Today's guest host was Rick Macinnes-Rae.
Satire
It's Friday, November 23rd.
A man who was jolted with a police Taser has died in a Dartmouth jail. Nova Scotia's chief justice has asked the RCMP to review the death.
Currently, the RCMP has agreed to help out, as long as they don't have to fly anywhere.
This is The Current.
Chiquita Banana Lawsuit
The Chiquita banana song is surely one of the most recognizable jingles in the world. Less familiar, perhaps, is the American fruit importer's controversial history in Colombia, one of its biggest banana suppliers.
For a long time, Chiquita Brands International has been dogged by questions about its role in Latin America. The company even inspired the phrase "banana republic." But now it's facing lawsuits alleging that it supported right-wing militias responsible for thousands of deaths during Colombia's decades-long civil war. Not exactly the stuff jingles are made of.
In 2007, Chiquita pleaded guilty to counterterrorism charges and admitted that its former subsidiary, Banadex, paid $1.7 million to the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, better known as the AUC. The AUC was designated a terrorist organization by the United States Government in 2001.
Chiquita was fined $25 million. But some Colombians say it's not enough. The families of 387 people believed to have been killed by the AUC have filed a $7.86 billion lawsuit against Chiquita in a U.S. District Court.
Jonathan Reiter is the lawyer for those plaintiffs and he's in New York City.
Chiquita Banana - Business Ethics
Chiquita isn't the only company that stands accused of using paramilitary groups in order to do business in Colombia. In fact, according to Manuel Rozental, the practice is widespread. Manuel Rozental is a Colombian activist with The Continental Social Alliance and he spoke to us from Bogota.
Listen to The Current: Part 1 (Due to various rights issues some segments may be edited for internet use)
The Current: Part 2
Baghdad, City of Widows
In her lifetime, Iraq Haifa Zangana has watched her country transform before her very eyes -- several times over.
From her childhood following the end of British colonial rule to her work as an activist, her imprisonment and torture under Saddam Hussein's rule, her eventual exile, and now a U.S.-led occupation. Through all of those incarnations, she has watched, and helped encourage, the prominent role that women have played in Iraqi society: as caregivers, freedom fighters, activists and academics.
But all of that contrasts quite sharply with the image of Iraqi women today. In her new book, Haifa Zangana traces the long history of Iraqi women's political and social activism. The book is called City of Widows: An Iraqi Woman's Account of War and Resistance and Haifa Zangana was with us in Toronto.
Listen to The Current:Part 2
(Due to various rights issues some segments may be edited for internet use)
The Current: Part 3
3-D Movies
The box office numbers are in and movie-goers have put the computer-animated Beowulf at the top of the pack. The story -- how a monster-killing hero saves a village only to be consumed by his own pride -- is one of the oldest in the English language. But in Robert Zemeckis' version, it's the very futuristic technology that steals the show.
His most talked about cinematic trick is three-dimensional cinematography. And although some of you will no doubt be shaking your heads, recalling your 3-D movie misadventures of old, a lot of movie-goers have a decidedly different perspective.
Earlier this week, The Current producer Dominic Girard visited a Toronto movie theatre and asked people lining up for Beowulf what they were hoping to see, discovering an appetite for something new at the local multiplex. And Hollywood seems eager to feed it. As many as thirty 3-D films are looming on the horizon. And with big names like Steven Spielberg, James Cameron, U2 and Peter Jackson attached.
So is Beowulf a sign of things to come, a harbinger of the future of cinema? Jason Anderson, a film critic for Eye Weekly and The Globe And Mail, offered some thoughts.
So did Steve Schklair, founder and CEO of Three-ality Digital Systems, a company on the vanguard of 3-D filmmaking and he's in South Pasadena, California.
3-D Movies - Debate
For their thoughts on what the technology means for the future of cinema, we had two guests: Joshua Greer is a Canadian ex-pat who's the President and co-founder of Real D, a company that's been developing technology to allow movie theatres to show the new generation of 3-D films. We reached him in Los Angeles.
And Brian D. Johnson is the long-time film critic for Maclean's Magazine and in Toronto.
Last Word - 3-D Movie Trailer
This episode of The Current got us kind of nostalgic, and thinking about the last time 3-D technology was the promise of the future back in the early 1980s. So we closed the show with the trailer for a long-forgotten movie from 1982 called Parasite ... a movie that promised to change the horror movie genre forever!
Listen to The Current:Part 3
(Due to various rights issues some segments may be edited for internet use)
CBC does not endorse content of external sites - links will open in new window
|
