Salon.com > Quebec

Daring prison break: Quebec inmates escape in hijacked helicopter

Mon, 18 Mar 2013 17:06:00 +0000

SAINT-JEROME, Quebec (AP) — Two Quebec inmates climbed into a hijacked helicopter to make a daring daylight escape from a prison outside Montreal, then led police in a car chase and exchanged gunfire at a rural cabin before they were finally recaptured, authorities said Monday.

Police said the helicopter pilot was held hostage in the Sunday jail-break and was not a suspect. He was treated for shock in hospital.

Quebec provincial police spokesman Benoit Richard said Monday that they had arrested four people about 50 kilometers (30 miles) north of the Saint-Jerome prison from which the inmates escaped. Police said they followed the helicopter until it landed, and then chased a car until it reached a rural cabin.

"When they got out of their vehicle they started shooting at police officers," Richard said.

Two of the suspects then broke into the cabin and the residents fled unharmed.

Two of those arrested Sunday were inmates Benjamin Hudon-Barbeau, 36, and Danny Provencal, 33. Hudon-Barbeau was arrested first and police cornered Provencal later in the evening, after establishing a security perimeter around a building where he had barricaded himself. Richard said Provencal had surrendered peacefully after negotiations continued through the night. Police found one of the other suspects on a highway.

Anonymous 2012: a year in review

Thu, 27 Dec 2012 07:39:00 +0000

In 2012, the loose association of tech-based activists protested bullying, LGBT discrimination, corporate media, Israel, Muslim genocide, police brutality, election-rigging, douchebaggery/bullying, surveillance, nationalist education, and of course Internet censorship—expanding both the range of its “causes” and the tools it deployed to defend them.

Of course, it’s impossible to say with certainty which actions "Anonymous" actually pulled off, since its membership is ill-defined and anyone can claim association, not to mention that sometimes Anonymous hacktivists act alone or as part of a subgroup. Even when Anonymous has put out one of its quintessential videos claiming responsibility for a hack or DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service—shutting down a website by flooding it with requests) attack, it hasn’t always turned out to be true.

Given that, below are Anonymous’ “Top 20” for 2012. With its widening arsenal and focus, one can only imagine what these Internet denizens have in store for 2013.

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Mafia wars rage in Montreal

Fri, 09 Nov 2012 17:07:00 +0000

TORONTO, Canada — In the back room of the Cosenza Social Club, a strip mall café in an Italian neighborhood of Montreal, the city’s top mobster held court over piles of cash.

Hours of surveillance video captured by the RCMP, Canada’s national police, show the since-assassinated godfather of Montreal’s powerful Mafia, Nicolo Rizzuto, in variations of the same scene: counting bills, pausing only to lick his fingers, and stuffing the bundles in his knee-high socks.

No one is surprised that the mob conducts its illegal activities in cash. Shocking many, however, are revelations about the source of the money — a Mafia-controlled scheme that rigged bids and dispensed bribes on Montreal public construction contracts.

The scam, revealed in an ongoing corruption inquiry in Montreal, added an estimated 30 percent to the cost of municipal construction projects in Canada’s second-largest city — a corruption tax paid, in the end, by the city’s taxpayers.

Quebec student strike claims victory

Fri, 21 Sep 2012 16:12:00 +0000

Thousands of Quebec students and their allies are claiming victory Friday as the newly-elected government immediately scrapped the proposed tuition fee hike, which sparked the longest ever student strike in the region.

Within 24-hours of stepping into power, the Parti Quebecois leader Pauline Marois announced that the fee rise would be cancelled. She also repealed the contentious Loi 78, a draconian anti-protest law passed in mid-May to contain and control the then-nightly mass mobilizations of around 300,000 students and supporters.

Voices from the moderate end of student leadership celebrated Marois' election and the repeal of the fee hike. The Montreal Gazette reports:

“It’s a total victory!” said Martine Desjardins, president of the Fédération étudiante universitaire du Québec, which is the largest student association with about 125,000 students. “It’s a new era of collaboration instead of confrontation.”

Representatives from the more radical, influential student union, CLASSE, were less unmitigated with their praise. In a press release, they note that the fee hike repeal "is not the end of the fight and that student and citizen mobilization should continue." For many individuals and groups involved in the six-month strike, the proposed tuition hike was just a trigger issue to mobilize against neo-liberal education reform and more.