Four Lebanese-Canadians are running in the upcoming National Assembly’s elections in Quebec as candidates for the upstart “Coalition Avenir Québec.”

The four candidates Johnny Kairouz, Abel-Claude Arslanian, Walid Hadid and Carla el-Ghandour will represent some 200,000 Lebanese-Canadians who are mostly localized in Quebec and Montreal.

After two weeks of relative calm, tens of thousands of students were back on the streets of Quebec Friday to protest a hike in tuition fees in the eastern French-speaking Canadian province.

A demonstration in Montreal drew up to 15,000 people, while another 5,000 protested in Quebec City, according to police and Agence France Presse estimates.

Violent protest over tuition hikes outside the ruling Quebec Liberal Party's convention left nine people injured and ended with 106 arrests, police said Saturday.

One student was fighting for his life in hospital after suffering a head injury, medical officials said.

A new digital media service will foster the global collaboration of physicians and help them to share the latest advances in AIDS and other virus research, according to its Canadian promoters.

The new bilingual French and English service, "viroXchange," is funded by large pharmaceutical companies but will provide "independent" reporting on the latest medical breakthroughs for healthcare professionals, they said.

Montreal's jazz festival this year promises to breach the banks of its genre, with an eclectic cast of performers ranging from Tony Bennett and Dave Brubeck to Robert Plant and Prince.

The festival officially opens on Saturday with an open-air show from French soul singer Ben l'Oncle Soul.