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The As It Happens Podcast

Programs prior to April 12, 2004 are no longer available.

Hello, I'm Carol Off.

Good evening. I'm Barbara Budd.

This is As It Happens.

Tonight:

Black-letter day. Three Canadian soldiers are killed by a bomb in Afghanistan, bringing the total number of Canada's military deaths to one-hundred.

The War on Fair. The man charged with prosecuting a young Afghan held at Guantanamo Bay explains why he turned his back on the job.

Remembering the man who couldn't help but forget. Henry Molaison, one of the most studied patients in the world due to his total lack of memory, dies at eighty-two.

The milk of human kindness. The family of a newborn baby, without health coverage, gets help paying the bills from a generous As it Happens listener.

Calling Inspector Clouseau. The Harry Winston jewellery store in Paris loses more than a hundred million dollars in diamonds, making it the largest heist in France's history.

And...beam them up, Scotty! The lost tool kit of an American astronaut aboard the International Space Station, first spotted over Canada, is spied over the Bonnie Highlands.

As It Happens, the Thursday edition. Radio that questions the ethics of sending monkey wrenches into space.

Three Canadian soldiers were killed in Afghanistan today. They were members of the First Ballalion, Royal Canadian Regiment, based in Petawawa, Ontario. At the time of this recording, the names of only two of the soldiers have been released. They are Corporal Mark Robert McLaren and Private Demetrios Diplaros. All three soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb as they were travelling through the Arghandab district near Kandahar. Two other soldiers were seriously wounded in a separate incident.

This afternoon, Prime Minister Stephen Harper paid a visit to the Canadian Forces Base in Petawawa, Ontario, which is home to the three latest casualties. He was there for an early Christmas celebration with the families of deployed overseas soldiers. But he used the occasion to offer his condolences. Here is a part of what he had to say, for the record.

These deaths mark a grim milestone. One hundred Canadian soldiers have now been killed in Afghanistan. It's a symbol, but one that means very little to some.

Sherry Clark is the mother of Private Joel Wiebe. Her son was killed in June of last year when the unarmoured vehicle he was travelling in was struck by a similar roadside bomb, also west of Kandahar. After his death, his mother Sherry kept a diary of her thoughts. For the record, here is an earlier entry in which she describes how she feels about reaching the one-hundredth death.

Most Canadians have heard of Omar Khadr, who was taken prisoner when he was fifteen years old and has been held in Guantanamo while awaiting trial for murder.

Khad'rs story resembles that of Mohamed Jawad, a young Afghan also held at Guantanamo, and facing charges for throwing a grenade at U.S. troops. He, too, was in his teens when captured. His defence lawyers say he was a homeless, illiterate teenager, drugged by the Afghan militia and forced to fight.

Until recently, Lieutenant Colonel Darrel Vandeveld was the army lawyer prosecuting Mohamad Jawad. Last September, he resigned, citing ethical qualms over his office's handling of the case.

Darrel Vandeveld is now the senior deputy attorney general of the Pennsylvania Attorney General Office. We reached him at his in Erie, Pennsylvania.

The largest diamond heist in French history took place on Thursday night, at Harry Winston Diamond Jewellers, on the swanky Avenue Montaigne in central Paris.

Damien Delseny is covering the caper for the French newspaper Le Parisien.

It's been an incredible week in the world of Canadian politics, and Talkback has given feedback every step of the way. Over the past seven days we received hundreds of phone calls and emails about the opposition, Stephen Harper's position, the coalition, and the Governor General's decision. At times Talkback was inspired, at others it perspired, and often it just felt sick and tired. Sometimes it was enraged, but all the while engaged.

And then Talkback did something unusual, it became a little musical.

In the end, he never knew how important he was to brain science.

The most famous forgetful man in the world died in Connecticut on Tuesday, of heart failure and at the age of 82.

Henry Molaison was thirty years old when doctors removed his temporal lobe during an experimental surgery to treat his severe epilepsy. Because of that procedure, his brain lost the ability to store long-term memories.

His condition helped neuroscientists learn about memory. And over the years, he would become one of the most studied patients in the world -- though he was known to generations of researchers only as H.M.

Brenda Milner is a neurologist who has studied H.M. for decades. We reached her at her office in Montreal.

This week had seven days, but it felt like a lot more.

Canadians watched an economic crisis turn from a political crisis to a constitutional crisis and perhaps even a national unity crisis. From an historic coalition accord to an historic suspension of parliament, the events of the last week in Ottawa were unlike anything this country has seen before.

And so again, we return to our regular political panel. Deborah Grey is a former Member of Parliament for the Reform and Conservative parties; Bob Richardson is a longtime Ontario Liberal and was the Convention Chairman for Liberal leadership candidate Michael Ignatieff; Suzanne Tremblay is a former Member of Parliament for the Bloc Quebecois; and Joy MacPhail is the former leader of B-C's New Democratic Party.

On Tuesday, we ran an interview with Wayne Samuels, the Montreal man who became father to baby Marley. His wife Laura Cobian does not have health coverage, so the family now owes more than five thousand dollars in doctor and hospital fees.

The story touched many listeners, some of whom emailed us to offer help. We forwarded those emails to the family, and yesterday we received this email from Guillermina Cobian, Laura's sister, who lives in Ottawa.

"It has been eleven wild days. They have been filled with joy and celebration for the birth of my niece, but at the same time filled with worries and desperation. My family in Mexico, Wayne's family in Canada -- we helped them as much as we could but it was not enough to cover the medical bills. We kept praying for a miracle.

"Our prayers were answered when my sister phoned me this morning to tell me about the emails and phonecalls that they had received, especially the one from a man in Toronto offering to pay the doctor's bill. Someone had also sent them a very nice card with twenty-five dollars in it and lots of blessings and good wishes!

"I just wanted to share with you how touched I am about the generosity of strangers. I feel humbled and very grateful with everyone that read or heard the story about baby Marley and wished to help. I have been touched by this experience, and intend to open my eyes bigger for ways to help people around me anyway I can."

That email came to us from Guillermina Cobian, sister of Laura Cobian, the mother to a new baby girl, Marley, who is grateful to those As it Happens listeners who offered the family assistance.

Tool bags in space ... Last week we brought you the story of a very rare astronomical event. An American astronaut, Heidemarie Stefanyshn-Piper, lost her tool bag while working on the International Space Station. It floated away and is now in orbit to the great excitement of amateur astronomers everywhere, including the one we spoke to in Canada.

Now the Highlands Astronomical Society has joined the "spot the bag" action. Maarten De Vries, is the Society's Chairman. We reached him at his home in Inverness Scotland.

The international chorus demanding the resignation of Robert Mugabe is growing louder. This week, both Kenya's Prime Minister and Archbishop Desmond Tutu said the Zimbabwean president must be forced to go. Robert Mugabe is currently locked in a political deadlock with his opposition rival, Morgan Tsvangirai. As their stalemate continues, Zimbabwe is falling apart. A cholera outbreak has killed hundreds. Unemployment is at ninety per cent, and nearly half the country's population is dependent on international food aid to survive.

In the midst of this, many Zimbabweans are risking their lives to bring the stories of their country's collapse to the world. One of those is Shakeman Mugari, a journalist with the Zimbabwe Independent newspaper. On Monday in Toronto, he will receive the 2008 International Press Freedom Award given by the Canadian Journalists for Freedom of Expression.

Shakeman Mugari joined us earlier today in our Toronto studio.

Last night -- long after Peter and Lloyd had both packed it in and I was pretty sure I knew what kind of day it had been -- I was flipping aimlessly through the channels, and, as my eyelids began to buckle under the weight of sleep, these words caught my ears:

In my semi-somnolent state, I first took the words for a conversation between Stéphane Dion and Gilles Duceppe, concerning Harper's successful bid to the Governor General to prorogue parliament. Of course, I soon realized I was watching a late-night run of The Princess Bride, a movie about an evil prince, Humperdinck, who attempts to force a princess to marry him against her will, in order to expand his power.

He is defeated by an unlikely alliance of former foes. It's a fairytale where even the inconceivable can happen, and does.

Inconceivable. After what's happened in Ottawa this week, I too am beginning wonder if the word doesn't mean what I think it means.

Another word that's cause for some confusion lately, is of course, prorogue -- not to be confused with pirogue, which is a kind of dugout canoe -- an entirely suitable vessel, I should think, for a sitting Canadian head of state. As a matter of fact, I'd like to propose it become a ceremonial requirement for any Prime Minister, when seeking the Governor General's approval to suspend Parliament, to paddle the official Prorogue Pirogue down to Rideau Hall. It would give him time to consider whether his reasons for doing so really held any water.

I must say the term prorogue has a nasty ring to it, at least to my ears. This is perhaps because I grew up listening to my Irish grandfather tell people to go prorogue some poor fellah named Mahone, whenever they caused him upset.

It's beyond me why this Mahone chap deserved the proroguing, for all the things someone else did to tick off my grandfather. But something tells me were he alive today, God rest his soul, Dadó would be instructing Stephen Harper to "prorogue Mahone" as well.

What I'd really like to know, though, is what you call someone who prorogues. I mean, is Stephen Harper a proroguer? Because it would follow then, that those who are having the prorogation thrust upon them -- in this case, the members of the opposition coalition -- are the proroguees, would it not? Now there's an opportunity waiting to be seized by some culinary entrepeneur with a political bent. What better way to dish up support at the deli for the opposition movement, than with a steaming plate of "coalition perogies"? "Freedom fries". Pshaw.

It's something the fledgling alliance should consider. It can use all the help it can get. Polls suggest were an election called today, the Conservatives would reach Blue Heaven, with a majority.

This one goes out to my Irish grandad. Here's the Prorogues -- whoops! I mean The Pogues.