Today's guest host was Jim Brown.


Satire

It's Tuesday, July 15th.

Video footage of CSIS agents interrogating Omar Khadr will be released by Khadr's defense team today.

Currently, The only thing his lawyers can't figure out is why all the tapes are labeled "Air India." And why they're all full of Barney Miller re-runs.

This is The Current.

Part 1: Khadr Interrogation Tape

Defence Attorney

On Tuesday, July 15, 2008, Canadians got their first look inside an interrogation room at the U.S. military base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. It was the day Omar Khadr's defense lawyers released video footage of CSIS agents interrogating their client in February of 2003.

Omar Khadr was 15 years old when he was captured by the U.S. military in Afghanistan in 2002. The Canadian teen was sent to Guantanamo Bay on allegations that he killed an American soldier.

CSIS agents questioned him for a total of about 10 hours over the course of four days. Omar Khadr's lawyers got the footage after the Supreme Court of Canada ordered CSIS to give it to them in May of this year.

In excerpts, Omar Khadr cries, asks officials for letters from his grandmother, requests their protection, tells them he's been lying and gets take-out from McDonalds.

Joining us from Washington was Lieutenant Commander William Kuebler, part of Omar Khadr's defence team.

Foreign Affairs Official

The Current requested interviews with the Department of Public Safety and the Department Foreign Affairs, but we did not hear back from them by the time we went to air.

When Omar Khadr was transferred to Guantanamo Bay, Gar Pardy was the Director General of Consular Affairs with the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade in Ottawa. It was his job to make sure Omar Khadr, had access to Canadian consular officials.

Gar Pardy joined us from Twillingate, Newfoundland and Labrador.


Listen to Part One:



Part 2: Esperanto

Advocate

Esperanto speakers from all over North America converged on Montreal in the third week of July 2008. Yes, that's Esperanto speakers: people devoted to preserving a 120-year-old invented language that was supposed to pave the way for world peace, but has never quite got the traction needed to do it. They were in Montreal for the 7th Esperanto Congress of the Americas. The CBC's Susan McKenzie dropped by the conference and ran into a Quebec-Cuban Esperanto duet in the hallway.

The idea was hatched back in the 1880s by a Polish physician who then built the language from scratch. Over the years, that promise has sometimes been seen as a threat. Saddam Hussein was so worried about it that he ordered the only Esperanto teacher in Iraq thrown in jail. And Stalin threw tens of thousands of Esperanto speakers into the Soviet Gulags. But despite that and the fact that Esperanto has never really caught on in the mainstream, the language still has plenty of boosters.

Humphrey Tonkin is one of them. He's the President Emeritus at the University of Hartford and the Past President of the Universal Esperanto Association. He was also a guest speaker at the Esperanto congress and he joined us from West Hartford, Connecticut.

Linguistics

Over the years, Esperanto has been featured in books, TV programs and films, often because the language sounds exotic and saves science fiction writers from having to invent a whole new language. Before his Star Trek Fame, Canada's own William Shatner found himself in the 1965 B-horror movie Incubus, a film whose dialogue is entirely in Esperanto.

Of course starring in B-grade movies is one thing, but actually becoming a universal language of peace and understanding is quite another. For his thoughts on why "created" or "artificial" languages have a tough time becoming the common vernacular, we were joined from Champaign, Illinois by Dennis Baron. He is a Professor of English and Linguistics at the University of Illinois.

Music

Artist: Ray Montford
Cut: CD 1, “Far and Wide”
CD: “Many Roads”
Label: Softail Records
Spine #: MR03CD


Listen to Part Two:



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