July 27, 2010

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Whole Show Blow-by-Blow

Today's guest host was Jim Brown.

It's Tuesday, July 27th.

BP CEO Tony Hayward, who's been criticized for his handling of the Gulf oil spill, will step down.

Currently, the company is reportedly exiling him to Siberia .... no, really. That's no joke. They're actually sending him to Siberia.

This is The Current.

Wikileaks - Declan Walsh

We started this segment with some sound from a scene outside the Indian Embassy in Kabul on July 7th, 2008, after a car bomb exploded, killing more than 100 people. Details related to that bombing were released over the weekend by the whistleblower website Wikileaks, along with more than 90 thousand classified US military documents about the ongoing war in Afghanistan. Those documents show there were intelligence warnings the week before -- that the Indian Embassy was a target of a possible attack by the Taliban.

And that's not all. The documents also suggest that Pakistan's spy agency actively supported those very same Taliban fighters. There are more than 80 references pointing to Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence - or ISI - helping to arm, train and fund the Taliban from 2004 to 2009.

The Current made requests to speak with Pakistan's official representatives in Canada, the US, and at the UN - none were made available for an interview. But we did air a clip with what Pakistan's Ambassador to the U.S. had to say to the BBC yesterday about the leaked documents.

Declan Walsh has been covering this story for the Guardian, one of three newspapers to get an advance look at the leaked documents. He is their Pakistan correspondent based in Islamabad, but we reached him this morning in London.

Wikileaks - Hamid Gul

If yesterday's bombshell leak has a villain, it's retired Pakistani Army General Hamid Gul - the former Head of the ISI. He was mentioned eight times in the documents -- including accusations that he ordered bombings in Kabul in 2006 and the kidnapping of UN officials in 2008. We reached Hamid Gul at his home in Rawalpindi.

Article: General Muhammad Abdullah Gul: AFGHANISTAN, PATHS TO PEACE

Wikileaks - Ahmed Rashid

For some perspective on the relationship between the ISI and the Taliban we reached Ahmed Rashid. The veteran Pakistani journalist is the author of several best-selling books about the Taliban, Pakistan, Afghanistan and the continuing conflict in the region. His most recent book is Descent into Chaos: The United States and the Failure of Nation Building in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia. Today Ahmed Rashid was in Madrid, Spain.

PART TWO

Meeting John (Repeat Documentary)

WARNING: This documentary deals with mature subject matter and may not be suitable for young listeners.

We're delving into the world of Johns ... men who buy sex. Stretching back to biblical times, a lot has been written and said about prostitutes. But there has been very little out there about their clients.

The CBC's Aziza Sindhu prepared a documentary called Meeting John. It looks at new research about men who pay for sex - and brings us into the home of one of them.

Meeting John first aired on The Current in January.

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