The World This Hour - The World This Hour for 2025/12/20 at 18:00 EST

Episode Date: December 20, 2025

The World This Hour for 2025/12/20 at 18:00 EST

Hey, I'm Gavin Crawford. Each week I quiz a panel of comedians. All About the News. This week, Steph Tolliv makes her debut. Her Netflix special is just named by the L.A. Times is one of the best comedy specials of the year. She's joined by Miguel Revis and Andrew Fung. The news is pelting us with coal, so we're looking for the candy canes. How are Canadians altering their holiday plans? Does the Prime Minister have a secret plan to turn us all British? And what AI slop do we have to look forward to from Person of the Year?

Follow us on Spotify, wherever you get your podcasts to find out. From CBC News, The World This Hour, I'm Gina Louise Phillips. Despite calls from the international community to de-escalate tensions, the U.S. has intercepted another oil tanker in the waters off Venezuela. Earlier this week, President Trump announced a blockade of all oil vessels leaving Venezuelan ports. Part of a pressure campaign on Venezuelan President Nicholas Maduro. Mitch McCann has the story. On Saturday afternoon, Homeland Security Secretary Christy Noam,

did a video online of the operation, which shows an American military helicopter landing on the vessel. She said the pre-dawn action saw the U.S. Coast Guard and Department of Defense apprehend the tanker, which was last docked in Venezuela. She added that the U.S. will continue to pursue the illicit movement of sanctioned oil used to fund narco terrorism. President Trump announced a blockade of sanctioned oil tankers in recent days, and analysts view the move as an effort to limit the options of President Nicolas Maduro, a man the U.S. believes is the head of drug cartel and responsible for illegal narcotics entering the U.S. But within hours, the New York Times reported that the vessel seized was not listed

on an American sanctions list and belonged to an established Chinese oil trader. Mitch McCann for CBC News, New York. Hundreds of thousands of people attended the funeral of a popular youth leader in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Sharif Osman Hadi died in hospital this week of gunshot wounds, sustained on December 12th. He was one of the leaders of a protest that saw former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina pushed out of office.

In Tel Aviv, Israel. Hundreds of protesters gathered demanding the government set up a public inquiry into the attacks of October 7, 2023. Family members of those who were killed are also demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Iran Litman,

is one of them. My daughter was murdered in the Nova Festival in October 7. I want the Israeli government to take responsibility to this day and to quit. People are also demanding the return of the body of the last slain Israeli hostage. Prime Minister Mark Carney says Canada must stop keeping all of its eggs in the American basket. In a year-end interview, the Prime Minister signaled a major shift towards markets in Asia and Europe, but admitted renewing ties with China comes with strict conditions. The question is how deep is the relationship and how clear are the guardrails around that relationship? And there are areas, artificial intelligence, critical minerals, defense, where clearly the security threats are such that we would not have a deep relationship with China

in those areas. Karni identified India and the European Union as other key targets for expansion. And you can watch more of Carney's interview tomorrow on Rosemary Barton Live at 11 a.m. Eastern. While in cities across Canada, labor unions rallied to protest the use of Section 107 of the Canada Labor Code to end disruptions. From Canada Posts to railways, ports and Air Canada flight attendants, unionized workers say use of the code violates their charter rights. Philip Lee-Shanock reports. Hundreds of unionized workers rallied in Toronto. They say that the federal government's repeated heavy-handed use of Section 107 of the Labor Code is eroding the constitutional rights of unionized workers.

Marie Clark Walker is with the Canadian Labor Congress. Collective bargaining is extremely important, and continuously using Section 107 to force people back to work is wrong. The section is used to end the strike and send the two sides to binding arbitration. Rafael Gomez is head of the Center for Industrial Relations and Human Resources, at the University of Toronto. He says using it undermines collective bargaining. When you think the strike threat is not real,

you don't treat it as a deadline anymore. The federal liberals say they support free and fair collective bargaining. The Supreme Court is considering constitutional challenges to the use of Section 107, but rulings may be years away. Philip Lyshenock, CBC News, Toronto. And that's the world this hour. For CBC News, I'm Gina Louise Phillips. Thank you.