations voted overwhelmingly to condemn its own security council for failing to prevent the bloodshed in Syria. Russia, which has repeatedly used its veto to gridlock the Security Council, in turn condemned the United Nations.

Sir Mark Lyall Grant is Britain's Ambassador to the United Nations. We reached him at the UN in New York.

CHICK-FIL-A KISS-INLMAUG. 3/2012

PRONOUNCER:

Marci Alt = Marsee Ahlt

JD:Finally -- a moral and political viewpoint that comes with a side of fries.

Ever since Dan Cathy, head of the Chick Fil-A fast-food chain, spoke out against same-sex marriage, the restaurant has been at the centre of the debate. Partly because of Mr. Cathy's words, and partly because Mr. Cathy has put plenty of chicken money into campaigns supporting the idea that marriage should only be between a man and a woman.

On Wednesday, supporters of Mr. Cathy -- led by former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee -- turned out for "Chick Fil-A Appreciation Day", buying chicken in droves.

And today, gay marriage advocates struck back, protesting at Chick-Fil-A locations across the US.

Their act of disobedience? The smooch. A same-sex "kiss-in."

Marci Alt organized the "Kiss-In" nearest the company's headquarters. She's also invited Dan Cathy over for dinner. We reached Ms. Alt during the protest earlier today, in Decatur, Georgia.

Montreal's Bronwyn Chester loved to be in the forest. And the people who took her walks on Mount Royal, in Montreal, loved to follow Bronwyn Chester into the forest. Her enthusiam for trees was contagious.

Ms. Chester was a well-known botanist in Montreal. She wrote a Sunday column about trees in The Montreal Gazette. She blogged about the forests of the city. And she led popular walks on Mount Royal, where she gave lectures about the plants and trees she loved.

Bronwyn Chester died yesterday of cancer. She was fifty-four.

Back in September of two-thousand-eleven, five months after her diagnosis, Ms. Chester took CBC Montreal's Mike Finnerty on a walk on Mount Royal.

Here's some of what they talked about.

Now a quick update on a story we told you about recently.

Last week, we spoke to Emmanuel de Merode, the director of the Virgunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo. He told us how desperate he and his team were to search for six families of missing mountain gorillas -- which had been caught in the middle of fighting between the Congolese army and M-23 rebels.

Today, we're happy to report that rangers were finally able to track the gorillas, and have found most of them. An update from the park's blog today states:

"We were able to find the Humba, Rugendo, and Munyaga families, and half of the Kabirizi family, who appear to have split into two groups. All seem healthy, but a more detailed assessment and individual counting will take place in the coming week if security allows."

A fraction of a second, half-a-point, or an errant judge.

Any one of them can mean the difference between a medal at the Olympics and the disappointment of a fourth-place finish.

But now that disappointment may be diminished somewhat. Because one man has taken it upon himself to make sure fourth place finishers get the recognition they deserve: fourth-place medals.

And that man is bookstore owner David Mitchell. We reached him at home in Cromford, England.

They call it the "Triangle of Death," because the rates of cancer, respirartory illness, and genetic deformities are so high.

It's a region of southern Italy, called Campania -- the capital of which is Naples.

And things are not improving there. Quite the opposite: a new study from Campania shows that cancer rates continue to climb. Women in the region are fifty per cent more likely to get breast cancer.

Dr. Antonio Giordano is an Italian-American pathologist and geneticist who led the study. We reached him on his cell phone in Naples.

It's the superbug that won't give up.

C. difficile outbreaks have been declared this week in two Hamilton, Ontario hospitals. The infection continues to plague hospitals and nursing homes across the country.

Last night we spoke with Sue Daly, whose husband, Archie McIsaac, recently died at the Juravinksi Hospital in Hamilton, Ontario. Mr. McIsaac was being treated for cancer, but had contracted C. difficile four days before he died. And that's left his wife with many questions about the infection, and the role it played in Mr. McIsaac's death.

Dominik Mertz is the Medical Director of Infection Control for Hamilton Health Sciences, which includes the Juravinski Hospital. It also includes Hamilton General Hospital, which declared a C. difficile outbreak earlier this week. We reached Dr. Mertz at his office in Hamilton.

And now a quick update: last month we brought you a story about the Kissner family in Defiance, Ohio. They'd discovered a box of old baseball cards as they cleaned out the attic of an aunt who had died.

Well, the Kissner's have started to sell the cards - the first thirty-seven of them. And those cards fetched four-hundred-and-seventy-three thousand, seven-hundred-and-fifty American dollars.

Not bad. Especially considering these thirty-seven cards are among seven hundred the family found.

The twenty cousins who co-own the cards plan to sell them slowly -- so as not to flood the market for hundred-year-old baseball cards.

Yesterday, Moscow was invaded by paratroopers.

Mind you, the invasion was welcome. The maneuvers consisted largely of the soldiers drinking beer and vodka. And hugging one another a lot. And swimming in public fountains.

It happens every year, marking Russia's annual "Paratrooper Day".

To explain, we've reached Dmitri Babich. He's a political analyst for the Voice of Russia. We reached him in Moscow.

For a couple of years there, Leslie Feist -- who just goes by "Feist" -- was everywhere. She sold more than a million copies of her 2007 album "The Reminder" -- which won a Juno for "Album of the Year", and was nominated for a Grammy. Her song "1 2 3 4" exploded after it appeared in a commercial. Then she performed a modified version of that song with a bunch of penguins and chickens on "Sesame Street". And then she kind of disappeared.

For one full year, she didn't play any music at all. She told the music website Pitchfork that she couldn't even play her instrument. In her words, "I would try to pick the guitar up sometimes, like, 'Hey, remember me?' It was like reintroducing yourself to someone who's got a grudge. But there was this silence."

Last year -- four years after the release of "The Reminder" -- Feist finally released her fourth studio album. It's called "Metals". It's an intimate, contemplative collection that takes some time to absorb.

It's also one of this year's Polaris Music Prize nominees. That prize is given annually to the best Canadian album of the year.

Here's Feist, with "The Circle Married the Line".

That's it for As It Happens for this Friday, August 3rd.

The show was produced this week by Laurie Allan, Diane Eros, Daemon Fairless, Natasha Fatah,

David McDougall, Loren McGinnis, and Tomas Urbina. Our technician is Brian Dawes. The show director is Reynold Gonsalves. Chris Howden is our writer. And, our intern is Lindsay Sample.

John Perry is the Senior Producer. And the Executive Producer of As It Happens is Robin Smythe.

We'd also like to thank some other people who helped us out this week: Yvonne Gall in Vancouver, Davorin Cikovic at Radio Archives, Marie Wadden in St. John's , Peter Sheldon in Yellowknife, Lily Ames in Toronto, and Susan McKenzie in Montreal.