Satire

It's Wednesday December 13th.

American Republican strategists are reported to be in a panic about the possibility of the Democrats running a Hillary Clinton - Barack Obama ticket in the 2008 Presidential election.

Currently ... The feeling in the GOP is that a ticket with a woman and a black man would hold unbeatable appeal after 8 years of questionable decisions by old, white men. Sorry, make that 230 years of old white men.

This is The Current.

O’Connor Counsel

For all of a couple of hours yesterday, Stockwell Day found himself without an ongoing inquiry into how a Canadian citizen wound up being tortured in a mideast prison.

Yesterday after Justice Dennis O'Connor released his final report on the case of Maher Arar, the Public Safety Minister announced another inquiry ... this one into the cases of Muayyed Nurredin, Abdullah Almalki and Ahmad El Maati. Though their cases differ, they -- like Maher Arar -- are all Canadian citizens who were imprisoned and tortured in a mideast prison.

The new inquiry is meant to get to the bottom of how that happened and who's responsible. Ron Foerster is the Senior Council of Policy Review for the Arar Inquiry. He helped write the recommendations that Justice Deniis O'Connor released yesterday about how to make sure that what happened to Mr. Arar can't happen again. Ron Foerster was in Toronto this morning.

Public Safety Minister

Even as Justice O'Connor wraps up his work former Supreme Court Justice Frank lacobucci is beginning his. The Public Safety Minister, Stockwell Day has announced the creation of what's being called an Internal inquiry under Jusitce lacobucci to look at the cases of three more Canadian citizens who were impression and tortured in Syrian and Egyptian prisons, to see whether the RCMP or other Canadian officals played a role in what happened to them. The Public Safety Minister, Stockwell Day joined us from Ottawa.

Listen to The Current: Part 1

(Due to various rights issues some segments may be edited for internet use)

The Current: Part 2

Torture - El Maati

On November 12, 2001, a young woman named Rola was waiting at the Damascus airport for her fiancé, a Canadian citizen originally from Egypt. When Ahmad El Maati didn't turn up, she became worried.

But the truth was far worse than she probably imagined. When he landed in Syria, Mr. El Maati was detained by Syrian officials, thrown in jail and then taken to Egypt where he was tortured. He spent 790 days -- more than two years -- in prisons in Syria and Egypt and was then released without charge. To add insult to injury, his fiancé's family canceled the wedding, saying they feared for their safety.

For the last two years, Ahmad El Maati has been back home in Canada, waiting for answers about how all this could have happened. As you heard in our last half-hour, yesterday he got some good news. Canada's Public Safety Minister, Stockwell Day announced an inquiry to investigate what happened to Mr. El Maati, as well as Muayyed Nurredin and Abdullah Almalki in Syrian prisons and whether the RCMP or other Canadian officials played a role in their ordreal.

Ahmad El Maati is a Canadian Citizen, originally from Egypt, who was jailed for 790 days in Syrian and Egyptian prisons. He was in our Toronto studio.

Music Bridge

Artist: Steve Dawson
Cut: CD10 “Ruby”
CD: “We Belong to the Gold Coast”
Label: Black Hen Music
Spine #: BHCD 0030

Pinochet: Letelier / Condor

Last Sunday, former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet died at the age of 91, bringing to an end, a brutal and contentious chapter in his country's history ... a chapter that began, on September 11th, 1973. We aired some tape with General Pinochet, commanding his troops as they stormed Chile's Presidential Palace to oust the democratically elected President, Salvador Allende.

On the tape, Pinochet tells his soldiers, "Better to kill the bitch that way the whole litter loses hope." Pinochet took much of the truth of what happened during his rule to the grave. But there are those who are still trying to uncover the full picture of just how far Pinochet's power extended beyond Chile's borders.

Thirty years ago on September 21st, 1976, Chilean exile Orlando Letelier was driving through downtown Washington, when a bomb tore apart his car. The explosion killed Letelier and his American associate Ronni Karpen Moffitt and sent a message that Chilean dissidents would not be safe, no matter where they were.

Isabel Letelier is the widow of Orlando Letelier, we aired an clip from an interview earlier this week on CBC Radio's As It Happens.

Many people believe Orlando Letelier's murder was part of something called Operation Condor ... a series of killings carried out by the Pinochet regime and its Latin American allies against their opponents all over the world.

Much of what we know about Operation Condor became public because of the National Security Archive at George Washington University, an organization dedicated to collecting and publishing declassified documents.

Peter Kornbluh is a Senior Analyst at the National Security Archive and the author of The Pinochet File: A Declassified Dossier on Atrocity and Accountability. Peter Kornbluh was at his home in Chevy Chase, Maryland.

Listen to The Current: Part 2

(Due to various rights issues some segments may be edited for internet use)

The Current: Part 3

Ethical Travel - Monbiot

We have a confession to make here at The Current. We may be responsible for your eternal damnation. This season, we've been looking at the places in the world that you really should try to see before climate change mutates them forever ... places such as the Canadian Arctic, Mount Kilimanjaro, Venice and the low-lying islands of the South Pacific.

The trouble is, the easiest way to get to these places is to fly. And now, both the Bishop of London and the Archbishop of Canterbury say that flying to you vacation is a sin. They say this because of the millions of tonnes of fuel that airplanes burn and the greenhouse gases they spew into the atmosphere. In our quest to highlight the damage being caused by global warming ... we may be encouraging behaviour that makes the problem worse.

So we wanted to see if there is some way we can work ourselves out of this Catch-22. And we began with George Monbiot. He's a columnist with the Guardian newspaper, a visiting professor of planning at Oxford Brookes University and one of the world 's most outspoken environmentalists. He was in Oxford, England.

George Monbiot is the author of Heat: How to Stop the World from Burning.

Ethical Travel – Francis

Well, there are a few ways you might respond to what George Monbiot had to say just now. Some of you may be busy snipping up your Air Miles cards. Others may still have your hands over year ears singing "La La La, I can't hear you!"

So for a second opinion on the subject of ethical travel, we were joined by Justin Francis. He co-founded a travel business called ResponsibleTravel.com with Anita Roddick -- whom George Monbiot mentioned a few minutes ago. Justin Francis was in Brighton, England this morning.

Last Word: Radio Head

Reducing climate change has long been a favourite cause for celebreties to champion.

But although they profess their support and raise awareness, many of them are still zig-zagging around the world in private jets to do it spewing toxins into the atmosphere.

But there is one star who is at least musing about putting his Air Miles where his mouth is. Thom Yorke, the lead singer of the pop group Radiohead, has admitted that touring with his band consumes a "ridiculous" amount of energy and that if he can't find a way to reduce emissions, he will seriously consider not touring any more. So we let Thom Yorke have the last word today. For good karma.

Music

Artist: Radiohead
CD: "OK Computer"
Cut: CD 6, "Karma Police"
Label: Parlophone
Spine: 7243 8 55229 2 5

Listen to The Current: Part 3

(Due to various rights issues some segments may be edited for internet use)

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