The World This Hour - The World This Hour for 2025/01/24 at 18:00 EST

Episode Date: January 24, 2025

The World This Hour for 2025/01/24 at 18:00 EST

We know the news can be relentless and it's hard to keep up. On Your World Tonight, it's our mission to catch you up in less than 30 minutes. When news breaks, our reporters are there across Canada and around the world. We bring you context and analysis and sort out what's real and what's relevant. I'm Susan Bonner. I'm Tom Harrington. I'm Stephanie Scanderis. We host Your World Tonight. New episodes every night, seven days a week.

Find us wherever you get your podcasts. From CBC News, the world this hour. I'm Claude Fague. In the U.S. deportation flights have begun as President Donald Trump makes good on his promise to remove everyone in the U.S. illegally. But one mayor is accusing law enforcement of targeting legal American citizens as well. Mitch McCann has more. As Donald Trump works fast toward fulfilling his signature campaign promise, the White

House has released an image showing what it says are undocumented migrants being led onto a military plane reportedly bound for Guatemala on Thursday night. We're getting the bad, hard criminals out. These are murderers. These are people that have been as bad as you get, as bad as anybody you've seen. The deportations have left Ras Baraka, the mayor of Newark, New Jersey, furious. He claims a local establishment was raided by immigration officers who even

questioned a military veteran, despite him proving he was a U.S. citizen. When I got this information, I was appalled, upset, angry that this would happen here in this state, in this country, that this would be allowed. During the campaign, Mr. Trump promised the largest deportation program in U.S. history, Mitch McCann for CBC News in New York. The U.S. State Department today froze all new funding for aid programs with the exception of humanitarian, food and military aid to Israel and Egypt. The sweeping orders threatens programs helping poorer nations with basic necessities, health care and education. On

the campaign trail, President Donald Trump pledged to eliminate aid programs, not in the interests of the U.S. Defense Minister Bill Blair says Canada can hit the NATO defense spending target of 2% of GDP within two years. That timeline is about six years earlier than what the Prime Minister announced in July. Blair says while hitting the target is absolutely achievable, it will depend on when the government has the funding. I believe it could take us as much as two years to get to that level of capability because it takes time to get the people in that we need, to make the foundational investments to support them. Blair made the comments as the Liberal caucus met to discuss Canada-U.S. relations, President Donald Trump has complained about NATO allies not paying their fair share and now says they should spend 5 percent. According to NATO, Canada spent roughly 1.37 percent of GDP last year.

Hamas has named the next four hostages to be released tomorrow, in the next phase of the ceasefire agreement in Gaza, three female hostages and 90 Palestinian detainees were released last weekend. Sasha Petrasek has more on what's expected to happen. Those four will be female soldiers who were kidnapped back on October 7th, 2023. They were actually observers who were watching the border between Gaza and Israel.

When the militants overran their military base and they kidnapped a number of them, these four were kidnapped on that day and they are going to be released tomorrow, we are told by Hamas. A few minutes or perhaps a few hours after the hostages are set free. This time around we're expecting 200 Palestinian prisoners to be set free. They of course also and in the Palestinian community are hoping that all of this signals that the war may be drawing to a close. The scene is certainly much different, much more peaceful than it was before the ceasefire started. The CBC's Sasha Petrcic.

The Israeli army says it will not complete its withdrawal from southern Lebanon by the Monday deadline. The Netanyahu government accuses Lebanon of failing to fully enforce the ceasefire agreement. It ended more than a year of hostilities between Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah. At its peak, 1.2 million people were forced out of their homes. And the federal government is making just over $1 billion in repayable funding available to Canada Post. The money should help Canada Post remain solvent and continue operating.

While dealing with significant financial challenges, the corporation has recorded significant losses since 2018. And that is Your World This Hour. For CBC News, I'm Claude Fague.