The World This Hour - The World This Hour for 2025/01/22 at 06:00 EST

Episode Date: January 22, 2025

The World This Hour for 2025/01/22 at 06:00 EST

There is no shortage of scam artists and true crime. But I'm guessing you've never heard of one quite like Caitlin Braun. For over two years, Caitlin Braun conned more than 50 birth workers into thinking that she was pregnant. I'm Kathleen Goldtar, and this week on Crime Story, I sit down with Sarah Trelevin, the host of the con, Caitlin's baby. Find Crime Story wherever you get your podcasts. From CBC News, it's the World This Hour.

I'm Joe Cummings. Ahead of his threatened February 1st tariff deadline, U.S. President Donald Trump is again justifying that threat by claiming there are major security issues at the Canadian border. Canada, very much so. They've allowed millions and millions of people to come into our country that shouldn't be here. They could have stopped them, and they didn't.

And they've killed 300,000 people last year, my opinion, have been destroyed by drugs, by fentanyl. The fentanyl coming through Canada is massive. The fentanyl coming through Mexico is massive. And people are getting killed and families are being destroyed. That's Trump speaking last night in Washington. His claims, however, conflict with the latest data from American border officials. U.S. Customs says over a one-year period starting in the fall of 2023, 10,000 kilograms of fentanyl

were seized at American borders, but only 20 kilograms were discovered coming from Canada. And over that same period, just under 3 million people were apprehended at the U.S.-Mexican border while less than 200,000 were detained entering from Canada. Meanwhile, as the Trump administration starts the process of withdrawing from the United States from a number of international agreements, foreign analysts are saying it's clear China is ready to play a larger role on the global stage. Lisa Sheng explains. China's Vice Premier Ding Xuexiang at the World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland,

saying the country is a staunch supporter of true multilateralism, the message that it's a team player and it's echoed elsewhere. By China's foreign ministry expressing concern over US President Donald Trump withdrawing from the Paris agreement and in a strategically timed meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin just hours after Trump's inauguration, Chinese President Xi Jinping saying he will guide China-Russia relations to a new height this year, a clear sign China is positioning itself as a world leader. According to Gregory Chin, political economy professor at

York University, as Trump threatens higher tariffs, China is reducing them. Chin says that's one reason other nations may bolster relations with the country while the US distances itself. Lisa Sheng, CBC News, Toronto. Now to a First Nation in Northern Ontario where the recent death of a 10-year-old girl by suicide is once again drawing attention to First Nation child suicide throughout the region. Sarah Law reports. Very friendly, always smiling, always joking.

That's how Mishke Gogaman's chief Merle Loon describes Junae Skunk. Loon says J'Neya's skunk. Loon says the community has been open about the death of the 10-year-old in December. Loon says J'Neya was being bullied. Since J'Neya's death, more children have come forward. There have been more than 600 suicides in the region's First Nations since the mid-80s. Across Canada, suicide rates are about six times higher for First Nations youth compared to non-Indigenous youth.

Janet Gordon, with the Sioux Lookout First Nations Health Authority, says First Nations need help closer to home. Saul Mamoukwa, Kiwatanon's MPP, agrees. He says taking people out of the community for care is a short-term fix. And then when we send them back to the community, the same setting, we throw them back into the river. Loon wants the provincial and federal governments to help build a new land-based health and treatment centre. Ottawa says it's working on creating a funders table to help make that happen.

Sarah Law, CBC News, Thunder Bay, Ontario. Prince Harry has settled a lawsuit against two British tabloids owned by Rupert Murdoch. And in a rare development, the Duke of Sussex has received an apology. Harry had filed a lawsuit against the publishers of The Sun and the now-shuttered News of the World, claiming the publications used illegal methods in reporting on his life, and that senior newspaper executives helped cover it up.

Harry is one of only two remaining claimants in the case that began with more than 1,300, and his lawyer is suggesting Harry will be receiving a substantial financial settlement. And that is The World This Hour. For CBC News, I'm Joe Cummings.