Your World Tonight - Israel’s plan for Gaza, military pay bump, women and Alzheimer’s, and more

Episode Date: August 8, 2025

Israel’s latest plan could force one million people to leave Gaza City. Israel’s security council has approved a mission to take over the city. Germany, the UK and Canada have said it’s the wrong approach, and some say it could endanger the hostages. The CBC’s Susan Ormiston talks to us from Jerusalem about how the plan is meant to work, and how it’s being received in Israel.And: Members of Canada’s military are getting a pay boost — as much as 20 per cent. The move is an election promise, and part of Canada’s commitment to increase defense spending to meet NATO commitments.Also: Women are more likely than men to be diagnosed with Alzheimer's. New research suggests hormones could hold the answer to why.Plus: The future looks bright for Victoria Mboko, Air Canada and its flight attendants close to a showdown, and more.

Do you hear that? It's a wood thrush. Songbirds lift our hearts. Bring us joy. Support healthy environments and connect us with nature. Sadly, due to free-roaming cats, collisions with buildings and habitat loss, over a quarter of Canada's birds have disappeared.

It's heartbreaking. With your help, Nature Canada has mobilized thousands of Canadians for more than 85 years to protect and celebrate birds. To find out how you can save bird lives, go to birds.naturecanada.ca. This is a CBC podcast. I think it's a death sentence to all the hostages that are still being held there. It's the wrong decision to do it at this time.

Israel's plan to expand military operations in Gaza sparks protests inside Israel and strong international condemnation. With concerns, the plan will lead to more months, perhaps years of fighting, to more civilian deaths, and an end to any chance of freedom for the remaining hostages. Israel says its goal is not to occupy Gaza, but to free Palestinians from the grip of Hamas. Welcome to your world tonight. It's Friday, August 8th, just before 6 p.m. Eastern. I'm Paul Hunter.

Also on the podcast... Because at this hinge moment of history, Canada, Canada's leadership will be measured not just by the strength of our values, but also by the value of our strength. More money for the Canadian Armed Forces, $2 billion, to raise pay and increase benefits, especially among the lowest ranks. The Prime Minister says it'll help secure Canada's security and reputation. And it will also make a job in the military more attractive at a time when jobs are hard to find. It's a potentially deadly escalation in Israel's war in Gaza,

and it's being met with global pushback, including from Canada. After a marathon meeting, Israel's security cabinet approved a plan that stops short of a complete takeover, but would see the country's military move into one of the few remaining areas in Gaza it does not now control. Chris Reyes has details on the plan for. Gaza City and the reaction. It's all that's left of Gaza City, tents and rubble. Those who live here are barely hanging on, and with Israel's plan to take it over, they could be forced to leave.

Where should we go? This is shameful, says Sabrine Naim, who, like so many Gazans, has already been displaced many times since the start of the war. From leaders across the globe disapproval, including from Prime Minister Mark Carney. We join many others in viewing that this is wrong. It is going to put the lives of the hostages at greater risk. Germany, a major arms supplier to Israel, says it will no longer export military equipment that Israel can use in the Gaza Strip. The EU and the UK urging Israel to reconsider.

British Prime Minister Kier Starrmer called the Israeli escalation wrong. saying it would only bring more bloodshed. From the Middle East, condemnation from Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, from Turkey a step further, calling on the international community to stop the plan. In Israel, opposition leader Yaira Lepid said, this is a disaster which will lead to many more disasters. Ahead of his security cabinet meeting yesterday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shared some details on Fox News.

We don't want to be there as a governing body. we want to hand it over to Arab forces that will govern it properly without threatening us and giving Gazans a good life. The plan also proposes disarming Hamas, demilitarizing the Gaza Strip and the return of all hostages. Israeli officials say 50 remain, 20 are believed to be alive. The IDF would carry out the operation and also deliver aid. The plan has stoked even deeper divisions.

in Israel, already torn over Netanyahu's handling of the war. It's just a matter of protecting us, you know, from future terrorist's infiltration again. Jerusalem resident Elena Mizrahi says the cabinet decision could put the hostages' lives at risk and not good for the security of the country. Sheena Lowe is with the Norwegian Refugee Council, a humanitarian group that works in Gaza, Her biggest fear, Netanyahu's plan could be the final blow to Gaza. It feels like this could be the moment where it all comes to an end, where Palestinian life in Gaza will not be sustainable at all.

In Gaza, despite the circumstances, there is the will to stay. Where should we go, says Sabrinaeim. There's nothing we can do. I say, let us die where we are. It is better. Israel already controls most of Gaza. Its latest plan would mean an almost complete takeover of the enclave. Chris Reyes, CBC News, London.

For more on this, we're joined by CBC News senior correspondent Susan Ormiston from Jerusalem. Susan, what's actually changed since the cabinet-approved Prime Minister Netanyahu's war plan? Well, in a way, everything. I mean, Netanyahu's government has now set its course. It's leading soldiers, civilians, further down a war path. And he's trying to persuade the critics that the war against Hamas is winnable, even as it hasn't been up till now. But it's just a plan, Paul.

As the military chief has been warning, this is an extremely risky mission with deadly consequences potentially for soldiers, for hostages, and for sure for Palestinians. So just the first phase, which will be forcing a million people, a million people to leave Gaza City, that's displacing them again, moving themselves to encampments, already crowded and not able to provide the basic necessities. The Israeli government says that's temporary, but many don't believe that, and some say they won't go. So that's the first part of this plan before they even go inside to push deeper into Hamas holdouts. How will all of this happen in the middle of this humanitarian crisis?

that seems already out of control. And that's another big unknown. As part of the priorities made public today, Netanyahu said that humanitarian aid would be increased outside the combat areas, maybe a push to get people out of the fighting zone. But a huge population on the move again will add further strain to distribution centers,

even if they are expanded. And as we've seen over and over, many social services inside Gaza have collapsed. And what is the feeling about all of this in Israel, amongst Israelis? You know, there was a hope over the early summer that these complicated pieces of another ceasefire might come together and the remaining hostages could be exchanged and then the government and the military could decide what to do. But that really seems further away than ever.

And now they're staring down another six months. months of bloody conflict, both Israelis and Palestinians. And families of the hostages, I'm sure you've seen, have been putting daily pressure on the governments and saying today that this military escalation, the government has sentenced the living hostages to death and the fallen hostages to disappearance. But October 7th, two years on, it's just eight weeks away. And, you know, we saw these cruel videos released a week ago by Hamas. weakened and emaciated hostages, and that really inflamed emotions.

So there is support to crush Hamas. But most of Israelis consistently a majority wanted a deal to get the hostages back and for the war to end, and that may be harder now. The Army is signaling, Paul, it could take two months to evacuate Gaza City, and a lot can happen in two months. Thank you, Susan. You're welcome. The CBC's Susan Ormiston in Jerusalem. Coming right up, more money for Canada's military,

this time to increase the salaries of some of the lowest-paid soldiers. Also, the jobs numbers for June were up, then July came and went, and so did thousands of jobs. And travel might get more complicated this month, as their Canada flight attendants taxi to war. job action. Members of the Canadian Armed Forces are getting a raise with the biggest bump

going to the lowest ranks. It's meant to support military families at home and meet Canada's commitments abroad. Prime Minister Mark Carney calls it generational spending. Billions in new money for a Canadian military playing catch-up. Catherine Tunney reports. At the country's largest military air base in Trenton, Ontario,

Canadian forces members line up behind Prime Minister Mark Carney, as he announces that each and every one of them will be getting a salary bump, a recognition, he says, of their dedication and bravery in uncertain times, helping Canadians weather wildfires at home, supporting Ukraine, and dropping humanitarian aid into Gaza earlier this week. And these are the men and women we trust to wear the Maple Leaf, the Canadian flag, and to risk their lives for it, their pay. your pay should reflect

the weight of your responsibilities. The salary increases will be graduated, with senior ranks getting an 8% increase and the lowest ranks of the regular force seeing a 20% boost. Canada's not seen something like this. This millennium, it hasn't seen it since

the late 1990s, so it's a generational shift. There's more compensation too for those who move around for the job and a new allowance for those serving in the Arctic. And incentives in hopes of recruiting Canadians to military positions in dire need, like marine engineers. And so I think this makes a job with the Canadian Armed Forces more attractive for the average Canadian.

Gailri Barbier is the head of the Conference of Defense Associations Institute. Happy to see the increase, she hopes the military will now focus on other ways to recruit and retain officers. Some of the bases where the Canadian Armed Forces are living, the housing situation is far from great. They don't have access to Wi-Fi. She'd like to see investments in communities around remote bases to help members and their families. It sounds like a significant increase, so I think it should go a long way to help these members that are struggling to put a roof over their head.

As head of Vets Canada, Debbie Lauder, sees military men and women on the other side of service. There's so much attention on big-ticket defense spending. She hopes the government is also willing to spend on veterans after they hang up their uniforms. We are supporting more and more serving members who are coming. to us in crisis as well. Just as an example, we've just opened a food bank in Halifax, a veterans' food bank. The pay and allowance increase will cost $2 billion, and it's part of a plan $9 million budget boost this year to get to NATO's expense-bending benchmark.

Catherine Tunney, CBC News, Ottawa. Statistics Canada says the country lost more than 40,000 jobs in July, the sharpest drop since the COVID pandemic. unemployment rates stayed steady, but there are now fewer jobs available, especially for young people. Jenna Benchitrant is here to break it all down for us. Jenna, what are we seeing in today's job report? To understand the July jobs report, we kind of have to look at what happened a month earlier in June. So the June jobs report was really strong.

The economy added 83,000 jobs. The unemployment rate came down. and some analysts took it as a sign of the economy bouncing back after, you know, a fairly tough start to the year with the trade war, adding a lot of uncertainty. The July report that we got today is basically a big step back from that progress. It wipes out a lot of the jobs that were added in June. And most of the jobs that were lost were full time. They were permanent, private sector jobs. So jobs that are very important to the economy.

And the unemployment rate didn't change, but it's still quite high at 6.9%. So the labor market is still fairly weak and still suffering from that trade war uncertainty that I mentioned. And it looks like sectors that were exposed to tariffs like manufacturing were spared losses this time around. What happened there? Yeah. So that was probably the most interesting part of today's report. Sectors like manufacturing and wholesale and retail trade, which is basically buying and selling between. businesses, those didn't change much in July. Instead, we saw that the construction and recreation industries lost a lot of jobs. And that made me wonder whether we've actually seen the worst of the tariff-related job losses. So I spoke to an economist about it this morning, Tiago Figuero from Desjardin, and this is what he had to say. Most of the deterioration in the labor market so far has been in these trade-sensitive sectors. This report suggests

that maybe that's starting to widen out a bit more. I do think it's too early to tell. We don't have the level of detail to kind of make that assessment. And the report highlights youth unemployment. Why is it so high right now? There are a few reasons why the youth unemployment rate is so high right now. The first thing is just that when the economy is tough, young people are the first to be let go and the last to be hired.

The second part is that we have a bigger pool of workers looking for entry-level jobs right now, and that makes things more competitive. And the last thing is that experts are starting to suspect that a lot of those entry-level jobs that would normally go to young people are now being automated. So there are a lot of different variables here, and that's why we're seeing such a persistently high youth unemployment rate. How do we think the Bank of Canada will feel about this report? What we always hear about the jobs report is that it's very volatile.

So as we saw in June and July, it fluctuates a lot. And because of that, this report might not make a significant difference to the Bank of Canada. But we have a lot more data coming until the bank's next decision. We've got inflation, GDP. So that's what we'll be paying attention to in the coming weeks. Thank you, Jenna. Thank you so much. That's Jenna Benchitrit in Toronto.

A turbulent weekend ahead as Air Canada and its flight attendants resume negotiations. With a strong strike vote already in, air passengers could be in for a bumpy ride. if these latest talks collapse. Jamie Strassion has that story. One, two, three, go Canada, go! After months of preparation, it's a big day for this group of high school students set to board a plane for a robotics competition in South Korea.

Now, with a strike by Air Canada flight attendants looming, there is concern about how they'll get home, says Trip Leader Sarmia Karimi. We are using Air Canada right now, and if we don't have them, probably will be a challenge. So August 18, we are coming back with 40 kids and parents, they will live waiting for them. I hope those challenges could be solved.

CUPY, the Union representing most of Air Canada's more than 10,000 flight attendants, announced this week more than 99% of members voted to strike, which could happen as soon as August 16th, though it has to give 72 hours notice. The two sides are at the bargaining table today. According to Bloomberg News, Air Canada has offered a wage increase of more than 30% over four years. The union said at the time the offer hadn't been presented. Flight attendants are also asking to be paid for work done before a plane takes off, says union head Wesley Lysoski. And they still refuse to pay us for hours we spend every day boarding, deplaning, assisting passengers of special needs, performing mandatory critical safety and security checks.

even handling medical emergencies on the ground. In 2025, in Canada, no one should be forced to work for free. Air Canada didn't respond to request today from CBC for comment, but said yesterday its offer would make its flight attendants the best paid in Canada. There could be people that are stuck like that. All of this is causing a lot of anxiety for her clients, says Toronto travel consultant Janet Radley.

She says people have a few options, a potentially costly one, book a refundable ticket with another airline just in case, or in the case of a work stoppage, Hope Air Canada offers alternative flights on other airlines. If you're going to Asia where you don't have a lot of options with other airlines going to certain destinations, it's gotten worse since COVID because people retired, a shortage of pilots, and people just canceled routes, and they never brought them back. People traveling across Canada on Monday can expect to hear from flight attendants who will hold

the day of action at airports in Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, and Calgary to highlight what they say are ongoing issues with the airline. Jamie Strash and CBC News, Toronto. Study after study shows that women are more likely to suffer from Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia. Researchers around the world are looking at the big question, why is that? And as they dig deeper into all the possible risk factors,

one in particular is starting to get more attention. Jennifer Ewan explains. She just kept on going. She never rested. Working three full-time jobs and raising kids, Angelita Cox says her mom, Sonia, never slowed down until Alzheimer's disease slammed the brakes.

She forgot my dad first, and she wasn't able to respond to my brother. So I became primary care provider for her. In Canada, almost two-thirds of people with dementia, including Alzheimer's are women. For a year, scientists assumed that was just because women tend to live longer. But now, researchers are looking at other factors, too. I think we're beginning to be at an inflection point, and that's really exciting.

University of Toronto psychologist Jillian Einstein holds a research chair in women's brain health and aging. She says researchers now know the timing of hormonal changes is key. The longer the reproductive period women have, the lower their risk of late. life Alzheimer's disease, having one up to three children also seems to lower the risk. Dr. Walter Rocca, a neurologist at the Mayo Clinic, says estrogen protects the brain against dementia. But as women go through menopause, the hormone declines naturally. Women who go through it early need special attention, he says. These women should be treated appropriately to avoid these deficiency of hormones. We need to catch up. We're playing catch up. But there

There's still so much scientists don't know yet about women and Alzheimer's risks, says Natasha Raja, a leading researcher in brain health at Toronto Metropolitan University. Even in the clinical trials, we're not represented. It makes no sense when you think this disease affects more females than males. Raja is now conducting a study, searching for early signs of Alzheimer's through brain scans and blood samples. We're trying to understand whether or not menopause is a window at which some females might be showing early signs of Alzheimer's disease. and whether we could capture them early so they could enter treatment

and decide to alter their lifestyles to better age. There is no cure for Alzheimer's, but there are drugs that can help manage some symptoms and lifestyle changes that can promote brain health. Raja also hopes to study a diverse racial population which would better reflect Canada today. She actually had a full hysterectomy. Angelita Cox now knows

her mom was at greater risk for Alzheimer's because her ovaries were removed. that induces menopause. It's led to different choices for her. When it became time for me to deal with my fibroids that I had, I chose not to have a full hysterectomy. Cox is sharing the knowledge with her daughter, as well as with others in the black community,

hoping others can make informed choices too. Jennifer Yun, CBC News, Toronto. Victoria Mbocco is making her tennis dreams a reality, going from Canadian Open rookie to international level champion. The Canadian teenager woke up today to a future that looks brighter than ever. Alexander Kwan has that story. The maiden of Montreal. 18 years of age, Victoria Mbocco completes a magnificent run to her first tour title.

Here's how magnificent her journey has been. Victoria Mbocco started this season, ranked number 350. After winning the Canadian Open in Montreal on Thursday, she's now number 24 in the world. You know, it's been a long two weeks, and it's been very eventful, and I'm just really happy to come out on top. The 18-year-old has captured the attention of the world, and surely big things are on. the way. Anne Paguerreiro is a professor of sports management at the University of Guelph. I mean, this is a great sports story. We have a wildcard to a winner, a young woman who really kind of came into her own in front of national TV in Canada. And I think, I would say

her agent's phone is ringing a lot today, and the upside for her is pretty tremendous. For Canadian fans in Toronto, the joy of her win is infectious. I think it's great. You know, Canadian, a woman, you know, she's young, so that's awesome. Pretty amazing, exciting to see, and I'm very proud. Women don't have always have the same representation that men do, and seeing that, you know, making the country proud and making our city proud is fantastic. Winning the Canadian Open guarantees in Boko will enter this month's U.S. Open as a top seed, and continued success can attract more fans, bring more attention, and drive bigger endorsement deals.

Sherry Bradish is a professor of sports marketing at Toronto Metropolitan University. Bratish says that for Mboko, the sky is the limit. Sponsorship in marketing is tied to who are the eyeballs and who are the consumers of these messaging. So I think we know that the marketplace is continuing to look for who is next generation talent. So she would be really attractive in that regard. But the victory isn't just a win for Mboko, but for all of tennis. When the sport sees a win like this, there's a trickle-down effect. And what you ultimately want is obviously the marketing is important.

But in a social, in a very good social way, you want it to impact grassroots. sport development. For Mboko, this was a win at a single tournament, but it could be the start of a brand new level of fame, turning a young Canadian athlete into a global sports superstar. Alexander Kwan, CBC News, Regina. Finally, another Canadian champion to tell you about with experience, skill, nerves of steel, and a need for speed. You're going really fast and you're in and out of people all the time.

I thought it was going to be easy at the start because they looked kind of slow but actually in reality they were actually pretty fast. Jack Clem is nine years old. He's from Lumsden, Saskatchewan and is now a national champion. Winning his age group at this week's go-kart

Canadian finals in Edmonton. Like any champ, when things looked dicey, he did not panic. When I started I felt like I was really slow and trying to pass these kids and but now I'm up there passing them easily and, like, being a different level.

But it wasn't just about being fast. Clem also needed to be strategic, making sure that he finished in the top three in three days of races. And this is where his experience came in handy. See, Clem started racing when he was six. For a while, it was even a family affair. So we were doing dirt bikes before at the same location, and, We spotted go-kart and we just thought it was a lot cooler and safer. So we turned out to be go-karters.

My dad did it for a bit then. Once I started beating him, he just quit. He shows no mercy. And Clem isn't done yet. After his win, he was handed a ticket to Bahrain and the World Championships. I got the ticket to Bahrain and it felt overwhelming and, like, unreal, felt like a dream, and everybody after was just like congratulating me. The World Championships will be held this November. Good luck, Jack.

Thanks for being with us. This has been your world tonight for Friday, August 8th. I'm Paul Hunter. Take care. For more CBC podcasts, go to cBC.ca slash podcasts.