The halls of Salmaniya Hospital in Bahrain are strangely empty.

Earlier today, a military tribunal in the capital, Manama, sentenced twenty doctors and medical staff to between five and twenty years in prison.

In February, the hospital was at the centre of the pro-democracy demonstrations that turned violent when the government opened fire on unarmed protesters. As the regime tried to downplay the violence, the doctors who treated the wounded bore witness to it. For that, the doctors and most observers agree, they have been convicted.

We reached one of the doctors sentenced today at home. Because of the repercussions she could face, we are withholding her name. She spoke with us via Skype in Manama, Bahrain.

The hospital staff, international human rights monitors and journalists who were in Bahrain during the demonstrations in February and March maintain the doctors are being punished for treating wounded demonstrators, and speaking to the media about the extent of the violence. The government of Bahrain, of course, has a different version of events.

Earlier today, government spokesman Sheikh Abdul Aziz Bin Mubarak spoke with the BBC. For the record, here is a portion of that interview.

At what stage does the preservation of the past interfere with the future?

That's the debate we've been bringing you this week regarding the Memorial Library at the Mount Allison University in Sackville, New Brunswick. Last week, the University's board of regents approved a new performing arts centre that would require the demolition of the library. That's a contentious decision, because the library was built in honour of the university's war dead.

We heard from a student who wanted the library to stay standing. And last night Carol spoke with a Vice President at the university who says that if the arts centre is to be built, the library just has to go.

And then we got emails in support of both positions.

Beth Johnston from Dundas, Ontario wrote:

"I am a graduate of the class of 1984. When I arrived at Mount Allison the Memorial Library had long since been converted to the Student Centre. While I see no reason for a thirty-million-dollar arts centre, I also see no reason to keep the Memorial Library just because it was built in memory of veterans. Of course I knew what it used to be, but that knowledge had no impact on my life as a student.

"I attended at least one of those Remembrance Day ceremonies in the stairwell of the Memorial Library and noted each time that there was only a handful of students or faculty in attendance.

"I do not think that memorials to the past should become millstones around the necks of the next generation. While we don't want to lose the memory of the sacrifice of those who died, we should not have to keep it, at great expense, forever."

Mark Heseltine from Edmonton wrote:

"Cost appears to be an important part of the VP's argument against keeping even the facade of the library. What he fails to appreciate is that there is a greater cost: the historical cost. You can't manufacture history; it comes with age and it represents one's culture. Imagine Oxford demolishing the Bodleian Library, or Leed University tearing down the Brotherton Library. In Canada, the appeal is never historic."

And Peter Flemington from Joggins, Nova Scotia sent us this:

"Clearly what's best -- especially with the polarization this issue has caused, and the fracturing of the University community that may ensue -- is a win-win solution. The original Library building, shorn of its inappropriate additions, should be saved, restored to its classic beauty and repurposed. The new Performing and Fine Arts building can be put elsewhere on the campus -- there are other places it could go -- or, as architect Jack Diamond appropriately advised a number of years ago, there can be an exciting new design incorporating the ancient gem in the bosom of modernity. But it will have to happen quickly. The bulldozers are going into gear."

Thank you for all those emails. Our email address is aih@cbc.ca, and you can reach Talkback, toll-free, at 1-866-481-5718.

It's a different take on "green" but the conclusion is the same.

As you heard on the news, a report released today suggests that Canada should consider cutting carbon emissions -- because, whatever the cost to the environment, climate change will be expensive. Period.

The report was done by the National Round Table on the Economy and Environment. That's an arm's-length government agency. The thrust of the report is that Canada needs to prepare itself against the long-term economic shock of climate change.

David McLaughlin is the President and CEO of the National Round Table on the Economy and Environment. We reached him in Ottawa.

Here's the thing about odds. Let's say the experts tell you you have a one-in-fifty-six thousand, four-hundred-and-thirty-nine chance of being struck by lightning. That's reassuring. Unless, of course, you're the one.

The Boston Red Sox know what I mean.

If the BoSox had won last night, and the Tampa Bay Rays had lost in their respective games, Boston would have clinched a playoff spot. If both the Red Sox and the Rays had won, Boston and Tampa would have played a one-game playoff to determine which team would move on. And if Boston lost and Tampa Bay won -- well, that was unthinkable.

Except here's what happened in just three minutes last night. The Red Sox were leading the Baltimore Orioles three-to-two. They were one out away from victory -- when the Orioles came back and won.

And then, three minutes later, Tampa Bay's Evan Longoria homered to beat the Yankees. The Rays had come back from a seven-nothing deficit to win, and clinch a playoff spot.

It was an unlikely end for Boston. And statistician Nate Silver -- who crunches numbers at his FiveThirtyEight blog for the New York Times -- has calculated just how unlikely.

At the beginning of September, he figures, the Red Sox had a ninety-nine-point-six per cent chance of making the playoffs. But then they lost most of their last games, and wound up tied with the Rays.

Still, going into that last out in their game against the Orioles last night, the Red Sox had a two per cent chance of losing the game.

Going into the last out in their game against the Yankees last night, the Rays had a two per cent chance of winning the game.

Throw all these odds together, and Nate Silver calculates, very roughly, that there was a one-in-two-hundred-and-seventy-eight million chance that all these events would culminate the way they did -- in the three minutes that ended Boston's season, and extended Tampa Bay's.

Like I say, and like any Boston player would tell you today, the odds don't matter much when you're the one getting struck by lightning.

It may be another reason to be optimistic that things are changing for women in Saudi Arabia. Although, it's probably more realistic to be cautiously optimistic.

Today, a Saudi woman who had been sentenced to receive ten lashes for the crime of driving a car has had the punishment called off by King Abdullah.

This comes just days after King Abdullah promised that women will be allowed to vote in the country's next election.

Wajeha al-Huwaider is a women's rights activist. We spoke with her in May after a friend of hers was arrested for driving. We reached Ms. al-Huwaider on her cell phone in Dammam.

First stop, Easy Street. And then, if the fancy strikes, on to "Coronation Street".

A couple from Conception Bay South, Newfoundland arrived by limousine in St. John's to collect their cheque for twenty-one-million dollars earlier today.

Sixty-three-year-old Linton Barnes -- a retired fire captain -- and his sixty-year-old wife Olga -- who just quit her job with Revenue Canada today -- have some modest plans for the money they won in the Lotto 6-49 this week: stay in their home, buy a new truck, and, yes, maybe visit the set of the U.K.'s longest-running soap opera.

Here's some of the excitement, for the record. Before Linton and Olga, you'll first hear from Sandra Squires, Barb Earle, and Paula Ennis -- three of Olga's eight sisters, who've been promised some of the winnings.

It was like finding a needle in a haystack. But in this case, the haystack was the vast forest of northern Quebec. And the needle was a seventy-seven year-old man.

Every autumn for twelve years, Ray Rougeau has gone hunting with his friend Jean-Marie Simard. Mr. Rougeau is a former WWF wrestler. He and his brother were known as the Fabulous Rougeaus.

And last week, Mr. Rougeau lived up to the "fabulous" part of that title when he led the search to find his friend. Jean-Marie had gone missing en route to their annual hunting spot.

Ray Rougeau is now a councillor in Rawdon, Quebec. And that's where we reached him.

On Sunday, a golfer named Bill Haas won the 2011 Tour Championship, partly due to a dramatic shot on the seventeenth hole. His ball was half-submerged in a water hazard, but he somehow put it on the green, and subsequently made par. Golf commentators immediately dubbed it a "miracle shot".

Well, it was a very good golf shot. But it wasn't a miracle. I'll tell you about a miracle: the miracle fruit.

At first, its name made me skeptical. I mean, any fruit could be a "miracle fruit", right? Except for papayas.

Anyway, at first I thought "miracle fruit" was a pretty overblown name. Especially when I read that it really doesn't taste like much. But here's what's miraculous about it: anything you eat after you eat miracle fruit tastes sweet. And that includes extremely sour things.

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SC/MUSIC: MIRACLE FRUIT, PG. 2

JD:That's not news. For ages now, people have been holding parties where they eat miracle fruit and then eat lemons and limes, or drink vinegar, and all of the above taste sweet. What is news is that Keiko Abe of the University of Tokyo has figured out why the miracle fruit is so miraculous.

It has to do with a protein called "miraculin". I know, they lay it on a little thick with these names. Anyhow, when you eat the miracle fruit, the miraculin binds to the sweet taste receptors on your tongue. Doesn't do much, until something acidic is introduced to your mouth -- when suddenly, the miraculin flips the switch on those sweet taste receptors, and everything's sweet! And that lasts for about an hour.

Which proves two things: there is accounting for taste, and miracles do happen. Here's one now -- it's Miracle Fortress, with "Spectre".

DALET: MUSIC - SIMPLE MINDS: PROMISED YOU A MIRACLE

JD:From their latest album, "Was I The Wave?", that's Miracle Fortress, with "Spectre".

Newfoundland and Labrador Premier and Conservative Party Leader Kathy Dunderdale appears to be in a pretty comfortable position these days. When the provincial election was called a few weeks ago, her party had forty-four seats in the legislature -- compared to just four for the Liberals, and one for the New Democrats. But during last night's leaders' debate, Ms. Dunderdale didn't look all that comfortable.

Her plan to develop a hydroelectric project in Labrador called "Muskrat Falls," with the province of Nova Scotia, came under fire. Some voters are worried it will drive up electricity rates, -- and that made the plan an easy target for her opponents. Here's Liberal leader Kevin Aylward confronting Kathy Dunderdale on the issue, for the record.

In Berlin today, the Euro got a boost. German parliamentarians approved a plan to ease the cash crunch facing Greece and other EU member states. The news was enough to reverse a run on the European currency, but the continent's economy still has the wobbles.

To find out which way it might tilt next, we reached Mark Weisbrot. He's the Co-Director of the Center for Economics and Policy Research in Washington, D.C.

Because of his passion for field work, Pierre Dansereau was affectionately known as the "ecologist with feet of clay". He was also considered one of the fathers of ecology.

The Montreal native died earlier today, less than a week before his hundredth birthday.

Dr. Dansereau's career spanned six decades, during which he garnered some fifty awards and honours for his contributions to environmental science -- including being named a Companion of the Order of Canada in 1969, and a Grand Officer of the National Order of Quebec in 1992.

In 2001, he was inducted into the Canadian Science and Engineering Hall of Fame. That same year, his cousin, Quebec filmmaker Fernand Dansereau, made him the subject of the National Film Board documentary An Ecology of Hope.

At the core of Pierre Dansereau's life work was how to nurture human perceptions of the environment, while at the same time striving to preserve and protect nature from man's impact on it. Or as he put it, "my concern is as much with the inscape as it is with the landscape".

In 1972, Dr. Dansereau outlined his ideas in that year's series of Massey Lectures. Here, from our archives, is an excerpt from the first part of that series.

There's a lot at stake in the debate over the Keystone pipeline -- jobs, the future profits of the Alberta oil sands industry, protection of the environment. And when there's a lot at stake, there are always people willing to spend a lot of money to influence the debate. And people willing to raise questions about whether the spending is fair play.

Vivian Krause questions funding for groups opposed to the pipeline on her blog, Rethink Campaigns. And that's making her, like the Keystone project itself, controversial.

We reached Vivian Krause in Vancouver.

Rupert Kirkwood likes to take his kayak out off North Devon, England, watch the birds and fish. And the bigger the fish, the better. Within reason.

But when he paddled out last week, the bite he got was completely unreasonable.

We reached Rupert Kirkwood at home in Holsworthy in Devon, England.