The Current for March 31, 2022
Today on The Current:
Can Russia and Ukraine negotiate peace? And can the Kremlin be trusted to stick to a deal? Matt Galloway talks to Inna Sovsun, a member of Ukraine's Parliament; and Dr. Jenny Mathers, a senior lecturer in the department of international politics at Aberystwyth University in Wales.
Then, six African countries are working to create their own mRNA vaccines, as part of a World Health Organization initiative. We hear about the increasingly urgent efforts to create vaccines on the continent, for the continent — both for COVID-19 and other diseases. We talk to Petro Terblanche, managing director of Afrigen Biologics, a biotechnology startup in Cape Town hosting the global hub that's creating the new mRNA vaccine; Achal Prabhala, coordinator of the AccessIBSA project, which campaigns for access to medicines in India, Brazil and South Africa; and Christian Happi, director of the African Center of Excellence for Genomics of Infectious Diseases at Redeemer's University in Ede, Nigeria.
Plus, after being shuttered by COVID-19 for two years, Quebec sugar shacks are back open. We hear how the lockdown threatened the tradition of celebrating maple syrup from Daniel Laurin and his daughter Stéphanie Laurin, of the Chalet des Érables in Sainte-Anne-des-Plaines, Que.
And Ghyslain Raza was a teenager from Trois-Rivieres, Que., when he became the Star Wars Kid, the unwilling star of an early viral video. In a new documentary he tells the story of his unintended rise to internet fame — and the toll it took on him.
