Pull out or push back. Violence on the cusp of Iraqi elections raises questions about the scheduled withdrawal of American troops.

Mired in disaster. This week a mudslide on a Ugandan mountain buried dozens, and leaves hundreds homeless.

Who has seen the wind? Apparently not the federal government -- which made no provision in the budget for wind energy development in Canada.

Eau claire de lune. Scientists get their cocktail shakers ready after discovering the moon is a giant ice dispenser.

Cold hens, warm heart. When a British battery hen is rescued, it's sadly bald -- until a group of knitters makes her her suit.

And...Carly's whisper. A new version of "You're So Vain" features a sotto voce hint as to its mysterious subject -- renewing an endless game of "Simon Says".

As It Happens, the Friday edition. Radio that hopes you think this radio's about you.

With an election around the corner, Iraq is bracing itself for more violence.

This week's bombings have severely undermined Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki's insistence that he has brought security to Iraq. Many are asking how Sunday's elections will be affected, and how the violence will affect the proposed withdrawal of U.S. troops from the country.

Kenneth Pollack is the director of the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution. We reached him at his office in Washington D.C.

In the U.K. today, Prime Minister Gordon Brown finally testified at the country's inquiry on Iraq. During his four hours of testimony, Prime Minister Brown defended the decision to go into Iraq -- and strongly denied claims by military chiefs and victims' families that he hadn't adequately funded the conflict. Mr. Brown was the Chancellor of the Exchequer at the time of the intervention in 2003.

Here is Gordon Brown, speaking today at the Chilcot Inquiry.

Yesterday's budget announcement is grist for today's mills.

The main thrust of the new budget is to boost economic growth by cranking up innovation and attracting foreign investors. But the day after the budget was presented, businesses are just starting to wrap their collective heads around what this means. "Innovation" and "foreign investment" certainly sound promising -- but for folks in the renewable energy business, the budget threatens to take some of the wind out of their sales.

Robert Hornung is the President of the Canadian Wind Energy Association, a group representing the interest of Canadian wind-energy producers. We've reached him in Ottawa.

Simon Watney couldn't believe what he was seeing. But what he didn't see at first turned out to be even more unbelievable.

Mr. Watney is a conservation advisor to the Church Monuments Society in the U.K. He was visiting a church in Bradford-upon-Avon in the west of England when he saw what he thought was a rare painting. He was thrilled. But he was even more thrilled when he found that, although the painting he thought was rare wasn't that rare, another painting he hadn't recognized as rare turned out to be extremely rare indeed.

You know what? Why don't I let Simon Watney explain. We reached him in London, England.

The celebrity panelists have been chosen. Those celebrity panelists have chosen books. And next week, four of those books will be unchosen -- until one chosen book remains.

Next Monday, CBC Radio launches "Canada Reads 2010". All this week, we've featured readings by the five celebrities from the novels they've chosen to defend. Today's fifth and final reading is by Dr. Samantha Nutt.

Dr. Nutt co-founded War Child Canada and is currently that organization's executive director. Her Canadian fiction of choice is The Jade Peony by Wayson Choy. It tells the stories of three siblings living in Vancouver's Chinatown during the nineteen-thirties and 'forties.

In this scene, we meet the formidable character, Mrs. Doyle. She's a Grade Three teacher whose class includes one of the main characters, Sek-Lung. Here now is Samantha Nutt, reading from The Jade Peony.

And with that, we'll make room for the people who give you the latest news. They'll talk to you for six minutes, and then we'll be back with more As It Happens. When we return:

Smothered hope. Uganda villagers continue to exhume the bodies of dozens killed by this week's mudslide.

A job to die for. A former aide to Korean dictator Kim Il Sung saw only one way out of his hellish job -- faking his own death.

Frozen assets. If you can get a blender to the Moon, there's enough ice there to make about a billion margaritas.

Stay tuned. I'm CO.

And I'm BB.

Hello again, I'm CO.

And I'm BB. This is As It Happens, Part Two.

Coming up:

One Chilean woman's incredible journey across her earthquake-ravaged country, hitch-hiking.

And a British knitting group helps vulnerable bald chickens become ready, woollen and able.

Those stories are still to come on As It Happens.

At the foot of Mount Elgon, in Uganda, a catastrophe is taking place. Four days have passed since a deadly mudslide destroyed farming villages along the mountain, and villagers and soldiers are still struggling to pull out the bodies of the dead.

Jocelyn Edwards is a Canadian freelance journalist currently based in Uganda. We reached her in the town of Mbale, about an hour from the affected area.

The numbers are still bad. They're just not as bad as we thought.

After Saturday's earthquake and tsunami, Chilean officials had listed the death toll at eight-hundred-and-two. But yesterday evening, that number dropped drastically -- to two-hundred-and-seventy-nine -- after many of those missing and presumed dead have actually turned out to be very much alive.

Hundreds of thousands of homes have been destroyed and billions of dollars worth of damage done. Some say the reconstruction process could take three to four years. It may take even longer for the country to recover emotionally.

Marcela Hammer was in Puerto Varas, in the south of Chile, when the earthquake hit. For two days, she rode local buses and hitch-hiked, making her way back to her home in Valparaiso, near Santiago.

Earlier today, the twenty-year-old, spoke to us, through a translator.

Kim Jong Ryul despised his job so much that, to escape it, he pretended to be dead.

For two decades, he was Kim Il Sung's man in Vienna. He went on shopping sprees for North Korea's "Great Leader," buying luxury goods for the dictator while many of his fellow North Koreans starved.

Then, in 1994, he faked his death and went underground.

Now, Kim Jong Ryul has finally come out of hiding to tell his story. It's detailed in a new book called At The Dictator's Service. We reached one of the book's co-authors, Dardan Gashi, in Vienna.

SPIRITUAL WELLSPRING

ALBUM: SOUND BETWEEN SKY AND WATER

TRK 2 RUNS: 4:26

PRODUCER: HUANG SHIH

DISTRIBUTOR: KWANG HWA MASS COM.

Let's say that, when you were a kid, a friend of yours had a secret. A secret that had something to do with her boyfriend at the time. For several hours, you wheedled, you begged, you bartered -- but she wouldn't crack. It was immensely frustrating, but in the end, you forgot about the whole thing, and went back to planning your wedding to Scott Baio.

That was in Grade Four. Now imagine that former friend keeps calling you up every couple of years, out of nowhere, to tell you that she still can't tell you the secret. She'll say things like, "The secret had something to do with my boyfriend's favourite hat -- but I can't tell you anything else." Or, "There wasn't really just one secret -- it was a composite of three different secrets. But that's all I can say."

That would be annoying, wouldn't it? Well, it is annoying. And I know because it keeps happening to me. But the person isn't an elementary school classmate. It's Carly Simon.

In 1972, Ms. Simon had a hit with the song "You're So Vain". It was a clever pop song about a mysterious, never-named jerk who walked into parties like he was walking onto a yacht, and whose scarf, it was apricot. People wondered who the song was about. Warren Beatty? Mick Jagger? James Taylor? You? Ms. Simon wouldn't tell.

Eventually, people stopped wondering. But no one told Carly Simon that. So, in 1983, she told us it wasn't Mick Jagger. In 1989, she said it was sort of about Warren Beatty, but not really. In 2003, she auctioned off the information to NBC bigwig Dick Ebersol -- but he's not allowed to tell anyone. She has also popped up periodically to tell us that the protagonist's name features the letters "A", "E", and "R", or to say it's actually about three guys merged into one fictional guy.

And then, last month, she revealed that, in a re-recorded version of "You're So Vain", she had whispered the name of the song's subject, backwards. Here's what that sounds like:Did you catch that? I missed it because I was yawning. But apparently the whispered name is "David". So everyone thought it must be record executive David Geffen. But then her publicist said it wasn't. And further listening by someone revealed that two other names were whispered backwards: "Warren" and something no one can make out.

At this point, most of us are too disinterested to even play the song forwards anymore. And the song's title may be more aptly applied to its singer. So we'll keep on waiting for her either to tell us who it's about, or stop telling us that she won't tell us who it's about. But I fear we're waiting in vain.

Forty-six years ago, the Chemawawin Cree Nation moved to Easterville, Manitoba, about four-hundred-and-fifty kilometres north of Winnipeg. They left their home at the mouth of the Saskatchewan River because Manitoba Hydro wanted to capture the river's great power by building a dam -- one that eventually flooded the grasslands near their reserve, devastating their natural resources.

Back in 1989, Sunday Morning's David McLauchlin visited Easterville, and spoke with members of the community. From our archives, here is some of what he heard.

In 1992, the Chemawawin nation filed a lawsuit against the federal government seeking compensation. Now, eighteen years later, federal officials are working to keep dozens of documents secret -- documents First Nations groups say are integral to their case. A key hearing will be held on Monday.

Clarence Easter is the chief of the Chemawawin Cree First Nation. We reached him in Easterville, Manitoba.

You might describe Liberia's Prince Johnson as "notorious". That's the adjective the country's Truth and Reconciliation Commission chose when it recommended the former rebel be prosecuted for war crimes. But it doesn't quite capture the essence of the man.

During the country's first civil war, Prince Johnson assumed a leadership role in the National Patriotic Front of Liberia, the rebel group led by Charles Taylor. In September 1990, supporters of Prince Johnson abducted Liberia's then-president, Samuel Doe. Mr. Doe was tortured and executed -- with the whole gruesome episode videotaped and broadcast around the world.

The video -- which is still available for sale on the streets of Monrovia -- shows Prince Johnson drinking beer as he watches his men cut off Samuel Doe's ear.

However, Prince Johnson's notoriety hasn't kept him from advancing in a society still struggling to rebuild after fourteen years of civil war. Five years ago, Prince Johnson was elected to Liberia's senate. Now, he's seeking an even loftier position. Mr. Johnson would like to be president.

As It Happens contributor Jonathan Paye-Layleh sat down with Prince Johnson in Monrovia to discuss his plan to run for Liberia's highest office. Here is part of their conversation, for the record:

The bald eagle is a majestic bird of prey that symbolizes the pride and power of the United States. The bald chicken is not in any way majestic -- although it's plenty symbolic.

This featherless creature is a former battery hen. It spends most of its life boxed-in, stressed, and subject to savage pecking by its neighbours. Which brings on baldness.

One U.K. charity, the Little Hen Rescue, set out to save these defenseless chickens, adopting former battery hens from farmers all across Britain. But once the hens are rescued, they're still bald. So the Little Hen Rescue sent out an S.O.S. -- and the Monkton Elm Garden & Pet Centre Knit and Crochet Club in Taunton, England responded.

Miranda McPherson is the head knitter at the club. We reached her in Taunton, England.

The Moon would be a terrific place to take a beach vacation. It's pretty much all beach. But of course, a beach is nothing without some water. Which is the main reason there's no Club Med on our biggest satellite.

Well, last fall, after NASA shot a missile into the Moon, water was discovered in the dust created by the impact. And now, an Indian probe has determined just how much water there is up there. Seems we'll need some weird combination of bathing suit and snowsuit when we head there to soak up the sun: there are more than six hundred million metric tonnes of ice at the lunar south pole. And that, scientists say, is enough to sustain a permanent, human base on the moon.

Paul Spudis was responsible for interpreting the ice data from the lunar probe. He is a planetary geologist and a staff scientist of the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston, Texas.