Back on the road again…

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Who are the Cuban Five? Why did the FBI arrest them in 1998? Why are they still in prison in the United States? What makes them national heroes in their homeland? What does their case have to do with the war on terror? And why should their story matter to the rest […]

Thanks for the apology, but it’s not enough

The federal justice department’s 19-page internal review into its role in the the Fenwick MacIntosh extradition process — Aug. 15, 1997 (“Nova Scotia Public Prosecution Service contacts the International Assistance Group to discuss potential extradition request”) to July 14, 2006 (“Canada formally requests extradition”) — has no named author. The review itself — which followed […]

Capitol Hill Cubans: Let us compare facts

A blog called Capitol Hill Cubans has taken me to task for my recent Washington Post commentary in which I ask why the United States put the Cuban Five in jail when their primary goal was to prevent terrorist attacks on their homeland? After “commending” the Post for allowing me to present what it calls […]

Welcome, Mr. Premier. And good luck…

Stephen McNeil doesn’t even have the key to the executive washroom — premier’s desk, top left-hand drawer — and his administration-in-eager-anticipation is already being sideswiped by economic events over which it has little control and less influence. Just two days after his Liberals were swept into office on an electoral toss-those-rascals-out-and-let’s-see-what-these-rascals-will-do roll of the dice, […]

What did the NDP do to deserve its electoral fate?

The question is why. Why — if you believe the polls — is Darrell Dexter’s NDP government heading for an ignominious defeat? Nova Scotia’s first-ever NDP government was hardly a disaster. It succeeded a Tory government that had careened out of fiscal control, stumbled into one of the world’s worst economic meltdowns, got sideswiped by […]

The leaders debate: Take it from me, I wasn't there

I confess up front I didn’t watch last week’s CBC leaders’ debate. There was a book launch — mine — at the same time and, well, you have to have your priorities. To make matters worse for a political columnist, I must also acknowledge I didn’t watch the full online, blow-by-blow, health-care-by-power-rates replay of the […]

Progressives and the NDP: making the hard choice

On June 23, 2012, 50 longtime NDP activists put the issue starkly in a j’accuse letter to Premier Darrell Dexter. “If the NDP now actually stands for anything fundamentally different, for any change from previous governments,” they wrote, more in angst than anger, “it is hard to see what it is. And if the NDP is […]

From recent reviews of What Lies Across the Water: The Real Story of the Cuban Five

Coversm “With surgeon-like skill, Kimber dissects, bottom up, an injustice perpetrated at the highest levels on Cuban patriots acting for their government with few financial resources in a hostile foreign country… An important and riveting book.” Chris Benjamin Atlantic Books Today “What Lies Across the Water connects the dots between the Cuban American National Foundation […]

Cuban Five book too "incendiary" for Miami NPR affiliate

At the Book Court in Brooklyn, NY, Sept. 14, 2013. (Bill Hackwell photo) My New York publicist had arranged an interview for me with WLRN, South Florida’s popular National Public Radio affiliate, for this Tuesday (September 17) to talk about my new book, What Lies Across the Water: The Real Story of the Cuban Five. […]

This is the campaign we spent 3 years waiting for?

What to make of Liberal leader Stephen McNeil’s plan to save taxpayers money by making Nova Scotia Power responsible for (and responsible for footing the bill for) what is now the regulated, arms’ length, non-profit — and working very well, thank you all the same — energy-reducing agency known as Efficiency Nova Scotia? The reality […]