As It Happens: Friday Edition

Part One

Canadian kills man while on ayahuasca
After taking a powerful hallucinogen called "ayahuasca" together at a spiritual retreat in Peru, a Canadian man kills a British man -- and claims self-defence.  

St. John's poet laureate resigns
The poet laureate of St. John's, Newfoundland tells local politicans to take a haiku: he's quitting over arts cuts he calls "shortsighted and offensive".  

Butter shortage
Canada is suffering from a serious shortage of cream used to make butter -- and one Ontario producer explains how hard it is to get the situation down pat. 

Part Two

"Fireside Al" Maitland reads Guy de Maupassant's The Necklace
We've all borrowed a diamond necklace from a friend, and then lost it -- but that common experience is rarely as cruelly ironic as it is in Alan Maitland's holiday reading of the story "The Necklace". 

Part Three

Encore presentation of As it Happened: messages
The As It Happens archive is a cavernous subterranean vault, packed with dusty parchments, crumbling reel-to-reel tapes, and bats. It is an eerie and dangerous place -- and yet, we have bravely ventured into it, and emerged with stories from programs long past. 

As it Happens was produced this week by: 

Laurie Allan
Jeanne Armstrong
Imogen Birchard
John Chipman
Katie Geleff
Chris Harbord 
John McGill
Julia Pagel
Kevin Robertson
Pedro Sanchez
and Kate Swoger. 

Our technician is Reynold Gonsalves.The show director is Kevin Ball. Chris Howden is our writer.  

John Perry is the Senior Producer. And the Executive Producer of As It Happens is Robin Smythe.

We'd also like to thank some other people who helped us out this week: 

Mary Lynk, Susan Holle, Kendall Nowe and Murray Cullen in Halifax
Susan McKenzie in Montreal
Matthew Kupfer in Ottawa
Jody Porter in Thunder Bay
Suzanne Dufresne in Winnipeg
Michael O'Halloran in Calgary
and Anne Penman in Vancouver. 

As It Happens will be back again on Monday. Good night, and good weekend.