CIA director resigns due to affair
WASHINGTON—ON FRIDAY, NOV. 9, the CIA’s director, David Petraeus, resigned from his post in light of an extra-marital affair of his that was discovered by the FBI. Petraeus, a retired four star general, led U.S. military campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq before President Barack Obama selected him to lead the CIA in 2011.
According to U.S. officials, the FBI discovered that Petraeus was carrying on an affair with Paula Broadwell, Petreaus’ biographer and a reserve army officer, by monitoring Petraeus’ email account after suspicions were raised that Broadwell had access to it. Unauthorized access to the CIA director’s email account is considered a serious breach of security, and Petraeus’s relationship behind the back of his wife of 38 years, Holly Petreaus, could have made him the target of international counterintelligence measures and blackmail.
President Obama has accepted Petreaus’s resignation and thanked him for his decades of service. CIA deputy director Michael Morell is currently serving as the organization’s acting director.
—Keeton Wilcock
Alberta PCs reduce direct ties with Harper’s Tories over Wildrose
CALGARY—THE FEDERAL CONSERVATIVE Party and the Alberta Provincial Conservative Party have reached a compromise regarding the issue of Wildrose Party support. The Wildrose Party is an Albertan right-wing political party which provincial Tories are concerned could interfere with internal PC party matters if federal Conservatives are also Wildrose supporters.
As per their compromise, reached in Calgary during the Alberta PC Party’s annual general meeting attended by about 1,100 delegates from Nov. 9-10. Tory Members of Parliament representing Alberta ridings will continue to hold full voting rights at provincial PC Party conventions, but that privilege will no longer be extended to delegates from the riding associations of their federal counterparts.
Jim Horsman, a former provincial Tory cabinet minister, said the resolution represents a further distancing of the provincial party from the federal party, and also mentioned he wants people to know that the Alberta PC’s stand alone.
—Spencer Van Dyk
Halifax students march for more brains, less debt
HALIFAX (CUP)—MORE THAN 30 students limped, shuffled, and dragged themselves to a Halifax cemetery on Nov. 5 to protest tuition increases and funding cuts at Nova Scotia universities.
Students from Dalhousie, King’s, Nova Scotia College of Arts and Design (NSCAD), Mount Saint Vincent and Saint Mary’s were draped in ripped clothing, smeared with fake blood, and carrying protest signs for the zombie-themed rally entitled “Night of the Living Debt.”
Many students moaned zombie-themed chants, such as, “Brains,” or shouted, “I say drop, you say debt!” as they made their way down the street.
The march was organized by student unions at Dalhousie, King’s, and NSCAD. In October, Nova Scotia’s provincial government announced it would be cutting three per cent of university funding in 2013, amounting to a $10 million loss for the province’s ten universities.
The average undergraduate tuition in Nova Scotia has increased this year by 3.7 per cent—from $5,722 in the 2011/2012 school year to $5,934. Only Ontario and Saskatchewan undergraduates pay more on average.
—Clark Jang, The Watch
