World Report - June 23: Monday's top stories in 10 minutes

Episode Date: June 23, 2025

US President Donald Trump muses about regime change in Iran. Israel says it struck symbolic targets in Tehran, including Evin prison. Iranian Canadians worry over family caught up in Israel-Iran war. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte says members have agreed to a new defence spending target: 5 per cent of GDP.Prime Minister Mark Carney to sign on to new pact that opens door to $1.5 trillion ReArm Europe program. Victims of 1985 Air India bombing honoured in online archive. A rare June heat wave brings sweltering temperatures to Ontario and Quebec.

There are two kinds of Canadians. Those who feel something when they hear this music. And those who've been missing out so far. I'm Chris Howden. And I'm Nile Coxall. We are the co-hosts of As It Happens. And every day we speak with people at the center of the day's most hard hitting, heartbreaking, and sometimes hilarious news stories.

Also, we have puns. Here Why As It Happens is one of Canada's longest running and most beloved shows. You can find us wherever you get your podcasts. This is a CBC podcast. This is World Report. Good morning, I'm Marcia Young. The president's posture and our military posture has not changed. The president was just simply raising a question that I think many people around the world

are asking. White House Press Secretary Carolyn Leavitt interpreting comments made by Donald Trump last night. In a social media post, the US president mused about leadership change into Iran, asking why not if the current regime is unable to make Iran great again? The US joined Israel's war on Iran over the weekend by bombing three nuclear facilities The question now is if when and how Iran could retaliate Chris Brown has more from Jerusalem Iran's military leadership is trying to present an image of authority and control It released a video of some of its surviving generals meeting together and joined online

by the country's defence minister, Amir Hatami. Each time the Americans commit a crime, he said, they receive a decisive response and this time will be no different. Iran's military has threatened widespread retaliation against U.S. interests in the Middle East for its attacks on Iran overnight Saturday. Iranian authorities have also raised the possibility of blocking key shipping lanes in the Strait of Hormuz that move 20% of the world's oil. But so far, the only targets Iran has struck have been in Israel. been in Israel. Up to five waves of ballistic missile launches this morning triggered sirens across the country with hits reported in the port city of Ashdod. At a news conference Sunday Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin

Netanyahu suggested the US intervention in the war has brought the conflict closer to an end. He said he would not let his country be dragged into a war of attrition with Iran. Still, Israeli warplanes are continuing to attack multiple targets in Iran, and Israel's military has not outlined what victory looks like. Chris Brown, CBC News, Jerusalem. Israel has resumed its airstrikes on Iran this morning. Defense Minister Israel Katz describes the targets in Tehran as symbols of the regime. These include the security headquarters of the paramilitary

Revolutionary Guards and the gates of the notorious Evin Prison. It holds political prisoners and opponents of the Islamic Republic. Many Iranian Canadians say they are worrying about friends and family in Iran. They're trying to get in touch, but access to the internet is restricted there. And here at home, some people are protesting the missile strikes by Israel and the U.S. Yasmine Hraniya has more on how the community here is coping with that uncertainty. It's hard. I wish I was there with her. Vancouver Sanaa Safa says she hasn't been able to speak to her mother for four days.

Her mom went to Iran to visit Safa, said grandmother, before the Israel-Iran War and America's historic attack. Safa says trying to get her mother out through a land border is too dangerous. She's waiting it out at the moment. We have registered her online to say that she's outside the country. But other than that, there's not much that we can do. Toronto's Shayan Aghdasi is in the same tough situation, with his father unable to escape Iran. I spoke to him the other day and I said, like, well, are you hearing bombs and stuff? He said, yeah, I hear it, but it sounds far away.

But you know, it's just a matter of time before it doesn't sound far away. Stop the US war machine! Viva, viva Iran! Hundreds in Toronto hit the streets Sunday calling for an end to the violence. We're here, first of all, to condemn this aggression against our people. I think people on the ground are really suffering already. And I think it's ridiculous to continue inciting more violence in the Middle East. I don't want any more innocent people to be killed.

There is no reason for the U.S. to enter this war. As they anxiously watch from thousands of kilometers away, Iranian Canadians hope for peace amid an unpredictable conflict. Yasmeen Ghania, CBC News, Vancouver. Prime Minister Mark Carney is expected to sign a strategic defense and security partnership with the European Union today. The agreement will open the door to Canada's participation in the $1.5 trillion Rearm Europe program.

As Murray Brewster reports from Brussels, this deal could help Canada become less reliant on the United States. What's been happening in the last few months since I became prime minister is a number of conversations of increasing specificity with our major European partners so that we become defense partners with them. Prime Minister Mark Carney speaking to CBC at the end of May about what we're about to see today. Carney has been signaling for months that his government is unhappy with spending as much as 70%

of its military equipment appropriation on U.S.-made gear. The partnership he's expected to sign today opens the door to changing that. However, there appears to be more to the security and defense deal than simply procurement. Now we've yet to see the details of what Canada is signing, but other nations, such as Britain, have struck similar deals that include a host of crisis management, maritime and cybersecurity provisions, as well as information sharing. Defense expert Steve Saitaman says the partnership is timely and could be useful, especially if the U.S. pulls out of NATO.

It could complement NATO. It's not necessarily a substitute for NATO. It's not a substitute for NATO because there's no military command or troop requirements as part of the deal. What it is expected to do is help build defense capacity quickly and at a reasonable cost. Marie Brewster, CBC News, Brussels. NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte says all member countries have agreed to a new spending target 5% of GDP on defense. The threats we face today demand that we do far, far more to ensure we can effectively

deter and defend. This is a quantum leap that is ambitious, historic, and fundamental to securing our future. Rota says NATO allies will invest in a five-fold increase in air defense capabilities, thousands more tanks and armored vehicles and millions of rounds of artillery ammunition. Rota also says the Allies will give Ukraine more than 35 billion euros in military aid this year. Today marks the 40th anniversary of the bombing of Air India flight 182. All 329 people on board, most Canadians, were killed on the flight. The government calls it Canada's worst terror attack. But research shows it's being forgotten. As Angie Seth tells us, a newly created memory archive allows people to

honour the victims and their families. It was two days after the plane went down and I found myself with my father on a plane going to Ireland, not knowing is it a rescue mission, is a recovery mission. Sushil Gupta was 12 years old when he lost his mother. She was on board Air India Flight 182 from Toronto, among the 329 passengers and crew who died when a bomb went off mid-flight. A bomb planted by six separatists. The plane was at 31,000 feet. It blew up. It crashed in the Atlantic. Unfortunately, that's the image I have stuck in my head of my mom is that picture of her and of her body. Forty years and the tragedy is still fresh in the minds of family members.

According to an Angus Reid poll from June 2023, nine in ten Canadians said they have little or no knowledge of the attack. It was worse than no closure. It was being ignored by your own government. There are efforts being made to change that with the first ever memory archive of the Air India tragedy created at Hamilton's McMaster University. Photographs, testimonials, letters to the government and law enforcement, diaries from loved ones.

A 10 year project led by Professor Chandrama Chakraborty. It's an obligation to make sure that those records are preserved for perpetuity. It's not solely just to remember our loved ones. We don't want to see other Canadians suffer the way we do or have and to remember the past is to learn from it. Angie Seth, CBC News, Toronto. Officials are warning people in Ontario and Quebec to be careful while outdoors. A rare June heat wave is bringing dangerously hot temperatures

and as Philipp Lee Shanok reports, it is expected to last most of the week. So it's really imperative that people do have a cool place to find hydration, to cool down. Hot, humid and dangerous. In downtown Toronto, outreach worker Lorraine Lamb says this kind of weather is especially challenging for the young, old and those with health conditions. Extreme heat is really dangerous for people who are unhoused as well. After a wet and rainy late spring, temperatures in Ontario and Quebec are suddenly hitting the mid-30s Celsius, feeling more like the 40s and 50s with the humidex. The ERs get overwhelmed, the paramedics get overwhelmed with calls for assistance. Dr. Sejal Bargava is with the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment.

She says the sudden change in weather makes it worse. First heat wave of the season is typically the one that people are the least prepared for. People don't really think about preparing for extremely hot weather. She advises everyone to have a heat plan, stay hydrated and indoors away from the heat, and to check on loved ones who are at risk. A cold front is expected to bring relief by the end of the week. Fulton Shadok, CBC News, Toronto. That is the latest national and international news from World Report. I'm Marcia Young. For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca.