World Report - December 11: Thursday's top stories in 10 minutes

Episode Date: December 11, 2025

Atmospheric river prompts flood warnings, evacuation orders in B.C.'s south coast, Washington state.Report finds climate change supercharged November's deadly storms in south Asia.Heavy rains and flooding displace hundreds of Palestinians in Gaza already facing a crisis.CBC News learns a program intended to replace the entire stock of the Canadian military's aging assault rifles is being sped up.Venezuela accuses the United States of piracy, after US President Donald Trump confirms troops seized oil tanker. Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Corina Machado vows to bring the Nobel Prize back to Venezuela. Group of female health-care providers in Dartmouth, NS work to address systemic bias and anti-Black racism in health care.

This ascent isn't for everyone. You need grit to climb this high this often. You've got to be an underdog that always over-delivers. You've got to be 6,500 hospital staff, 1,000 doctors, all doing so much with so little. You've got to be Scarborough. Defined by our uphill battle and always striving towards new heights. And you can help us keep climbing.

Donate at lovescarbro.cairbo. This is a CBC podcast. This is World Report. Good morning. I'm Marcia Young. British Columbia's Fraser Valley is under a state of emergency this morning. An atmospheric river drenched the area. The heavy rain has now eased, but hundreds of properties are still under evacuation orders and alerts. As Yasmin Raneh reports, that same weather system is now such.

settling over parts of Washington State. We need people to stay off the roads for safety. BC Emergency Management Minister Kelly Green says torrential rain and debris cut off all major highway access from the lower mainland to the interior last night. I'm urging people in the lower mainland, particularly if you live near a waterway or in a low-lying area, to remain up to date on the situation

and take steps to prepare for potential impacts. Officials are now assessing the damage and road closures after Wednesday's atmospheric river drenched the Fraser Valley. The city of Abbotsford declared a state of local emergency and issued evacuation orders for several hundred properties. We are seeing the rainfall ease off. Connie Chapman, Provincial Executive Director of Water Management, says still the Nooksack River across the border in Washington State

will continue to top its banks this morning. Spillover from that river in 2021, partly led to BC's then-costliest national. disaster, and there are fears it could happen again. The volume of water coming out of the nooksack is the similar volume of water that was seen in 1990 and also in 2021. With that being said, there are many variables to take into consideration as to what the impacts of this volume of water may transpire to. The province hopes infrastructure upgrades since the big flood will help and says it's

coordinating with local governments and American officials to ensure people are safe. Yasmin Ranea, CBC News, Vancouver. Researchers are confirming a link between climate change in last month's storms in Southeast Asia. More than 1,600 people were killed. After cyclones Ditwa and Senjar made landfall in the region, millions of people were displaced. Now a new report says we should expect more of this kind of extreme weather.

Our international climate correspondent, Susan Ormiston, has the story. Floodwaters rose four meters. homes were washed away or crushed in landslides. More than 1,600 people died, the worst disasters in a lifetime for many people across Sri Lanka, Indonesia, and Thailand. It rained nonstop for three days, said Malika Kumari, in Sri Lanka. We heard the warnings of flooding,

but we didn't expect the water to get this high. According to scientists at the World Weather Attribution Group, the cyclones triggered intense rainfall, influenced by a warming climate. Basically, the heavy rain associated with such cyclones is becoming more intense as the climate warms. Sarah Kew is the lead author, a researcher with Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute.

I would be very confident that these trends are going to continue into the future. It is, of course, linked to the warming of the globe, so that as we continue to burn fossil fuels, then the trend will continue. The scientists say cyclones, rare at the equator, will happen more frequently. Countries need to adapt. Stop deforesting hillsides. Limit building homes on floodplains. Already the costs from these disasters have risen to over $10 billion. Susan Ormiston, CBC News, Toronto. A Palestinian family uses a broom to sweep water out of a tent in Gaza. They are among the hundreds of thousands of people displaced by days of heavy rain and flooding.

Officials say hundreds of tents are already submerged and the situation could get worse, especially with no shelters available for displaced families. More rain is expected to fall today and tomorrow. The Canadian Army will begin replacing its entire stock of assault rifles starting next year. Internal documents obtained by CBC News show a contract is coming soon under the Canadian modular assault rifle program

As the CBC's Murray Brewster tells us, the deal is part of the federal government's push to boost Canada's defense industry. Canadian C-7 and CIA assault rifles, letting loose on a training range. These soldiers are carrying weapons that are almost as old as they are. The rifles saw a service in the Afghan War almost 20 years ago. Internal defense documents obtained by CBC News show that's about to change. I'm focused on obtaining new rifles. Lieutenant General Mike Wright, the commander of the Canadian Army. We're on the cusp of signing a contract that will see those rifles start to be delivered to the Canadian Army as of next year.

That would be as much as two years ahead of the last published schedule for a program that has languished on the books since the 2017 defense policy. It would also be a win for a government and an army facing pressure to buy Canadian. The contract could go to Colt Canada, which has... has supplied the Army with its current weapons. It could be worth between $500 billion to $1 billion. This accelerated program could also provide the Army with some covering fire. The U.S. government recently approved a $2.7 billion sale of 26 rocket-propelled artillery systems, Heimars, to Canada, a politically uncomfortable plan in light of the Carney government's stated aim

of buying military kit in places other than the United States. Wright defended the Heimar proposal saying troops in Latvia, need it, and the system has proven itself in Ukraine. Murray Brewster, CBC News, Ottawa. The Maduro regime in Venezuela is accusing the United States of an act of piracy. U.S. forces have seized an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela. U.S. President Donald Trump confirmed it yesterday evening. As you probably know, we've just seized a tanker on the coast of Venezuela, a large tanker, very large.

No, it was seized for a very good reason. The Trump administration says the tanker was being used to transport sanctioned oil from Venezuela and Iran. Venezuela's longtime authoritarian president, Nicholas Maduro, had this response. Anyone who wants Venezuelan oil must respect the law, the Constitution, and national sovereignty, and get down to producing, invest and sell our oil. This tanker seizure is an escalation of U.S. military activities. in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean.

Since September, the Pentagon has launched more than 20 strikes on what Washington says were drug-smuggling boats. After months of hiding Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Maria Corina Machado is in Oslo and appearing in public. She violated a decade-long travel ban and flew in secretly to Norway. Venezuelan authorities now consider her a fugitive. But Machado says she will bring her. the Nobel Prize back to her homeland.

I'm going back to Venezuela regardless of when Maduro goes out. He's going out. But it's going to be determining in terms of what is the moment when I finish to do the things that I came out to do. Machado did not say when she plans to return to Venezuela. This morning, a UN fact-finding mission found Venezuela's National Guard has been targeting political. opponents in committing serious human rights violations since 2014.

For black women in Canada, a trip to the doctor can often mean feeling overlooked or unheard. They have experienced years of systemic bias in anti-black racism in health care. But as Selena Alders reports, a group of female health care providers in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, is working to change that. I feel validated and seen for probably the first time in my life. After years of feeling dismissed by the health care system, Kate McKinnon says she's finally able to access the treatment she deserves. Are you okay with your blood pressure? Yeah. She's a patient of the Nova Scotia Sisterhood, a team of all-black female health care providers dedicated to care that acknowledges a patient's cultural background and lived experience.

This is more than just a doctor's office. Since launching in 2023, the Sisterhood has seen hundreds of patients. It offers services out of its new clinic in Dartmouth for African Nova Scotian women with or without a family doctor. Kirsten Boyle is a nurse practitioner. People are often dismissed. They are not heard. And coming here makes them feel validated. She says some of her patients haven't had a checkup in 10 to 15 years because they don't feel understood.

by their white male providers. Some research suggests that black women in Canada are often underscreened for cervical and breast cancers. Skin cancer also tends to be more aggressive in some of the women because it's missed. It doesn't present the same way. McKinnon says she wants to see the sisterhood working in communities right across the province. But a spokesperson for Nova Scotia Health could not say whether there are plans to expand the group's mandate.

Selina Alders, CBC News, Dartmouth. There is more on this story at CBCNews.ca. It's on our main page. Scroll down to health. That is the latest national and international news from World Report. I'm Marcia Young. For more CBC podcasts, go to cBC.ca.