Your World Tonight - Canada's Embassy in Greenland, Remains found in search for kidnapped miners, Speed skater wins Canada's first medal in Milan, and more

Episode Date: February 7, 2026

Canada’s foreign minister Anita Anand met with her counterparts from Greenland and Denmark. The meeting comes a day after Canada officially opened a consulate in Greenland in a show of diplomatic support for the island. But the ministers warn there is still much to resolve with the U.S. over the island's sovereignty.Also: Mexican authorities say "bodies and human remains" were found in the search for the kidnapped employees of a Canadian mining company. The ten employees of Vizsla Silver Corporation were abducted three weeks ago. We spoke with a family member of one of the missing workers, who says they've heard very little information from police or the company.And: The 2026 Milano-Cortina Olympics have just begun, and Canada has already stepped on the podium. 35-year-old Valerie Maltais scored Canada's first medal of the games - winning a bronze in the 3000 metre speed skating event. Plus: Russia unleashes another attack on Ukraine's energy infrastructure, Canadian Seahawks fans hyped for Super Bowl 60, and more.

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This is a CBC podcast. Any solution should respect our red lines. We are not out of the crisis, and we do not have a solution yet. Denmark's foreign minister says it stands firm on Greenland, even as talks begin with the U.S. Ahead of that, Greenland and Canada's foreign ministers are there with their own show of support in the face of the U.S. takeover threat. This is your world tonight. I'm Stephanie Skandaris.

Also on the podcast, people in Ukraine struggle with freezing temperatures and no power after a Russian attack. But peace talks continue, and the U.S. Special Envoy says there is a post-war plan. Plus, Canadian victory. We'll see. Final strides. Quebec speed skater Valerie Maltae scores Canada's first medal at the Milano Cortina Olympics. Canada's foreign minister, Anita Anand, has met with her counterparts from Greenland and Denmark. They gathered on a Canadian icebreaker anchored in Greenland's capital, Nuke. The meeting comes a day after Canada officially opened a consulate there

in a show of diplomatic support for the island. But the ministers warned there is still much to resolve with the U.S. over Greenland's sovereignty. Chris Brown is in Nuke and sends this report. Thank you to all of you to come here. Anita Anand of Canada, Lars Luk Rasmussen of Denmark, and Greenland's Foreign Minister Vivian Motzfeld wrapped up a trilateral meeting on the Canadian Coast Guard icebreaker Gene Goodwill and then walked down the gangplank to Nuk's waterfront.

Greenland is facing difficult times, and I want to thank Canada for being a steadfast friend and supporter of our country. Motsfeld praised Canada for opening a consulate in Nuk. We will collaborate in bringing our people closer together bicultural, educational, and economic connections. Anans stressed the consulate will be more than just a symbolic political statement. Our work here from a diplomatic standpoint is going to serve many Canadians, many people of Greenlandic and Danish descent,

and we look forward to people-to-people ties, especially amongst northerners and Inuit. Rasmussen, Denmark's foreign minister, said it was only a month ago, though it feels longer that he met in Washington with top Trump officials after the U.S. president threatened to take control of Greenland at the time refusing to rule out using military force. He says the first trilateral meetings between Denmark, Greenland and the United States have started with U.S. sovereignty over any part of Greenland, not up for discussion.

I can say very clearly that we have made this precondition very clear that any solution should respect our red line. and I think we have made it crystal clear and even though we have started discussions. So I take it as a clear sign that it should be doable to find a solution. At the same time, he added this caution. We are not out of the crisis

and we do not have a solution yet. As the Canadian delegation was leaving nuke, a plane of senior US politicians was arriving. Greenlandic and Danish leaders have been trying to bolster their support with U.S. leadership outside of the White House, just in case the talks with the administration don't go so well. Chris Brown, CBC News in Nuke, Greenland. Russia unleashed yet another huge attack on Ukraine Friday night.

Hundreds of drones and missiles hit the country's energy infrastructure, causing more blackouts during freezing conditions. This comes as peace talks moved to the U.S., and pressure grows on Ukraine to accept. a deal. Philip Lee Schanak has the details. Once again, residents in Kiev took shelter in underground metro stations as Russian drones and missiles rained down overnight. Oksana Kektenko huddled with her 10-year-old son.

The Russians make us live in inhumane conditions, without heat, electricity, to sleep in the metro. Power remains out for many as the attack targeted the energy grid, thermal power stations in western Ukraine, substations and transmission lines. In a video statement, Ukrainian president Volodymya Zelensky said the Russian strike was in their typical style and in fact contrary to the diplomatic work that is ongoing at various levels. Zelensky says peace talks will move to Miami next week. He also said Russia and the United States are working on bilateral agreements worth 12 trillion U.S. dollars. This week, Steve Whitkoff, U.S. Special Envoy for Peace Missions, said there is a post-war plan for Ukraine.

They're very, very close to finishing up as robust a prosperity agreement as any country has ever seen coming out of conflicts like this. But Zelensky says Ukraine will not agree to any deal without its input. As Ukraine's power infrastructure falters and temperatures fall into the minus 20 Celsius, more than a thousand high-rise buildings in Kiev are reportedly without. heating. U.S. President Donald Trump says he asked Russian president, Vladimir Putin, to cease attacks during the cold snap. And Ukraine's a very cold country. It's much colder than us. It's colder than they say, on average, it's Canada or colder. Tatiana Zubenko is a nurse in Kiev. She says Americans need to experience what Ukrainians are

enduring. Maybe then they will understand how they should talk to Russia during peace talks. U.S.-led talks between Russia and Ukraine concluded in Abu Dhabi this week with no breakthroughs on a ceasefire deal, with Ukraine refusing to cede the Donbaz territory to Russia. U.S. Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, says negotiators are working through a list of sticking points. That list has been substantially diminished. That's the good news. The bad news is that the items that remain are the most difficult ones.

And meanwhile, the war continues. The U.S. has reportedly said an ambitious and some sort of, say aggressive deadline. Washington is pushing for a deal to cease hostilities by June. Fulte-Lyshanock, CBC News, Toronto. Still ahead, the Seattle Seahawks will battle it out against the New England Patriots at tomorrow's Super Bowl. A group of BC fans are some of their big supporters and would love to attend the game. But some of them are weighing whether they want to show that support south of the border. The decision on their minds is coming up on your world tonight.

In Pakistan. Thousands gathered in the capital, Islamabad, to hold a mass funeral for the victims of a suicide bombing. It happened during Friday prayers at a Shia mosque on the outskirts of the city. The attack killed at least 32 people and injured more than 170 others. ISIS has claimed responsibility. Local officials say four people that are believed to have helped the bomber have been arrested. Mexican authorities say bodies and human remains. have been found in the search for the kidnapped employees of a Canadian mining company.

The 10 employees of Visla Silver Corporation were abducted three weeks ago. Jorge Barrera is in Mexico City with more details. Jorge, you spoke to a family member of one of the kidnapped men. What did they tell you? Yes, this individual asks that we not reveal their name or the name of their family member due to fear for their safety. And they said that they've had a really hard time getting any answers for Mexican authorities. and from the Canadian company, Vizla Silver.

They said that they still don't have any clarity, even on what happened on the day that the 10 were kidnapped. They said that the company first told them that the group had been seized from one of the company's camps. Then they were told that they had been kidnapped by armed men from a residence in a GEDA community in Concordia. This family member also said that they had questions around how Vizla Silver handled its security operations.

We found out that Vizla had alerted the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that it was forced to pause operations in April 2025 due to security concerns. However, this family member said that the company faced security issues in early January, where for three days, employees were told to work from their residences because it was too dangerous for them to go to the mine's operations. Now, Vizla told CBC News in an email statement that their priority has always been the safety of their employees and that they have been in communication with federal Mexican authorities, but they couldn't comment more because the issue, it's still ongoing. Okay, so now Mexico's Attorney General has announced they found

some bodies in the search for these missing miners. What do we know about that and also what could be behind this kidnapping? So the federal attorney general's office issued a statement on Friday evening, saying that during these massive search operations for the missing mining company employees, that authorities had found bodies and human remains, a suggestion there was a difference in the integrity of what they found. Now, this statement also said that authorities had established that at least one of the bodies had, quote, characteristics of one of the missing minds employees. The statement also said that they had arrested four people during these search operations

and that they had executed several search warrants. Now, this all has unfolded amid a surge of violence caused by a civil war between factions of the Sinaloa cartel. Now, Mexico's top civilian security official has said he believes a faction of the Sinaloa cartel was behind the kidnapping. But why they seized these men, that is something that no official source has spoken about. And it's something we're still looking into. Wow, okay, Jorge, thanks so much. Thank you. Jorge Barrera in Mexico City.

A former Regina police officer has been handed a two-year conditional sentence for luring women into intimate relationships. Robert Semenchuk used internal police databases to look up and prey on nearly three dozen vulnerable women, often under false names. Katie Swires in Regina sat down with the woman who untangled his web of lies and brings us this report. This is a traumatic story for me. Regina journalist Carrie Benjo knows the power of. of a story, which is why she's telling hers now. We, as a society, need to hold these men accountable.

Her complaint to police in 2023 spurred this. A couple of days ago, one of our members was charged. A Regina Police press conference in March of last year, announcing Sergeant Robert Semenchak, a 22-year veteran of the force, charged for breach of trust and unlawful use of a computer. He used internal police records to pursue intimate, relationships with 33 vulnerable women. Some, like Benjo, were indigenous. He came at a time when I was at my weakest, and he came with friendship.

It started in 2018. Benjo had just filed a police report against her abusive partner and was staying in a shelter. That's when she got a text from Seminchuk, going by the name Jay Lewis, a contractor, not a cop. He was one of the only people that I did allow into my life because I trusted it. He'd sent her a text message as if accidentally using the wrong number, then slowly built trust. Benjo says she valued their deep friendship. The two were occasionally intimate over a period of three years and then drifted apart until Semichuk tried to reconnect in 2023.

And I was like, do I really know this guy? She did a reverse image search of the only photo she had of him and got back an image of the man she knew as J. Lewis in the background, a vagina police jacket. I got Sergeant Robert Simmonschuk. I remember just feeling that like a lightning bolt of fear because he was a man of authority, a man of power. A man with a badge who she never consented to have a relationship with.

Like I felt like I was rape. Despite fearing for her safety, Benjo reported Seminchuk to Regina police. When they told her there were other victims, she knew she did the right thing. Semmichuk was sentenced to two years less a day on Friday. He'll serve it in the community, followed by three years of probation. Some wanted a stricter sentence. But Benjo says justice already happened outside the courtroom. He's no longer a police officer, so he doesn't have that power.

He doesn't have the ability to abuse that power and hurt other women. It's the outcome that motivated Benjo to report him in the first place. Katie Swire's CBC News, Regina. In Toronto, it's a day many thought would never come. On Sunday morning, commuters will be able to ride the city's newest public transit line. The Eglinton Cross Town LRT opens six years behind schedule. It's one of the biggest infrastructure projects in recent Canadian history. and is more than a billion dollars over budget.

Jamie Strassion has more. I'm the first to come out and acknowledge the mistakes. At an event to mark the long-overdue, long-awaited Edmonton Crosstown, Premier Doug Ford and others looked more relieved than celebratory. No ribbon-cutting and few smiles. Has it been a nightmare for all of us? 100%. One of the largest infrastructure projects in Canadian history, it's been 15 years in the making, years behind schedule and billions over budget.

The construction wake of the 25-station 19-kilometer route along a major east-west corridor inescapable. Well, 2010, right? I got three grandchildren since 2010. From his barber shop, Jason McDonald reflects on how much has changed in his life since the project began. Neighborhoods touched by this project have also changed, Hundreds of businesses have closed. This was a cultural hub. You remember Eglinton West, Little Jamaica? So right now, it's a ghost town.

Look outside. There's nobody walking. Then Toronto Mayor Rob Ford broke ground in 2011. The project was plagued by delays almost from the start. The private contractors tasked to build the massive project clashing with the province. The city's transit agency, the TTC, will operate the line, mostly sidelined.

All of it, a recipe for disaster, says Michael Rochlau, the past president of the Canadian Urban Transit Association. So you had different agencies with unfortunately different priorities and different perspectives having to find ways of working together in a rather tense environment. And the fact that the operating company, if you will, the TTC, wasn't part of the consortium, wasn't on the team, if you will. The result, numerous lawsuits, faulty trains, tracks built incorrectly, and parts of brand-new stations being rebuilt, resulting in years of delays. So it was big and it was complicated because it had many, many different technical elements to it, above-ground, underground, tracks, signaling, computer train control, a maintenance and operations facility that had to be built from scratch. Ontario Society of Professional Engineers CEO Sandro Peruta says there's a key key.

lesson for other large transit projects underway in Ontario and across the country. Politicians should really stay out of the process. Let the experts be the experts and design the system. As the Crosstown finally welcomes its first customers, Jason McDonald tries to be optimistic. Well, I got to think about all of the business owners that didn't make it. The first thing comes to my mind, like I'm blessed in the sense where I'm here, but it's not no life of roses. Like, we have to struggle to this point. There are hopes the new line will breathe new life into the neighborhoods it touches, a fresh start for those who have been through so much. Jamie Strash and CBC News, Toronto. The last time the Seattle Seahawks made it to the Super Bowl,

they lost to the New England Patriots by four measly points. Now the Seahawks have their shot at revenge and a group of Canadian fans wants to be the wind beneath their teams. wings at Super Bowl 60 this weekend. But that support has a snag. John Hernandez reports. The Seahawks soar to Super Bowl 60. 70,000 strong inside Seattle's Lumen Field watched as their team punched their ticket to the Super Bowl two weeks ago.

Metro Vancouver's Fred Gunn was one of them. The Seahawks have had an amazing year. Gunn is one of about 4,000 Canadian. fans who have Seahawks season tickets, which automatically entered him into a Super Bowl ticket draw. When he was driving back to BC with his buddies after the game, he got an email. It says Fred, congratulations. You have been selected as a winner for the right to purchase two Super Bowl 60 tickets. And I go, woo-hoo!

The Seattle Seahawks play the New England Patriots in Super Bowl 60 in the San Francisco Bay area on Sunday. and tickets to the big game are hard to come by. Gunn is among a handful of Canadian fans to win the draw, but his trip won't come without some personal conflict. Like many Canadian Seahawks fans, he's had to weigh support for his team with support for his country amid mounting political and trade tensions between the U.S. and Canada. I don't go shopping. I don't go golfing across the borders. If I was to go on vacation somewhere or whatever, I'd probably defer going someplace else. There's certain things that I know people, including myself, aren't going to or willing to do in the states right now. Canadian Seahawkers fan club member Ryan Strawn isn't going to the game, but largely for financial reasons.

He says most of his club's members continue to support the team. Maybe they're not getting to quite as many games, but there's still a lot of support for the team. the Seahawks. Despite Canadian land travel, following by about 30% in 2025, the Seahawks report more Canadians bought season tickets to their games than ever before. As for Fred Gunn, there was never any doubt he would follow his team all the way to the Super Bowl. Your teams made it, and you've followed them all year long, and San Francisco is one of my favorite cities down in the States. Fandum that for some knows no borders.

John Hernandez, CBC News, Vancouver. The 26 Milano Cortina Olympics have only just begun, and Canada has already stepped on the podium. 35-year-old Valerie Maltae scored Canada's first medal of the games, a bronze in the 3,000-meter speed skating event. As Breyer Stewart reports, it was an emotional moment for Malte. As Valerie Maltay set off in the woman's 3,000-meter speed skate, a handful of Canadian flags could be seen waving from the stands in the 6,500-seat arena in Milan. In the event, skaters race in pairs, but they're really racing against the clock as it's a time trial.

With only one set of skaters left to go, Maltay found herself in third place. anxiously watching. I didn't know if my time would stand today and I was shaking and I could barely see what was like the time on the board. And I was like, oh man, I'm going to come 50. Her teammate, Isabel Weiderman, was in the final race. She won the same event in Beijing in 2022.

But today, Maltay had the faster time. A bronze medalist in Milano Cortina, 2026. This was her first individual medal. Malté used to compete in short track, an event where a small group of skaters race simultaneously. She earned silver in a relay event in Sochi, but in 2018, she decided she wanted to switch to long track speed skating. Her parents were baffled. They're like, why are you doing this? And I was like, I know I can win an individual medal.

Who believed it? 35 years old, I keep repeating it. And I because I feel that I'm proud of that. As she raised, her parents were in the stance. They looked on as she celebrated beside the ice after her win, wrapping the Canadian flag around her shoulders. When you think of the parents, like everything that they did, I told them, like, we started this adventure together and we didn't close it up together.

She said her husband, too, has been a big support. I think we're excited also to build a family. It was just like, give me two more years. Give me two more years. Like I knew I can pull something out. And Malté is hoping for more medals in Milan. At the Olympics in 2022, she won gold in the team pursuit event. And she'll be racing together with the same teammates once again in these games.

Weir Stewart, CBC News, Milan. Canada's women have trounced Switzerland in their first hockey game. of the Olympic tournament. Team Canada beat the Swiss four to zero with goals from Natalie Spooner, Sarah Filier, Julia Gosling, and Daryl Watts. Getting past Switzerland's goalie was no easy feat. The Canadians had 50 shots on goal over three periods, but still came out on top. Over in Venice, Italy, people are in the middle of a tradition that goes back a thousand years, the famous carnival, a festival of dancing, costumes, and yes, those famous math. For just over two weeks, the city is transported back in time for a medieval masquerade.

Megan Williams takes us behind the scenes in Venice for a look at the centuries-old craft of mask-making. Two artisans sit at long tables, one layering blue-soaked strips of paper onto a mold, another carving eye sockets into the hardened white shell of a mask. This is one of three workshops at Kamakana, one of Venice's most renowned mask-making ataliers. in these days are going to be war during carnival. Davide Belloni now runs the business his parents founded in the early 1980s. At a time when Venice was reviving a carnival tradition

that had nearly vanished after its peak two centuries earlier, they were part of a community of artists who came from all over the world. The Middle East, South America, there were people from the former Yugoslavia. Why? Because they were all connected to the university, of architecture there is here in Venice.

They had design skills and we're looking for a way to survive. Over the years, their improvised workshops turned into thriving businesses. Today, local kids sit on benches in the back room learning about paper mashé techniques. One of the programs set up by Belloni's parents that at first attracted only visitors. Many of the mask designs made here trace their roots to Venice's servant class. the poorer migrants who once poured into the city in search of work. Characters like Harlequin grew out of that world. Clever, hungry, always scraping by.

Others, less symbolic and more familiar, like the grumpy old man. I point to a mask with a disgruntled expression. No, it's not a grumpy old man. It's someone that has this very heavy stone on his head. A self-portrait of his father, it turns out. Beside it, a male medusa, mid-scream, twisting, snakes erupting from his head. Is that your dad too?

Yes. So here it's a mid-Dew? You can see it, yeah. A stroll along the canals brings me to a shop of another historic mask maker, Carlos Broseco. Broseco began making masks shortly after he arrived in Venice five decades ago, a student fleeing Argentina's military dictatorship under Augusto Pinochet. At first we used what we could find, he said, old newspapers. Braseko flips pages in a book with paintings of stylized masks used by doctors during the plague

that he still makes today. Broseko says he feels deeply moved to be part of the city he chose. One shaped by generations of arrivals, where many of the people preserving its traditions, like him came from somewhere else. Megan Williams, CPC News, Venice. Miracle from above. One of the songs off the newest album from Mac DeMarco, the BC slacker rock legend who's never been scared to do things his own way,

which might be why he's showing support for a new campaign against music that's made by AI. And he's not the only one. Winnipeg-based Leith Ross is another. The force behind the campaign is Sokan, the organization that represents Canadian songwriters, composers, and music publishers, and collects license fees.

It involves an online petition that says Canadian music is being taken without permission, without credit, and without payment. By that, they're talking about the thousands of AI-generated tracks currently flooding music platforms that aren't always very obviously AI and are competing with the music of real people. So can says behind those outputs are the melodies and lyrics of human creators

whose copyrighted works are being scraped by big tech companies to train AI systems without permission or compensation. That threatens humans, livelihoods, careers, the future of music in Canada, and that it must not be allowed. Sarah McLaughlin has been allowed. another who signed the petition. So can is betting it gets thousands. It's citing its own report from November that says 87% of Canadians want to listen to music created by humans, not AI. And 85% support government regulation. And that's its ultimate goal. We'll leave you with another of

the real Canadian musicians who have signed the petition. This is BC's Dan Mangan with Find New Ways on your world tonight. I'm Stephanie Skanderas. Thank you for listening. For more CBC podcasts, go to cBC.ca.ca.