The World This Hour - The World This Hour for 2025/09/24 at 18:00 EDT

Episode Date: September 24, 2025

The World This Hour for 2025/09/24 at 18:00 EDT

This message is from Wise, the app for international money. With Wise, you can send, spend, and receive in up to 40 currencies with a fair exchange rate and no hidden fees. Download the Wise app or visit Wise.com. T's and C's Apply. From CBC News, the world this hour. I'm Kate McGilfrey. Canada's population growth is slowing, and new data shows that cuts to immigration are the main driver. Let's say again reports. Keeping Canada populated, keeping the economic and tax base healthy is a challenge. Toronto immigration lawyer Andreas Pelliner says an aging population, decreasing birth rate, and cuts to immigration are impacting Canada's population growth.

This is apparent in new stats can numbers, which show this year the country experienced its second lowest population growth rate in a second quarter since 1946. The report says this. This can be linked to cuts to non-permanent residents, following Ottawa's announcement late last year to reduce temporary residents to 5% of the population by 2026. Pelliner says stresses on housing, health care, and infrastructure prompted the policy change. These reductions in immigration levels are a rebalancing act. Statscan says from last October to this June, there was a net loss of more than 120,000 non-permanent residents. Nicholas Sagan, CBC News, Halifax. The RCMP has charged a Royal Bank of Canada employee

after he allegedly accessed Prime Minister Mark Carney's banking records. They say Ibrahim El-Hakim worked at an Ottawa bank branch and did this as part of a criminal plot. It allegedly involved creating fake bank profiles and obtaining lines of credit for others, all in exchange for cash. El-Hakim was arrested in July. Police say neither Carney's private information nor the country's national security have been put at risk.

The Supreme Court of Canada has granted a temporary stay to the destruction of about 400 ostriches on a BC farm. The order comes days after the Canadian Food Inspection Agency moved in on the farm with a police escort to make preparations for the call. The CBC's Caroline Bargut was at the ostrich farm and has this report. Dozens of people gathered at universal ostrich farms in Edgewood in southeast BC, praying. for a miracle. Minutes later, their prayers were answered. The Supreme Court of Canada halted

an order to execute some 400 ostriches until the court decides if it will hear the case. In December, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency ordered a herd to be destroyed as part of its stamping out policy after 69 ostriches died from avian flu last year. The farm has been fighting the call order since then. Katie Pasitney and her family raised the ostriches and have been fighting to save their lives. There's Q-tip. There's Frank. There's Lulu. There's Barney. There's Lorraine. There's Erica. There's Sergeant Bilko. They all have names. And they are part of our family. We are not for food consumption. The CFIA has until next Friday to file a response. It's not yet clear if the Supreme Court will hear the case. Caroline Bargut. CBC News, Edgewood, B.C. For the first time in nearly six decades,

a Syrian head of state was at the UN General Assembly. Speaking through a Translator, President Ahmed al-Shara, called for an end to all sanctions on his country. We call now for the complete lifting of sanctions so that they no longer shackled the Syrian people. The last time Syria was represented at the UN was in 1967, a few years before the 50-year rule of the Assad family dynasty began. U.S. President Donald Trump lifted some of the U.S. sanctions on Syria in May, but the rest will need a congressional vote to be permanently removed. And in a medical first, doctors in London have successfully treated a patient with Huntington's disease. This illness is inherited and caused by a faulty gene. It kills brain cells and then

affects the rest of the body. The new treatment is a gene therapy injected into the brain during surgery. Sarah Tabrizi helped lead the trial. For a person who has Huntington's disease, they will be able to maintain their function longer. They'll be able to stay and work longer. They'll be able to be independent. Tabrizi says the treatment slowed the disease in patients by 75%. Huntington's is incurable and it affects about one in 7,000 Canadians. And that is your world this hour. You can listen to us anytime on voice-activated devices like Amazon Echo or Google Home.

For CBC News, I'm Kate McGilvery.