A fifth of Canada's glaciers could be gone by the end of the century, a casualty of global warming that would drive a 1.4-inch (3.5-centimeter) rise in sea levels, a study found Thursday.

"Even if we only assume moderate global warming, it is still highly likely that the ice is going to melt at an alarming rate," lead author Jan Lenaerts said in a statement.

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty on Friday blamed Canada's lower than expected economic growth on "weakness in the global recovery" as he vowed to stay the course to a balanced budget in 2015.

Canada's economy grew 1.8 percent last year, slightly less than the central bank's forecast and down from 2.6 percent in 2011, the government statistics agency announced earlier.

The U.S. State Department suggested Friday that a $5.3 billion Canada-to-Texas oil pipeline would have no major impact on the environment, but stopped short of recommending it be approved.

The lengthy draft environmental impact statement examines how the Keystone XL Project could affect wildlife and surrounding areas as it crosses from the tar-sands of Alberta in Canada and travels 875 miles (1,408 kilometers) south.

A Canadian navy officer was sentenced to 20 years in prison on Friday and ordered to pay a steep fine for leaking secrets to Russia.

Sub-Lieutenant Jeffrey Delisle pleaded guilty in October to breach of trust and passing information to a foreign government, but it is still not known what if any damage was caused to Canada or the United States by the security lapse.

A Canadian suspect in last year's fatal bus bombing in Bulgaria was born in Lebanon and only lived in Canada for a few years as a child, Canadian Immigration Minister Jason Kenney said Wednesday.

"My understanding is he came to Canada as a child at the age of eight, obtained citizenship three or four years after that, and left Canada at the age of 12," Kenney said.

The European Union now faces the difficult task of dealing with demands to designate Hizbullah as a terrorist organization after Bulgaria announced Tuesday that the Lebanese party was behind a bomb attack in July that killed five Israeli tourists and one Bulgarian.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague said in a statement that the EU should “respond robustly to an attack on European soil.”

Canada on Tuesday ordered an Australian former bodyguard of slain Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi's third-born son to be deported.

The Immigration and Refugee Board Member Alicia Seifert was quoted by Canada's public broadcaster as saying Gary Peters was "complicit in war crimes."

WhatsApp's mobile messaging service used by hundreds of millions of customers worldwide breached privacy laws in at least two countries, a joint Canadian-Dutch probe concluded Monday.

The California-based mobile app developer violated "certain internationally accepted privacy principles, mainly in relation to the retention, safeguard, and disclosure of personal data," Canada's privacy commissioner and the Dutch Data Protection Authority (CBP) said in a joint statement.

A search in Antarctica for a plane carrying three Canadian crewmen that went missing on a flight from the South Pole has been suspended due to bad weather, rescue officials said Thursday.

A rescue plane circled the area where the Twin Otter aircraft disappeared at 10:00pm (0900GMT) Wednesday but could not find it due to high winds and heavy cloud cover, the Rescue Coordination Centre New Zealand (RCCNZ) said.

A Canadian involved in legal disputes with his neighbors shot dead two people Tuesday in a courtroom rampage in the central Philippines before killing himself, police said.

John Pope, 66, a former journalist, arrived with two hidden pistols at a courtroom that was hearing a case against him for "mischief,” said Senior Superintendent Mariano Natuel, police chief of Cebu city.