Satire
It's Wednesday, April 11th.
Ontario is considering becoming the next province to reimburse people who donate a kidney or part of their liver.
Currently, the Ontario government is considering other financial incentives to encourage the public to do good works… Toonie Tuesday tissue drives… A waiting list pyramid scheme… and 2 for 1 bloody Mary nights at the Canadian Blood services headquarters.
This is The Current.
Ethiopian Canadian – Lawyer
The allegations are both disturbing and, strikingly familiar. A Canadian citizen - sent secretly, and illegally, to a foreign prison, detained as a "terror suspect."
Bashir Makhtal is being held in an Ethiopian jail where Human rights groups assert he is the victim of rendition - and could be facing torture. Mr. Makhtal is one of at least 150 people who Human Rights Watch says were illegally picked-up on the Somali-Kenyan border in December and January and are now being held in prisons in Ethiopia - and interrogated by U.S. officials.
For their part, Ethiopian officials have denied these allegations for weeks, but yesterday the government finally acknowledged it detained 41 people they call "terror suspects" hailing from 17 countries including Canada. The Ethiopian government hasn't named all the detainees yet.
Lorne Waldman represents Bashir Makhtal's family. For him, this story conjures up the ordeal of another one of his clients Maher Arar. Lorne Waldman joined us from Vancouver.
Ethiopian Canadian - Human Rights Watch
As we mentioned Bashir Makhtal is not the only foreign national being held by the Ethiopian government. Yesterday, it admitted to detaining 41 people from 17 different countries including Canada, the U.S. and Sweden. This - after weeks of denials. Human Rights Watch has been investigating the story over the past few months. Georgette Gagnon is the deputy director of the group's Africa division. She was in Calgary this morning.
We requested an interview with the Canadian department of foreign affairs, but no one was available to be interviewed this morning. And Ethiopia embassy officials in Ottawa declined a request for comment.
Listen to The Current:  Part 1
(Due to various rights issues some segments may be edited for internet use)
The Current: Part 2
Witch Hunts – Author
They may be centuries old but for some, the barbaric witch hunts of Europe and Salem, Massachussetts, share a striking similarity to the kind of scenarios we are seeing today. Terror suspects, secret prisons ... Guantanamo Bay.
Author Robert Rapley points to all these examples that have emerged since 9-11 and says the common thread is a constant and pervasive fear of the enemy among us. Mr. Rapley makes this case in his new book, Witch Hunts: From Salem to Guantanamo Bay. He joined us from Ottawa.
Listen to The Current: Part 2
(Due to various rights issues some segments may be edited for internet use)
The Current: Part 3
Rwanda: Genocide and Media
It was thirteen years ago this month that a genocide began. It was Rwanda - 1994. But at the time as the initial reports came out about Hutus hunting and slaughtering their neighbours, many in the media - described the violence as tribal rather than genocidal.
It turned out to be a tragically inaccurate picture of the massacre that was going on inside the small African country. The fact that the international press failed to recognize and report the genocide for what it was has long been criticized. Stephen Livingstone of Harvard University was one critic. In the immediate years following the massacre he told the CBC that the coverage was abysmal.
Well a damming indictment of the U.S. Television networks. More than a decade on concerns over the media's role have not dissipated in fact, for some the need to learn from that tragedy is even more urgent.Allan Thompson is a professor of journalism at Carleton University in Ottawa. He's the author and editor of a new book, The Media And The Rwanda Genocide. This morning he was in our Toronto studio.
Genocide as Bullying
For our next guest recognizing the nature of the violence in Rwanda represents something much different. For Barbara Coloroso the phenomenon of genocide can be understood through the more ubiquitous experience of schoolyard bullying.
Two years ago -- the expert in school-discipline and conflict resolution -- traveled to Rwanda. And it was that experience that led her to write her latest book Extraordinary Evil: A Brief History of Genocide. We've reached Barbara Coloroso at her home in Denver, Colorado.
Music Bridge
Artist: Chris Velan
Cut: CD2 "Long Way from Home"
CD: "Twitter, Buzz, Howl"
Label: Maple Music
Spine #: MM1101
Last Word – Corset History
It is a seemingly never-ending check list - and it's expanding almost as we speak. Watch your weight, check your cholesterol, monitor your blood pressure and now - add to that -- measure the old waistline!
New guidelines - released this week - on what constitutes a 'healthy' waistline. In fact, medical officials say "waist circumference measurement" should be used as a new 'vital sign'. Under the guidelines, a waistline of more than 94 centimetres (or 37 inches) for a man and 80 centimetres (32 inches) for a woman - - should be considered a risk factor for cardiovascular disease and Type 2 diabetes.
The study left us wondering what ever happened to that devilish device that can magically shrink waistlines - The Corset. It's not mentioned in the study, but with Canadian bellies getting bigger and bigger, maybe it's time for that stomach cincher to make a comeback.
We ended the program today with a few words from Valerie Steel. She is the director of the Fashion Institute of Technology museum in New York and the author of The Corset: A Cultural History.
Listen to The Current: Part 3
(Due to various rights issues some segments may be edited for internet use)
CBC does not endorse content of external sites - links will open in new window
|
