Can a ‘white van driver’ be a terrorist? Discuss

This column originally appeared in the Halifax Examiner on June 26, 2017. I was watching CNN last Sunday night. It is my guilty-pleasure punishment for the sin of obsessing too much about what Donald Trump might do next. Trump had filled up his Father’s Day dissing his predecessor, Barack Obama, in 140-character vitriol. He’d falsely […]

Guistino Di Celmo dies in Havana; Posada in car accident in Miami

Two key, interconnected figures in the story of the Cuban Five are in the news. Guistino Di Celmo, 94, died in Havana on September 2, 2015. An Italian-born businessman, he relocated to Havana after his son, Fabio, was murdered by a terrorist bomb set off in the Copacabana Hotel on September 4, 1997. The terrorist behind the 1997 bombing […]

The Murder of Fabio Di Celmo

Havana, September 4, 1997, 11:00 a.m. Fabio Di Celmo was apologetic. Another day perhaps, he suggested into the telephone. The person at the other end of the line was a representative of Biconsa, a division of Cuba’s Ministry of Domestic Trade with whom he hoped to make a deal. But not today. Their appointment was for noon, […]

Continuing Canada’s tragedy of terrors

This week, the Harper government will extend and expand our supposedly no-boots-on-the-ground, six-month military mission in Iraq. The purpose, according to Foreign Affairs Minister Rob Nicholson, is to “degrade and destabilize this gang of thugs [Islamic State], and in doing so, strip [it] of its power to threaten the security of the region, or to […]

Harper’s diplomatically deaf, ideologically inspired foreign policy puts Canadians at risk

Canadian journalist Mohamed Fahmy sits trapped in Cairo limbo awaiting retrial next week on trumped-up charges he spread “false news” supporting Egypt’s outlawed Muslim Brotherhood. Meanwhile, his Australian colleague, Peter Greste — who was convicted with Fahmy on the same charges last year — is home in Brisbane after being released Feb. 1 from what […]

What’s terror? Who’s a terrorist? And other aftermath questions…

It can’t happen here. It won’t happen here. It — almost — did. But what is “it”? And how do we protect ourselves against whatever it is? On Friday night, I was at Scotiabank Centre enjoying the Mooseheads-Shawinigan Cataractes Quebec Major Junior Hockey league game. During a commercial lull — the game was televised nationally as part […]

Bourque, Zahef-Bibeau, personal consequences and public accountability

There is little doubt re-watching video of Justin Bourque chillingly describe the targeted killing of their husbands, sons, fathers — “It’s sad,” Bourque explains blandly. “They might have had a wife and kids, but every soldier has a wife and kids, right?… It’s all about whose side you chose, and they chose the wrong one” […]

Transcript of my Interview with “The Taylor Report” on CIUT Radio

Radio show interview transcribed by Joan Malerich. Phil Taylor (PT): Stephen Kimber, are you there sir? Stephen Kimber (SK) : I am. PT: How are you? SK: Very Good. SK: It’s great to talk to you. I have interviewed lawyers, and I have interviewed members of the family of the Cuban Five on this show and I was under the impression that […]

The journalist’s dilemma: covering breaking news in the Age of Instant

Last Wednesday, I was glued to CBC radio’s coverage of the Ottawa shootings while trying — and failing — to focus on making notes for my upcoming class. At 12:54 p.m., as a CBC reporter relayed the shocking news shots may have been fired inside the Rideau Mall — meaning there might be “more than […]

What Lies wins nonfiction prize

Stephen Kimber’s book, What Lies Across the Water: The Real Story of the Cuban Five, has won the 2014 Evelyn Richardson Award for Nonfiction at Canada’s East Coast Literary Awards. The Five were members of a Cuban intelligence network sent to Florida in the 1990s to infiltrate Miami exile groups plotting terrorist attacks against Cuba. […]