Day in the Five: Posada brags about the bomb that killed a man

Luis Posada brags about his role in the hotel bombings that killed an Italian-Canadian tourist in this telephone conversation secretly recorded by Cuban State Security. Venezuela September 5, 1997 “Paco,” the voice at the other end of the phone demanded, “are you up to date on all this?” Luis Posada Carriles Paco was Francisco Pimentel, […]

Day in the Five: Cruz León arrested

Havana September 4, 1997 5:30 p.m. Copacabana explosion site It had been a good day. Four bombs. At $2,000 a bomb, that was $8,000. Not to forget the thousand Gordito still owed him from the last trip. Cruz León would be able to pay off his debts and have plenty left over for other, better […]

Inquiry needed into children's stories that don't end well

I’ve been writing about child protection issues since 2004 when I got interested in the story of a Halifax couple embroiled in a highly publicized, 67-hour, shots-fired standoff with police. The issue: Children’s Aid had seized their five-month old daughter, not because of anything the couple had done to the child—in fact, evidence indicated they […]

The 'Gabo' connection

One of the fascinating sidebars to the story of the Cuban Five is the cameo role Nobel prize-winning author Gabriel Garcia Marquez played in the unfolding drama that led to the arrest of the Five in September 1998. In this excerpt from the manuscript-in-progress, Fidel Castro asks his friend ‘Gabo’ to undertake an important secret […]

Family an obstacle—but for whom?

Nova Scotia’s Community Services Department has upped the ante: last week it severed family access to a troubled Cole Harbour teenager it had shipped off to an Ontario residential care facility last year. It will now apply to family court “to vary the current order with respect to access,” thus legalizing the elimination of the […]

What's race got to do with it?

I accept the argument. Those involved in the recent decision to provide a group of—white—residents in Lake Major with keys to an old logging road so they could avoid having to travel an extra 5.5 km through the—black—community of North Preston were providing a small but reasonable favour to those most inconvenienced by a local […]

Welcome to the rat days of summer

When did we realize we had finally entered the deeps of the news-challenged rat… er, dog days of summer? Was it when that story about the number of rats per city block in Halifax—75; You count ‘em, I’ll pass—made CBC Radio’s marquee World at Six news show last week? Or perhaps it was when we […]

A book at war with itself

Tough questions get short shrift in Lawrence Scanlon’s A Year of Living Generously, an account of volunteering for 12 charities in as many months. Lawrence Scanlan’s idea was deceptively simple. “I decided I would volunteer with 12 charitable organizations and dedicate a month of hands-on involvement to each one,” the veteran Canadian journalist and community […]

Is the boy better off?

Forget dueling interviews, competing psychologists, contradictory studies, even the difference between physically assaulted and “placed in a position of control.” Ask yourself one question: is the 15-year-old Cole Harbour boy at the centre of the controversy over his care better off now than when community services shipped him off to Ontario 13 months ago? A […]

Mayor Kelly's Moses moment

What to make of Peter Kelly’s Moses memo to members of HRM Council? Thou shalt not drink to excess… Thou shalt not drive drunk… Thou shalt call 9-1-1 if a fellow councilor violates #2… Thou shalt pause and reflect… Mayor Kelly issued his I-regret-I-have-to-write-this-however-circumstances-demand-it memo July 9. The ink had barely dried before it showed […]