Disclosure bid rejected in Nortel fraud trial

Defence fights subpoena move by Crown attorneys on grounds documents are covered by legal protection

Defence motion asking Crown to provide more detail on allegations rejected

Defence motion asking Crown to provide more detail on allegations rejected

HALIFAX — Former Nova Scotia Cabinet minister Russell MacKinnon has pleaded guilty to fraud and breach of trust for his role in the province’s spending scandal. MacKinnon entered the plea on the fourth day of his trial at the Nova Scotia Supreme Court in Halifax. The former Liberal was expected to resume testimony today but the judge overseeing the case granted a temporary adjournment at the request of his defence lawyer. When the case resumed, MacKinnon entered his plea.

TORONTO — Three former Nortel executives accused of orchestrating a widespread multimillion-dollar fraud will learn their fate Monday, nearly a year after one of the largest criminal trials in Canada’s corporate history began. Ontario Superior Court Justice Frank Marrocco is set to rule on whether ex-CEO Frank Dunn, ex-CFO Douglas Beatty and ex-controller Michael Gollogly manipulated financial statements at Nortel Networks Corp., between 2002 to 2003.

OTTAWA — A Conservative MP who wants parliamentarians to condemn sex-selection abortions is refusing to back down after his motion was deemed out of order last week by a House of Commons committee. Mark Warawa is urging MPs to reverse that decision and allow a vote in the Commons on the issue. He will plead his case on Wednesday to the Commons’ procedural affairs committee.

MILAN, Italy — The woman who prosecutors allege had sex with Silvio Berlusconi while he was Italy’s premier in exchange for money spent her second day on the witness stand Friday, denying her own sworn descriptions of racy escapades at his “bunga bunga” parties and long lists of expensive jewelry and watches received from the media mogul. Karima el Mahroug, a Moroccan known as Ruby, dismissed a series of sworn statements she made to investigators in the summer of 2010 as “all stupid things” that she now regrets saying.

An order from former Nortel chief Frank Dunn to senior accountant Brian Harrison to prop up the telecom giant’s reported earnings is a fallacy conjured up by Crown prosecutors, the ex-CEO’s defence counsel said