July 30, 2010

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Whole Show Blow-by-Blow

Today's guest host was Jim Brown.

It's Friday July 30th.

Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad inexplicably ripped into Paul the soccer predicting octopus for spreading superstition and western propaganda.

Currently, To combat Paul, Ahmadinejad unveiled Amoush, the holocaust denying, election-stealing, nuclear bomb building turtle.

This is the Current.

Pickton Appeal - Curt Petrovich (Updated Version)

We started this segment with a clip from relatives of some of the women Robert Pickton is convicted of killing. They were speaking in December 2007 -- right after he was found guilty on six charges of second-degree murder.

The six victims all disappeared from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, and their butchered remains were found on Pickton's Port Coquitlam pig farm. Pickton is now serving a life sentence. But he appealed his conviction, arguing he didn't get a fair trial. And today, the Supreme Court of Canada weighed in and said he will not get a new trial.

The Court's ruling means the Crown will not have to re-mount what was a complicated and difficult case. But it also means prosecutors will not try Pickton on another 20 murder counts for which he has never been held to account.

The CBC's Curt Petrovich has been following the Pickton case as a national news reporter for CBC Radio in Vancouver. And that's where we reached him.

Pickton Appeal - Janine Benedet

For a legal perspective on today's Supreme Court ruling in the Pickton case, we reached Janine Benedet. She's an associate professor in the Faculty of Law at the University of British Columbia. She was in Vancouver.

Pickton Appeal - Lilliane Beaudoin

With Robert Pickton's convictions upheld, many families of the victims are going to breathe a sigh of relief today. Cynthia Cardinal's sister Georgina Papin disappeared in March 1999. Her DNA was found on Pickton's farm, and Ms. Papin's case was one of the six for which Pickton was tried and convicted. We aired a clip from Cynthia Cardinal.

Other relatives feel differently. Lilliane Beaudoin's sister, Dianne Rock, was another of Robert Pickton's alleged victims. But Dianne's case was among the 20 left out of the original trial. Lilliane Beaudoin was at her home in Welland, Ontario.

PART TWO

Vitamin, Eh? (Repeat Documentary)

More than a billion people - 15 percent of the world's population - are undernourished. And more than a quarter of those people live in sub-Saharan Africa. But Canadian aid and research is contributing to an effort to try to change all of that. With a Super Potato.

A new variety of drought-resistant, Vitamin A-enriched sweet potato has been introduced in Uganda. And last year, freelance journalist Paul Webster went there to gauge its success . What he found is that the bio-fortified root holds a lot of promise - that is, if you can get the locals to eat it.

Vitamin, Eh? is a documentary by Paul Webster. It first aired on The Current in November.

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