News

A retired Montreal police officer is being accused of leaking names of informants to the mafia. 

According to CBC, police found out about the leak through a wiretap investigation in April 2011, and the officer was arrested in October 2011.

Radio-Canada says that the officer tried to sell the information to the mafia for a six-figure sum.

The State Department announced on Wednesday that the U.S. government has rejected TransCanada’s application to build the Keystone XL pipeline.

According to CBC, the Department said in a statement that they are willing to accept an application with a different route.TransCanada has said that they will apply with a new route based on the research they have compiled these past three years. 

Produced by: Jamie-Lee Gordon

Read by: Emily Brass

Stories by: Joel Balsam, Alexa Fay, Michael Lemieux, Emily Brass

According to the BBC news, the captain of the Costa Concordia has been put under house arrest.

Captain Francesco Schettino has been accused of crashing the ship. He has also been accused of abandoning the ship before passengers.

Shettino was arrested after the incident and has been in jail since. He denies both claims being made against him.

President Obama's road to re-election will be a bumpy one.

In a report by the New York Times, the mounting conflict between America and Iran leaves Obama with options that could potentially harm the economic recovery or his image as a decisive leader.

Twenty-nine people are still missing after the Costa Concordia cruise ship crashed into the west coast of Italy on Friday night.

According to BBC, the area’s chief coast guard Marco Brusco said there’s “still a glimmer of hope” that survivors will be found.

Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad has granted an amnesty to his opponents.

According to the BBC, this would apply to all those who committed a crime during the 10-month uprising. 

Several thousands of people have been detained in the past year. 

Countless others have been killed during the protests. 

The official pardon is not the first Assad has granted. 

A luxury cruise ship, the Costa Concordia, hit an underwater rock and partly sunk last Friday night near the Tuscan shore, in Italy, according to the CBC.

Search and rescue teams have been deployed all weekend to find any remaining missing persons. So far five people have died and at least 15 are still missing.

A fatal crash has lead Montreal police to warn drivers that they can be charged even if they have consumed legal drugs.

This new law took action after a 19 year old woman was killed in a car accident in Riviere des Prairies.

A 28 year old male driver of the other car was arrested on Thursday for suspected drug use.

Rwandan politician Léon Mugesera’s deportation is being delayed with the intervention of the Quebec Superior Court.

According to the Canadian Press, he was supposed to be sent back to the African nation on Thursday to face criminal charges.

Charges against him are related to the 1994 killing of more than 800,000 Rwandans.

Despite relentless dedication by the Quebec Liberal government, the Concordia Student Union has far from given up on the fight against tuition hikes. At Wednesday’s CSU council meeting, councilors voted in support of a winter semester mobilization plan meant to combat the proposed tuition hike of $325 per semester for students who are Quebec residents over the next five years.

On the agenda is a March 7 special general assembly to vote for a weeklong Concordia-wide strike. 

The CSU has already booked three locations on campus to gather enough students for a significant mandate.

An award winning French journalist is dead after an attack in the city of Homs in Syria. According to the BBC Gilles Jacquier had just finished interviewing people at a pro-government rally when grenades exploded. The exact number of deaths has yet to be confirmed but Syrian TV said eight were killed.

Jacquier was in Syria preparing a documentary about the recent protests. He was part of a group of 15 journalists who were visiting the city of Homs. They were being escorted around the by Syrian soldiers and police when the grenades hit.