The Current: Part 1

Satire

After a tumultuous campaign... there has been a regime change in Quebec. Liberal leader Jean Charest edged incumbent Bernard Landry of the Parti Quebecois in yesterday's provincial vote.

Currently, Charest's first order of business is to determine if he was elected just because voters hate the prospect of another referendum.... That question will be put to all Quebeckers this fall.

This is The Current.

Quebec Election

Last week, Jean Charest called on all Quebecers ... especially those who wanted change to cast their vote for the Liberal party. After nine years, and two Parti Quebecois mandates, a majority of them obviously decided the time was right.

Rick Kalb has covered every Quebec election for the last fifteen years. He's CBC radio's Quebec national assembly reporter. He was in Quebec City.

What About Sovereignty?

Many people in Quebec and the rest of Canada are now wondering what this defeat means for the sovereignty movement.

Daniel Turp is a long time separatist and a former Bloc Quebecois MP. Today he's also a newly elected PQ member of the national assembly for the riding of Mercier.

The ADQ and The Vote

Six months ago it seemed Mario Dumont could do no wrong. His youthful image and right leaning politics struck a chord with younger voters. We met some of them on The Current ... stay-at-home mom, Sabrina Duguay and her partner, Pierre Tocci. They live in Montreal with their two young children.

The couple were won over by Monsieur Dumont .. so much so that Sabrina Duguay decided to become a candidate, in the Montreal riding of Nelligan.

We caught up with her as she waited for the results to come in last night at ADQ party headquarters in Riviere-du-Loup.

Listen to The Current: Part 1

The Current: Part 2

Iraqi Artifacts - Part 1

It's being called a 'cultural catastrophe' ... and it has the antiquities world in shock. Looters in Baghdad have rampaged through the National Museum, smashing display cases ... smashing many of the priceless artifacts themselves. They then made off with what was left of the museum's collection ... at least 50,000 items.

And it's not just in Baghdad ... a museum in Mosul was also looted, emptied of millions of dollars worth of Parthian sculpture. The birthplace of civilization has been stripped bare.

We spoke with Professor Cuyler Young, the former Director of the Royal Ontario Museum and Professor Emeritus of Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations at the University of Toronto.

Iraqi Artifacts - Part 2

Once precious antiquities are looted from musuems or archaeological sites, as they have been in Iraq, they often end up on the black market. To help us understand how this happens, we were joined by Clemens Reichel. He's a Mesopotamian archaeologist with the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago.

Artifacts Factboard

Iraq's National Museum in Baghdad housed more than 100,000 artefacts, some of which date back 10,000 years. Its exhibitions showcased the development of writing, counting, the wheel and agriculture.

Particularly valued were the museum's treasures from Sumerian, Babylonian and Assyrian times. Its collection included remains from the Mesopotamian cities of Babylon, Nineveh and Ur -- such as a 4,000-year-old silver harp. Baghdad's Islamic Library, which contained one of the oldest surviving copies of the Koran, was also ruined by fire amid the looting.

It's not the first time Iraq's antiquities have fallen victim to war. After the 1991 Persian Gulf war, 4,000 pieces disappeared during widespread looting.

Graham Forum

More than 200 people turned up last night at the Wosk centre in Vancouver for a 'town hall' meeting headed by Foreign Affairs Minister Bill Graham.

While everything from First Nations issues to the protection of outer space was discussed, most people wanted to talk about the war in Iraq, and how it might affect Canada's relationship with the United States. Graham doesn't believe that relationship is in jeopardy, and he says he has the connections to prove it.

Listen to The Current: Part 2

The Current: Part 3

Iraqi Dissident

Retired U.S. General Jay Garner ... the man earmarked to lead Iraq's interim government ... will hold his first meeting today with Iraqi factions inside the country.

The post-war planning has been going on for months ... and one of the key players is Iraqi dissident Kanan Makiya. He has been dreaming of an Iraq without Saddam Hussein for more than 20 years ... since he fled his Baghdad home for the United States.

In the 1980s, Makiya published a landmark book called "Republic of Fear," which chronicled Hussein's brutal hold over the people of Iraq. The book, which he penned under a pseudonym to protect his family, became a bestseller at the time of the first Gulf War.

Makiya has met with President George Bush several times to discuss re-building in Iraq. Now, he could end up drafting the country's new constitution. We reached Kanan Makiya in Washington, D.C.

Music

Artist: Gabor Szabo
Cut: CD7 "Mizrab"
CD: "The Sorcerer"
Label: MCA Records
Spine #: IMPD-211
Runs: 0:53

American Poet

There's a new poet making the rounds on the internet, an American bard with a lot of pull in the current US administration. His nom de plume: D.H. Rumsfeld.

Hart Steely of Slate magazine assembled some of the Secretary of Defense's most evocative news briefings and put them in blank verse. Here ... the Current's rendition of four new American classics. This is Donald Rumsfeld, American Poet.

You can find out more about Slate.

Listen to The Current: Part 3