CBC Radio: The Best of The Current Podcasts

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The Current is a meeting place of perspectives with a fresh take on issues that affect Canadians today. Primary Format : Public Broadcasting Language : Unknown Also Listed as: City : Unknown State/Province : Unknown User Tags: User Votes: RSS Feed Website People found this Podcast Searching for: View this Podcast on a Google Map. Podcast iTunes Link Text Only listing of CBC Radio: The Best of The Current Podcasts Methings.com listings of CBC Radio: The Best of The Current Podcasts If you like this podcast, you might also like:

21/12/11: Proposed changes to HIV disclosure law Modern medicine is presenting a challenge for the law over the issue of HIV-AIDS. Should you be charged with a criminal offence like murder for willfully spreading the HIV virus to an unknowing sex partner if the newest drugs have changed, a deadly disease into a chronic illness? Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 21/12/11: The real life story of the Tin Tin creator He is forever young, the teenage boy with that odd hair and his loyal dog off on another adventure that takes him around the world. Tin Tin is the anti-hero, the Belgian comic strip character that spawned 23 graphic novels and millions of fans over the last 70 years. But for all the pleasure he brought millions of children, Tin Tin's creator had a darker side. Herge - Georges Remi - found his greatest success publishing in Nazi-controlled, pro-German papers in occupied Belgium. And while Ti ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 21/12/11: Psychological profiles of world leaders The Family that Slays together, Stays together or so says the man who created the CIA branch that profiles so-called Rogue world leaders. As North Koreans mourn Kim Jong Il and analysts puzzle over Kim Jong-un, as Bashar Al Assad maintains his grip on power in Syria and Ahmadinejad confounds Iran-watchers, we're looking for insights into the psychological state of leaders who make the news for all the wrong reasons. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 20/12/11: Sorrow in Syria as human rights abuses still continue As the optimists and activists of so many middle eastern countries blossomed in an Arab Spring this year, the hopeful people of Syria have been locked in a perpetual winter by a dictator whose behaviour was and actually still is worse than most of the others but where geopolitics has and still does conspire to keep them frozen in a troubling time. Today, the day after President Assad agreed to the arrival of special observers, the day after more dissenters were gunned down, we're back on th ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 20/12/11: Environment Commissioner, Scott Vaughan on hazardous shipments There are stacks of rules and regulations designed to keep hazardous or dangerous goods from harming people as they are trucked, shipped or piped across the country. But Canada's top Environmental watchdog says the key federal departments responsible for keeping hazardous goods from being hazardous to us are failing to followup or even track high-risk violators. And that puts us all on a road to potential trouble. Scott Vaughn takes us through his findings. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 20/12/11: The high cost of workplace mental health Canada's oil-and-gas and mining industries are an economic bright spot, their output worth about 4-percent of the GDP. So picture that productivity - four percent of GDP - because that is also what Corporate Canada loses every year to mental illness. Former Federal Finance Minister Michael Wilson weighs in on the need for Bosses and Businesses to confront an illness that we can all see but still treat as invisible. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 19/12/11: Death of a North Korean dictator and a look at the future of First Nations in Canada With the death of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il, world leaders are watching closely for any signal from North Korea on its nuclear intentions. Also in this segment, Federal opposition leaders are critical of Prime Minister Stephen Harper demanding he travel to Attawapiskat to meet with people and see first hand the desperate conditions of the First Nations community. Instead, the P.M. is prepping for a different meeting with First Nations leaders in late January. Today, a few of those le ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 19/12/11: Meet a former paralympian who is now an able-bodied Olympic hopeful She was 13 when a simple operation went inexplicably wrong and she found herself unable to walk. But Monique Van de Vorst concentrated on what she could do becoming a paralympic athlete, excelling at handcycling. Still she was beset by random events that injured her further, she was hit by a car, then hit by a bike and then one day she experienced some feeling in her feet and 12 years after being paralyzed, she was re-learning to walk. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 19/12/11: CIA drone attacks and the explosive rift between U.S. and Pakistan The already hostile friendship between the U.S. and Pakistan is getting more uncomfortable. Tens-of-thousands of Islamists rallied in Peshawar and Lehore yesterday condemning the United States and denouncing a NATO attack. All this as Pakistanis along the Afghan border insist dozens of U.S. drone attacks this year killed civilians, not just combatants as the U.S. insists. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 16/12/11: Are we heading towards a Russian revolution? What's happening in Russia these days? On the heels of a controversial election, has Vladimir Putin reached his best-before date? Or is that just the chatter from the disgruntled and the West? We look into the state of Mother Russia. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 16/12/11: The "financialization" of the world: Satyajit Das Also, are you feeling the burden of debt? Silly question. Who isn't? Personal indebtedness has never been higher in Canada. And as far as governments go - it's even worse. From this country to the U.S. to pretty much all of Europe and beyond, the debt burden in this world is colossal. It nearly wrecked the financial system in 2008. And it could again according to the author of "Extreme Money", Satyajit Das. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 16/12/11: Treating arthritis with medical marijuana For ten years, it's been possible to get a prescription for pot.Canada was the first country to create a system for doling out marijuana as medicine for people with certain serious illnesses. And in the past few years, a curious thing has happened. The number of pot prescriptions written to help people with arthritis has skyrocketed. And it's probably not because there's suddenly a lot more people with arthritis. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 15/12/11: Ontario Anti-Bullying Legislation Stories of teens taking their own lives after being bullied and often after being taunted for being gay have dominated the headlines across the country for several months. Ontario's answer to that is new anti-bullying legislation. But critics say the new law isn't about bullying at all, it is a deliberate swipe at religious values. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 15/12/11: No more internal e-mail for Atos, an IT firm It began as simple time saver. No more stamps, no more phone calls when a quick e-mail would suffice. It changed the game in office communications. But for all the ease ... writing, reading, answering and culling e-mails can take up to five hours a week of valuable office time and all that information - too much information is estimated to cost US corporations a trillion dollars a year. Our project Game Changer follows a communications technology company ready to delete e-mail. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 15/12/11: Mail: Stem Cell Research/Ethical Oil/Poverty Also today, we read some of your letters on Canadian stem cell research, Canadian oil and poverty in Canada. And we are still tracking those two east coast ferries now being scavenged on India's ship breaking coast. Marine Atlantic says it put the sale of the ships out to tender. But a the longtime owner of a Canadian brokerage says neither he, nor a dozen or so of his competitors had any idea. He says it is time for the auditor general to start asking questions. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 14/12/11: Sayonara Kyoto Accord Well he did it. Peter Kent killed Canada's Kyoto commitment and his critics say that's catastrophic. The Conservatives never hid their dislike for the deal. And they insist they are still moving ahead on emissions reductions. Today, we hear from Environment Minister Peter Kent. But we also hear from those critics. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 14/12/11: Prison Libraries: The Prose of Cons Ask Jean Charbonneau what those who come to his library ask to read and he'll tell you True Crime is the most popular. His readers are prisoners but the fact that they're reading at all is proof to him that his work matters. In a world behind bars, the best escape was in a book. We follow Jean Charbonneau into that world. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 14/12/11: Hydrofluorocarbons and Climate Change Remember how we all stopped using CFC's in fridges, in hairspray, all because of the hole in the Ozone layer? We replaced CFCs with HFCs and the hole did get smaller but now we know HFCs are even worse for the atmosphere. Our project, Game Changer looks at the chemistry that caused another conundrum as we explore tales of Earnest Environmental Efforts .. gone wrong Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 13/12/11: Bank of Canada Governor, Mark Carney Russia's retreating, Europe's regrouping, the U.S. is reverberating and Canada ... well the Governor of the Bank of Canada suggests we would do well to start re-focusing. In the midst of global economic uncertainty, Mark Carney sees opportunity for those Canadians willing to put aside their fears and take a chance. He's urging Canadian businesses to think outside the continent. Today, we ask for his assessment. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 13/12/11: Canadian citizenship denied due to breast cancer On the surface, hers is the kind of application government officials look for: Young, educated, skilled and upwardly mobile, fluent in English, adapting well and anxious to be part of the Canadian community. And for a while it seemed Fatemah Kamkar would, indeed, be welcome here as a Permanent Resident from Iran. But in the years it took between her application and the govt's decision she was diagnosed with breast cancer. And suddenly nothing else matters to Ottawa: She is not welcome. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 13/12/11: Muslim leaders speak out against honour killings Dozens of Imams turned their sermons to the subject of honour killings a few days ago, all in response to the disturbing details of the Shafia trial coming out of Kingston Ontario where a father, mother and son stand accused in the murders of three teenage daughters and a wife. Some worry that the wider Muslim community has nothing to apologize for, others say it is time to confront the issue behind this. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 12/12/11: Occupying foreclosure homes This past weekend saw the end of the some of the most persistent of the Occupy Protests as demonstrators in Calgary removed their tents Friday and as police in Boston arrested those refusing to move Saturday morning. But even before they were gone the Occupy Movement in the U.S. had found new space re-positioning itself in the living rooms of homeowners facing foreclosure. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 12/12/11: Gay ban in Russia Tens-of-thousands took to the streets this weekend, angry over what they say is election fraud and fed up with Vladimir Putin's presumption of power. But despite the call for greater rights and democracy, there is one group that fears its rights will be trounced. Legislation proposed by Putin’s party will outlaw what it calls “gay propaganda” aimed at youth Gay-rights activists, fear it is a thinly-veiled attempt to prosecute and persecute them in a nation already unapologetically hom ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 12/12/11: Humanoid robots and other innovations of the MIT Media Lab They developed The Kindle, Guitar Hero and the little robot vacuum cleaner that scuttles along the floor. But they've also created the exo-skeleton robots you can hug and cars that can fold up. Today we bring you the story of MITs Media Lab where very smart people are given the space to play and come up with fantastic off-the-wall ideas for new technology.The only catch ... once they Dream It, they have to Build It. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 09/12/11: China and Climate Change Canada hasn't made much of an impression at the climate change talks in South Africa - certainly not a positive one. But China sure has. Yes, it is the global bad boy - biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, a colossal number of coal plants, and more being built. But this week it's also showing off its world leading investments in wind and solar power that pale in comparison to any Western country. It's a complex picture of the middle kingdom and we dive into it. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 09/12/11: Icelandic economists fight for Canadian currency It seems the world needs more Canada. Well, at least Iceland does. There's a growing push in Iceland to make the Loonie the official currency there. The country is desperate for a stable currency, following its banking collapse and ongoing economic problems. Our dollar - and our banking system - look pretty good to the Icelanders these days. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 09/12/11: Man Seeks God: Eric Weiner Have you found your God yet? That question was asked of Eric Weiner one day when he was in the hospital, and thought he might die. Well, he didn't die but the question haunted him, because the answer, essentially, was No. So he went on a journey, crisscrossing the globe, looking for the religion that's right for him. The book he wrote about it is called "Man Seeks God: My Flirtations With the Divine". Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 08/12/11: The 10 percent have their say: Part One Poet Lorna Crozier and Rob Rainer, the Executive Director of Canada Without Poverty joined Anna Maria in studio to share some response from our Friday special that prompted this call-in. And meet filmmaker Nance Ackerman, her documentary Four Feet Up, looks at child poverty through the eyes of one child, 8 year-old Isaiah from Nova Scotia. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 08/12/11: The 10 percent have their say: Phone Calls Pt 2 (Atlantic Time Zone) We continued our call-in to address the reality of poverty in Canada by dedicating the rest of our program to the experiences shared by many Canadians who are poor, surviving with little and living at/or below the poverty line. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 08/12/11: The 10 percent have their say: Phone Calls Pt 1 (Atlantic Time Zone) We opened the phone lines for a special phone-in edition for the remaining hour of our program. We're asking: what's it like being poor in Canada? Poet Lorna Crozier and Rob Rainer, Executive Director of Canada Without Poverty joined Anna Maria in studio to help field your calls. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 07/12/11: Parental Abduction The statistics appear to show abductions-by-parents account for more at least a third of all cases of missing children in Canada. And sometimes as in the case that hit the headlines this week, the search can drag on for years. Today, we look at the fallout, the ripple-effect and the emotion that lingers. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 07/12/11: Niall Ferguson: The West and the Rest If you haven't yet caught the symbolism of Rome, Athens and Washington being in financial freefall then look East ... far East, where after 5 centuries of humbling stagnation China is innovative and creative in ways the West used to be. And no .. 140 characters is not true innovation. For an historian, it is the way-of-the-world. For the rest-of-us .. This is ominous. Does it have to be? Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 07/12/11: Chevron oil spills in Latin America Also today, our project Game Changer is tracking the political and judicial treatment of big oil in Latin America. From an oil spill off the coast of Brazil to a multi Billion dollar judgement in Ecuador, each involving Chevron and each sending a message about environmental culpability. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 06/12/11: Russia votes and Vladimir Putin is on the decline It was not so long ago, Russians were so enamoured with Vladimir Putin that the top song was one for the women: "I Want a Man Like Putin" ... and he lapped it up, appearing in increasingly macho settings. Now twelve years on, Russians may be tiring of Mr. Putin. Though his United Russia party just won about 50-percent of the votes, it lost 77 seats in yesterday's election and the music may stop for Vladimir Putin. Today, we're asking what this means to Russia's future. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 06/12/11: Ethical Oil As our Environment Minister prepares to make the Ethical Oil argument at a climate change conference hostile to Alberta's Oilsands, we're asking about the concept of labeling oil ... Ethical. Are you supporting the oppression of women in Saudi Arabia if you tar Alberta's oilsands? Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 06/12/11: The story of two Canadian scientists who discovered stem cells It was one of those Sundays, where one scientist was spelling off the other, checking the lab mice in a project that was all about using radiation for cancer treatment. So imagine their surprise when the two scientists realized what was really happening to those mice. They were growing stem cells. The year was 1960. The scientists were right here in Canada. Today, the story of James Till and Ernest McCulloch, two of Canada's most accomplished and least heralded scientists. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 05/12/11: Aboriginal Housing Crisis Today, our project Game Changer is going back to look at First Nation communities and to ask why wasn't each a Game Changer for itself and for the next community? Today, we bring you voices from communities still struggling with housing, from one community that's overcome most challenges and from two big thinkers on this issues, each with Aboriginal ancestry but with differing views on how to proceed. (41 min) Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 05/12/11: Sybil Exposed They called her Sybil. Hers was a narrative that changed modern psychiatry, a young woman, her childhood riddled with such abuse that her mind fragmented, shattered into 16 different personalities. Her story would sell millions of books and inspire a gripping film. After Sybil's struggles became public, Multiple Personality Disorder went from being a rare psychiatric condition to a diagnosis for tens-of-thousands of patients. Except the story of Sybil was One Big Lie. We explore the real st ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 02/12/11: Personal stories on being poor in Canada We started our special Editon of The Current hosted by poet Lorna Crozier on Poverty in Canada, with personal stories from Canadians who live in poverty. There are those who have always been poor, others who are new to being poor and still more who are poor by mistake. Today, we introduce you to three people: Laura in Hamilton, Brian in Edmonton and Mavis on Vancouver Island who share their personal stories on what it is like being poor in Canada. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 02/12/11: Child Poverty Twenty years ago Canadian politicians pledged to eradicate child poverty, but today an abysmal one in ten kids in this country is growing up poor. We look at the consequences of that poverty and what needs to be done. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 02/12/11: Paying more being poor We also take a look at the higher costs low-income people pay for a range of day-to-day expenses. Many low-income Canadians end up paying the most .... everything from groceries to banking, and those higher costs make it even harder to escape poverty. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 01/12/11: Transit workers assaulted on the job She's been threatened with rape. He's got mild to moderate brain damage. And yet another one of them can't shake the beating that left him lying on the floor. They are all transit drivers in different Canadian cities. And they are facing a seemingly increasingly aggressive group of passengers who often don't play fair or pay the fare. With a 21-year old rider now waiting to be sentenced for his assault on a Vancouver bus driver, we're asking about the intersection of angry customers and sit ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 01/12/11: Rehabilitation of dangerous offenders You've heard the news stories many times as someone with a history of dangerous sexual offences leaves prison and eventually tries to settle in someone's neighbourhood. The fear is that they will re-offend, that they cannot be rehabilitated. Today, we hear from an Ottawa-based psychiatrist whose years of work has focused on treating such offenders with drugs that dull the very arousal that triggers their violence. He believes many of those criminals who want to be treated can get to a point ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 01/12/11: Lorna Crozier on Poverty and Listener Mail She grew up knowing she was poor and even today a successful professor, poet and author, Lorna Crozier is affected by the poverty she faced all those years ago. As she prepares, a special Friday edition of The Current on the 10-percent, those often-invisible but desperately poor Canadians, Lorna Crozier talks about life on the margins. Plus we'll have some time to share some of our listener's thoughts on the stories we've covered in our mail bag. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 30/11/11: Harperized: Rebranding the federal government Documents revealed by Canadian Press talk of news releases that are "Harperized" with bureaucrats expressing what they call "mild distress" at what they have been "instructed" to do. And now seasoned journalists on Parliament Hill are questioning the politicization of the public service. Today, the argument and the push-back, Jennifer Ditchburn, Lawrence Martin and Conservative MP Deal Del Mastro speak to the issue. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 30/11/11: First Ladies of the RCMP - The history of women in the force The RCMP was one of the last major police forces in the world to admit women to its ranks in 1974. It took another 16 years for them to get the same Red Serge uniform that is so symbolic of RCMP pride. CBC Producer, Yvonne Gall brings us the story of the first generation of women to change the game in policing in the RCMP. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 30/11/11: The risks of Planet Hacking It used to be dismissed as irresponsible science but Planet Hacking is getting a lot more attention these days. Geoengineering, altering the atmosphere to control climate change may not only Change the Game, in the wrong hands it could End the Game and that's why even those who like it think the only way forward is with Caution. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 29/11/11: Looking for answers in Attawapiskat You've likely seen the pictures by now, kids with rashes on their faces, homes with outside walls of weathered, graying particle board, no running water or electricity and a stove made out of an oil drum. And yet even as the Red Cross heads to this northern Ontario reserve the story of the money Attawapiskat needs to survive is confusing. Ottawa says they get millions, the Chief says they need millions. Others say the bureaucratic hurdles that confront First Nations hobbles their efforts to ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 29/11/11: Marine Atlantic and the ship breaking yards of India He's got a state-of-the-art, environmentally first rate business and he had a plan to create 40 jobs in Cape Breton. But the decommissioned ferries Wayne Elliot wanted to buy and recycle were sold for millions more than he could even offer by the Canadian Crown corporation Marine Atlantic. They've since ended up at the ship-breaking beach at Alang India, a place notorious for injuries and industrial degradation that is supposed to be hands-off for all countries that have signed a deal calle ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 29/11/11: Steven Pinker on why violence is declining There was a time when life for the majority, was nasty, brutish and short. But these days, it is pacified, prolonged and even pensioned. Fully 15-percent of all prehistoric humans died a violent death. These days despite it all, fewer than 3-percent of people do. Author Stephen Pinker has gone back ... way back to crunch the numbers. He says we inhabit an increasingly less violent world. He explains "The Better Angels of Our Nature". Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 28/11/11: Egypt's volatile vote Voting day has begun with juxtaposed images in Egypt. There are long lines in some areas and predictions of a high voter turnout while others continue to protest and call for a boycott. We take you to Egypt today, to get the views of the Muslim Brotherhood, the boycotters and a man who says he belongs to the Silent Majority, tired of protests, anxious for change. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 28/11/11: UN climate conference process in Durban The tug of war is about to begin anew in Durban South Africa where politicians, diplomats, advisors and scientists are gathered for a new round of climate change talks. And as they begin, a Canadian investigative journalist poking around behind the scenes argues that our country and other western nations still think they can beat the science. He calls that failed politics. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 28/11/11: Investigating Quebec's construction industry After three years of breaking news reports that outlined explosive details about collusion and corruption in Quebec's construction industry, the Charbonneau Commission will begin an inquiry. This is a story of government officials union bosses, company bosses and organized crime. And it began when a 27 year old freelance journalist teamed up with a seasoned investigative reporter at Radio-Canada. Today, Marie-Maude Denis and Alain Gravel take us through the story of the sleuthing and the so ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 25/11/11: Regulate Marijuana? Four former Vancouver mayors say we must move from a violent unregulated marijuana market to a strictly regulated cannabis market that is based on a public health framework because it will help stop gang violence. But some critics feel this latest move to push for the legalization of marijuana is poorly thought out and has no facts to support it. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 25/11/11: After the DRC election ballots are counted People in the Democratic Republic of Congo will choose a new government on Monday and many are dreading what will happen after the votes are cast. With 18-thousand candidates to choose from, few believe peace will break out once the ballots are counted. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 25/11/11: The Weasel, Marvin Elkind shares his story in A Double Life in The Mob Marvin Elkind aka The Weasel was a low-level mob functionary, a loan collector, a boxer and a long-time police informant. He was also Jimmy Hoffa's driver. It's a remarkable life, perhaps most remarkable for the fact that Elkind has somehow managed to survive it. Elkind's life story is the subject of a new book by National Post reporter Adrian Humphreys. We speak to both of them today. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 24/11/11: Mohammed Abdelfattah on Egypt's Future The images and the news out of Egypt seems dire now as the country's so-called revolution moves into another day of uncertainty, all of it documented, tracked and offered to the world by a battery of Egyptian journalists empowered by change even as they continue to risk arrest, beatings and imprisonment. Among them is a 24 year old man, two years into his own journalistic career whose story back in June of 2010 - six months before Tahrir Square helped to galvanize a nation. Mohammed Abdelfa ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 24/11/11: Mail: Letters: polygamy, mammograms and access to running water on reserves This is Thursday and our mail includes opinions on polygamy, no running water on reserves in Manitoba and Canada's new guidelines on how often women should get mammograms has not impressed many of our listeners. We read your letters. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 24/11/11: Oil and Gas Drilling in the Gulf of St. Lawrence They call it Old Harry, an oil and gas deposit off the shores of Quebec's Magdalen Islands in waters shared by more than one province. Old Harry could contain a few billion barrels of oil and oil companies want to start exploratory drilling. But while the waters of the Gulf of St. Lawrence hide oil riches, they also nurture a vast array of marine life, churn with unexpected and unpredictable currents and lap up onto shores inhabited by a Hollywood actor, Ethan Hawke. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 23/11/11: The Day to End Impunity: Honduran Journalists Over four years in Honduras, 23 journalists have been killed. Others face detention, censorship and intimidation. Journalists in Honduras criticize a culture of impunity in the government of Porfirio Lobo, the newly-elected president who has just cut a free trade deal with Canada. Critics say Canada should be using its clout to force the Honduran government to confront such killings and other human rights violations. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 23/11/11: New Breast Cancer Screening Guidelines For years women around the globe have been told breast cancer screening is essential for early diagnosis and life-saving treatment. So what are we to make of a new study saying women under 50 with an average risk of breast cancer don't need mammograms, that screening can lead to needless procedures and false positives? Some doctors welcome this new information, others aren't convinced. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 23/11/11: Robert Decker: Sole survivor of the 2009 Cougar helicopter crash They wrote their first letter to the minister of Transport back in February. They were the families of 17 people killed in a helicopter crash off Newfoundland back in 2009. The families of the dead and the sole survivor Robert Decker had nagging questions about the safety of choppers still flying. There was no answer. Four months later in June, they wrote again to the minister. Still .. no answer. And so when they sent the third letter this month, Robert Decker decided he had to speak up. H ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 22/11/11: Democracy and the Egyptian military council The pictures coming out of Cairo and seven other Egyptian cities depict a frenzy and an anger over a revolution sidetracked as the ruling military council stumbles in what was supposed to be a transition to democracy. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 22/11/11: Whistleblowers go public on the threat of bovine growth hormones In the late 80s and through the nineties, three veterinarians with Health Canada were growing increasingly uncomfortable as they investigated bovine growth hormones to determine whether to approve their use. There was pressure from the manufacturers and from their bosses. And when they went public with concerns over safety and human health, they were eventually fired for insubordination. Fifteen years on , one is back at work and two cannot be reinstated. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 22/11/11: Covering the Afghan War: Murray Brewster In every war there are always two fronts with the soldiers on the front lines and the politicians in the backrooms. Separated by geography and complicated by security. Few journalists can keep track of both sides of that fight. Today we bring you the perspective of a reporter who did. Murray Brewster argues that Canada's war in Afghanistan over the last decade was at times a two-pronged assault, one on the Taliban, another on public opinion back home. He shares his perspective on the polit ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 21/11/11: Syrian National Council as legitimate govt From Egypt to Syria, people demanding political change were back on the streets this weekend. But if Egyptians are feeling the sting of a promising revolution stalled, Syrians are in the thick of a revolution not yet enabled. With President Assad seemingly resistant to even the criticism of other Arab leaders, Syrians here were on the streets hoping for help from Canada. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 21/11/11: No Running water on Manitoba reserves We've all seen the pictures, people without drinking water making the trek to the community pipe or the local lake, their water kept in a pail. Now take that image and look again because the people with the buckets live on First Nations reserves in Manitoba. There are 18-hundred homes on reserves in Canada without clean water and the community with the most desperate shortage is in Manitoba. We hear from a woman who says governments could solve this in 5 years. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 21/11/11: Mississippi Reconciliation - Cold Case Murder Investigative filmmaker David Ridgen is back with an extraordinary story of redemption and forgiveness that began with the violence of the Ku Klux Klan back in the 60s in the deep US South. The story of what happens when the brother of a dead man meets the man who admitted to torturing and kidnaping the victim. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 18/11/11: Has Syria descended into Civil War? The Syrian president's regime has never been so isolated. Damascus has long been condemned by countries outside the Middle East, but now the League of Arab States has suspended Syria for its violent crackdown on dissent. Economic sanctions are threatened. For the moment, Syria ignores the outside pressure, but it can hardly ignore what's happening internally. We head to Syria today for the latest on the situation there. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 18/11/11: Georges Laraque: NHL's Unlikeliest Tough Guy Former NHL forward Georges Laraque loved the game of hockey. But he rarely got to play because he was expected to rough it up on the ice. An unlikely tough guy looks back on his years as an enforcer. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 18/11/11: Legalizing the rhino tusk trade in South Africa If you ever come across a rhinoceros stamping its feet, lowering its head and snorting, you could be in big trouble. But don't worry, there's almost no danger. Your chances of ever coming across a rhino are small and getting a lot smaller. We hear what's being done to keep the last few stragglers alive. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 17/11/11: The right to protest and occupy space The Occupy movement is going from the parks to the courts, As activists in Canada and the United States argue that Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Assembly provisions in both countries give them the right to stay where they are. Today, with deadlines looming we're asking questions about the right to use public space, the right to protest, to be disruptive. And does the Occupy Movement have to Occupy Something to sustain itself ? Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 17/11/11: Govt surveillance of native youth advocate Cindy Blackstock Why is the govt spying on Cindy Blackstock? Cindy Blackstock is an advocate for First Nations children and youth. She has an email trail that shows bureaucrats from the Department of Aboriginal Affairs are tailing her, showing up at more than 70 speeches and appearances, taking notes, following her Facebook page and sharing what they find with their Dept and the Dept of Justice. She calls the surveillance, chilling and politically motivated. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 17/11/11: Mail: Forced Sterilization, Assisted Suicide, Report Cards Earlier this week, we brought you the story of Leilani Muir, a victim of Alberta's former decades-long Eugenics program. Today we'll hear more about the institution where she was forced to live. Plus, euthanasia and yelling at students are on the minds of our listeners this week. And, our listeners share a few of the moments that changed their lives forever as part of our project, game changer. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 16/11/11: The intersection of govt, art and politics Fanke James creates irreverent even whimsical art with a message about the environment, oil sands and climate change but when a federal bureaucrat accused her of creating a Fantasy, she filed an Access to Information request and discovered an email trail indicating officials at the Foreign Affairs Dept don't seem to like her art and pulled funding because her work isn't consistent with government interests. She says that opinion ended plans for a European art tour. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 16/11/11: RCMP sexual harassment allegations A new man is about the take the job of Canada's top cop but the promotion for the next Commissioner of the RCMP comes amidst ongoing allegations of sexual harassment and allegations that complaints over the abuse went no where. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 16/11/11: University of Calgary vs. Free Speech Back in November of 2007, a group of students at the University of Calgary offered their comments on a Facebook page set up to complain about the competence of a professor. That incident has evolved into an ongoing court fight over freedom of speech and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. At issue .. Should the university be forced to comply with the Charter? The University says No. The implications are far-reaching. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 15/11/11: Arab League's suspension of Syria's membership For decades the Arab League has operated as a "Dictators Protection Society" to quote one pundit. Now it is ready to boot Syria out of its exclusive club. The King of Jordan is speaking out and Saudi Arabia may be pulling strings. All of which begs the question … With the uprisings across the middle east, is the Arab League changing with the times? Or is it a hypocritical bunch desperate to hang on to what power is left? Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 15/11/11: Assisted suicide returns to Canadian courts Her case began in BC's Supreme Court this week but Gloria Taylor suffering from ALS has already taken her fight public. She has spoken at length on this program. Now in a Vancouver courtroom, those arguing against the decriminalization of assisted suicide are waiting to make their case. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 15/11/11: The drain on Herman Cain You can be forgiven if you think U.S. Republican politics is a bit like a ferris wheel - one candidate's up, then they're down. From Michelle Bachmann to Rick Perry to Newt Gingrich ... what seems like an anybody-but-Mitt Romney mentality persists. Which brings us to Herman Cain. Right-wing, African-American, very blunt, prone to blunders and not a day of elected political experience on his record. So what does the Cain candidacy tell us about U.S. politics? Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 14/11/11: Leilani Muir successfully sues Alberta govt for wrongful sterilization She was little girl unloved and unsuspecting when her parents drove her up the hill in Red Deer Alberta. It was a moment that would forever change Leilani Muir's life, abandoned to people zealously experimenting with Eugenics. What they would do to her would result in anguish and eventually lawsuits . Today, Leilani Muir, now in her 60s is ready to tell her story. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 14/11/11: Game Changing moments from our listeners Our season-long look at Game Changers examines those moments that changed ordinary lives in ways no one could anticipate. We asked for your stories. You answered. And today we've got the first of them. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 14/11/11: Whither Report Cards The report card is loved, loathed, anticipated or dreaded. And in BC public schools it is a bargaining chip. Teachers waiting for a contract say they won't fill them out. The students are divided. With a Labour Relations deadline looming some say its time to scrap all Report Cards. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 11/11/11: Is the Keystone Pipeline project in trouble? Proponents of the Keystone XL pipeline say the future of the project is in doubt because the State department has delayed an approval decision by changing the route. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 11/11/11: Canada's soldiers share their stories to remember Today we commemorate Remembrance Day, with some astonishing stories of survival and some heartbreaking stories of sacrifice. It's been 93 years since the end of the War to end all Wars. And at least we've learned that war keeps no promises. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 11/11/11: UBC's Veterans Transition program helping Veterans with trauma The best way to remember Canada's veterans may be just not to forget them. We hear what's being done to help combat veterans leave combat behind them. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 10/11/11: Attacking Iran Scenarios: Sam Gardiner Today, we wanted to run through a variety of real-world scenarios triggered by the very real possibility that Iran is developing nuclear weapons capabilities. Sam Gardiner, a Retired US Air Force Colonel has taught strategy at the US National War College, he walks us through military options and possible outcomes. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 10/11/11: Mail: Occupy Eviction, Co-ops, 75 yrs of CBC Occupy or vacate? Meat or vegetables? Our listeners weigh in on the stories of the week with letters that include a newsroom- wartime romance. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 10/11/11: Doctor treats patients with illegal plant Meet a Vancouver doctor says a plant from the jungles of Peru can help some of his addict patients. But Health Canada says he can't use it in his practice in Canada because it's illegal. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 09/11/11: Berlusconi and Italy's deteriorating economy Italy's prime minister Silvio Berlusconi told his country yesterday he will be leaving office. The news came after Berlusconi won yet another vote in parliament. But with so many abstentions, it was clear his majority was gone. We also examine the financial concerns in Italy that finally brought him down. And the effect Italy's bottom-line could have on the Eurozone. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 09/11/11: Tough on crime bill is tough on budgets How much is Ottawa's tough-on-crime legislation going to cost? And who's going to pay? Some provincial premiers resent the extra costs associated with Ottawa's new crime bill, we get a provincial perspective. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 09/11/11: Access to abortions in PEI Women in Prince Edward Island who want to terminate their pregnancy have to go somewhere else to do it. There is no abortion service on the island, and the government has no plans for change. But a group of women in Prince Edward Island are lobbying for access to abortion. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 08/11/11: Time to strike tents on the occupy movement? It seems the Occupy movement is at a crossroads. Critics are calling for their cities to start evicting the occupiers. Supporters are coming up with ideas to take the movement to the next level. Today, we take a look at what's been achieved and what might come next. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 08/11/11: Free sperm exchange on the internet Some people in need of sperm are turning to websites that facilitate the free exchange of sperm but, Health Canada is warning Canadians not to get sperm in this manner. They are sending warnings to the people who run these websites because the semen has not been screened and could pass on disease. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 08/11/11: Changing the face of Schizophrenia Keris Myrick hears voices no one else can hear. She learned to ignore them. She also learned to ignore the voices of mental health experts telling her not to expect much from life. As the CEO of a company, she's one of many people challenging society's perceptions of the mentally ill. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 07/11/11: COUNTERfit In September, the Supreme Court of Canada decided that Insite - the supervised safe injection program in Vancouver - should be allowed to continue operating. Health and social workers say the program helps reduce the spread of disease among intravenous drug users by providing them with clean needles, and a safe place to inject. And now, many are pushing for the creation of more safe injection sites. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 07/11/11: Eurozone Crisis Greeks who don't like the sounds coming out of Brussels might take a tip from the men who sailed with Ulysses -- stick wax in their ears. Some ancient themes resurface as the Eurozone crisis unravels. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 07/11/11: The Origin of AIDS: Jacques Pepin Right around the same time that women won the right to vote in this country, a health crisis began that continues to infect and kill. Today, we speak with a researcher who believes he's traced the very first human to be infected with the AIDS virus. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 04/11/11: Economy Crisis in Greece The English lexicon is full of words derived from classical Greek ... dilemma, toxic, tragedy and apocalypse. These are just some words that best describes the situation facing Greece today. As the country's economy teeters on the edge, and its citizens and political system face major upheavals, we check in with two guests in Greece to try to get a handle on the mood and the direction of the country. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 04/11/11: Co-Operatives The Occupy protesters are often clear what they oppose - but not what they propose. We look at one suggestion some people see as an alternative to corporations, a fairer way to run a business. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 04/11/11: Art Collector: Michael Audain The Occupy Vancouver protesters are camped outside the city's art gallery because it's a nice, central green space. A Vancouver art collector, Michael Audain believes Canadians should care more about the arts and opens his vast collection to public view. He says keeping his collection of rare and valuable BC art to himself would be selfish. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 03/11/11: A Season in Hell: Robert Fowler Robert Fowler was no ordinary hostage, a career diplomat, former advisor to Prime Ministers ... a man who spent a lifetime as a political and geo-strategic analyst. His days in captivity allowed him to observe one of the world's most formidable terrorist organizations up close. Today we hear from Robert Fowler on what he experienced, what he learned and who might have set him up. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 03/11/11: Trusting Democracy The Greek PM wants to take an austerity plan to the people in a referendum. This morning, his top cabinet ministers are fighting him. The Europeans are incredulous. G20 members are impatient. So .. what is the role of Democracy when the going gets tough? Does so-called direct democracy empower governments or enfeeble them ? Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 03/11/11: Mail: Naser Al-Raas, Peter Kent, Rick Mercer It's mail day. Today we're revisiting several topics from the week gone by from a Canadian citizen facing Bahrain prison time ...to Peter Kent's Environmental plan for Canada ... to Rick Mercer's plea for youths at risk. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 02/11/11: War Reporting and Saturday Afternoon at the Opera We started our radio tour celebrating 75 years of CBC Radio with reporter David Halton for his insight on the war years and how those years helped define the network, along with his dad Matthew Halton's war reporting. And Howard Dyck was the host of Saturday Afternoon at the Opera from 1987-2007. He tells us about the longest running program in Canada and why Opera has endured the way it has on Canadian airwaves. * pls note this podcast has been edited due to rights issues * Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 02/11/11: Radio Free Friday, AIH, Sunday Morning Doug Ward was involved in CBC's Radio Revolution, he was with the program Radio Free Friday's and he shares his story on how he hired a young Peter Gzowski. Mary Lou Finlay, host of As It Happens from 1998 to 2005 shared some stories from her time at AIH and how the program shaped CBC Radio. And Bronwyn Drainie, the original host of CBC's Sunday Morning tells us why Sunday Morning was groundbreaking in the area of Current Affairs. * pls note this podcast has been edited due to rights issues ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 02/11/11: Air Farce, Morningside, The Current As part of our radio tour looking back on CBC's 75th anniversary, Don Ferguson, an original cast member of the Royal Canadian Air Farce, reflects about his time at Air Farce and what comedy and variety shows did for CBC Radio. And Gloria Bishop was the Executive producer of Morningside for seven seasons, she joined us to talk about her days at Morningside and why the program had the longevity it did - lasting over fifteen years. We also hear from editor in chief of CBC News, Jennifer McGuir ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 01/11/11: Naser Al-Raas and Zainab Ahmed He has a Canadian passport. He can't get his hands on it. He is stuck in a country not his own with an order to turn himself in in the coming days. A move he fears will lead to almost certain torture. Officials in Bahrain intend to jail Nasser Al-Rass's for five years. All because they say he was at a demonstration. Today we're looking at the dark side of the Arab Spring in a country with leaders still wooed by the West. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 01/11/11: Craig Oliver His is a classic tale of the hardscrabble childhood and the chance offer to try a job. In Craig Oliver's case, it was a radio job, a tiny CBC affiliate that set him on the path that would make him one of Canada's pre-eminent broadcast journalists. From Diefenbaker right through to Harper he's covered 10 prime ministers and the rough and tumble politics that has shaped this country for more than five decades. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 01/11/11: Moustache Revival We contemplate the Moustache today, scruffy or wise, radical or reserved, employable or not. A hairy lip can mean different things in different times. As Movember begins, we're plucking at facial hair through the ages. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 31/10/11: Zombie Culture The obsession with Zombies and other undead extends beyond this particular Hallowe'en. The U.S. Zombie Research Society claims the membership of 60-thousand academics and zombie enthusiasts, a level of interest that some believe speaks to the wider social and political concerns confronting our society. Today .. we're asking what Zombie love really tells us. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 31/10/11: Thailand Flood The flood waters of Thailand are diluting economic expectations and distilling political frustrations. Three weeks of rising waters, laden with everything from snakes to toxins have closed 100s of factories and endangered more than a million people as a new Prime Minister tries to navigate the political channels of this ongoing natural disaster. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 31/10/11: Just My Type: A Book About Fonts We all have a type, be it Helvetica, Arial or Times New Roman. Some people care about fonts more than others however, and we hear how some typefaces are literally fighting words. Also, at the very end of our program, The Voice connects the day that symbolically marks the 7 billionth birth with our Zombie talk on Hallowe'en. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 28/10/11: The Story of Marnie Frey There has been some remarkable testimony earlier this week at the inquiry in Vancouver that's looking into the police handling of the Robert Pickton case. The step-mother of one of Picton's victims testified that she had essentially put all the pieces of the case together about three years before Pickton was arrested. And she did it largely by talking to prostitutes in Vancouver's downtown east side. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 28/10/11: Sino-Forest How did the company, Sino-Forest, that was once the biggest forestry company on the Toronto Stock Exchange get that way? One illiterate Chinese farmer at a time. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 28/10/11: Paul Martin on Natural Capital Former Prime Minister Paul Martin tells us about a concept called natural capital, an idea that would see our water, forests and other resources put on the country's balance sheets. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 27/10/11: Rick Mercer on Bullying Gay Teens You may think of him as one of the funniest men in Canada. He rants, rushing by all the graffiti while you snicker. He trips along as a hapless adventurer while you guffaw. He leads unwittingly-compliant politicians into wonderfully hilarious moments that even they can't deny. But for all the laughter, the satire, the mischievous moments ... Rick Mercer is deadly serious when it comes to the victimization of young people bullied - often to death - for their sexual orientation. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 27/10/11: Peter Kent: The Cost of Climate Change In these tough economic times as Europe struggles and the U.S. fights a partisan fight over its money, numbers released this fall show Canada's economy could take a multi-billion dollar hit if it doesn't work faster to fight climate change. The federally appointed National Roundtable on the Economy says by the end of this decade, the effects of climate change will cost this country's economy $5 Billion dollars a year. Today, the Federal Environment Minister Peter Kent joins us to talk about ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 27/10/11: Mail: John Carlos, Milk and Good Samaritans And it's mail day today. We revisit everything from black power, white milk and disputing the courage of the Good Samaritan. We share some of your thoughts on our stories of the week. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 26/10/11: Evicting the Occupiers They've got kitchens, medic stations, resource libraries, porta-potties and tents covered with tarps. All of which suggests the Occupy protesters across this country are settling in. And that's leaving others … unsettled. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 26/10/11: After the Storm: Documentary Right now across this country as the weak October light comes through the window, someone who you don't know or someone you know all too well is beginning another day helping the person they love through the day. Thousands of Canadians experience stroke. And their families experience it right along with them. Today, we share the story of Joe. He was 51 when he had a stroke and Shirley the woman who loves him who becomes his caretaker. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 26/10/11: Women for Afghanistan Back in the late 90s, Homemakers' Magazine shared the wrenching story of Afghan women and their treatment under the Taliban. With that article , Homemakers' editor Sally Armstrong galvanized the women of this nation, inspiring them to reach out in projects that would last until this day. And along the way, a nine year old girl who heard her speak decided she too, wanted to help Afghan girls. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 25/10/11: Libya: Sharia Law Say Sharia law to many in the West and they cringe or criticize thinking polygamy or punishment. Suggest it in an Arab country and some might embrace the banning of interest rates and laws that reflect belief. There are no easy answers or even quick interpretations of Sharia Law but there are already condemnations after Libya's interim leader mused about bringing in law based on Islamic scripture .. Sharia. Today, we're looking at the expectation and trepidation through the eyes of two Liby ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 25/10/11: A Fish Tale Forget "Too Much Information", critics say when it comes to the catch of the day, we are not getting enough information. One in four fish sold in Canada is Illegal, meaning it is not often the fish you think it is. Made-in-Canada cutting edge technology can identify the problem and finger the food fraudsters but there is industry and government hesitation over that ... even as U.S. food safety officials embrace the idea. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 25/10/11: Game Changer: John Carlos It was the year of the Tet Offensive in Vietnam, the Prague Spring in Czechoslovakia, the assassination of Martin Luther King and the slaughter of student and worker protestors in Mexico City. Against that backdrop of unrest and uncertainty two African Americans stood on the Olympic medals podium in Mexico and raised their fists in the Black Power salute. And in a flash, John Carlos became both victorious and vilified. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 24/10/11: Keystone vs. Landowners In its bid to move unrefined bitumen from the oilsands of Alberta to refineries in Texas, TransCanada pipeline is finding some of its toughest opponents aren't environmentalists or regulators but the ranchers and farmers whose land the pipeline will cross. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 24/10/11: Dairy Supply Management As the Harper government moves forward on its plan to dismantle the Canada Wheat Board, the country's Restaurant and Food Services Association is saying - Why end the push for free markets there? It says the Supply Management System that controls the milk and milk products we buy is gouging consumers. It wants to see Ottawa dismantle the multi-billion-dollar system that sets milk prices and dairy quotas. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 24/10/11: Our Bodies, Ourselves It was trouble. Libraries banned it. Women hid their copies. Critics called it trash and pornographic. It dedicated chapters to lesbians, abortions, masturbation and health issues faced by women but ignored by male doctors. And 9 editions, 25 translations and 4 million copies later, the book Our Bodies, Ourselves is considered the book that changed the game on women's health and patients' rights overall. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 21/10/11: Libya: Post Gadhafi Even with the disclaimers television news hosts used yesterday morning when introducing the video clip telling us that, since the source of the video couldn't be verified, all they could say was that it appears to show a dead man who looks like the Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi. Even with those disclaimers, it was clear what we were seeing ... There are no men who look like Moammar Gadhafi. A long chapter of Libya's history is over. The time has finally come to turn the page. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 21/10/11: Good Samaritans What are you supposed to do if you see two strangers in a savage fight, or witness a violent assault on a woman? It's an admirable urge to be a good Samaritan and an unbelievably dangerous one. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 21/10/11: Celebrity Activists With the recent rallying by Hollywood actors against the Keystone pipeline project, we take a look at the history of tinseltown celebrities taking up causes, both on the left and the right. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 20/10/11: Moammar Gadhafi Killed The news burst onto the airwaves early this morning as military leaders answering to Libya's Transitional National Council said the ousted Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi , elusive for months had been killed after heavy fighting in and around his stronghold of Sirte. Today amidst pictures of chaotic celebrations and frenzied facts, we chase this story. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 20/10/11: Solitary Confinement There are an estimated 200 men and women confined to segregation cells for more than 90 days at a time in Canada. In the U.S., as many as 25, 000 prisoners are believed to be held this way. Now the UN official who oversees issues of torture wants most forms of solitary confinement banned. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 20/10/11: Mail: Occupy Movement, Organ Donations and Zoos We have lots of mail today and we share listener feedback on our look behind the occupy Wall street movement, the secrecy behind organ donation and the future of public zoos. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 19/10/11: One-Percent Reacts to Occupy Canada They call themselves the 99-percent, the regular people whose lives and livelihoods are influenced and determined by the powerful 1-percent, where the wealth of the nation is concentrated. The 99-percent took to the streets across Canada this past weekend. Today we take the pulse of that one percent. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 19/10/11: Tobin Tax The European Union has already spent more than Four Trillion dollars bailing out its banks and trying to resuscitate the economy. Now its legislators want financial institutions to return some of that love by taxing stock trades and related transactions, a fee called the Tobin Tax or the Robin Hood Tax. Today we head to a parallel Sherwood Forest looking for answers to that idea. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 19/10/11: Cyber Crime There is crime and there is cyber crime. The invisible, barely detectable click of the keyboards that siphons millions if not billions of dollars through the electronic veins of the internet, reaching right into your computer, your transactions, your life and then retreating perhaps across the globe, perhaps next door with a stash of cash and a plan to do it all again. In this particular criminal underworld, five tech-savvy men ran one of its most lucrative operations. One was a reclusive ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 18/10/11: Prisoner Swap The headlines today are full of the prisoner exchange between Israel and the Palestinians. But behind the names there is a story and there are emotions you might not expect. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 18/10/11: Breathing with Sandra Every once in a while you get a glimpse into someone else's life, see them struggle and then triumph, watch their pain turn to joy. That's the essence of a story in our documentary, Breathing with Sandra. It's about how two sisters devastated by their Mom's death at 51, agree to donate her organs and how another woman 30 years old in a medically induced coma, her own lungs useless gets a gift. The rules are strict, they were never supposed to meet but they broke the rules and forged a bond ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 18/10/11: Food Game Changer We've got billions of people to feed on this planet and billions more on the way and yet 75-percent of the world's farm land is used to graze livestock or grow livestock feed. Now a major report says it is time to shift our diets around the world. Among other things it says Eat Less Meat. We hear from the McGill researcher at the forefront of cultivating what he and his colleagues believe would change the game on World Hunger, Food Prices and Keeping Farmers in Business. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 17/10/11: Whither Zoos As Toronto's Mayor seeks to slash spending, a Spanish amusement park company, the worlds' third largest is showing great interest in the Toronto Zoo. Which raises the question .. What are zoos for? And does it matter who runs them? Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 17/10/11: 1973 Oil Embargo The U.S. still walks a tightrope with events that began at this precise time four decades ago, when infuriated Saudis along with other Arab leaders essentially turned off the spigots with a devastating Oil Embargo. The year was 1973, half the lights on the Golden Gate Bridge went out. The Washington Monuments went to black. And gas station lineups snaked around corners. Today, our project Game Changer looks at the decision that affects Canadian energy policy and U.S. politics to this day. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 17/10/11: Death Penalty: Dick Gregory He began as a comedian in the 60's, a Black man whose social satire forced Americans to confront issues. But if Dick Gregory's comedy extends decades, his social activism at the age of 80 is what keeps him kicking. And he is kicking most against Capital Punishment. We speak to Dick Gregory on Life and Death. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 14/10/11: Occupy Wall Street: Debate What started on Wall Street may be coming to a street near you. The protests have been the darling of social media but has the mainstream media given Occupy Wall Street it's due. And what should the headline be tomorrow as we get ready for something that could be big and bold and ragged and disorganized. The media, the message and a movement that defies easy description. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 14/10/11: Native Women's Property Rights If you've seen a family go through divorce, you know how agonizing the division of property can be. Many first nations communties in Canada don't have rules that protect each spouse's claim ....so the federal government wants to step in. But is it about protecting the vulnerable or another example of paternalism? Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 14/10/11: Quantum Computing: David Deutsch If you like playing call of Duty on your PC, just wait till you get a quantum computer. You could pretty much play the entire Second World War with multiple endings. We speak with the father of quantum computing to find out what else they might do. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 13/10/11: BlackBerry Blackout The word on the news yesterday was "Suffering". People across the globe were Suffering from a technological blackout of BlackBerries. It has come to this. We expect instant messaging .. compose ... file ... forward .. reply .. search ... all thanks to the tricks on handy little smart phones without which we Suffer. This Morning with thousands, maybe millions of messages still locked in a cyberspace cue, we're talking about BlackBerry's future - theirs and ours. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 13/10/11: Retired Senator Lowell Murray For five decades he has moved through the corridors of power in Parliament, from the inner circle in cabinet, to advising in the backrooms, to overseeing issues through the Senate or observing knowingly - and even alarmingly from the side. As Tory Senator Lowell Murray steps into a retirement that is only weeks old, we hear from him why he is disturbed by the politics of power on Parliament Hill. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 13/10/11: Mail: Moroney's Story, Wheat Belly and Air Canada Our mail this week moves from an absence of wheat to an abundance of seals from labour disputes to marriage turned upside down. Ian Hanomansing joins Anna Maria from Vancouver to sort through the feedback in our inbox. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 12/10/11: Air Canada Labour Dispute The Federal Labour Minister's decision to turn Air Canada's contract dispute over to the Industrial Labour Relations Board may mean flight attendants cannot leave Air Canada grounded. But after twice snubbing tentative deals from their union, have those same flight attendants left the credibility of their union leadership up in the air? And does the federal move to step in at this point carry its own baggage? Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 12/10/11: First Nations and Philanthropy Canadians give as much as 10-Billion dollars a year to charities and philanthropic trusts. And yet across this country those living on First Nations reserves are often invisible to those who donate to make a difference. The Chief of the Assembly of First Nations wants to change that saying partnerships with philanthropies could transform the lives of many. Others argue, the real change will come with loans not gifts. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 12/10/11: Short Term Marriage Mexico city councilors appalled at high divorce rates want to introduce two-year Temporary Marriage Licenses. If after the agreed-upon time love isn't so true ... the marriage dissolves without a costly, emotionally charged divorce. You want to bet the critics are cringing over such quasi commitments.Today we're asking ... What about us? Is there a place for formal temporary marriage in Canada? Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 11/10/11: Shannon Moroney's Story Shannon Moroney, author of "Through The Glass" shares her experience of being married for just a month, when her husband is arrested for the kidnap and rape of two women. She explains how prison whisked him away from his crimes, but left her to endure the consequences. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 11/10/11: Coptic Christians in Egypt Coptic Christians in Egypt are very familiar with discrimination. But now, many wonder if they're even safe. We speak with one of the organizers of this week's protests in Cairo for his thoughts on what may be next for one of the largest religious minorities in the Middle East. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 10/10/11: Moose Kill Hunters in Newfoundland have rarely had a Thanksgiving this good. Starting tomorrow, the province is allowing a huge moose hunt and as many as 33 thousand animals may be taken this year. And that's still too few for many Newfoundlanders. We'll hear why there 's very little sympathy for the province's moose. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 10/10/11: Wheat Belly Many Canadians plan warm buns, stuffing and pie for their Thanksgiving meals tonight. But I'll speak with a cardiologist who thinks we have no reason to be thankful for any food that contains wheat. William Davis says our daily bread is making us fat and sick. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 10/10/11: Addicted Mind Today we follow the journey of a drug addict from the streets of San Francisco to the opium dens of the East to graduate school at the University of Toronto. Marc Lewis shook his addictions and became a neuroscientist with a keen interest in the effects of drugs on the brain. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 07/10/11: Missing Women Inquiry What if you held a public inquiry and nobody came? Or at least a dozen or so key parties said the process is so unfair and disrespectful, they won't take part. That's the challenge facing the BC inquiry into missing women in the downtown east side, which starts next week. Today we talk about seeking justice for murdered and missing women. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 07/10/11: Minor Hockey Players Today we talk with minor hockey players ... on hitting, concussions, and new rules aimed at reducing injuries in the game they love. Three young hockey stars give some clear-headed advice about concussions. What players, referees and parents should do about hits to the head. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 07/10/11: Alabama Schools OK class, show of hands... how many of you are illegal? That is what public school students in Alabama are being asked. A U.S. state's tough new immigration law hurts some of Alabama's most vulnerable citizens - its children. Tough new immigration laws in Alabama have had an unexpected effect - empty desks in the classrooms. Today, we find out what's behind this collision between immigration and education. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 06/10/11: The Loss of Steve Jobs The year was 1976 and in a suburban California garage, a 21 year old college drop out, Steve Jobs and a high school buddy started a company called Apple. Long before the news of his death yesterday, Steve Jobs was recognized as a genius. The man behind not only the elegant and increasingly indispensable array of digital devices but the creator of our transformative digital lifestyles. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 06/10/11: Letters: Insite, Swearing and Stephane Hessel Our mail today offers up reaction on everything from the court-ordered reprieve for Vancouver's safe injection site ...to swearing in childhood ...to outrage from a gentle nonagenarian. We sort through all the letters in our virtual mail bag. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 06/10/11: ACLU Sues U.S. - Jameel Jaffer Anwar Al Aulaqi might not have received a U.S. trial to answer Washington's accusations of terrorism. But he got a U.S. execution when a predator drone fired a missile at him in Yemen. While few of his fellow Americans may mourn, we speak with an ACLU lawyer who thinks the U.S. broke its own laws in the attack. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 05/10/11: Alberta Premier-Designate: Alison Redford In a month that has begun with an array of provincial general elections, the choice of a new premier in one particular province proves again that not all politics is predictable. We speak with the Premier-designate of Alberta, Alison Redford. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 05/10/11: Grey Seal Cull A plan to help the cod recover in Eastern Canada proposes killing some grey seals. As many as 140 thousand of them. And the proposed cull of 70-percent of Grey Seals in Eastern Canada has some marine biologists charging that politics is drowning science in yet another chapter in the controversy over Cod Stocks. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 05/10/11: Superweeds They call them Superweeds choking whole fields of crops resistant to the very chemical that was supposed to kill them. Glyphosate or Roundup-ready crops have been Game Changers. over the last few decades propelling Agriculture forward. But now herbicide resistant weeds are changing the game again. Across the U.S., an estimated 11 million acres of crops are infested with Superweeds and they're showing up in Ontario. Our project Game Changer looks at the implications. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 04/10/11: Occupy Wall Street Protests They go from fear to euphoria from pepper spray to chants on the sidewalk. Their detractors, some of whom may not have actually been down to see them dismiss them as unruly, unorganized and unimportant. But now in their third week, the ranks of protestors who comprise "Occupy Wall Street" are proving to be unbowed, unapologetic and undeterred. And now more New York workers are stepping onto those sidewalks. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 04/10/11: The Rogue: Searching for the Real Sarah Palin Joe McGinniss wanted to write a book about Sarah Palin so he moved to Wasila, Alaska. Right next door. A move that created a firestorm of controversy. From his base on the other side of a fence that kept getting higher. Joe McGinniss sought out friends, foes and those with long memories. From the petty to the political, the picture he paints of the former U.S. Republican Vice-Presidential candidate has her supporters crying foul and her detractors sharing gossip. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 04/10/11: One-State Solution As the Palestinian bid for recognition of full Statehood winds its way through the corridors of the U.N., the Palestinian Prime Minister predicts the will of his people will topple Israel's so-called security barrier in the West Bank. And amidst the calls to properly negotiate a Two-State settlement are the minority voices of an Israeli and a Palestinian who insist they won't get two states so it is time to settle for one. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 03/10/11: Personal Toll of the European Economy If you look past the boardroom tables, you'll see a kitchen table. If you look past the bankers, you'll see a family counting up any money that's left. And if you follow the dots of the Euro crisis, you'll end up talking to regular people about what it is doing to them. We hear from people with their personal stories illustrating the toll the economic crisis in Europe is having on their lives. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 03/10/11: The Mayor of Mogadishu Due to music right issues, we can not make this documentary available as a podcast. However, you can listen to the full documentary online off our website, cbc.ca/thecurrent through on-demand streaming. Sorry. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 03/10/11: Resistance Fighter: Stephane Hessel Terrible things happened to Stephane Hessel when he fought in the French resistance seventy years ago. But he hasn't stop fighting. Now, at the age of 94, he's written a best seller that's inspired many young people. Find out what's behind the new French resistance. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 30/09/11: Insite Supreme Court Ruling The Supreme Court of Canada has just ruled unanimously in favour of the Insite clinic, the country's only secure drug injection site just a few blocks away fro our CBC Vancouver studio. We tell you what the court said and what it means for the treatment of addiction across the country. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 30/09/11: Swearing in the Workplace The new politics of profanity. Mark Twain said there ought to be a room in every house to swear in. If your home doesn't have so much as a closet to cuss in -- don't fret. Hear why it can be a terrific idea to swear at the office. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 30/09/11: Smart Meters British Columbia hydro is anxious to get its customers hooked to smart meters to use the province's electricity more efficiently. But a number of consumers believe the use of smart meters is - not only stupid -- it's hazardous to society with the government attaching a wireless transmitter to your home. The controversy gives broadcasting The Current a whole different meaning. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 29/09/11: Bullying: Hate Crime? They can strike with devastating effect. Targeting children relentlessly, absent of any fear of being caught or charged and sometimes - far too often it seems their young victims suffer long term harm or even death. Suicide. But because they are Children victimizing other Children, Bullies seem to get away with it. Today, after a flurry of news stories about young people who are believed to have taken their own lives .. after being bullied, we're asking about the wisdom of turning it into ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 29/09/11: Ghosts By Daylight: Janine di Giovanni For the last twenty years, if there's a war Janine DiGiovanni has been among the first to get there. As a journalist for the Sunday Times of London, she has relentlessly documented the trauma of those caught in conflict. She was always fearless, willing to go anywhere for the story. But then the war followed her home and the ghosts of all she'd seen intruded on marriage and motherhood. She still covers war but not always like she used to. Janine DiGiovanni talks about Love, War and Redempti ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 29/09/11: Letters: Asbestos, Gloria Steinem, Court TV This is Thursday and that means mail day. We re-visit topics in the mail from Court TV to West Bank settlements from Asbestos to fundraising for schools. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 28/09/11: Game Changer: Gloria Steinem For her, the definition has always been rather basic ... a person who believes in the full social, economic and political equality of men and women and acts on it ... That is a Feminist. And she is a feminist Icon, a myth-breaker and Game Changer . Today, Gloria Steinem talks about the past that got her here and the future that keeps her going. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 28/09/11: Northern Gateway Pipeline Canada may have one of the largest oil reserves in the world but it is has never exported oil outside North America. The Gateway Pipeline Project would change that ...moving oil from Alberta across B.C. to tankers on its northern coast to Asian markets that would pay more than the U.S. does. But that route travels along fragile ecosystems and right up against the wishes of many Native leaders. So would it be an Economic Opportunity or an Environmental Error? Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 28/09/11: The Story of Economic Genius: Sylvia Nasar Just when you thought it was safe to ignore the Economists comes a new book that argues there is nothing quite like Economic Genius. Hidden in literature from Dickens to Darwin economic thinking has clobbered the class system, encouraged consumers and celebrated the secular and the scientific. Our look at Game Changers focuses on the long line of Economists who dared to see the world through a different lens. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 27/09/11: Misconceptions of Asbestos Campaign The clock is ticking on a business plan that would see Quebec hand over $58-million dollars in loan guarantees if a particular consortium can guarantee investors. There's one catch ... the product is Asbestos. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 27/09/11: L'Aquila Earthquake Trial Seismologists will tell you no one can actually predict an earthquake. And yet in a courtroom in Italy six scientists and one official are on trial for manslaughter, charged with failing to sufficiently warn people in the Medieval town of L'Aquila of the quake that toppled buildings and killed 300 in April of 2009. Scientists world-wide are outraged but those behind a criminal case and a separate civil case insist they will hold them accountable. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 27/09/11: The War Against al-Qaeda: Ali Soufan It is clear that the CIA got hold of Ali Soufan's book. His chronicle of the investigation and interrogation of Islamic terrorist suspects is peppered with thick black lines blanking out words . .. whole sentences .. whole paragraphs .. or even whole pages. Ali Soufan was an FBI special agent whose interrogations - literally hands off - aborted several terrorist plots but who left the agency after the CIA insisted on using what it called 'Enhanced Interrogation' and others called torture. T ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 26/09/11: Palestinian Bid for Statehood The bid for full Palestinian statehood at the U.N. may appear to be diplomatically doomed but by putting it on the agenda the Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas appears to have galvanized Palestinians throughout the West Bank. And that may well influence the shape of any new efforts for Israeli-Palestinian peace. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 26/09/11: A Small Act: Chris Mburu Sometimes people change people's lives and never even know. And so it was with Hilde Back, a Holocaust survivor teaching children in Sweden and sending 15-dollars a month off to Kenya in the mail. At the other end, a little boy who got to go to school with that money and grew up to work in human rights around the globe. Today we bring you the story of how one small act of kindness created so much hope. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 26/09/11: Victims Rights in Canada: Sharon Rosenfeldt It is a life she never anticipated and certainly would not have chosen. And yet because of the inhumane and unjust actions of one man, Sharon Ronsenfeldt has spent the last 30 years in pursuit of justice for regular Canadians. She and her late husband created the very idea that Victims of Violence deserved official recognition and help in this country. Today, as terminal illness closes in on Clifford Olsen ... the man who murdered her son and so many others, Sharon Rosenfeldt reflects on f ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 23/09/11: Palestinian Snapshots on UN Bid Today the world's focus is on the United Nations where Mahmoud Abbas will ask for what more than 190 other countries have-full membership status at the world body. Some Palestinians believe this could be a much-needed breakthrough and a big step on their journey to becoming an independent state. But many others say-- regardless of the outcome in the halls of power in New York-- very little will change on the dusty streets of the West Bank and Gaza. We hear from Palestinians both for and aga ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 23/09/11: Camera's in the Court Room The TV landscape is littered with legal dramas. There's also the Judge Judys who hand down U.S. justice by scolding, sometimes even berating defendants on the airwaves. But is it time, for the camera lens to focus on how the justice system works here in Canada. One Canadian jurist sure thinks so. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 23/09/11: The World of Stolen Art Art heists are mysterious, and mythological. In the real world, art theft is an international labyrinth of petty criminals, hot shot detectives and sometimes an idiot or two. We go inside the international black market for stolen art, a market that fuels organized crime and one in which Canada plays a prominent role. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 22/09/11: Deputy Israeli PM Dan Meridor The high level meetings and the backroom conversations have reached a fever pitch in New York. But as Palestinians push for UN recognition of statehood, the sounds-on-the-ground that remind us what this is about ... mistrust and wariness, impatience and incredulity on both sides. Much is at stake for those who live on each side of the Israeli-Palestinian divide. Today we talk to Israel's Deputy Premier on his government's objections. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 22/09/11: School Fundraising School fundraising isn't just bake sales and raffle tickets any more. These days some elementary schools bring in tens of thousands of dollars ... with the same kinds of techniques you'd find in the not-for-profit world. And that has some parents worried that some schools are being left behind. As the school fundraising season is in full swing across the country, we look at revenue streams. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 22/09/11: Thursday Letters Segment It's mail day. And we have been overwhelmed with responses to the story of Sharon Peterson, a woman shunned, alienated and forced to give up her baby for adoption because she was young and single. That story unleashed a flood of similar stories from other mothers, children and adoptive parents alike. And according to The Current's Kathleen Goldhar, they're just the tip of the iceberg. We hear from her and also get to some of your letters on the entitled generation and erotic capital in the ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 21/09/11: Acting NDP Leader: Nycole Turmel She made her name as a formidable negotiator. The first woman to head the giant Public Service Alliance of Canada. Her work on pay equity considered groundbreaking. She's a mother, a grandmother and this week she walked into the House of Commons as the Leader of the Official Opposition. Today we hear from acting NDP leader Nycole Turmel on the Layton Legacy, the Harper agenda and the expectations that surround her. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 21/09/11: Michigan Governor: Jennifer Granholm Over eight years as Governor of Michigan, Vancouver-born Jennifer Granholm introduced 99 separate Bills to cut taxes. She cut spending. She cut government jobs. And nothing worked. She watched the coveted automotive industry shrivel. She argues for government intervention to save the economy. A woman born on one side of the border and elected on the other offers her thoughts on America's economic future. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 21/09/11: Zhao Murder Trial in China Amanda Zhao was 21 years old, an international student in BC when police found her murdered body nine years ago. All these years later, her case has spawned unprecedented co-operation between Canada and China, as her boyfriend faces trial in Beijing today charged with her murder. A woman seemingly forgotten by the justice system may now play a role in changing it. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 20/09/11: Air Canada Contract Negotiations They work for the only airline in the country that services large, medium and not-so-big Canadian communities. It competes against carriers that choose only the profitable routes and staff their planes with non-unionized workers. Air Canada's flight attendants want a better contract. The company says be grateful for what you've got. And the federal government is ready to legislate them into a deal. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 20/09/11: To Serve With Pride One of the strangest orders ever given a modern military is rescinded today. From now on, gay and lesbians may serve openly in the U.S. armed services and the policy of "don't ask don't tell" will be relegated to history. But the battle for gay rights in the military has left its scars and we share three veteran's stories. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 20/09/11: Tibetan PM: Lobsang Sangay For five decades, the Dalai Lama has embodied the spiritual and political aspirations of generations of Tibetans in Exile. But just last month he gave up the political job, giving increasing power to a Harvard educated exile named Lobsang Sangay. Tibet's new Prime Minister in Exile has his own views of China's control. Will a new political strategy change the game for Tibetans anxious for an autonomous homeland? Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 19/09/11: Interim Leaders For the first time since becoming Prime Minister of Canada Stephen Harper goes into a new parliament with a Majority. And along with that advantage, a perceived uncertainty in the ranks across the floor as the three main opposition parties begin this session with leaders filling in until they have leadership conventions. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 19/09/11: Motherhood Interrupted She was 19 years old, pregnant and unmarried and the world was unforgiving. It was the sixties and Sharon Pederson was literally tossed out in the snow and turned into a domestic slave. She was lectured and demeaned. And when her baby was born, social workers forced her to sign her away. Hundreds of young women were forced to hand over their babies for adoption in Canada. Today in our documentary, we bring you the story of one woman who can't forget. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 19/09/11: Game Changer: Tzeporah Berman As a leader in the fight to save BC's Claqouot Sound, environmentalists rallied around her while government and corporate officials called her an eco-terrorist. And then Tzeporah Berman did the unthinkable. She negotiated with the very companies she once vilified, securing groundbreaking deals to save Old Growth Forests. Now some environmentalists consider her a sellout. Today we talk to the woman credited with changing Environmental Politics in Canada. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 16/09/11: Drilling for Arctic Oil Do you envision oil rigs in the Beaufort Sea? And do you consider that the picture of prosperity or a sign of environmental danger? We explore three views of the risks and rewards of drilling in Canada's Far North. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 16/09/11: Immigrant Hiring Incentives Ontario's Liberal Party suggests a tax credit for employers who hire new immigrants. It's often difficult for new arrivals to get Canadian work experience. But critics dislike the idea...calling it preferential treatment, especially when there are so many people out of work. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 16/09/11: Freedom of Information on Kids and Smoking How do you feel about freedom of information laws? We usually think of them as a way for the little guy to force big government to be held accountable. But what if big tobacco is trying to use freedom of information to get data from university researchers? And it gets more interesting: the data is from confidential interviews with children. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 15/09/11: Letters: Oil Sands, Conservatives and Lyme Disease It's mail day and we hear what our listeners thought of our special program this week on the Alberta oil sands, on Conservatives and an update on a story we did on Lyme Disease. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 15/09/11: The Haqqani Network Jalaluddin Haqqani and the fighters in his so-called Haqqani Network are believed to behind that spectacular and deadly siege that rocked Kabul for 20 long and frightening hours this week throwing the security of the Afghan capital and the strength of NATO and Afghan forces into doubt. Today we're asking Who He Is. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 15/09/11: Erotic Capital: The Power of Attraction Women who want to break through the glass ceiling might first want to glance at the mirrored wall. A sociologist at the London School of Economics believes since beauty and appearance adds an extra 15 per cent to earnings... women may want to invest in sexier slingbacks. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 14/09/11: China Spies The buzz among the security-savvy is that China's state News Agency, Xinhua is routinely used to gather intelligence and that China itself is ravenous for global intelligence on the political, military and industrial front. That is why so many questions linger in the exchange of emails and apparent friendship between MP Bob Dechert, a parliamentary secretary in the foreign affairs dept and a woman posted here in Canada by Xinhua. Today we ask about the vulnerability of our officials and the ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 14/09/11: Constituent Services What you get when you show up at a constituency office .. really depends on who your local politician is. A survey of Members of Parliament leaving their jobs shows constituency work is essentially a free-for-all with MPs creating their own rules and MP services are wildly inconsistent across the country. Some it seems would rather just stay in Ottawa. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 14/09/11: Entitled University Students Canada's university students are back at the books -- that is, if they can find enough time between keggers and Call of Duty Four. The authors of a new book say this generation of undergraduates is the most pampered ever, and their entitled attitude is sucking the joy out of teaching. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 13/09/11: Game Changer: Peter Lougheed It was in the 60s under the Social Credit government of Ernest Manning that the excavation began. Oil was three bucks a barrel, far less than it cost to get at that bitumen. It would be another provincial premier who ramped up development ...Peter Lougheed's vision for Alberta's massive energy reserves changed the face of federal and provincial politics in this country . And today as we look at Game Changers in Alberta, we talk to Peter Lougheed about growth in the oil and gas sector in Alb ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 13/09/11: Game Changer: The Oil Sands Alberta's vast oil sands are an engine of economic growth. Production has more than doubled in the last decade and spilling billions of dollars into the economy. On the other side ...They are dogged by issues of environmental degradation and statistics that they account for the largest increase in green house gas emissions in the country. The Oil Sands have been a Game Changer for Alberta, for the country and arguably beyond ... and in more than one way.Today we focus on the communities tha ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 13/09/11: What If ... Oil was left in the sand? What if there had been no ancient ocean to cover northern Alberta? What if no sea life had died, decomposed in the silt and turned into a kind of hydrocarbon molasses? What on earth would people do in Fort McMurray on a Saturday night ? We imagine a life without the oil sands. And -- Geologists can be so cruel. But the man they once mocked as Dry Hole Hunter would show them all. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 12/09/11: Ted Morton and Freedom of Information News that leadership contender Ted Morton used a second and not easily identifiable email address to conduct government business while in cabinet has come out. We bring you the latest turns on that story with the question of emails and identities. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 12/09/11: The Tories at 40 Albertans have elected a Progressive Conservative government for 40 straight years. The province has changed dramatically - from the economy to the demographics but the governing party has stayed remarkably stable. We ask Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi and former Progressive Conservative Senator Ron Ghitter, as well as our live audience in the CBC Calgary studio - 'Do people move to Alberta because they are Conservative supporters or do they become Conservative once they arrive?' Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 12/09/11: Andrew Nikiforuk on the Pine Beetle Andrew Nikiforuk joins us to tell the story of a tiny beetle with a very big appetite and a game-changing capacity for ecological destruction. Did you know that they credited the beetle with the invention of the wheel and the chain saw? Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 09/09/11: 9/11 - Personal Changes A recent poll finds that 49 percent of New Yorkers fear another major attack on their city. A third of them say their lives will never be the same. We talk to three people who think of their lives as broken - the time before 9/11 and the time since. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 09/09/11: 9/11 - Lawrence Wright Lawrence Wright is an award-winning writer and a New Yorker, who won a Pulitzer Prize for his book The Looming Tower. We talk about what lessons - if any - have been learned since then. Was 9/11 really a Game Changer? Are foreign policy blunders and fanaticism a thing of the past? Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 09/09/11: 9/11 - Cultural Impact We also explore artistic responses to 9/11 and speak with commentators and creators who have different ideas about whether the arts have adequately addressed the tragedy. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 08/09/11: The Invisible Girl: Helaina Hovitz As the 10th anniversary of the attacks of September 11th, 2001 approaches, we meet Helaina Hovitz. She was 12 when the attacks happened and she suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder through her teenage years as a result of what she saw that day. Helaina Hovitz is 22 now and her life is still shaped by the long shadow of 9/11. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 08/09/11: IRS and U.S. Tax Law There are about a million American citizens living in Canada. Many of them have lived and worked and paid taxes here for years. But according to U.S. law, they still have to answer to the IRS. And now, they have to do it by tomorrow. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 08/09/11: Letters: Oil Sands, School Lunches, Vibrators It's mail day. We find out what you've had to say about oil sands, school lunches and vibrators. Plus we talk to our Friday host this week, Nelofer Pazira who is in New York City getting ready for tomorrow's program about the legacy of the attacks of September 11th, 10 years later. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 07/09/11: The UN in Haiti The alleged rape of an 18-year-old man by UN peacekeepers in Haiti is the latest black eye for the UN's embattled MINUSTAH mission and it is leading some to argue that it's time for MINUSTAH to leave the country or refocus its mission. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 07/09/11: The Anthropocene The Current's new season-long project, Game Changer, will look at the biggest game changer of all: Us. In fact, humans have become such an overwhelming presence on the Earth that scientists are now debating whether humans have ushered in a new geologic epoch - The Anthropocene - an age defined by human-induced mass extinctions, landscape transformation and changes to the chemistry of the oceans and atmosphere. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 07/09/11: The Anthropocene (cont'd) We continue our exploration of The Anthropocene with Sylvia Earle about the changes we have made to our oceans and the troubles we have caused. We also pick up our conversation with Edward Burtynsky and find out why some people think our civilization will be hard-pressed to survive ... the age of humans. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 06/09/11: Feature Interview: Olivia Chow Jack Layton shook up Canadian politics with an electoral record-breaker for the NDP ... and then with his sudden death and the subsequent outpouring of affection. In life and in death Jack Layton changed a few games for his party and for the country. Today, we talk to the woman who knew him best, his political and life partner Olivia Chow, about the extraordinary events surrounding Jack Layton's death and her plans for the future. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 06/09/11: The Mechanics of the Game Changer From revolutionizing a sport to mobilizing a nation --meet high-jumping innovator Dick Fosbury, publishing mobilizer Nicole Rycroft and Hal Gregersen, author of The Innovator's DNA - three people who transformed the world we live in. They didn't see things the way others did, didn't accept the status quo, or just didn't know any better. We kick off a new project about the people, inventions and ideas that changed the world and we start with a lesson in human kinetics. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 06/09/11: Game Changer: The Vibrator It was the third invention to ever receive a patent. An electrical device ostensibly designed for medical treatment for women in Victorian England. It became known as The Vibrator and revolutionized understanding of women's sexual needs and sexuality. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 05/09/11: Lunch Box Politics Across the country, parents are dealing with heavy restrictions about what they can and can't put in their children's lunches along with what kinds of containers they can use to pack them in. We hear from a principle who says stringent rules are good for children's health and the environment ... as well as a parent who says it's all gone too far. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 05/09/11: Arab Spring Revisited For nine months, the Middle East and North Africa have been gripped by a wave of unprecedented protests. Hopes have been raised, dictators have been toppled, the course of history has been altered. And yet the riots and revolutions in each of the countries involved are all still very much works in progress. We catch up with some of the people who spoke with us in the earliest days of the uprisings in their countries to find out what happens when autumn falls on the Arab spring. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 05/09/11: Arab Spring Revisited (Pt 2) The so-called Arab Spring has reshaped the lives of millions in the Middle East and North Africa. But the revolutions that were promised are still a long way from being delivered. From Libya to Tunis, from Egypt to Bahrain, from Syria to Yemen … we're taking the pulse of the region not with the officials but with those regular Arabs whose lives have been up-ended and sometimes up-lifted as they join their neighbours in trying to find a better way. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 02/09/11: The Politics of Black Hair Earlier this summer, an African-American woman named Shante Nance had her hair searched as she went through the airport in San Antonio. That was less than a month after another African-American woman filed a formal complaint about the same thing. The incidents have sparked accusations of racism and re-ignited the discussion over the ever-evolving politics of black hair. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 02/09/11: Waiting for the Treatment (Documentary) About 30 per cent of inmates in our federal prisons have Hepatitis C, or HIV-AIDS. And while there have been vast improvements in treating both diseases, those behind bars say they're not getting adequate treatment. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 01/09/11: Medical Ghostwriting They write on behalf of celebrities, politicians, public figures. But is there a point where ghostwriting crosses an ethical line? Critics say absolutely. And that line is when doctors or scientists agree to have their names on published papers, where the research and ghostwriting was paid for by drug companies. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 01/09/11: The Perfect Martini (Documentary) You probably have a friend who's some years older than you. Others who are a few years shy of you. But most of us, don't have friends half our age, or conversly twice our age. That's not the case for Minnie McCurdy and Steve Bickerstaffe. The pair of friends have half a century between them, but a friendship that defied the years. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 31/08/11: The Middle Rung (Documentary) Meet three people who spend their days helping keep the federal government running smoothly. And find out how the demographic shifts that are changing the country might make it harder for them to keep delivering the services we count on. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 31/08/11: The Right to Die: Gloria Taylor We talk to Gloria Taylor, a Canadian woman who wants the BC Supreme Court to grant her the right to get a doctor to help her die. Gloria Taylor has late stage ALS, a fatal neurodegenerative disease also known as Lou Gehrig's disease and her constitutional challenge could redefine the laws around assisted suicide. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 30/08/11: Libya Weapons As you've been hearing in the news, Moammar Gadhafi's wife and three of his children have skipped over Libya's border to Algeria. The whereabouts of Gaddafi himself are still unknown. Libya is a country overflowing with weapons. After six months of fighting, almost everyone now has access to a gun. And then there are the stockpiles of conventional and non-conventional weapons that were once under the control of Gaddafi. It's not at all clear who controls those now and there's great worry th ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 30/08/11: It's a Steal (Documentary) Property ain't cheap in Canada, but you can find a bargain in sunny Florida. And many Canadians have. Since the 2008 mortgage crisis, many have been scooping up Florida homes that have been foreclosed. But turns out, some of those deals are too good to be true. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 29/09/11: The Future of the NDP It was one week ago today that Canadians woke up to the news of the death of Jack Layton. Stephen Lewis was a friend, and mentor to Layton. We talk to him about how much of the NDP's electoral success was built on the power of Layton's personality. And how the official opposition now moves forward without its charismatic leader. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 29/09/11: No Fixed Address (Documentary) A troubled Canadian soldier leaving the armed forces can be an extremely difficult person to track. But its seems clear many follow the footsteps of veterans of earlier wars -- and end up on the streets. So what's being done to help soldiers who don't easily reveal their wounds? Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 26/09/11: Keystone XL Pipeline Project The Keystone XL project is a proposed pipeline that would carry crude oil from Alberta to Texas. Critics call it a disaster in waiting ... saying the pipeline would pass through many environmentally sensitive areas, and there's little doubt that at some point, there would be big spill. Proponents say the line would give oil hungry Americans a safer supply of oil. And create a lot of jobs in a time where help wanted signs are desperately needed. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 26/09/11: In Praise of the Middle Child Middle children know their place in the birth order can sound uninspiring: Stuck in the middle, middle of the road, middle of nowhere. But there are suggestions the middle kids aren't content to remain second best. Pierre Trudeau, Charles Darwin, David Letterman -- all in-betweeners who did a lot more than just "middle through." Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 25/09/11: Libya: Liberation or Limbo? He's out of sight....perhaps dead, more likely on the lam. But almost assuredly, Moammar Gadahfi's 42-year rule of Libya has come to an end. Jubilation is spilling out on the streets of cities around Libya. There's also celebration here in Canada --where many Libyans fled to from Gadahfi's ruthless rule. We speak with a father watching events in his homeland from far away. And a son who is witnessing it all first hand. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 25/09/11: Now That It's Mine (Documentary) Due to music right issues, we can not make this podcast available for download but you can listen through streamed audio off our website at www.cbc.ca/thecurrent. Sorry for the inconvenience. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 24/09/11: Horn of Africa Famine Last month, a famine was officially declared in parts of Somalia. But drought, hunger, and lack of food has spread well beyond those areas. It's been described as the worst famine in a generation--since Ethiopia in the early 1980s. And while the rains aren't falling in the Horn of Africa, neither is the money from the international community. And that has some coming up with new solutions to the problems of getting aid to those who need it. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 24/09/11: Etched in Stone (Documentary) Due to music right issues, we are unable to make this documentary available as a podcast. However, you can listen online off our website at www.cbc.ca/thecurrent. Sorry for the inconvenience. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 23/09/11: The Power of Personality For many Canadians this morning, shock at the news of Jack Layton's death has given way to a quiet sadness, and a time to share memories of the NDP Leader. He was a politician--and a man-- so many admired, despite their own political stripes. Layton seemed to have panache--a way of personally connecting with others, particularly young people. Today we talk to a convene a panel to discuss the inspiration they drew from Layton, and how they turned inspiration into action. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 23/09/11: From the Heart (Documentary) Exercise may make us feel better physically. But what role does it play in our mental well-being? We explore the relationship between physical activity and mental illness. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 23/09/11: Surviving a Plane Crash A plane crash in Little Rock, Arkansas more than ten years ago ended the lives of eleven people But for one survivor, that flight never ended. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 22/09/11: Remembering Jack Layton We began the program this morning with the news that Jack Layton has lost his battle with cancer. The leader of the NDP and the Official Opposition died this morning. He was 61. Today we pay tribute to Jack Layton's legacy. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 22/09/11: The Battle for Tripoli For 42 years the mad dog of the Middle East, Moammar Gaddafi has ruled the country. Now his regime is on it's last legs. Fierce fighting is taking place in the capital Tripoli between rebels and pro-Gaddafi forces. And while there are pockets of strong resistance, it seems the end of Gaddafi's rule is imminent. What would a post-Gaddafi Libya look like? Who would be in charge? And what does it all mean for the Arab Spring? Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 19/08/11: Suncor Energy International pressure against Syrian president Bashar al-Assad is mounting. It's believed that nearly two-thousand people have been killed and many more thousands arrested since the Syrian protests began in March. Calgary-based Suncor Energy does business in Syria. Today we talk to the company CEO about that and about how to decide when to leave. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 19/08/11: Melting Ice (Documentary) Environmental journalist Alanna Mitchell visited Antarctica earlier this year to watch and hear the place breaking up. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 18/08/11: India Protests In India, a 74-year-old man, clad in plain white cotton clothing and channeling the tactics of independence fighter Mahatma Gandhi, has brought a country of over a billion people to a standstill. Anna Hazare is fighting government corruption. He was planning a public hunger strike when he was arrested earlier this week. Despite being released from police custody a few hours later, he refused to leave his jail cell and started fasting there. That act led to nation-wide protests. We take you ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 18/08/11: Letters: Crime, Passwords and the Stock Market It's mail day. We hear some of your thoughts on the stories we brought you this week, including our look at crime and punishment. We hear why one woman in St. John's has barred the windows in her home after a lifetime of rarely bothering to lock the front door. And it might just change the way she votes as well. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 17/08/11: Mujahideen-e-Khalq (MEK) A banned Iranian Terrorist group has been mounting a persistent and expensive lobbying campaign in both Canada and the United States to have its ban lifted. The Mujahideen-e-Khalq has a violent past. Some describe the group as an authoritarian cult. But the group has supporters, including high profile current and former politicians who see MEK as a possible instrument of regime change in Iran. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 17/08/11: Feathers - Thor Hanson Feathers have remarkable properties - coveted for their marvelous engineering and for their beauty. Today we talk to biologist Thor Hanson about his new book, Feathers: The Evolution of a Natural Miracle, and why he thinks feathers are a natural evolutionary wonder. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 16/08/11: Crime and Public Critics of so-called tough-on-crime political agendas have long argued that they succeed with voters not because of actual crime, but because of our fear of the other. Falling crime rates seem to have no effect on the politicians pushing tough-on-crime reforms. In the wake of this week's denunciation of the federal government's tough-on-crime legislation by the Canadian Bar Association, we ask how much impact does our criminal justice system actually have on crime? Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 16/08/11: The Sweat Lodge (Documentary) On one Cree reserve in Quebec, an attempt to revive an ancient tradition collided with more modern values. And it created a toxic mix of religion and politics that may send a divided community to the courts. Today, we take you to that reserve for an exploration of what it means to be traditional. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 15/08/11: Do Stocks Matter? Today we speak with an economist who argues that stock markets don't have a lot to do with what really matters in our daily, economic lives. And that, because of what he calls the stock-marketization of our culture, we give them far more attention than they deserve. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 15/08/11: Rick Perry Is America ready for another Texan in the White House? The latest Republican candidate for U.S. President is Texas Governor Rick Perry. Today, we talk about some of the surprising things he believes in and how his religious convictions might be the most controversial thing about him. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 12/09/11: Death of the Password On a laptop near you, security systems based on our mothers' maiden names are not very secure. Today, we look at some of the ideas people are coming up with to either boost password security, or replace it with something better. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 12/09/11: End of Privacy Fretting about passwords may be soon be as quaint as fretting about petticoats. Technical breakthroughs in neuroscience have allowed machines to peer so far into the mind -- they may soon be able to photograph dreams. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 11/08/11: Paul Martin on Global Economic Crisis Former Prime Minister Paul Martin tells us why he thinks the current global financial crisis is actually an opportunity for Canada. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 11/08/11: Letters: Future of Egypt, Invasive Species and Syria It's mail day. We share your thoughts on some of our recent stories. And we hear from one Syrian-American musician about the rough consequences of supporting the demonstrations in his former homeland. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 10/08/11: Policing: Social Media and Flash Mobs As neighbourhoods in England continue to burn, we take a look at how technology - much of it Canadian - is being employed. And at what the police can do to close the technology gap. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 10/08/11: Economic Shift: U.S. vs China "Let China sleep", Napoleon famously said, for when she awakes she will shake the world. If the recent economic jitters have left you a little shaken, our guest believes it's another sign China is rolling out of bed. Historian Niall Ferguson explains why he believes the U.S. is losing dominance to Beijing. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 09/08/11: Stock Market Advice The tough part when we see markets tanking as they have been so badly over the past few days, is knowing how to react. Generally, the professionals advise us not to panic. Which we tend to translate into "Do nothing". But is it the best advice? We examine some different financial survival theories ... and not all of them coming from the experts. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 09/08/11: Hippie Physics Before the 1960s, only poets thought about seeing the world in a grain of sand and holding infinity in their hands. But then, suddenly physicists were the daydreamers. A branch of science went from being almost at war with the universe -- to becoming one with it. We tell you how it all went down, man. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website The Anataomy of Evil: Michael Stone Is there really such a thing as evil? You bet there is according to our guest, Dr. Michael Stone. He's interviewed hundreds of killers and can place their acts on a spectrum of evil. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Egyptian Revolution on Track? Hosni Mubarak's trial is seen by Egyptian revolutionaries as a huge success, but despite that, many are pessimistic about Egypt's future. Today we talk to three Egyptians who are happy to see Mubarak go but each have their own vision about where the revolution goes from here. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 05/08/11: Sex on the Moon We share a little known story today about how one man stole the most valuable thing on earth from NASA ... and almost got away with it. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 05/08/11: The Dark Tunnel (Documentary) For an instant, Kevin Pett locked eyes with the man who had jumped in front of the subway he was driving. That moment sent him to a very dark place ... that nonetheless sheds light on what it's like to live with someone else's suicide. We re-broadcast Aziza Sindu documentary, "The Dark Tunnel". Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 04/08/11: Biological Bias We've talked about rats and crazy bugs this summer and today, the plant world has our attention. More specifically, invasive plants and the debate among biologists over how best to deal with them when they threaten to take over native ecosystems. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 04/08/11: Letters: Closing Libraries, Insects and Syria Update It's mail day. Our listeners have open minds, but they sure don't want to hear about closing libraries. We read some of your letters defending libraries from budget cuts and hear your thoughts on the other stories of the week as well. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 03/02/11: Syria's Uprising and Crackdown The forces of President Assad are continuing their push to crush the popular uprisings that broke out in Syria in March. So far, an estimated 1,700 civilians have been killed. Canada has both condemned the violence and sanctioned Syria. The U.S. is considering tighter sanctions, while other countries have recalled their ambassadors. And the U.N. Security Council has met to discuss possible ways to punish Damascus. But the international outcry appears to have had no effect. Today, we take ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 03/02/11: The Blues and I: The Story of Laura Smith This documentary about a musician's battle with chronic pain and prescription pain killers is unfortunately not available as a podcast, but you can listen through streamed audio off our website. Sorry for the inconvenience. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 02/08/11: Whither the Library The City of Toronto is facing down a serious budget shortfall. And as city council looks for places to cut, councilor Doug Ford, the brother of Mayor Rob Ford, started counting library branches. Today we look at the debate over balancing the books by closing libraries. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 02/08/11: Somaliland Independence As Somalia descends even further into chaos, one part of the country, an autonomous area called Somaliland, stands as a shining example of comparative calm and stability. Today, The Current spoke with the region's Foreign Minister. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 01/08/11: Shoplifting Call it what you want: sticky-fingers, the five-finger-discount, kleptomania. It costs Canada about $3.5 billion a year. Today on The Current we looked at the culture and psychology of shoplifting. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 01/08/11: Back in the Closet (Documentary) Today on The Current we take a look at why many older gay people worry they may have to go back in the closet... just to be accepted in the retirement home. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 29/07/11: A Family Remembers Private Cushley Canada's long decade of fighting in the deserts and mountains of Afghanistan is nearly over. Almost all the combat troops have returned, and the last group is scheduled to be home by mid-August. 950 troops are expected to remain in Kabul for another three years as part of a training mission. Today on The Current, we remember some of the 157 Canadians killed serving in Afghanistan including the story of Private Cushley, told by his parents. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 29/07/11: WWII Stories of Canadian Veterans To this day, World War Two is the bloodiest conflict in history. And many of the men and women who lived through it are passing away. But a new book called "Honour" is preserving some of their stories. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 28/07/11: Ideological Architects Meet Bat Ye'or, an author who's believed to have influenced the man accused of the Oslo murders. We look at how much other people's ideas play a role in determining the actions of an extremist. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 28/07/11: Letters: Oslo Massacre and Somali Famine The terrifying events in Oslo and their consequences have been much on the minds of our readers. We read some of your letters responding to the murders as well as the Somali famine in our letters segment today. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 27/07/11: U.S. Debt Ceiling One of the most prominent critics of the US economy, Senator Rand Paul believes its no big deal if the US doesn't raise its debt limit. We take you to the front lines of the debt crisis this morning to try to get a sense of the potential impact here in Canada. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 27/07/11: The Unfinished Journey of Rabbi Simes We re-broadcast a documentary about how a split-second encounter with a deer on a highway sent an Ottawa Rabbi and his family on an unexpected new journey. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 26/07/11: Layton Temporarily Steps Down as NDP Leader You have to go back to 1968 to find an instance of a federal party leader's personal popularity being responsible for as many votes as Jack Layton attracted to the NDP in this year's election. Yesterday Jack Layton announced that he will be taking a temporary leave of absence to receive treatment for a new form of cancer. We look into what this news means for his party and the country. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 26/07/11: Media as Platform for Criminals Norwegians demand answers to why their nation has been driven into mourning. Their justice system has denied a public hearing to the suspect in the Oslo rampage. We ask if those are the right doors to close. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 25/07/11: Norway Massacre Yesterday, a memorial service was held for the victims of Friday's bombing and shootings in Norway. While Norwegians struggle with their grief, they are also grappling with questions about the man behind the massacre. We ask some of those same questions this morning. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 25/07/11: Somali Famine Crisis The famine that is devastating Somalia shouldn't have taken the world by surprise. There were warning signs and official warnings from aid groups and the United Nations. And yet, the international community failed to prevent it. We're asking why and what's to be done to ensure this doesn't happen again in the future. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 22/07/11: Soft Playgrounds A new report out of Norway says we may be going too far in trying to create safe playgrounds for children. And that by robbing children of the opportunity to take risks and overcome fears, we may be stunting their emotional growth by obsessing over their physical safety. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 22/07/11: Breaking the Ice (Documentary) Our documentary this morning takes us to a town in Greenland that is grappling with its future ... trying to balance economic development with environmental preservation. The controversy over deep water oil drilling off the coast of Greenland. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 21/07/11: Obese Children, Rats and Bugs It's mail day again. Today we talk more about the 1.6 million children in Canada who are overweight or obese... a figure that has tripled in the last 25 years. Last week we heard about one proposal that advocated putting children into foster care in extreme situations. Also, we share some of your best bug stories and hear more about the rat eradication program on Gwaii Haanas. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 21/07/11: Heat The severe heat that is gripping much of Canada can have serious consequences for our physical and mental health. And with climate change making these heat waves more common, we're going to have to learn to cope. Today, we look at strategies for how to do that. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 20/07/11: Alberta Child Deaths In the province of Alberta any child who dies in foster care is subject to an investigation done by Alberta Children and Youth Services. And critics say it's time those findings are made public. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 20/07/11: Somalia: Jeremy Scahill The United Nations has declared an official famine in southern Somalia. We speak with one journalist who says the United States is playing a high stakes game in Somalia... running a secret detention program and recruiting warlords. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 19/07/11: Murdoch Scandal Today, Rupert Murdoch faced his toughest challenge yet in the ever-expanding phone-hacking scandal. He testified in front of a British House of Commons committee. But on this side of the Atlantic, the story is just beginning. Rupert Murdoch is reported to be assembling a team of American lawyers. The FBI has launched an investigation. And several prominent members of the U.S. Congress are calling for their own inquiry. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 19/07/11: Rat Island A bold conservation project is about to get underway on Gwaii Haanas, some of Canada's most remote and rugged islands off the coast of British Columbia. The goal is to protect endangered species from predators... namely the rat. Killing off one species to save another. It's easier to defend when you're talking about killing rats. But it doesn't get rid of any of that pesky ethical murkiness. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 18/07/11: Obese Children According to Statistics Canada, 17 per cent of Canadian children are overweight and another eight per cent are obese. Experts in the field say roughly two per cent of our children are considered morbidly obese.This morning we're talking about a new, and some say, radical idea to deal with the obesity epidemic. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 18/07/11: The Urban Hunter (Documentary) Hunting is a way of life in many parts of Canada. Yet because of increasing urbanization, hunting is declining. We'll hear a documentary about the rise of the locovore hunter in our urban centres. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 15/07/11: Wicked Bugs: Amy Stewart Across the country, this has been a bad year for mosquitos, black flies and insects of all kinds. But it's nothing compared to what Amy Stewart documents in her new book, Wicked Bugs: The Louse That Conquered Napoleon's Army and Other Diabolical Insects. We talk to Amy Stewart about the most potent and feared insects the world has ever seen. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 156/07/11: The Wars of Afghanistan: Peter Tomsen Foreign troops have begun leaving Afghanistan. But the country is still a long way from being prosperous, stable or even safe. We talk to someone who witnessed what happened under similar circumstances 20 years ago as the Soviet Union withdrew and cleared the way for civil war. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 14/07/11: Soccer Diving According to a new study, male soccer players are far more likely to take a dive or fake an injury than women are. We talk to the author of the study to find out why and to a member of Canada's National Women's team to get her perspective on the issue. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 14/07/11: Murder in the Shoe Shop (Documentary) Today we re-broadcast a documentary investigation into a civil rights era murder that has gone unsolved for more than 46 years. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 13/07/11: Kai Nagata: Whither TV News We talk to former CBC and CTV reporter Kai Nagata, who wrote a scathing blog post about his disillusionment with TV news, which has set off a heated debate about the state of the field. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 13/07/11: Somali Famine We talk to two Somali doctors who are doing their best to provide shelter and care for about 100,000 people ... while a third of the country is facing famine. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 12/07/11: Murdoch's Watergate? The phone hacking scandal at Rupert Murdoch's News of The World appears to be jeopardizing his plans to expand his media empire. And some say it could threaten more of his existing operations. We're asking what the future holds for Rupert Murdoch. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 12/07/11: The Red Market: Scott Carney We take you inside the world of organ brokers, bone thieves and blood farmers as they supply the global trade in human body parts. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 11/07/11: Research in Motion Canadian technology giant Research In Motion will hold its annual board meeting tomorrow The company's earnings are below expectations, its stock has plummeted and some observers say RIM could disappear altogether sometime in the next year. We look at the state of what had been a Canadian success story. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 11/07/11: Music In The Sanctuary (Documentary) Our documentary today is about a former KGB agent, a church piano and the tradition of sanctuary in Canada. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 08/07/11: Southern Sudan Independence The Republic of South Sudan will officially mark its independence as a new country tomorrow. It comes after a half-century of brutal civil wars that left more than two million people dead. The transition to independence has been comparatively peaceful and full of hope. But fears of a renewed conflict are being stoked by new fighting between the north and the south. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 08/07/11: The Silencing of St. Andrew's Our documentary today is about the deconsecration of an Anglican Church in rural Quebec and what it tells us about the state of the two solitudes. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 07/0711: UK Newspaper Wars Journalists at the British newspaper The News of The World are alleged to have hacked into the phone accounts of crime victims, celebrities and members of the royal family. The resulting scandal is threatening Rupert Murdoch's sprawling media empire. We talk to former British Deputy Prime Minister Lord John Prescott, who says his account was hacked. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 07/07/11: Cigarette Packaging Ban In the fight to get people to quit and reduce deaths due to tobacco smoking, the Australian Government wants to pass some the world's toughest restrictions by removing brands on cigarette packages. But tobacco manufacturers have launched a big fight-back and they argue the product is legal, and that the government is infringing on their intellectual property. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 06/07/11: Revisiting History: Cornwallis Junior High This summer in Halifax has become a time of soul-searching with the stripping from a local junior high school of the name Edward Cornwallis, founding father of the city. Today, we explore the debate that has Haligonians asking exactly what Cornwallis represents and whether he should still be remembered proudly. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 06/07/11: Risking the Ruins of Machu Picchu We're off to Machu Picchu, Peru to look at how that magnificent, spiritual site is now in danger not just of disinification, but of poor conservation, and significant environmental damage as a construction boom continues below it. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 05/07/11: Gaza Flotilla As Greek authorities take control of a Canadian vessel bound for Gaza, we take a hard look at the spin swirling around the Gaza Flotilla. We interview a spokesperson for the Israeli Foreign Ministry and an Israeli human rights activist about the drama unfolding on the high seas and beyond. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 05/07/11: Khmer Rouge: Thet Sambath In Cambodia, a court is finally trying to bring justice for one of the most brutal and bloody efforts at social engineering the world has ever known. When the Khmer Rouge took power it emptied entire cities, forcing the people who lived there to become farmers and about 1 and 3/4 million people who either resisted or were seen to resist were murdered. A Cambodian journalist, Thet Sambath, who lost his parents and a brother in the Killing Fields befriended the man known as the Khmer Rouge's ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 04/07/11: Refugee Benhmuda Family Adel Benhmuda was deported back to Libya after the Canadian government rejected his refugee claim. Now, he says he has been detained and tortured by Libyan authorities and the United Nations is asking Canada to resettle him and his family. We talk to Adel Benhmuda and the lawyer who is representing him in Canada. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 04/07/11: HIV/AIDS in Saskatchewan When Anna Maria went to Saskatchewan last season, she met Krista Shore. Krista learned five years ago that she had HIV, difficult news for anyone, but for Krista who was a young mother who finally started turning away from a life of drug addiction, it was the kind of news that threatened to plunge her back into the abyss. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 01/07/11: Parking Meters Today, we delve into a bitter dispute in Stoney Creek and Waterdown, Ontario, where business owners say parking meters are killing their businesses. And we talk to an official in East Sussex, England, where the war on parking meters has reached epic heights. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 01/07/11: Urban by Nature Our documentary this morning looks at how nature shapes our brains and how the absence of nature can undermine our health. Freelancer contributor Robert Walker brings us her documentary, "Urban by Nature". Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 30/06/11: Letters: Asbestos Some mornings set themselves apart from any other. Anyone who's lived one will never forget the feeling of waking up with what feels like a sick, weight in the pit of their stomachs on the day their doctor will tell them whether they have tested positive for a devastating illness. Today we share the story of one of those mornings for someone we met this week, Heidi Von Palleske. And we talk to former Conservative MP Chuck Strahl about his battle with an asbestos-related cancer and his decis ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 30/06/11: Iran Torture: Jafar Behkish Jafar Behkish lives in Canada and comes from a family with a long history of political opposition to the Iranian regime. He's lost six brothers and sisters. We speak with him about why he's worried now for his recently imprisoned sister, and why his family refuses to stay quiet in the face of persecution. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 29/06/11: Greek Vote on Austerity Measures In Greece in the midst of a 48-hour general strike, legislators have voted to approve a crucial piece of new legislation today. The EU, the IMF, and the Greek government say Greeks must swallow the sweeping package of austerity measures, reduce their standard of living further still... in order that the government can keep servicing its debt, paying back banks and creditors. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 29/06/11: Isn't that Him? (Documentary) The countdown to the arrival of Prince William and Kate Middleton is on. So as Canada gets ready to host the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, our documentary today takes us to their new home, on the Welsh Island of Anglesey. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 28/06/11: Breakaway Iceberg A giant iceberg has lodged itself off the south coast of Labrador. It's believed to be part of an even larger iceberg which broke away from the Petermann Glacier in Greenland last summer and it's creating big problems for local fishers. Some experts fear it could be a sign that the Greenland ice cap is melting faster than previously thought. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 28/06/11: Bocuse D'Or (Documentary Repeat) Today's documentary takes us inside the Bocuse D'Or ... one of the toughest, most prestigious cooking competitions in the world. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 27/06/11: Asbestos in the Family The federal government's on-going refusal to allow asbestos to be added to a United Nations treaty which lists hazardous materials has sparked criticism abroad and at home. We have a documentary about a family which has been devastated by the effects of asbestos. And we talk to a doctor who treats people with a rare form of cancer caused by exposure to asbestos. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 27/06/11: Lost Boy: Mijok Lang Meet Mijok Lang, forced to run from his village in Sudan 20 years ago after militia attacks, he was one of the Lost Boys.... he spent months in the jungle in fear and years in refugee camps. Now, he's a celebrated rapper in Calgary. * Please note that this podcast was edited from it's original broadcast due to music rights issues * Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 24/06/11: Aggressive Deer Communities in British Columbia are looking for help to deal with increasingly aggressive deer, some of which are attacking people. We talk to a woman whose baby was attacked by deer, as well as the Mayor of Kimberley, where deer have become a real concern. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 24/06/11: The Sixties Scoop For 30 years, native children were taken from their homes and sent to non-native foster care ... thanks to a government policy - completely separate from the residential schools program. We talk to a woman who lived through it and has now launched a class action lawsuit. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 24/06/11: Raising Elijah: Sandra Steingraber Susan Steingraber is a biologist, writer and mom and she makes the case that being a good parent means taking better care of our planet. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 23/06/11: Afghan Detainees The Afghan detainee file has been a thorn in the side of the Conservative government for years. We look at the revelations contained in the documents released on Wednesday afternoon and what they mean for the government and Canada's mission in Afghanistan. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 23/06/11: Shift: The Final Chapter The final chapter in the Current's season-long project, Shift ... the eventual end of the road for our society's dominant demographic, the baby boomers. Embalmer, funeral director and author Robert Webster will give us an inside look at the world of undertakers in a feature interview. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 23/06/11: Letters: Vancouver Rioters, Asbestos and Pensions We speak with renowned novelist and activist Alice Walker as she prepares to sail to Gaza with a message of support for Palestinians. And we read your letters about Vancouver rioters, asbestos and pensions. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 22/06/11: Waiting for Treatment (Documentary) Our documentary this morning takes us inside the La Macaza Penitentiary in Quebec, where we meet a man who is fighting to get the proper medical treatment he believes he needs. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 22/06/11: Polling Predictions: Frank Graves As he watched the results of last month's federal election roll in, pollster Frank Graves, the President of EKOS Research Associates, was struck by a painful question How could I have screwed up so badly? In previous elections, Graves' predictions had been very close to the actual results but not so this time. Graves now believes his polling was off because of Canada's unique, complicated and quickly shifting demographics. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 22/06/11: Facial Recognition Software British Columbia's provincial insurance company has offered to let the Vancouver Police use its facial recognition software to identify the rioters in Vancouver. Software that's already running on Facebook might be pressed into service too. And that has some people seeing shades of big brother. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 21/06/11: CUPW: History and Future The Canadian Union of Postal Workers has walked out, been locked out and has carved out contract gains that others have copied. But with this latest back-to-work legislation from this latest government, some think they've been hollowed out. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 21/06/11: Public Shaming Social media is making it easier to name and shame the people responsible for the Game Seven Stanley Cup riots in Vancouver. But not everyone thinks that's a good thing. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 21/06/11: The Mystery of Area 51 A strange new twist on an already mysterious place. We speak with an investigative journalist with a controversial story about what really happens at the U.S. military base called Area 51. A mystery that has given rise to some of the world's most enduring conspiracy theories. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 16/06/11: Letters: Flogging, Cyber War and Prostitution Laws It's mail day and we share your thoughts on this week's stories -- whether flogging is ever an appropriate punishment, we'll hear why internet downloaders might be considered a threat to Canada's National security. Plus we speak with a former prostitute and brothel owner from Vancouver to look at whether Canada needs new prostitution laws. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 06/20/2011: Asbestos in Developing Countries Today, representatives from 143 countries meet in Geneva to debate whether chrysotile asbestos, the kind mined mainly in Canada, should be added to an international treaty regulating the trade in hazardous chemicals. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 06/20/2011: Back in the Closet (Documentary) This morning our Project SHIFT on demographic change tracks the realities of Canada's aging LGBT community. We speak with people who spent half their lives fighting to come out... who fear intolerance in old age could force them back into the closet. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 06/20/2011: Father Dearest It may be the day after Father's Day... but for many men it was Just-Another-Day. Lots of children are happy never spending time with their dads. And it turns out, many men are happy they never became dads. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 17/06/11: Vancouver Riot Video They were caught on camera...Stanley Cup rioters...thousands of images recorded by the public, passed on to police. Today we look at how social media is holding anti-social behaviour accountable. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 17/06/11: NDP Future The New Democrats have lots to celebrate as they convene in Vancouver this weekend. How significant is a proposal to remove the world "Socialist" from the Party's constitution? Just how "new" are the New Democrats willing to become? Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 17/06/11: Women2Drive Day in Saudi Arabia Saudi women, start your engines. A campaign to defy Saudi Arabia's ban on women driving gets underway today. We speak with a woman who's risked her safety to take the wheel twice and find out what's behind the road rebellion. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 16/06/11: Stanley Cup Vancouver Riots The smell of smoke from burning cars still wafts through parts of downtown Vancouver this morning following game seven of the Stanley Cup finals. Rioters rampaged through parts of the downtown after the Vancouver Canucks lost the cup to the Boston Bruins. Today we're counting up the many losses. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 16/06/11: Workplace Pensions Both Canada Post and Air Canada argue they can't afford to extend pension coverage to new workers because a decreasing number of workers are supporting the pensions of an expanding group of retirees. And since fewer than 3 million private-sector workers in Canada are covered by workplace pensions, in part two we're asking if workplace pensions are worth fighting for. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 15/06/11: State of the Economy The U.S. debt now totals 14.3-Trillion dollars. And the statistics appear to be ominous. One in seven Americans relies on food stamps ... close to 11 million Americans are looking for work. And yet U.S. economic growth now matches what it was between 2003 and 2006 and Canada's is better still. Then again stocks worldwide have lost 3-Trillion-dollars since May. Confused? Time for an Economic Reality Check. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 15/06/11: Flogging Debate A U.S. sociologist thinks criminals who commit minor crimes should be given a choice when they face the music. They can choose prison time for their offences, or they can risk the lash. He suggests flogging should return as a criminal punishment. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 15/06/11: Baby Sleep Some parents might wish there were more options when it comes to putting a crabby baby to sleep. We talk to an author who's penetrating little book of nursery rhymes has opened up an honest intercourse that's resonating with sleep-deprived parents. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 13/06/11: Afghan Drug Trade When they are in bloom, they are very pretty. When their petals fall, poppies contribute to an ugly business. not solely with a heroin industry that dominates the world but with the profits that bankroll the very Taliban fighters Canadian and NATO soldiers have been fighting in Afghanistan. As Canadian Combat Troops begin to withdraw from Afghanistan, we look at some of the outstanding questions and unfinished business that remains. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 13/06/11: Ontario Prostitution Law It's the solicitors versus soliciting in the Ontario Court of Appeals next week. A controversial ruling last fall appears to have invalidated many of the laws surrounding the sex trade in Ontario. Government lawyers are appealing. We ask: Is there a place for the state in the brothels of the nation? Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 13/06/11: Hedge Funds and African Farms Pt 3: Hedge Funds and African Farms - The mad scramble for Africa. Critics say the financial firms that helped cause the global recession by inflating the real estate bubble -- are back. And this time they're being accused of pulling the same tricks with the world's food supply. Hedge funds are buying up African farms -- but critics say -- they're not planting much food. We look into what may be behind an alleged African land grab? Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 14/06/11: Syrian Refugees Three months into a stubborn rebellion in Syria and the army is changing the game at both ends. The military loyal to President Assad is part of a brutal crackdown while others ordered to shoot civilians that are deserting. And only now are fleeing refugees talking. We share their stories. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 14/06/11: Cyber War Battles are fought over food, water, oil -- but silicon? In the U.S., the Pentagon says intrusions into American computer systems may be acts of war. Is it really ready to march on foreign hackers? Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 14/06/11: Cash for Girls Imagine India without the sari, without the bindi, without those sopranos in the Bollywood musicals. Women are an increasingly small minority in the subcontinent and the loss of female culture is hardly the biggest problem. We hear what's being done to convince Indian families to have more girls. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 10/06/11: Emotional Sports Fans Millions across the country will be glued to their tv's tonight as a little something called the Stanley Cup Finals moves back to Vancouver for Game Five. And Vancouver fans are ready. So just how do fans affect the players? We get the score from former NHL'er Cliff Ronning. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 10/06/11: Google and Autonomous Car Google dominates the information super highway. Will it dominate the regular highways as well? Nevada is going to allow Google to send a fleet of experimental cars onto its roads.... Cars that drive themselves. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 10/06/11: Twitter Journalism Tweets of Deceit ... The case of the Prime Minister who didn't choke and the Texas multiple murderer who didn't kill anyone. Social networking alerts politicians, police and journalists-- and fools them all. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 09/06/11: The Day the Water Died (Documentary) They're tryin' to wash us away, Randy Newman sang in his song about the Louisiana floods. Cities are usually prepared to handle the emergencies caused by catastrophically high water. But a lot more goes down the drain than homes and crops. Self respect can get lost too. We look at why survivors might think someone is trying to wash them away. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 09/06/11: Internet Access as a Human Right Unless you live in parts of rural Canada or the North where the option of broadband or high-speed isn't available, our lives are enhanced, entertained and enlightened by a click of a mouse. But around the world an estimated 80 percent of people in developing countries and 90 percent in African countries are unable to use the internet. Now a new UN report says access to the internet is a human right. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 09/06/11: Letters: Placebos, Prodigy Art and Dandelions This is mail day and our listeners wonder whether its appropriate to call Aelita André an artist even though she's been painting most of her life -- all four years of it. Plus we also take a look at the ethics of doctors prescribing placebos and we read some of your mail on dandelions - weed or flower? Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 08/06/11: Placebo Medication (Extended Version) When you get a prescription from your doctor, you assume you're getting medication at a predetermined dose that is expected to tackle your illness. But a new study suggests you might be getting a placebo instead. And it just might actually help you anyway. But are you even going to know and do you really need to? Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 08/06/11: Prodigy Art Artist Aelita Andre is four years old and her paintings are selling for $27,000 each. Her parents and the gallery showing her work consider her a prodigy but can an Expressionist Artist start their career in diapers? Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 08/06/11: Three Gorges Dam The Three Gorges is an area of astonishing beauty and one of China's greatest natural wonders. It even appears on Chinese currency, on the back of the ten yuan note. It's going to take a lot of ten yuan notes to fix the mess created by the Three Gorges dam. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 07/06/11: Rotating Postal Strike The Canadian Union of Postal Workers hopes its rotating strikes will pressure Canada Post without greatly inconveniencing the public. But some believe it could actually damage the union. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 07/06/11: The Farhud A Montreal man remembers the end of his childhood this week. It was the end of many childhoods, many livelihoods and many lives. Seventy years ago this week a final chapter of 2400 years of Jewish history was written in Iraq. Today, barely a dozen Jews call the country home. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 07/06/11: Dandelions Why have all those little yellow flowers got so many people in Calgary seeing red? And why are they at odds with the greens? Today we look at the full spectrum of public opinion on dandelions. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 06/06/11: First 100 Days of a New Government Friday's throne speech officially laid out the agenda of Stephen Harper's new majority government. But how will things play out on the ground over the first few months of Parliament? Our expert panel weighs in. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 06/06/11: The Young and The Jobless (Documentary) Today our project, SHIFT, on demographic change is tracking young people in search of work. There are 200,000 fewer young people on the job than there were at this time two years ago. We take a look inside youth unemployment. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 06/06/11: Coupon Deal Websites Some of you may get them in your email inbox ... daily deals on local goods and services. Groupon-style websites and the group discount coupons they offer are becoming increasingly popular. But the bigger they get ... the more complaints are arising. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 03/06/11: Harper in Quebec They used to say you can't win a majority government in Canada without Quebec. Not anymore. Stephen Harper's Conservatives last month not only secured a majority without conquering the province ... they did it while sustaining losses there. Guest host Bernard St. Laurent examines the Harper Conservatives' failing relationship with the Quebec electorate - and speaks to a long-time party insider who says the election has left Quebec Conservative Party members feeling abandoned. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Sweat Lodge (Documentary) Our documentary today takes you to the village of Oujé Bougamou in Northern Quebec.People across the north are still struggling to recover from the religious residential school experience. Some blame the schools for the loss of aboriginal tradition and culture. They believe the way to move forward is by going back to the old ways. But others have embraced the Christian faith. We'll tell you why an ancient Cree tradition has stirred so much controversy in Oujé Bougamou. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 03/06/11: E.coli Outbreak Scientists are calling it a very rare, "super toxic" strain of the E.Coli bacteria. And it's wreaking havoc in Europe. We bring you the latest and ask what would happen if the strain showed up in North America. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 02/06/11: Opposition Leader: Jack Layton As Canada's 41st Parliament opens today, a very new political landscape takes shape. We talk to NDP Leader Jack Layton about his party's success, his new role as Leader of the Opposition, and how a Conservative majority will affect the way he - and the House - do business. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 02/06/11: Peter Milliken and Letters It's mail day. We read your letters on Canadian Wheat Board Sales, the retirement of Auditor General Sheila Fraser and Willful Blindness - when one ignores obvious warning signs. Plus we also speak to outgoing House Speaker Peter Milliken about the role of his successor amid the changed political dynamic. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 02/06/11: Afghan MP Fawzia Koofi One of 23 children, Fawzia Koofi grew up in a male-dominated society and went on to not only become a member of Afghanistan's Parliament but its first deputy speaker. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Tale of Two Hockey Cities Tonight it's Game One of the Stanley Cup Finals and the Canucks will be facing off against the Bruins. Hockey-crazed citizens of Vancouver and Boston are unable to work and prone to uncontrollable outbursts. We talk to two people who know the teams and cities quite well to get their thoughts on who will bring home the Stanley Cup? Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Russell Peters Canadian stand-up comedian Russell Peters has made his name on poking fun at race and racial stereotypes. Why does he do it? Why does it work? Under what circumstances would he censor himself? Is an interview on The Current one of them? And all jokes aside, what are his real thoughts on race? We go deep into the mind of one of this country's top funny men. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Fraternities and Frat Culture Yale University this month banned Delta Kappa Epsilon for five years after members of the fraternity chanted sexist obscenities on campus. The incident has reignited an old debate: Do fraternities naturally breed misogyny? And should they have a place on campus? Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 31/05/11: Canadian Wheat Board Sales MPs are days away from the beginning of a new Parliament but behind the scenes the work is already underway for Canada's new Majority government. Stephen Harper's Conservatives has plans to strip the Canadian Wheat Board of its monopoly on sales. This means farmers could be selling on an open market in about a year … changing the game for one of Western Canada's largest crops. It is a Bread and Butter issue for farmers and they can be pretty crusty about their Wheat. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 31/05/11: IMF Leader: Panel The future of the International Monetary Fund is up in the air after the resignation of Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Khan. And that has a lot of people betting on what's going to happen. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 31/05/11: Echolocation: Daniel Kish They call him the real-life Batman. That's because Daniel Kish is blind, and has learned to navigate the world by bouncing sound off the objects around him - much the same way that bats do. Kish is now teaching the technique - known as echolocation - to other blind people, and is attracting a lot of attention from the scientific world along the way. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 30/05/11: Bob Rae (Feature Interview) Bob Rae is the new leader of the Liberal party. He joined Anna Maria today for a feature interview to discuss his new role in office and his forecast for what lies ahead. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 30/05/11: Taking the Oath In 2010, Canada welcomed two hundred and fifty thousand new immigrants. That's a quarter of a million people who could be taking the oath of Canadian citizenship in 2014. For our project 'Shift', The Current's Naheed Mustafa brought us a docuemntary about the emotional and complex topic of immigration in Canada. Her documentary is called, 'Taking the Oath'. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 30/05/11: African Public Health Malaria. Malnutrition. HIV/AIDS. The health issues facing Africa are myriad. Last year, Dr. Guerma was named director general of the African Medical and Research Foundation or AMREF - Africa's leading health development organization. She sat down with The Current when she passed through Toronto on her first trip to Canada with AMREF. We aired that interview for you today. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Ratko Mladic Ratko Maldic, the Bosnian Serb Army General was captured alive and is in custody today. Next month, he will face war crimes charges at the International Criminal Court. The capture of Mladic closes a brutal chapter in the wars that tore apart the former Yugoslavia in the 90's. But it also re-opens old wounds. We talk to two people whose lives were changed by Mladic and his henchmen. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website Mexico Churches and Drug Wars As Mexico's drug wars continue wreaking havoc in that country, the Catholic church is becoming a popular target. Narco bosses are donating to churches even building new ones. They buy the silence of congregations while threatening, even killing priests who resist their "charitable" acts. We explore their tactics and the church's efforts to stop them. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website The Business of Hair Forget jewelery or high-priced electronics. In cities across the United States, thieves increasingly are setting their sights on a new target: human hair. We explore the growing black market for human tresses, and the recent rash of hair weave thefts that's supplying it. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 26/05/11: Global Weirding What's up with the weather? From drought to catastrophic storms and flooding, extreme events seem to have become the new norm in recent years. The trend, attributed by many scientists to climate change, even has a name: Global Weirding. And it's changing the way the insurance industry does business. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 26/05/11: Auditor General: Sheila Fraser She's arguably the toughest auditor general this country has ever had - and she's about to leave office. We talk to Sheila Fraser about holding the government's feet to the fire for the last 10 years. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 26/05/11: Thursday's Letters Segment We dip into the mailbag as usual on Thursday's. Plus, we continue our conversation about a tragic accident 37 years ago at the military base in Valcartier, Quebec with a man who oversaw the morgue that day. And we'll revisit that story of the 8-year-old who admitted to getting Botox injections on national TV. It turns out the story is more complicated than we thought. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 26/05/11: Global Weirding What's up with the weather? From drought to catastrophic storms and flooding, extreme events seem to have become the new norm in recent years. The trend, attributed by many scientists to climate change, even has a name: Global Weirding. And it's changing the way the insurance industry does business. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 26/05/11: Auditor General: Sheila Fraser She's arguably the toughest auditor general this country has ever had - and she's about to leave office. We talk to Sheila Fraser about holding the government's feet to the fire for the last 10 years. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 26/05/11: Thursday's Letters Segment We dip into the mailbag as usual on Thursday's. Plus, we continue our conversation about a tragic accident 37 years ago at the military base in Valcartier, Quebec with a man who oversaw the morgue that day. And we'll revisit that story of the 8-year-old who admitted to getting Botox injections on national TV. It turns out the story is more complicated than we thought. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 25/05/11: Oprah Winfrey's Impact After 25 years, The Oprah Winfrey Show officially comes to an end today. During the show's run, its namesake became one of the richest and most influential women in the world, attracting millions of mostly female devotees along the way. Oprah's fans say she has inspired them to be better people. But critics say she has instead inspired a global cohort of mindless followers. As Oprah's last episode goes to air, we explore her impact on the women of the world. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 25/05/11: Willful Blindness: Margaret Heffernan Pt 2: Willful Blindness - Ever wonder why we insist on burying our heads in the sand? What's behind our inclination to willfull blindness, our ability to avoid facing the truth and sometimes even pretend we didn't know it. We talk to the writer of a fascinating new book. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 25/05/11: Genetic Discrimination If our destiny is in our genes, who has a right to know what that destiny is? That's the crux of a growing debate between the insurance industry and private citizens who feel they're being denied coverage because they might or might not be on track to inherit a disease. We look at the fight to end so-called genetic discrimination. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 25/05/11: Oprah Winfrey's Impact After 25 years, The Oprah Winfrey Show officially comes to an end today. During the show's run, its namesake became one of the richest and most influential women in the world, attracting millions of mostly female devotees along the way. Oprah's fans say she has inspired them to be better people. But critics say she has instead inspired a global cohort of mindless followers. As Oprah's last episode goes to air, we explore her impact on the women of the world. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 25/05/11: Willful Blindness: Margaret Heffernan Pt 2: Willful Blindness - Ever wonder why we insist on burying our heads in the sand? What's behind our inclination to willfull blindness, our ability to avoid facing the truth and sometimes even pretend we didn't know it. We talk to the writer of a fascinating new book. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 25/05/11: Genetic Discrimination If our destiny is in our genes, who has a right to know what that destiny is? That's the crux of a growing debate between the insurance industry and private citizens who feel they're being denied coverage because they might or might not be on track to inherit a disease. We look at the fight to end so-called genetic discrimination. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 24/05/11: Valcartier Part One 37 years ago, an accident on a military base in Valcartier, Quebec left six cadets dead and more wounded. Many of the cadets who survived remain traumatized by what happened that day and some have been trying get help from the Federal Government. But Ottawa hasn't been forthcoming. ***Warning: Graphic descriptions involved in this item *** Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 24/05/11: Valcartier Part Two We continue our conversation with three men who were at the Canadian Forces base in Valcartier on that fateful day in July, 1974. Gerry Fostaty was an 18 year old Sargeant in the reserves and he was in charge of a platoon at Valcartier. Charles Gutta, was the company Sargeant Major that day and Peter Van Kampen was a 15 year old cadet who was in the room when the hand grenade went off. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 24/05/11: Population Growth and Birth Control The United Nations has revised its global population estimates for the coming decades. And the new numbers are causing a lot of concern. We look at why we should worry and what we are, and are not, doing about it. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 24/05/11: Valcartier Part One 37 years ago, an accident on a military base in Valcartier, Quebec left six cadets dead and more wounded. Many of the cadets who survived remain traumatized by what happened that day and some have been trying get help from the Federal Government. But Ottawa hasn't been forthcoming. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 24/05/11: Valcartier Part Two We continue our conversation with three men who were at the Canadian Forces base in Valcartier on that fateful day in July, 1974. Gerry Fostaty was an 18 year old Sargeant in the reserves and he was in charge of a platoon at Valcartier. Charles Gutta, was the company Sargeant Major that day and Peter Van Kampen was a 15 year old cadet who was in the room when the hand grenade went off. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 24/05/11: Population Growth and Birth Control The United Nations has revised its global population estimates for the coming decades. And the new numbers are causing a lot of concern. We look at why we should worry and what we are, and are not, doing about it. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 23/05/11: Bear Attacks The Victoria Day holiday marks the beginning of the wilderness recreation season for many Canadians. But as Canadians get back to nature, they're also getting back into bear habitat. In this segment, you'll meet three people who have survived being attacked by bears. And you'll also hear some of The Current's listeners tell tales of their close encounters of the bear kind. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 23/05/11: Bear Attacks - Continued In our first half-hour, we introduced you to three people with incredible stories of survival. In this portion of the segment, those guests will return to tell us how those experiences have changed them. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 23/05/11: Predictions We take a look at The Rapture, history's worst predictions and the role that cognitive dissonance plays in validating, sometimes, unfounded beliefs. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 20/05/11: Conservative Senators Newfoundlanders are outraged that a man they rejected twice at the polls has been selected twice to sit in the senate. Some voters think Fabian Manning's re-appointment is an insult. Others call it recognition of public service while still more say, it's part of the government's Machiavellian plan to push its senate reform agenda. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 20/05/11: Attawapiskat Education Students in the Attawapiskat First Nation -- a remote community on James Bay in Northern Ontario -- have been waiting for a proper school for more than 10 years now. And they're not the only first nations students who say they're facing shortcomings when it comes to the quality of their education. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 20/05/11: Scrabble Dictionary Some scrabble players are challenging a decision to add new slang terms to the game's official dictionary. Others are adhering to the letter of the scrabble law. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 23/05/11: Bear Attacks The Victoria Day holiday marks the beginning of the wilderness recreation season for many Canadians. But as Canadians get back to nature, they're also getting back into bear habitat. In this segment, you'll meet three people who have survived being attacked by bears. And you'll also hear some of The Current's listeners tell tales of their close encounters of the bear kind. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 23/05/11: Bear Attacks - Continued In our first half-hour, we introduced you to three people with incredible stories of survival. In this portion of the segment, those guests will return to tell us how those experiences have changed them. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 23/05/11: Predictions We take a look at The Rapture, history's worst predictions and the role that cognitive dissonance plays in validating, sometimes, unfounded beliefs. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 20/05/11: Conservative Senators Newfoundlanders are outraged that a man they rejected twice at the polls has been selected twice to sit in the senate. Some voters think Fabian Manning's re-appointment is an insult. Others call it recognition of public service while still more say, it's part of the government's Machiavellian plan to push its senate reform agenda. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 20/05/11: Attawapiskat Education Students in the Attawapiskat First Nation -- a remote community on James Bay in Northern Ontario -- have been waiting for a proper school for more than 10 years now. And they're not the only first nations students who say they're facing shortcomings when it comes to the quality of their education. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 20/05/11: Scrabble Dictionary Some scrabble players are challenging a decision to add new slang terms to the game's official dictionary. Others are adhering to the letter of the scrabble law. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 19/05/11: Severe Droughts: Texas, France and China While much of Canada has been facing devastating floods, several parts of the world -- from Texas to France and China -- are dealing with severe droughts. We get the latest on the situation and what's behind these global weather patterns. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 19/05/11: Headache Disorders The World Health Organization has released its first ever global atlas on headache disorders and the results aren't good. Billions of people are suffering ... the social and economic costs are enormous and we're not doing much to help. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 19/05/11: Letters: Mistakes, Bear Encounters & Fires It's mail day. We find out what you've had to say about embracing failure, facing down bears, killing Osama bin Laden and fighting floods and fires. Plus... Two years ago, the township of Marysville, Australia had been devastated by wildfires. And the people there faced a challenge similar to the one confronting the people of Slave Lake, Alberta today. We find out if there are any lessons to be learned. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 19/05/11: Severe Droughts: Texas, France and China While much of Canada has been facing devastating floods, several parts of the world -- from Texas to France and China -- are dealing with severe droughts. We get the latest on the situation and what's behind these global weather patterns. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 19/05/11: Headache Disorders The World Health Organization has released its first ever global atlas on headache disorders and the results aren't good. Billions of people are suffering ... the social and economic costs are enormous and we're not doing much to help. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 19/05/11: Letters: Mistakes, Bear Encounters & Fires It's mail day. We find out what you've had to say about embracing failure, facing down bears, killing Osama bin Laden and fighting floods and fires. Plus... Two years ago, the township of Marysville, Australia had been devastated by wildfires. And the people there faced a challenge similar to the one confronting the people of Slave Lake, Alberta today. We find out if there are any lessons to be learned. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 18/05/11: Slave Lake Fires More than a third of the homes in Slave Lake, Alberta have been destroyed by raging forest fires. Entire neighbourhoods have been burned to the ground and all 7,000 of the town's residents have fled. We're asking how to rebuild a town that was nearly wiped off the map. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 18/05/11: Kids' Cosmetic Surgery Cosmetic surgery for teenagers is a growing business. And that has sparked a fierce debate about whether that's appropriate and why teenagers are so interested in the first place. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 18/05/11: Better By Mistake Somewhere along the line, you've probably been told that failure is a useful experience and that you should learn from your mistakes. The trouble is that all to often, we say the words, but don't walk the walk. Now two American writers are trying to force us to take those ideas seriously and maybe even live by them. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 18/05/11: Slave Lake Fires More than a third of the homes in Slave Lake, Alberta have been destroyed by raging forest fires. Entire neighbourhoods have been burned to the ground and all 7,000 of the town's residents have fled. We're asking how to rebuild a town that was nearly wiped off the map. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 18/05/11: Kids' Cosmetic Surgery Cosmetic surgery for teenagers is a growing business. And that has sparked a fierce debate about whether that's appropriate and why teenagers are so interested in the first place. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 18/05/11: Better By Mistake Somewhere along the line, you've probably been told that failure is a useful experience and that you should learn from your mistakes. The trouble is that all to often, we say the words, but don't walk the walk. Now two American writers are trying to force us to take those ideas seriously and maybe even live by them. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 17/05/11: Dominique Strauss-Kahn He's been responsible for the economic fate of nations, a contender in the next French presidential race, a man of wealth and power. Today Dominique Strauss-Kahn, head of the IMF sits in a New York detention centre facing multiple charges related to allegations of sexual assault. So how does it get this far? Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 17/05/11: Parent Alienation Syndrome After she was divorced, Pamela Richardson's son became estranged from her and later committed suicide. She blamed her husband and a condition called Parental Alienation Syndrome ... a condition so controversial it has sparked a battle over whether it even exists. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 17/05/11: Age Discrimination Our workforce is aging, people are choosing to stay on the job longer and mandatory retirement laws are being challenged as human rights violations. We look at a lawsuit that could push the situation even further ... as well as the consequences for people who'd be quite happy to retire now. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 16/05/11: Breached Dike Consequences Manitoba is experiencing some of the most severe flooding in its history and given what people have been through before, that's saying a lot. We talk to two rural couples ... one who had to flee their home and one who got to stay because of the deliberate breach of the dike. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 16/05/11: Mayor & Flood Panel Despite the controlled breach over the weekend, the threat of rising flood waters is still very real and Brandon is one of the city's most at risk. We speak to the mayor of Brandon, Manitoba and the former mayor of Winnipeg during the great flood of 1997. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 16/05/11: Premier Greg Selinger The swollen waters of the Assiniboine are alternately full of fury and quietly, menacingly rising up through farm land and communities across a wide swath of this province. And with the water comes the emotion - some communities feel sacrificed, others feel ignored. And even nature gets political. We speak to the man who is responsible for some tough decisions, Premier Greg Selinger. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 13/05/11: Defending Ignatieff Being an intellectual superstar may have wowed them at Harvard but it did nothing for Michael Ignatieff when Canadians cast their ballots a couple of weeks ago. In fact, the post-mortems suggest the former Liberal leader didn't "connect" with Canadians. Did Harvard crimson clash with our red maple leaf? Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 13/05/11: Jawad Nabulsi (Extended Interview) Jawad Nabulsi was a key organizer in Egypt's pro-democracy revolution and he has paid a high price for his work. During one of the protests, he was shot several times and is now blind in one eye. We speak with him about the price he paid for the movement's success and where his country goes from here. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 13/05/11: Grape Expectations At this moment, Terry David Mulligan is driving towards the Alberta-BC border with a trunk full of wine ... bent on breaking the law and making a point. The law in question is The Importation of Intoxicating Liquor Act of 1928 ... a law many Canadian wine-makers say is hurting their business. We catch up with Terry David Mulligan. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 12/05/11: Manitoba Floods Authorities in Manitoba are expected to breach the dike on one section of the Assiniboine River, flooding about 150 houses on one section of land in order to prevent more damage at other, more heavily populated points along the flood zone. We talk to someone whose land is set to be flooded and examine the ethical dilemma of sacrificing a few people's homes for the sake of many more. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 12/05/11: Osama bin Laden Killing A lot of Americans don't seem to care whether killing Osama bin Laden was legal. But for Benjamin Ferencz -- a former prosecutor at the Nazi war crimes trials in Nuremberg -- it matters a great deal. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 12/05/11: Letters: Conspiracies, Floods & Workplace Harassment This is mail day. We find out what you've had to say about conspiracy theories, flooding and incivility in the workplace. Plus, we find out how you too can be buried at sea and we get the latest on the flooding along the Mississippi, from a man who is heading up the efforts to stem the tide in one county in Tennessee. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 11/05/11: Dirty Election Tricks On the day of last week's federal election, voters all over the country received mysterious phone calls sowing confusion about where and how they could vote. The CBC's Dave Seglins brings us the results of his investigation into what happened. And we talk to Allen Raymond, the author of "How To Rig An Election". Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 11/05/11: Shale Gas & Fracking There's a substantial amount of natural gas buried under the earth across Canada. But getting at it is tough and there are consequences. We look at the potential and the perils of fracking. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 11/05/11: Something Fierce: Carmen Aguirre Carmen Aguirre fled Chile soon after that and landed in Vancouver. But she went back to fight in the underground resistance to Pinochet's rule ... a life she's only now prepared to talk about openly. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 10/05/11: Severe Floods People in Quebec, Saskatchewan and Manitoba are battling severe floods. Thousands have been forced to evacuate their homes and the water is still rising in some areas. We get the latest on the situation and hear first-person accounts of how people are coping. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 10/05/11: The Dark Tunnel (Documentary) For an instant, Kevin Pett locked eyes with the man who had jumped in front of the subway he was driving. That moment sent him to a very dark place ... that nonetheless sheds light on what it's like to live with someone else's suicide. Aziza Sindu brings us her documentary, "The Dark Tunnel". Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 10/05/11: Brain Injury: Bob Woodruff Bob Woodruff was 27 days into the job of a lifetime when he was nearly killed in Iraq. Now, instead of co-anchoring ABC's World News Tonight, he is working on his recovery ... avoiding war zones and advocating for soldiers with severe brain injuries. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 09/05/11: Conservative Cabinet Panel We look at the challenges Prime Minister Stephen Harper faces as he puts together a new cabinet, as well as who is likely to be in the cabinet and what that suggests about how Prime Minister Harper will govern with his first majority. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 09/05/11: When Zabia Sings (Documentary) Zabia Chamberlain was an up-and-coming public service worker in Ottawa. But after a series of run-ins with her boss she is now a shell of her former self and fighting the Federal Government for what she says is wrongful dismissal. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 09/05/11: The Fear: Robert Mugabe & Zimbabwe It has been three years since Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe was defeated at the polls and forced into a power-sharing government. Today, he has reconsolidated his power and recommitted to staying on top for his 31st year in office. We talk to Zimbabwean-born writer Peter Godwin. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 06/05/11: The Rapture: Judgement Day Harold Camping, a Christian radio broadcaster in Oakland, has launched a billboard campaign to warn the world that The Rapture - the beginning of the biblical story of the end of the world - is less than three weeks away ... May 21st to be precise. We find why his organization believes the date is coming and why his campaign is generating such a fierce backlash. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 06/05/11: The Killing of Osama bin Laden Many Americans celebrated loudly and proudly when they heard the news of Osama bin Laden's death. We talk to two Americans who found that alternately chilling and liberating. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 06/05/11: Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids: Bryan Caplan Most parents will tell you that the more kids you have, the harder your job is going to be. But economist Bryan Caplan says that that doesn't have to be the case ... that having children is a lot easier than you might think and that there are plenty of perfectly selfish reasons to have more. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 05/05/11: Bin Laden Conspiracies Some believe the Obama administration miscalculated how it handled the body of Osama Bin Laden and it has ignited unbridled conspiracy theories about the killing. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 05/05/11: A Memoir of Captivity: Mellissa Fung The CBC's Mellissa Fung has spent two-and-a-half years coming to terms with what happened to her while she was held hostage in Afghanistan. She has now written a book about her ordeal. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 05/05/11: Letters: Election Mail & Elizabeth May Today is mail day, we share your thoughts on our election coverage. Plus a conversation with Green Party Leader Elizabeth May about making history and trying to make change with a caucus of one. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 04/05/11: The Future of the Bloc The Bloc Quebecois has been reduced to four seats in the House of Commons. We're asking what this means for the future of the sovereignly movement and Quebec's relationship with the rest of Canada. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 04/05/11: Urban by Nature (Documentary) As part of our project, Shift, we look at how nature shapes our brains and how the absence of nature can undermine our health. Freelancer contributor Robert Walker brings us her documentary, "Urban by Nature". Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 04/05/11: Rebooting Civilization Science writer Bob Holmes says our daily lives are filled with the accidents of history. The seven-day-work-week, the 24-hour-day, the layout of your computer keyboard -- he says these are all things that no clear-thinking person would ever create today. We're asking what our society would look like if we stripped it down and started from scratch. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 03/05/11: Post-Election Discussion Olivia Chow, Stockwell Day and Scott Brison weigh-in on last night's election results - one of the most historic elections in Canadian history Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website 03/05/11: Historic Victory for the NDP The NDP has elected more than twice as many MPs as it has ever done before. We talk to Stephen Lewis and Ed Broadbent about what it means to them. We also check in with Calgary and Montreal's morning show hosts to hear how their guests/listeners are resp