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The Current Transcript for February 11, 2016

Host: Anna Maria Tremonti

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Listen to the full episode

Prologue

SOUNDCLIP

We must do everything we can to close the gap between the world as it is and the world as it should be, that is the mission of the United Nations.

ANNA MARIA TREMONTI: The secretary-general of the United Nations presiding over the seventieth general debate last September. When desperate people were appearing by the thousands on Europe’s shores, when Syria's war seemed as intractable as it does right now, and other areas of conflict from Ukraine to the Central African Republic were in the headlines. As Ban Ki-moon arrives in Ottawa today the conflicts persist, and the UN's efforts are being watched with a critical eye. In a moment we will hear from the secretary-general of the United Nations. And then…

SOUNDCLIP

There were over 17,000 people would come on a Sunday to look at them. That's one of the first things he wrote. What are we doing here? It was a mistake.

/div>

AMT: He was on display across Europe in a traveling exhibition, what amounted to a human zoo. Abraham Ulrikab was from an Inuit community in Labrador, when he and seven others were shipped to Germany in the late eighteen hundreds with their hunting spears and their pelts to be gawked at by a paying public. In half an hour the tragic story of what happened to this unsuspecting indigenous group, and the descendants who want to bring their remains home. Also today journalist Amanda Lindhout spent fifteen harrowing months in Somalia, as the prisoner of brutal kidnappers, and one of her captors actually tried to contact her on Facebook about a year ago.

SOUNDCLIP

The fact that my kidnappers know about the choices that I had made on the other side of captivity and they can see that I choose compassion in my life now, even for that part of the world, that's a form of justice.

AMT: Amanda Lindhout is defiantly rebuilding her life with a non-profit organization, to offer opportunity to people in the very place that had been so brutal to her. She is our Friday host this week. And she'll join me first today, in an hour. I am Anna Maria Tremonti , this is The Current.

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Secretary General Ban Ki-moon assess UN's failures on global crises

Guests: Ban Ki-moon

SOUNDCLIP

We the Peoples of the United Nations, determined to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war. Which twice in our lifetime have brought untold sorrow to mankind [voice trails off]

ANNA MARIA TREMONTI: Well from the archives, that is the actor Sir Laurence Olivier reading the preamble to the United Nations charter. Founded seventy years ago in the shadow of the Second World War, the UN's mandate has been to promote peace and stability across the entire world. And in many ways it has succeeded, rates of extreme poverty and child mortality have plummeted. More girls are educated than ever before. And another truly World War has been averted. And yet peace and stability remain elusive with the conflict in Syria, Global terrorism, and the existential threat of climate change looming. Going into its eighth decade the UN has its work cut out for it. And today its leader is in Ottawa to meet with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Ban Ki-moon is entering his ninth year as the secretary-general of the United Nations and we reached him earlier in New York. Mr. secretary-general, hello and welcome.

BAN KI-MOON: Thank you it is a great pleasure, thank you.

AMT: What is the goal of your visit to Canada?

BAN KI-MOON: The United Nations and Canada has such a traditionally long and very good relationship. Canada is not only a member of G20 and G7, it is a very important part for the United Nations. I’d like to reinforce and strengthen such a partnership. But I'm very much excited by such a strong commitment of Prime Minister Trudeau saying that Canada is back to the United Nations. He has re-commit to the ideas and goals of the United Nations.

AMT: Let's talk a little bit about some of the things that are happening as you come to Ottawa in the world. To the eyes of many Canadians the world in 2016 looks a lot more dangerous than when you became the Secretary General nearly a decade ago. How did we get there?

BAN KI-MOON: It is true that we are living in an era of a peril and so many challenges. There is still abject poverty and many conflicts all around the world. When at the same time the world leaders have shown such a great vision last year by adopting a Sustainable Development Course with 17 goals and also they adopted a climate change agreement in Paris. A Paris agreement where Prime Minister Trudeau, he himself generated a lot of political force. Those are two very important goals and vigils which can give a lot of promise and hope to the world. So the United Nations is trying to mobilize all what we can, first of all, to implement these two goals and the visions and the agreement at the same time addressing the country issues and poverty issues. I think if we do this well with this tool we can significantly reduce the root causes of our conflicts.

AMT: Well and I want to ask you specifically about the conflict in Syria. As you know it has claimed more than two hundred fifty thousand lives. It has displaced eleven million people. It is the world's biggest humanitarian crisis. The head of the U.N. Children's Agency calls it the worst place in the world to be a child. Just this week the UN issued a report that called the Assad Government, that accused it of inhuman actions on a scale that amounts to extermination. How do you as the leader of the UN see what is happening in Syria?

BAN KI-MOON: It’s very heartbreaking and tragic for humanity that this conflict has been continuing for five years. Next few months, soon, we will be entering a sixth year with this Syrian crisis. That is why I have been consistently emphasizing that there is no military solution. There is only one solution, political solution through inclusive dialogue, and that's what we started with my special envoy de Mistura, convening the Syrian parties talks last month, on January 25th. Unfortunately, this meeting had to be suspended because of ongoing conflict, ongoing war on the ground. But now, Thursday, in Munich, Germany, the members of the International Syrian Support Group, ISSG, led by the United States and Russia, are going to meet with the foreign ministers of the ISSG. They will renew their commitment to re-engage in dialogue. At the same time, addressing this issue of how to prevent the further suffering of people in Syria. Delivering humanitarian assistance; that is a very important part of confidence building measures. First, we want to have a nationwide ceasefire, and we need to deliver humanitarian assistance and life-saving assistance to many millions of people. And these are two things, confidence building measures, on the basis of which we can continue this, a political dialogue.

AMT: And as you point out, we are almost reaching the start of the sixth year of this war. To what extent has the United Nations failed?

BAN KI-MOON: We are not working for failure. The United Nations need strong support of the member states, and particularly, parties concerned in Syrian conflict. It's not the United Nations only who are working on this, we have to get the full support of people. It is very unfortunate that we see many divisions in this country. First of all, Syrian people are divided completely, largely in two parts: government and opposition. But opposition parties, they are also divided. Then the countries in the region, Arab region, they are divided. Now unfortunately, we have seen a lot of divisions in the United Nations, particularly in these Security Council. Now, Security Council has recently shown some unity of purpose by adopting Security Council Resolution 2254, and that they have initiated on the initiative of the Unites States and Russia, ISSG. I sincerely hope that this ISSG will really revamp and reinforce a political solution while United Nations can really deliver confidence building measures.

AMT: And you know, you have so many agencies trying to help in Syria. You have the weight of all of that on your shoulders. I'm wondering, what do you think about when you wake up in the morning and you see that that war continues? How does that affect you personally, as the man at the top of the United Nations?

BAN KI-MOON: It’s really a humbling experience for me. Every morning, every night, when I start my work, then I am always thinking about the people whom we serve. The charter said that we the peoples, I think we have to do all what we can. When we think about the so many millions or hundreds of million people are still starving, then so many people are dying, and whose human rights are abused and violated all around the world, as we have seen in many conflict areas, including Syria. I cannot but be motivated as the secretary-general, and as one person, human being, that I must do all what I can. My time and energy, I’m exerting all my efforts, and that's what I'm going to do until the very last minute of my mandate this year.

AMT: I want to ask you this week, our prime minister, Mr. Trudeau, said that he would pull our fighter jets from the fight against ISIS within the next two weeks and concentrate more on humanitarian aid and training. How do you see that decision by Canada?

BAN KI-MOON: This is his government, and therefore, I should not have any particular comment on this matter. I really appreciate that Canada has been part of this international coalition to fight against ISIL and extremism and terrorism, and I understand why they're pulling out some fighter jets. They are also remaining their people to work with the other coalition members in intelligence gathering and their resources, and the same time, I highly commend Prime Minister Trudeau’s decision to accommodate the 25,000 Syrian refugees. And this is a highly commendable, and I'd like to see many countries emulate such, kind of a very compassionate leadership shown by a Prime Minister. I know that this is a huge challenge. the millions of people are fleeing their country, they are risking their lives. As secretary-general, I have been urging that, first and foremost, whether there is some regulations, policy challenges, but first, to protect their human lives. Then after that, we provide a certain framework on this. That's why I'm going to convene the world summit meeting on migration and refugee issues on September 19th. For the first time at the United Nations, this, at a global level, we are going to discuss. I expect that we can have sort of global compact in addressing this migration and refugee issues.

AMT: What concerns you most about the migration you see now?

BAN KI-MOON: At this time, there are many people, millions of people, they're fleeing because of repressive governance and because of abuse and violation of human rights, and a life-threatening situation. There is no other way but for them to seek for better opportunities and safer places. I really appreciate the challenges and problems which the leaders of European continent, that they are facing. At the same time, we should understand that most of the refugees around the world are now being hosted in developing countries, and those countries who have a capacity to render their support for these defenceless, voiceless, and helpless people, we have to show our compassion.

AMT: You know, in Syria, we have people fleeing their own government and rebel soldiers. I want to ask you what happens when people also have to flee their so-called protectors. As of last month, there were more than 20 sexual abuse cases against UN peacekeepers in the Central African Republic. You’ve called that a cancer in our system. Is it a cancer, or is it a self-inflicted wound?

BAN KI-MOON: That is why, since a day one of my mandate, I have been paying high priority on preventing sexual violence. This is a human rights issue, and womens and girls, they are sometimes placed in very vulnerable positions, and I have taken very decisive measures. I have fired the special representative who was working in the Central African Republic, and I have immediately launched a high level panel of inquiry, which was led by a very distinguished Canadian justice, Madame Marie Deschamps. She presented her findings and her investigations, and I'm taking necessary measures. We are now working very hard to implement her recommendations.

AMT: I want to shift gears and ask about the rocket launch by North Korea on Sunday. You called that a provocative action.

BAN KI-MOON: This is much more than provocation. It’s deeply deplorable that the authorities of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea have again violated the relevant Security Council resolutions, at least four Security Council resolutions, which have prohibited the use of ballistic missile technology. This is a very serious threat to international peace and security. I sincerely hope that the Security Council will take swift action so that, first of all, they won’t be able to provoke the international peace and security. And I appreciate the Security Council last Sunday issued a presidential statement against this rocket launch by North Korea. We were shocked that so soon after, just one month after a nuclear detonation, that they have launched another rocket. I sincerely hope that North Korean authorities will engage in a serious, very genuine dialogue to be a part of this international community.

AMT: This must hit close to home for you, as someone who grew up in a united Korea. How frustrating is it for you to see where the Koreas are today?

BAN KI-MOON: Of course, not only as secretary-general, but as one of the Korean citizens, it comes special to my heart. And I've been trying to help both Koreans to promote exchanges and cooporation. There is no other means but engaging in a genuine dialogue, and expand the peace, expand their mutual cooperation and dialogue. That's the only way to, first of all, promote confidence and trust between the two peoples of Korea. That's what I will continue, to render my support and my initiative.

AMT: Why hasn't the Security Council referred North Korea to the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity?

BAN KI-MOON: That is what the Security Council should show, a unity of purpose. Unfortunately, they have been divided in this issue, and as the secretary-general, I do not have much of a role in that particular issues, in referring this to any international tribunal. There was such kind of discussions, but I'm sorry to tell you that they have not reached any agreement on this.

AMT: Isn't the problem China? It continues to protect Pyongyang?

BAN KI-MOON: Well, you know, I'm not here to discuss anything more in detail about this matter, But I sincerely hope that first of all, the DPRK authorities will fully adhere to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and protect and promote the human rights of all the people.

AMT: You know, I know your career at the UN is not over yet, but looking back on the years and your time as secretary-general, are there things you wish you'd have done differently?

BAN KI-MOON: There are many challenges still going on. I know that there has been some, I'm very much conscious of criticism that United Nations, under my mandate as secretary-general, should have have or could have done better. That, I am very much conscious. But I believe that I have done all within my power, working very closely with the member states. Where United Nations is, you know, some of... when the United Nations is united, all the member states, particularly Security Council members, are united, we can deliver much more, much better. But many cases, we have seen some divisions, and that this what really hampered the smooth implementation of all the resolutions and decisions made by the United Nations General Assembly and Security Council. But I believe that we can improve more, and better.

AMT: And given how many problems there are in the world and how things are changing, what do you say to those who say the United Nations has, its best days are over? How do you defend the UN's existence?

BAN KI-MOON: I believe that the UN should continue to improve their way of working, enhancing transparency, and also showing more solidarity, showing more unity of purpose. Then we can deliver much more. The member states have been engaging in so many years on forming the United Nations, and that's what I have been also doing myself. But I'm sure that the United Nations can deliver at meeting the expectations of the world.

AMT: Mr. secretary-general, thank you for speaking with me today.

BAN KI-MOON: Thank you, thank you very much.

AMT: Ban Ki-moon is the secretary-general of the United Nations. He spoke to us from New York City. He is now meeting in Ottawa today with the Prime Minister.

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Shocking history of Inuit trapped in 'human zoos' revealed in documentary

Guests: France Rivet, Johannes Lampe

ANNA MARIA TREMONTI: First, a hidden history of being put on display.

SOUNDCLIP

[Soft music in background]

DAVID SUZUKI: This is the story of a lost diary, and one woman's three-year quest to uncover a dark chapter in history. The diary belonged to Abraham Ulrikab, an Inuk from Labrador, who along with his family, accepted an offer to be exhibited as wild Eskimos in the exotic world of humans zoos.

AMT: Well, that's David Suzuki introducing a new documentary that will air tonight on CBC television's The Nature of Things, and you heard him correctly, he said human zoo. The documentary tells the story of a small group of Inuit people from Labrador in the late 1800s. Remarkably, they wound up in Europe on display. And they were not alone. It is estimated that some 35,000 indigenous people from around the world were recruited for such human zoos. In the case of the group from Labrador, they were lured to Europe with promises of wealth and adventure only to be exhibited like animals. The documentary is called Trapped in a Human Zoo and it traces the work France Rivet, the author of In the Footsteps of Abraham Ulrikab. France Rivet has been piecing the story together for years and she's in Ottawa. Hello.

FRANCE RIVET: Good morning.

AMT: The very phrase human zoo sounds so offensive. What were the human zoos?

FRANCE RIVET: Back in Abraham’s days, they weren't called human zoos back then. It's a term that has been used probably for the last 20 twenty years by historians. The person who started it was the owner of a menagerie in Hamburg. So, this man from Hamburg, he was a zoo owner and decided one year to bring in some reindeer, and he had the idea of bringing the herders as well. He noticed that the people were attracting the crowds more than the animals. So, he sent off agents to different parts of the world to recruit.

AMT: How did they end up connecting with the Inuit in Labrador?

FRANCE RIVET: Back in 1877, Hagenbeck hired some Greenlanders. A few years later he wanted to repeat the experiment. He sent off his agent Johan Adrien Jacobsen back to Greenland, but this time the Danish government said no way, you're not leaving with any of our subjects. So, Jacobsen had to cross the Atlantic Ocean. He tried to stop in on Baffin Island but there was too much ice and he kept going south and he ended up in Hebron, Labrador. There, the Moravian missionaries were not at all keen on his idea so he hired an interpreter, Abraham, and they decided to go further north in some of the fjords, where the Inuit had not been christianized by the Moravians. And there, Abraham helped him recruit a family of three.

AMT: Abraham was an interpreter. He was a very smart man. Tell us a little bit about him.

FRANCE RIVET: Oh yes, so Abraham had been christianized by the Moravians, he had been educated, he could play the violin, the guitar, different instruments. He knew geography, he knew some words of German, of English as well, and he knew how to write.

AMT: I have a clip from the documentary from his diary about why he decides to be part of this exhibit with his family. Let's listen to that.

SOUNDCLIP

[Violin music in background]

I pray to the Lord to make the right decision. I don't want to act like a fool, but the weight of my debts, I still owe 100 shillings, it is a hardship. And as long as I remember, I have wished to see Europe and the people there.

AMT: So, France, at the beginning, Abraham Ulrikab thought that this was almost a job and an adventure?

FRANCE RIVET: Yes. For him, he had been having a lot of trouble making a living for his family and he had kept praying to the Lord to help him get out of his misery. When Jacobsen arrived with an offer to be paid to go to Europe and simply exhibit their way of life, for him it was the answer to his prayer. He had to go to Europe. He would come back rich because he knew that a few years earlier the Greenlanders had got back home with lots of money, and he was also curious of seeing Europe.

AMT: Okay, and this is another interesting point of this documentary, he was not so isolated. He knew a lot about the world and geography and about different cultures and it was his curiosity that kind of got him on board.

FRANCE RIVET: That's right.

AMT: Who went with him, in his own family and the other family? Who were they?

FRANCE RIVET: There were eight of them. There was Abraham, he was about 35, his wife Ulrike, she was 24. They had two young daughters, Sara, who was about three-and-a-half, and Maria who was about nine months when they left. And there was a young single man from Hebron, as well. He was a Christian, Tobias. The non-Christian family they recruited was Tigiannik, he was 45, his wife Paingu, 50, and their teenage daughter, Nuggasak, she was about 15.

AMT: Okay, and what does the diary tell us about the life they had while they were on display?

FRANCE RIVET: So, it tells us about their daily life. The first sentence was Oh my God, it's not very nice here in Berlin. You know, it's cold, there's so many people coming to see us, they want to touch us. He talks about the crowds, the noise of the city.

AMT: How does he respond to all of these people coming to look at them?

FRANCE RIVET: He doesn't like it all, but he doesn't really have the choice.

AMT: But he realizes he's made a mistake, doesn’t he?

FRANCE RIVET: Yes, absolutely. It's very soon at the beginning he says, oh my God, we can't stay here, we want to go home.

AMT: But he can't.

FRANCE RIVET: No.

AMT: What are they doing, that when people come to watch, what do they actually see them doing?

FRANCE RIVET: So, usually they are in enclosures by a pond in the zoo. They're not in a cage, but it is a wide enclosure. There are fences where people are on one side, and they're on the other. They came with their kayaks, with their harpoons, with their dogs, their sleds. So, they demonstrate-- they go about their daily life. People watch them and a few times a day, they do more formal demonstrations of kayaking on the pond, of seal hunting—

AMT: Do they actually show, like did they have seals and showed them how to hunt them?

FRANCE RIVET: Sometimes they do. Yes, sometimes they did in Berlin and in Prague, they did a real seal hunt, and when they didn't have a seal, it is young Tobias who puts a seal skin on top of his head and he plays the role of the skin. Abraham and Tigiannaik pretend to be hunting him.

AMT: Well, we've got another reading from that diary, that really fascinating diary. Let's listen to this.

SOUNDCLIP

[Ominous music in background]

The crowd came into our enclosure to see the hunt, but immediately, the place was filled with so many people it was impossible to move.

The two masters could do nothing to stop them. They asked me to somehow drive them out. So, I took my whip and my seal harpoon, I made myself look fierce to scare them away. Several thanked me for doing this and our masters also thanked me very much.

AMT: I want to ask you about the wording there, France, our masters.

FRANCE RIVET: My understanding is back then the Inuit were not using the word master in a sense of a superior. They were calling masters the Moravian missionaries, as well.

AMT: Oh, okay. He talks about the number of people, they were very popular?

FRANCE RIVET: Absolutely. On a given Sunday, they reported over 17,000 people coming to see them.

AMT: They must have been making a lot of money for the guys who ran this organization.

FRANCE RIVET: Probably. Yes.

AMT: And they had a good relationship with them, did they?

FRANCE RIVET: As far as we can tell, yes. There is only at one point where Abraham reports in his diary that Jacobsen beat Tobias because he was not listening, but he had remorse and then he quickly went and bought gifts for the ladies to be forgiven. As far as we know, that didn’t happen afterwards.

AMT: We’ve got someone else listening in as we talk about this. Labrador Inuk, Johannes Lampe joins us from Nain, Labrador. Hi.

JOHANNES LAMPE: Hi.

AMT: It's such an interesting story. Did you know about this part of your history?

JOHANNES LAMPE: No, not until a few years ago when I was with [indecipherable] as Minister of Culture, I was made aware.

AMT: And so, when France came to you and talked to you and other members of the community, what was the reaction like, Johannes?

JOHANNES LAMPE: As an Inuk myself, and to learn more about the Labrador Inuit and having been involved in repatriation of the Inuit who were taken from the community, we're learning more about Labrador Inuit. Human remains and burial objects being kept in institutions we don't even know about.

AMT: Were you offended at the idea that they would have been put on display in Europe?

JOHANNES LAMPE: That is not the Inuit way, especially for Labrador Inuit. We do not even keep you know, animals as pets, other than using dog teams to help us travel out on the land. And, most certainly, to hear about our ancestors, Labrador Inuit, being kept in a zoo amongst different types of animals from around the world, is for me, quite offensive and most certainly not the Labrador Inuit way.

AMT: For them to have been so far away from their home and their land, what do you think that would have been like for them?

JOHANNES LAMPE: When I you know, first landed in Hamburg and then took a boat and took some time to think about, or to feel what Abraham and his family were going through as they decided to see Europe as it was back then, to realize how big Europe was, and to learn all about the big noise, the noise pollution was a really big shock, I feel. For me to think about 1880, and to actually be in the boots of Abraham and his family, I felt I was Abraham and his family coming into a world I had never dreamt about before.

AMT: I guess it's even a bit of a culture shock when you live in Nain today and go there so to think of the late 1800s is really something.

JOHANNES LAMPE: Yes, most certainly, yes.

AMT: Okay, so you did go to Europe together, you and France, with the Nature of Things to trace this journey of the eight who came from Labrador. But now, they weren't solely on display France, they were also being studied what was going on there?

FRANCE RIVET: They were studied by anthropologists, so these people came to the zoo and they took all sorts of measurements. They were trying to kind of, not maybe do the hierarchy of the different races, but they were trying to build their knowledge of the different races around the world, and they needed specimens.

AMT: And they ended up--they didn't survive that long. What happened to them?

FRANCE RIVET: No. The agreement was that they would tour Europe for one year and come back home, but within four months they all caught smallpox and they died in Europe. The first three died in Germany and the remaining five died in Paris.

AMT: It took a while for people to even realize they had smallpox, didn’t it?

FRANCE RIVET: It was when the third one started getting sick, the little Sara, that's when they realized what it was, but it was already too late. They got vaccinated when they arrived in Paris, but a week later they were all admitted to the hospital.

AMT: Well, in fact Abraham writes about this because he had to leave Sara--

FRANCE RIVET: That's right.

AMT: Dying of smallpox so the exhibit could carry on. Let's listen to this clip.

SOUNDCLIP

[Funereal music playing in background]

She was still conscious while I was there. She even sang a hymn, I’m a little child, you see. When I went to leave, she sent greetings to her mother and little sister. When I left her, she slept. My dear teacher, Ulrike, I write to you in a very despondent mood because our child who I love so dearly, has died of the evil smallpox. It is a reminder for my wife and I of our own mortality, and that soon we will face our own death.

AMT: Johannes, when you learned about that passage in the diary and how he had to leave his daughter, that's so heartbreaking, what did you think?

JOHANNES LAMPE: You know, quite heartbreaking and myself having lost a daughter and most certainly to feel someone that is a part of you died, and so a part of me had died before. I felt a part of Abraham died right there. But still, the show had to go on and even that made me feel very sad.

AMT: You, am I understanding correctly, you have lost a daughter.

JOHANNES LAMPE: Yes. To know that the daughter that you had you know, I loved so very much, you will not die, you know. To see them again, and to be able to hold them, or to talk to them, or to care for them, and to love them, and so that was a very strong connection.

AMT: Yes.

JOHANNES LAMPE: You know, I could feel how Abraham felt.

AMT: So, Johannes, when you were in Europe with France, you actually did manage to trace where their remains were. What did you find, what did you see?

JOHANNES LAMPE: At the museum in Paris, I got to meet Alain Froment, who is the curator at the museum there. I was given the opportunity to see Abraham and four other Inuit who—the human, the skeletons, you know, intact but they were supported by a tool, so—

AMT: They were literally hanging up, right? There were skeletons hanging up like we see in pictures?

JOHANNES LAMPE: Yes, just the same as a human skeleton that people see during Halloween. Exactly how these human remains were, hanging up so people could look at them.

AMT: That was a pretty emotional thing for you to see.

JOHANNES LAMPE: It's not what Labrador Inuit do. You know, we don’t put up human remains or skeletons to show them off. When our people die, we do what we have to do and then we bury them and not disturb them again. And so, that is how Labrador Inuit show their love and respect to those who have lived with them before, who have walked this earth with them before. To see that was very sad and after seeing that, I was shown remains of Maria and how her bones had been taken apart and put neatly on display.

AMT: Maria was the little one?

JOHANNES LAMPE: Yes.

AMT: The nine-month-old.

JOHANNES LAMPE: Yes, and so that was you know, very sad, too. That was very emotional for me and I want to remember that.

AMT: France, this museum, this was sort of like a science museum, they have a lot of human skulls there of Europeans and bones and—

FRANCE RIVET: Yes, the collection is the biological anthropology collection of the Natural History Museum in Paris.

AMT: So, from another era obviously.

FRANCE RIVET: Yes, and they have over 18,000 skulls and 2,000 skeletons.

AMT: Okay, so once you guys realized that it was a very big deal actually to figure out where all of this was and literally, the whole paper trail of the diary and everything else. But, you want them back in Canada, Johannes, right? You want them back.

JOHANNES LAMPE: Well, that's what the Committee of Elders said. When France and the film crew came to Nain, the elders said we're talking about our people that came from Hebron and Nutak and who were taken away to Europe and Abraham talked about wanting to come back home to his relatives again. He talked about not wanting any earthly possessions, but to see his people again.

AMT: So, where does all of that stand? There is an agreement between Canada and France to repatriate the human remains of the Inuit to Canada, am I correct?

FRANCE RIVET: Yes.

JOHANNES LAMPE: This is an international issue where diplomacy would come in. I have hopes that repatriation will become a possibility. Everyone will make sure what needs to be done is done in the right way.

AMT: What would it mean for your community to have them back?

JOHANNES LAMPE:[crying]

AMT: So emotional, isn't it?

JOHANNES LAMPE:[long pause] It’s [crying]--

AMT: I think you just told me, Johannes, how important it is. I think I hear how much it matters to you.

JOHANNES LAMPE: Yes, it is no different than losing your family, your parents, your grandparents, your children or your grandchildren. In this case, it's my ancestors, ancestors of the Labrador Inuit. [Pause] It’s very hard to go to a different country and to see for yourself human remains that you know, have helped you to learn a way of living out on the land, to fish, to gather. It's a way of life. It’s not survival, it’s who you are and where you come from. I knew that Abraham wanted to come back home to that and most certainly, to see his relatives again, and to live that way of life that only Labrador Inuit know.

AMT: Well, I can hear how important it is to you and, France Rivet, your work in digging around has brought all of this to Johannes and his community. Thank you both for sharing the story with us today.

FRANCE RIVET: Thank you.

JOHANNES LAMPE: [replies in non-English language]

AMT: Well, that is France Rivet, the author of In the Footsteps of Abraham Ulrikab, a researcher for the documentary that we were talking about. She joined us from Ottawa. And Johannes Lampe, is an Inuit elder, he is in Nain, Labrador. The documentary, Trapped in a Human Zoo airs on The Nature of Things tonight at eight o'clock in all time zones, eight-thirty a Newfoundland and parts of Labrador. We're going to post a link to the documentaries page on our website cbc.ca/thecurrent. Let us know what you think of that conversation.

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Friday host Amanda Lindhout on rebuilding her life after surviving captivity

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: She accused women of voting with our vaginas if we’re supporting Hillary.

VOICE 2: Cruelty laws in Canada are pretty broad.

VOICE 3: There was no blood flow and circulation and so a lot of the tissue inside his mouth had died.

VOICE 1: And when you’re young you’re thinking, you know, where are the boys? The boys are with Bernie or, you know.

VOICE 4: Ooh.

VOICE 5: I was getting into the shower and I went head first into the tile wall.

VOICE 6: The risk of committing suicide was approximately three times the population norm.

AMT: Well, that's a taste of the week that was and is on The Current and I'm joined now by this week's special Friday host. Amanda Lindhout is a Canadian journalist and humanitarian. She was reporting in southern Somalia in August of 2008 when she was kidnapped and held for 15 months before her release. She writes about that experience in her book A House in the Sky. It has been a Canadian bestseller for over 100 weeks I think this is the 100th week this week.

AMANDA LINDHOUT: That’s right.

AMT: Welcome, Amanda Lindhout.

AMANDA LINDHOUT: Thank you so much, Anna Maria.

AMT: So you'll be our host tomorrow.

AMANDA LINDHOUT: Looking so forward to it.

AMT: Well, you know, many your story but, for those who do not, take us back to 2008 when you were kidnapped.

AMANDA LINDHOUT: Sure. 2008, I was a 27-year-old freelance journalist. I was basing myself in Baghdad and I took what I thought was going to be a one-week work trip into Somalia. I was abducted with my Australian colleague on our third day in the country and what followed was 460 days and often really brutal circumstances in that captivity. I was ultimately released after my family managed to raise enough money to pay a ransom which was what was ultimately needed to bring me home.

AMT: And it was just last June that the RCMP arrested one of the men accused of being the ringleader of-- one of the ringleaders of this. And he's in Canada now. What was it like for you to hear that?

AMANDA LINDHOUT: It was the day before my 34th birthday and I got this phone call from the RCMP telling me that they had made an arrest. And it was shocking to me. I hadn't expected that development. A relief, sure, but also difficult. I mean, this trial that's coming up is going to reveal a lot of very personal details of the things that happened to me in captivity, things I chose not to put into the book. I mean, it's pretty daunting.

AMT: Yeah, it’s a lot to think about, huh. I should just point out, when you were there and you were kidnapped a lot of people, a lot of Canadian journalists, actually, were quite critical of you because you were freelancing and the suggestion is you were out of your depth for even being there. And it's interesting. In reading your book, I have to say that in my work in conflict zones I ran into a lot of freelancers who would have been about your age, were not as well travelled as you, had not already reported, like you had done, and who didn't face that criticism because nothing happened to them. What happened to you, in fact that day, those kidnappers actually were looking for another crew and they happened upon you guys.

AMANDA LINDHOUT: Yeah, that's right. That wasn’t an easy to face, you know, coming home in 2008 to that kind of criticism, but I took it on board because also I was young, I didn't have a ton of experience. But I've also felt like some of the criticisms were unfair. I feel like my colleague Nigel Brennan, the Australian photographer who was with me, didn't face those same criticisms. He had less experience than I did and he was a man. Over the years I distanced myself from journalism and pursued other endeavours. And it's just been this year, actually, over the last year that I've kind of come back to it. I love writing. I'm passionate about stories as I was then, as a young woman.

AMT: You know, that day that you were picked up, you were headed to see a very famous, very fearless woman named Hawa Abdi, right? Mama Hawa, I think they called her too.

AMANDA LINDHOUT: That’s right.

AMT: Who is she?

AMANDA LINDHOUT: Mama Hawa is an extraordinary Somali woman. She's actually the first female gynecologist in the country and she's got a large piece of land outside of the capital city, Mogadishu, where she runs an internally displaced peoples camp. It's home to about 100,000 people. So that day that I was kidnapped, August23rd, 2008, I was going to her camp. And I never made it there. Interesting that on the other side of captivity I have started a non-profit organization that works in Somalia. And I have been able to support Dr. Hawa in some pretty large ways over the last few years financially building schools in her camp, women's resource centres, hiring security and doctors and nurses, building wells and roads and all kinds of things. So it's kind of an interesting full circle.

AMT: The very person you were going to interview—

AMANDA LINDHOUT: That’s right.

AMT: --in the hopes of letting her story come out so people would know you've ended up being able to help her anyway.

AMANDA LINDHOUT: Yeah.

AMT: So tell us a little bit more about your non-profit. It's the Global Enrichment Foundation.

AMANDA LINDHOUT: Yeah, the Global Enrichment Foundation, I started very soon after I came home from Somalia, just about four and a half months. And people thought, initially, it was a strange response for me to have given how severe my experience in Somalia had been, but I also had a very up close look at the conditions that are creating these generations of criminals, like these teenage boys who took away my freedom, and I guess you could say I felt a sense of responsibility on the other side that if I could do something to contribute to making Somalia a better place for the people who live there, particularly the women and the kids, that I should do that. And so I've endeavoured to do that over the last five and a half years. We've raised about three million US dollars for different programs. Our primary mandate is education.

AMT: It's quite extraordinary. At one point you try to escape and the only person who tries to help you is a woman.

AMANDA LINDHOUT: A Somali woman who risked her life trying to help me and she wasn't able to save me that day, but she has inspired me over these years. I never did know what happened to her after she tried to save me and she may she have been killed that day.

AMT: She was in a mosque. They were pretty angry at her. She would, literally, would not let you go.

AMANDA LINDHOUT: Yeah.

AMT: And they were, like, having a tug-of-war with your body.

AMANDA LINDHOUT: Yeah. So we had escaped. We were at a mosque and then recaptured and I'm being drug out and this incredibly brave woman had thrown her body on top of mine and was drug almost completely out of the mosque with me until she just couldn't hang on any longer. And the last time I saw her she was surrounded by three men with guns. So her role in my life has really influenced the decisions that I've made over the last few years with a non-profit organization too. I have set up a program to honour that woman, a university scholarship program for women inside of Somalia.

AMT: And came through that experience and-- I don't know. I would have expected that there would have been an expectation of bitterness and instead you’ve reached out.

AMANDA LINDHOUT: Yeah. And that's not to say, Anna Maria, that I don't have bad days where I struggle with anger and emotions like that, because I do, but it's always felt very important for me to try to turn that really awful experience into something positive, and not just positive for me, but positive for other people and I like to think that I've done that.

AMT: And we see that in your book. I mean, all of the brutal things you go through and how you struggle with trying to make sense of how you can move on. 100 weeks on the Globe and Mail bestseller list.

AMANDA LINDHOUT: That's right. Yeah. It's 100-week anniversary right now.

AMT: And clearly a lot of people are deeply moved by your story.

AMANDA LINDHOUT: It means so much to me. Writing that book was very hard. I worked with a co-author, Sara Corbett from the New York Times Magazine; it took us three and a half years. And the fact that people are reading it and responding to it is just incredible to me. I'm so grateful really.

AMT: Okay, well, it's good to have you as our Friday host .

AMANDA LINDHOUT: Thank you.

AMT: Let's get busy with the mail here. Amanda Lindhout, Canadian humanitarian and journalist. Her book is A House in the Sky. And she'll be our Friday host, but right now we're putting her to work on the mail. So let's go. First of all, Hillary Clinton's nomination for the Democratic ticket has not been the shoo-in that many expected it to be some months ago, partly because she's missing the full support of one key group of voters: Young women. As with many other younger voters many women have lent their support to Senator Bernie Sanders. Now, Tuesday on The Current, we heard from two strong female Democrat voices. One younger, who is a Sanders supporter, and one who's an established veteran who supports Hillary Clinton.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: We're still active and engaged. To say that young women are not carrying the baton, that in itself is part of the problem we're having. There's this assumption that you little girls don't know what you're talking about, you don't know what we went through.

VOICE 2: I've been on the front lines since the eighties. I’ve lobbied for the ERA in the seventies and I'm sorry, but complacent? No.

AMANDA LINDHOUT: The debate continued in our inbox. Tyson Cormack of Calgary shared these thoughts: “I found the tone of the Clinton supporter to be demonstrative of her generation. This is not the wisdom of elders, but the sensibility of the most entitled generation in history. There are exceptions to that entitlement, Bernie Sanders seems to represent that.” Aman Vellani of Toronto offered this: “The women who support Hillary Clinton do not do so because she is a woman. And those who support Bernie Sanders are not doing so to meet young men. Implying that is the case is an insult to our intelligence.” Donna Thistle of Corner Brook, Newfoundland and Labrador had this to say: “The two women did a disservice to both sides of the debate. By refusing to listen to each other, neither will have influenced the real debate. And worse, they can be written off as shrill and without merit.”

AMT: Well here is one more comment. Tim Bothwell of Calgary writes: “It is patently disrespectful to say that Hillary Clinton is ‘the last hope’ for a woman to be elected President. To suggest any election is about one specific issue - such as electing a woman - greatly disrespects the democratic process. Go Bernie! Go Hillary! Is it too much to hope that they could join forces?” Well, all right, let's move on- this time to a story which, we must warn you, can be difficult, especially if you're an animal lover.

SOUNDCLIP

The tape on his mouth especially was what caused the most damage. Because it had been on there for so long and so tightly there was no blood flow and circulation and so a lot of the tissue inside his mouth had died.

AMT: That's a brief description of a dog named Justice who was found bound in tape and abandoned for dead. His human tormentor has been sentenced to two years in a federal penitentiary. But animal rights activists point to this is an example of why animal rights need to be strengthened. Monday on The Current we heard two views.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: Cruelty laws in Canada are pretty broad. The criminal law protects animals from unnecessary suffering and provinces on top of that have their own regulatory laws which generally prohibits unreasonably causing distress to an animal, so these laws are pretty broad. The problem is not that they don't work it's that they're not enforced.

VOICE 2: These types of cases, both on the pet side, but in particular from my perspective on the agriculture side … to me it's not good enough just to get a charge after it happens. We need to do work on the prevention side.

AMANDA LINDHOUT: Elizabeth Dyck of Elm Creek, Manitoba shared this view: “I agree no animal should suffer, but where does one draw the line? Last summer a cowboy at the Calgary Stampede was just correcting his horse, but abuse was reported and he was disqualified. Abuse is not giving a horse food, shelter, water and exercise. Abuse is not correcting an over-a thousand-pound horse.”

AMT: Peter Jellema of Inuvik, Northwest Territories writes: “People have become so disconnected from food production due to the agribusiness industry. For them to provide cheap meat they are required not to care. High Density Feed Lots are not the invention of the caring.”

AMANDA LINDHOUT: And here are a couple of tweets. First, from Diana Skakavac: “No way to 'humanely' kill what doesn't want to die. They are not ours to own.” And Rebecca Parker had this: “Who will pay for the extra inspections? Farmers don't make that much now. The animal rights groups?”

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Without high-speed internet, rural Canadians cut off from economy, group says

Guests: Brooke DeCosta Young

[phone tone and dialling]

[buzzing sound of connection to internet]

AMT: Ouch. If that sound brings back nightmares from the days of dial-up internet, you should consider yourself lucky. For those of us who live in cities the excruciatingly slow Internet connections of the past are merely a distant memory, but for many Canadians living in rural areas high speed internet still is not available. And they say it's affecting their ability to participate in the modern information economy. That's an issue we explored last week in our interview with author Eric Weiner who says genius may have more to do with geography than genes.

SOUNDCLIP

ERIC WEINER: You know, you look at the world map over time, and you plot where the geniuses appear, and it’s not like you see one in La Paz, Bolivia, one in Moscow, and one coming from Windsor, Ontario. You see them in groupings, in what I call genius clusters. Certain places at certain times produce a mother lode of brilliant minds and good ideas.

AMT: Well, according to my next guest, it's impossible for anyone to share those good ideas with the world without a high speed internet connection. Brooke DeCosta Young is a member of the Deer Island Fibre Project and we have reached him by phone on Deer Island, New Brunswick. We would have used a Skype connection. The Internet there is not fast enough for Skype. Hello.

BROOKE DECOSTA YOUNG: Hello, Anna Maria.

AMT: So Deer Island has what? Less than a thousand people on it?

BROOKE DECOSTA YOUNG: Yes. Probably in the range of about 800 people, that's a good round estimate.

AMT: Okay. What kind of internet access do you have?

BROOKE DECOSTA YOUNG: We have access to an antiquated copper internet, which is DSL, digital subscriber line, at about one megabyte per seconds, but only half of the island has that because it was subsidized about 15 years by the Department of Education here in New Brunswick. The other half of the island, which is not close enough to the Bell Aliant central office on the island, has only one option and that is satellite internet and that has its own inherent, chronic limitations, let's say that.

AMT: And what does it mean then for people in your community if you don't have a high speed internet connection?

BROOKE DECOSTA YOUNG: In today's world, you know, it's almost like communication now is moving away from being text-based to everything is a video these days. And that takes a very high capacity, very high resolution capacity to be able to experience these days. The internet on Deer Island is so slow that you’re not able to be able to participate in the things that the internet provides in other jurisdictions around the world.

AMT: Like what?

BROOKE DECOSTA YOUNG: Well, we have a couple people that work in the IT sector on Deer Island and in the past they've been able to operate here even though, on the margins, they had to go to the city several times a week, but they were able to operate here part- time and now the applications on the other end have progressed to the point where that the internet infrastructure on Deer Island is not able to support those applications.

AMT: So, in other words, you can't do streaming video, you can't do video conference.

BROOKE DECOSTA YOUNG: That's exactly right.

AMT: So your organization is pushing provincial and federal governments to classify fibre optic internet connectivity as a critical infrastructure?

BROOKE DECOSTA YOUNG: Yeah.

AMT: What would that entail?

BROOKE DECOSTA YOUNG: We should be deciding what is basic. You know, which is what we did for electricity years ago. Our leader should be saying that every Canadian needs a particular kind of connection to the internet just to be dignified, to have a respectable life. So let's say that’s a thousand megabytes per second, download and upload, and that's what developing around the world. And then you figure out what it takes to get there and what kind of subsidies and support for expensive service areas and also price controls that places like ours, which are less dense population, to be able to get the services that we need to compete in the rest of the world.

AMT: Now, fibre optic Internet is still a new technology. There are a lot of places in Canada that do not have it. Why say fibre as opposed to broadband internet?

BROOKE DECOSTA YOUNG: Well, because fibre is fast becoming the gold standard. I mean, even broadband that is delivered by the cable companies, that's a copper line and, you know, it's just not scalable and future-proof like fibre will be. Fibre is expandable to terabytes per second, you know, in the future.

AMT: So, you're very close to Maine too. How does the internet access in places like Deer Island compare to rural areas just over the water?

BROOKE DECOSTA YOUNG: Well, you raise a good question. We like to point to Maine as a prime example of what's taking place in the rest of the world. Maine is a jurisdiction very similar to New Brunswick demographically, in size, in population and economic development. And they are building fibre gigabyte networks everywhere in the state of Maine. As a matter of fact, there's a small town in Maine that is building a 10-gigabyte network right now. There's an island the same size as Deer Island off the coast of Maine called Islseboro. Islesboro, Maine is building a gigabyte fibre network.

AMT: And they’re doing that through their government infrastructure, are they?

BROOKE DECOSTA YOUNG: They're doing it with federal subsidies, for sure, yes.

AMT: And so, have you been talking to federal or provincial politicians about this push?

BROOKE DECOSTA YOUNG: For sure. Many times. We've talked with the federal people and provincial people. We have applications for funding submitted to the provincial government and the federal government. But it's interesting because we had a response from Minister Sohi’s office the other day in which they said that your fibre project doesn't fall under our department and we are recommending you to the Department of Innovation, Minister Bains’ department.

AMT: And what about the province? Is the province asking for federal help on this? Is it behind you?

BROOKE DECOSTA YOUNG: That's just what we were talking about, that we're hoping that, for example, you submit an application to Regional Development Commission in Fredericton and they have access to federal programs and one of them is federal funding under the department, under Infrastructure Canada. So we're hoping that RDC has recommended our project to Infrastructure Canada for funding.

AMT: Now, you say you have a proposal. What's the cost like?

BROOKE DECOSTA YOUNG: It's a two-phase project. It's been a proposal put together for us specifically by Bell Aliant. That is in the range of about three million dollars right now.

AMT: So, say you got this a year from now what would you be able to do that you can't do right now?

BROOKE DECOSTA YOUNG: Well, Anna Maria, that’s the-- You know, with this new information, global information services economy and the-- If people don't know what they're not able to do and if they don't have these kinds of things to play with, then they're not going to be able to take advantage of the very high capacity applications.

AMT: Okay. Well, Brooke DeCosta Young, thanks for telling us about this.

BROOKE DECOSTA YOUNG: I appreciate the time. Thank you very much.

AMT: Brooke DeCosta Young. He's with the Deer Island Fibre Project. He's on Deer Island, New Brunswick.

AMANDA LINDHOUT: Moving on now to a story about possible long term health problems for adults who experience mild concussions.

SOUNDCLIP

It definitely impacted me; I fell into a deep depression especially when I was on long term disability. There were moments that I remember sitting in the bathtub thinking, this is pretty awful and you know I can't leave my house, I could barely walk and I remember looking at the razor in my bathroom and thinking like, wow, I don't have to be here anymore.

AMT: Well, our part yesterday on how even a mild concussion can triple a person’s risk of suicide had you talking as well. Wendy Hayes-Walsh from Bedford, Nova Scotia writes about her own experience with concussion: “Not only has the insurance company had a hard time believing that concussion can cause permanent disability in some people, but admittedly so did I,” she writes. “I was referred to counselling through the brain injury program to accept that I could not just push through this and force myself through strong effort and will to get back to my previous cognitive function."

AMANDA LINDHOUT: Serena Wells from Calgary shared this: “Suicide was on my mind so many times. I think because I have a young child, I did not take that road. I have incredible compassion for anyone dealing with this crippling trauma. My family doctor did not take my symptoms seriously. It was a very horrible time for me. Thankfully, I did continue to seek help and found a couple of people in the medical system who are fabulous and really gave me hope."

[music]

AMT: And now it's time to give credit where credit is due. The week that was on The Current is produced Brooke DeCosta Young: Idella Sturino, Shannon Higgins, John Chipman, Howard Goldenthal, Ines Colabrese, Lara O'Brien, Catherine Kalbfleisch, Julian Uzielli, Pacinthe Mattar, Sujata Berry, Liz Hoath, Marc Apollonio, Taylor Simmons and intern Marino Greco.

AMANDA LINDHOUT: And special thanks to Melissa Kent at CBC New York, as well as our network producers Mary Lynk in Halifax, and Suzanne Dufresne in Winnipeg; and to Dean Ples for technical assistance. The Current's writer is Peter Mitton. Our web producer is Lisa Ayuso. Our technicians are Carole Ito and Brittany Amodeo. Our senior documentary editor is Joan Webber.

AMT: Our senior producers are Richard Goddard in Toronto and Cathy Simon in Vancouver. The executive producer of The Current is Kathleen Goldhar.

AMANDA LINDHOUT: To add anything you hear on The Current you can tweet us @thecurrentCBC. And if you want to join the conversation about our season-long project Ripple Effect, make sure to use the hash tag slash RippleCBC. You can find all or Ripple Effect stories by going to our website and clicking on features. That's all at cbc.ca/thecurrent.

AMT: You can like us on Facebook. You can e-mail us from our website, cbc.ca/thecurrent. While you're there, subscribe to our podcast. Check out the links, all sorts of information of what we have been up to. That’s cbc.ca/thecurrent. Now, Amanda, you're hosting tomorrow. You've got a really special conversation planned.

AMANDA LINDHOUT: That's right. I'm going to be speaking with American Sarah Shourd who was held hostage- excuse me- was arrested in Iran and held in the Evin Prison for 14 months. We're going to have a conversation about how life goes on after you're released, what changes.

AMT: It’s so interesting. And she was hiking, wasn't she?

AMANDA LINDHOUT: She was.

AMT: With two other Americans?

AMANDA LINDHOUT: Yeah, yeah.

AMT: And they were picked up and then nobody could get them out of there.

AMANDA LINDHOUT: That’s right.

AMT: And so, a different situation to yours but the same idea- being held and not knowing. And the Evin Prison is notorious, infamous.

AMANDA LINDHOUT: That’s right. I’ll also be speaking with Charn't a tour Yes that's right. Yeah that's right. I'll also be speaking with Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy about her new Oscar-nominated documentary called The Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness. It's a documentary that follows a young woman in Pakistan who survives an attempted honour killing by her own family.

AMT: Okay. Well, we'll be listening for all of that. Amanda Lindhout is the Friday host of The Current. And she is a Canadian humanitarian and a journalist and the author of A House in the Sky. And she'll be here Friday with us.

[music: piano]

AMT: Now, that is our program for today. We began our show with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who is in Ottawa today meeting with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. We're going ahead with a little more of the Secretary General of the United Nations. He dropped by the Late Show with Stephen Colbert last fall, so we'll leave you with Stephen Colbert trying his darndest to get Ban Ki-moon to tell a funny story. He even resorts to plying him with a cocktail. Okay. Wait for it. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. Thank you for listening to The Current.

SOUNDCLIP

STEPHEN COLBERT: You are a diplomat. And you have to be diplomatic to everyone. But there are some crazy world leaders out there who want to come speak the UN. What are some of the most difficult people you've had to deal with over the years? [audience laughter] Let's dish.

BAN KI-MOON: I have lots if secret stories to tell you. Maybe when I retire I can do it, but just—Okay. [laughs] Okay. [audience cheers] With the help of some alcohol, maybe.

STEPHEN COLBERT: Yeah, please, tell me.

BAN KI-MOON: I’ll tell you just one thing. You know, Gadhafi?

STEPHEN COLBERT: I remember Gadhafi, yeah.

BAN KI-MOON: The former leader of Libya.

STEPHEN COLBERT: Yeah.

BAN KI-MOON: He came to the United Nations. Then he was making a long speech. Normally, all presidents and prime ministers there are given 15 minutes. He was speaking for 100 minutes. By the time the interpreter- he had brought his own Arabic interpreter- he couldn't continue. He said, I cannot go this way, can anybody help me? Then he collapsed. [audience laughter]

STEPHEN COLBERT: He spoke, he spoke until his interpreter collapsed?

BAN KI-MOON: Yes, that's right.

STEPHEN COLBERT: Wow.

BAN KI-MOON: That's one thing I can tell you.

STEPHEN COLBERT: That's the only thing you can tell me? There are better stories than that?

BAN KI-MOON: [laughs]

[music: theme]

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Feb. 11, 2016 Episode Transcript

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