The Current for March 6, 2019
Today on The Current: Gerald Butts offers his side of the SNC-Lavalin story to the House of Commons justice committee — will it change the narrative?; plus, as the last ISIS stronghold looks set to fall, what happens to the Yazidi women being freed from sexual slavery within the caliphate?; also, we speak to author Molly Jong-Fast about growing up as Erica Jong’s daughter, and why she writes about her parents’ sex life; and as a man in Britain appears to have had the HIV virus eradicated from his system, we look at what’s being called a critical moment in the search for a cure.
Today on The Current:
- Gerald Butts, the prime minister's former senior political advisor, will offer his side of the SNC-Lavalin story in testimony before the House of Commons justice committee on Wednesday. Will it add a new perspective to the controversy?
- A few short years ago, ISIS held territory spanning two countries, and controlled the lives of millions. Now the group's defeat seems inevitable, as Kurdish forces surround the militants' last stronghold: a village in eastern Syria. We discuss what happens next, from the fate of the refugees fleeing the caliphate, to the fighters who propped it up.
- As the daughter of an American novelist whose work became symbolic of the sexual liberation movement in the 1970s, Molly Jong-Fast's childhood was often lonely and confusing. We talk to the writer about what it was like growing up in the world of her mother Erica Jong, and why she writes about her parents' sex life.
- A man known as the London Patient, who had been living with HIV, appears to have had the virus eradicated from his system after he received a bone marrow transplant from an HIV-resistant donor. But even though transplants like this have failed in other patients, and are impractical in terms of curing the millions living with the virus, we look at what's being called a critical moment in the search for a cure.