Betty Anne and Max Hunter crossed Canada by train to celebrate their honeymoon. They got more than just scenery, though, when their train trundled into Vancouver. "You have such a beautiful country," Betty Anne said in her warm Texas drawl, sipping a beverage inside the Terminal City Club. "But we were so surprised when we got into Vancouver." "Oh," I said. "Why's that?" "Welllll . . ." she hesitated, clearly not wanting to be impolite. I urged her on. "Well, when we were coming into Vancouver on the train, there were all these homeless people living on the side of the train tracks and on the streets, under plastic tents. It looked like something out of one of those movies about the Depression. I was surprised, we didn't see anything like it in your other cities..." [continues 792 words]
Prominent Panel Would Reconstruct The Neighbourhood Who wouldn't like to find a dark, far away cell to deposit Robert (Willie) Pickton in, lock the door and forget him and his farm of horrors? But that's the revulsion reflex. It's too easy a reaction to indulge in and hardly the smart thing for us to do. As a city it's time to for us to reflect on Pickton -- and the women he sadistically slaughtered -- more than ever. And I don't mean an exploration of what made him evil incarnate, preying upon our city's poorest and most vulnerable. We don't need to know much more about Pickton's cruel modus operandi. The last year of testimony has given us enough of that. [continues 765 words]
The Downtown Eastside, the poorest neighbourhood in Canada, has long been a time-bomb this city has never bothered to defuse. Now it's about to explode on the international stage. Dan Rather, one of the best and most famous U.S. TV journalists of his generation, is in Vancouver for the next few days with a news crew. His subject is the drug- and crime-infested neighbourhood in Vancouver's heart, our very own made-in-Canada ghetto that could hold its own with any in Rather's home country. [continues 819 words]
Criticisms Of The City's Downtown Core In The Economist Are No Laughing Matter As We Approach The 10 Winter Games Vancouverites never miss reading, or at the very least boasting about, any edition of The Economist designating their city as the best on the planet in which to live. So maybe we ought to pay equally close attention when the world's most prestigious magazine -- and probably the one that's only truly read on a global basis -- takes pains to offer a wakeup call to Vancouver, now undergoing the biggest population and development boom in its history. [continues 624 words]
Two Arrested As Marijuana Cafe Opens Located across from police station Montreal-By most measures, Chez Marijane ought not to create much of a buzz. The cafe's floor is nothing more than poorly varnished plywood. Its walls are painted a sickly looking yellow. A man in dreadlocks behind the bar of Marijane's - named for the hoary moniker for marijuana - tells customers the cappuccino machine is still very much in the future. "But you can smoke a joint," he adds, proffering an ashtray. "Just ask somebody here for a try. They'll let you take a toke and I promise you, most of the people here smoke some of the best marijuana in Montreal - out-of-this-world product." [continues 579 words]
As The Faithful Gather To Pray In Pakistan, Miro Cernetig Meets An Addict With A Forbidden Tale PESHAWAR, PAKISTAN -- His eyes are as yellow as egg yolks, his arms have open sores that draw hungry flies and his legs are too thin to carry him home to Afghanistan. Yet Altanlah Khan smiles dreamily, as heroin addicts so often do, and thanks the Taliban for his daily dose. "Taliban sell the heroin to us," he says, gesturing toward the dusty road that leads to a steel gate, beyond which lies the Khyber Pass, the storied route into Afghanistan and the planet's most prolific poppy fields. "We are still buying the drugs from the Taliban. There is no change in that." [continues 832 words]
Frail 74-year-old, imprisoned in Vietnam, refuses to eat or speak Hanoi -- Behind the grim, grey walls of Vietnam's Xuan Phuong Prison, 74-year-old Tran Thi Cam spends her days quietly weeping, refusing to eat or speak. From cell to cell, the word has spread through the prison grapevine: Her daughter has been executed for smuggling drugs. And with that, the old woman's will to live, and her hope of being granted amnesty, are withering away. "She lies in bed and cries all day," said Tran Hieu, the husband of Ms. Tran's daughter, Nguyen Thi Hiep, who was executed last week after spending four years at the prison. "My mother-in-law is sick and old, and we fear she will die in prison. We want her to die in the embrace of her family, not the embrace of jail guards." [continues 1234 words]
