Your World Tonight - South Korean families demand answers, global reaction to Jimmy Carter death, warmer weather hurts outdoor rinks, and more

Episode Date: December 30, 2024

South Korea's acting president orders an inspection of the country's entire airline operation system, after the deadliest air disaster in the country. Families of victims say they aren’t getting enough information about what happened. Some experts are saying a bird strike alone shouldn’t have been enough to bring down such a large plane.And: Former U.S. president Jimmy Carter will lie in state before his funeral January 9th. World leaders are reacting after his death at 100 was announced yesterday. His legacy includes an accord between Israel and Egypt — which could inspire hope for future deals in the region.Also: Our warming climate means winter just doesn’t pack as much of a punch as it used to. And warmer conditions mean trouble for something quintessentially Canadian: being able to skate outside. Cities are being forced to adapt or admit defeat entirely.Plus: Bird flu in pet food, U.S. Republicans fight over immigration policy, a golden age for women’s sport, and more.

My name is Graham Isidor. I have a progressive eye disease called keratoconus. Unmaying I'm losing my vision has been hard, but explaining it to other people has been harder. Lately, I've been trying to talk about it. Short Sighted is an attempt to explain what vision loss feels like by exploring how it sounds. By sharing my story, we get into all the things you don't see

about hidden disabilities. Short Sighted, from CBC's Personally, available now. This is a CBC Podcast. 179 families now are suffering and looking for answers, and they're going to find that the answers are relatively slow in coming. There is video, two survivors, two black boxes. But the exact cause or causes of this weekend's Jeju air crash in South Korea could take weeks to determine. And a country that has been gripped for weeks by political turmoil now waits, joined together by grief and anger. Welcome to Your World Tonight. It's Monday, December 30th,

just before 6 p.m. Eastern. I'm Martina Fitzgerald, also on the podcast. Well, he was a regular guy, you know. I mean, he came across so genuine. He was truthful. He was honest, and that was just in his DNA. Friends, neighbors, and world leaders are sharing their memories of Jimmy Carter, of his career in politics, his rich life and prolific work after leaving the White House. South Korea has begun a week of mourning after the country's worst air disaster in decades. 179 people died Sunday in the Jeju air crash. Anguished families say they're not getting enough information about what happened as South Korea's acting president orders an inspection of the country's entire airline operation system.

Michelle Song has the latest. Despair echoes around the departures hall of Muang International Airport as firefighters began naming some of the victims in the deadliest plane crash on South Korean soil. Families camped out in the airport, given makeshift tents. But there's also a growing anger as the grieving families wait for answers and the remains of their loved ones. I hope my family can be recovered and returned to us, even if only 80 percent intact, says Park Han-shin, who is representing the victims' families. He is calling on the government to deploy more resources and personnel to help with recovery efforts.

Of the 179 dead, most of the remains have been identified, but work continues to identify the rest. Officials say it could take up to 10 days for all the bodies to be returned as the crews continue to sift through the wreckage of the Jeju Air flight. Everything except the tail scorched from the fiery explosion. And families plagued with the question, why did this happen? Kang Jung-hyun of South Korea's Transportation Ministry confirmed a bird strike warning was issued and the pilot declared mayday and asked to land on the opposite direction. But video of the incident shows the plane landed on its belly, skidded across the runway and eventually crashed into a wall.

And many have asked why the landing gear was not deployed. Almost every major accident nowadays, there is more than one factor. Justin Green is an aviation attorney. He says a single point of failure is not supposed to happen in aviation. The bird strike seems to be the initiating factor, but what happened to the systems after the bird strike and how the pilots handled it. That's going to be the focus of the investigation. South Korean investigators are working with experts from the U.S. and Boeing.

Two black boxes, the flight data and cockpit voice recorders were uncovered from the debris, but it could take months to analyze. The Transportation Ministry says it will be conducting a special inspection of the Boeing 737-800, which was the aircraft involved. This comes after another Jeju Air flight using the same model had an unidentified landing gear issue. South Korea's acting president Choi Sang-mok paid his respects at a memorial for those lost and called for a wider inspection of airline operations in the country. Michelle Song, CBC News, Toronto. Regular operations have resumed at Halifax International Airport.

An Air Canada flight from St. John's made a fiery landing there on Saturday night, temporarily shutting down the runways. All 73 passengers and crew survived with only minor injuries. A spokesperson for Air Canada says there may have been a problem with the landing gear. The Transportation Safety Board has completed its review of the plane on site. It's now been moved to another location for further investigation. Leaders around the world are praising the late Jimmy Carter's dedication to international peace, his defense of human rights and his fight for those in need. The former U.S. president died yesterday at the age of 100.

As Sarah Levitt reports from London, Carter is being remembered for much more than his time in office. In London, flags fly at half-mast at the Parliament buildings and the Prime Minister's home, tributes to Jimmy Carter from across the ocean. Evidence, too, of the former United States President's global influence long after his four years in office from 1977 to 81. Around the world, leaders are speaking out about the impact Carter had on them. In the United Nations Security Council chambers, I should like to pay tribute to James Earl or Jimmy Carter. A moment of silence. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau touched on the personal in a social media post, noting he was always kind and thoughtful and generous with his advice to me about public service. King Charles described Carter as a committed public servant.

He had a genuine interest in the idea that making lives better wasn't just an America thing. Scott Lucas is a professor of international politics at the Clinton Institute in Dublin. It was a thing for anybody who wanted to have better schools, better housing, thought Lucas is a professor of international politics at the Clinton Institute in Dublin. It was a thing for anybody who wanted to have better schools, better housing, a better way of life. Terry Adamson was a personal friend. He wanted to be remembered as a peacemaker and dedicated to human rights. And in those many years after he was president, people got to know him better. And as a result, and as a result of history itself, came to appreciate more of the qualities he brought to the presidency.

Qualities he brought to his work internationally, including in Northern Ireland during the Catholic-Protestant conflicts there during his presidency. In China, President Xi Jinping reacted to Carter's death saying he was the driving force behind the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries. Carter also successfully negotiated the first peace agreement in the Middle East in 1972. Stuart Eisenstadt is the former chief White House domestic policy advisor under Carter. The first peace between Egypt and Israel, it is the greatest diplomatic achievement of any president. David Bencer is a spokesperson for the Israeli government. It's a peace treaty that has stood the test of time, and we believe it holds hope for future generations.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, too, commemorating Carter's legacy as he also deals with war. He writes in his statement, Peace matters and the world must remain united in standing against those who threaten these values. May his memory be eternal. That no doubt will be the case, particularly just south of New Delhi in India. Carter visited here in 1978, one villager says. After that visit, the name of the village changed to Carter Prairie in honour of the former president.

Sarah Levitz, CBC News, London. On the podcast tonight, raw food for cats is added to the list of concerns associated with the spread of avian flu. Get ready to see more drones overhead in Canada. And is a great Canadian pastime becoming part of the past? Giselle Pellicot's ex-husband says he will not appeal his prison sentence. Earlier this month, a French court found Dominique Pelléco guilty

of drugging and raping his former wife and allowing dozens of other men to assault her while she was unconscious. Dominique Pelléco's lawyer says the 72-year-old does not want to put her through the trauma of another trial. 50 other men were convicted in the case. 17 of them say they plan to appeal. In Ukraine, moments of joy and relief following the country's latest prisoner swap with Russia. Ukrainian soldiers reunited with loved ones after their release. The United Arab Emirates brokered the deal. It says 150 Ukrainian captives were exchanged for the same number of Russians. The two sides have conducted 59 POW swaps since the start of the war in 2022. Donald Trump is facing a rift among his own supporters. It's between the immigration

hardliners who have supported the next U.S. president and tech business leaders from Silicon Valley. As Katie Nicholson reports, they're embroiled in a fierce debate over a visa program for highly specialized workers. Where is he? Come on up here, Elon. When Elon Musk threw his support and money behind Donald Trump, it helped propel the former president to victory. As you can see, I'm not just MAGA, I'm dark MAGA. But now the alliances that helped push Donald Trump to a big win

are at war within the MAGA movement over the issue of immigration. The H-1B visa program is a total and complete scam. Trump's former chief of staff, Steve Bannon, on his War Room show took aim at the H-1B, a special work visa often used by Silicon Valley to hire specialized tech engineering talent from abroad. We have an exciting show for you here today. This spat started after the incoming president tapped Indian-American venture capitalist and podcaster, Sriram Krishnan, to be the White House's AI advisor. Krishnan has advocated for more skilled immigrants to enter the country.

That set off far-right anti-immigration voices like anti-Islam activist Laura Loomer, who posted, I'm on the side of the people who voted for Donald Trump and less immigration. And she accused the tech bros of being pretend MAGA. X subsequently took away her blue checkmark, as its owner Elon Musk wrote, The reason I'm in America along with so many critical people who built SpaceX, Tesla and hundreds of other companies that made America strong is because of H-1B, adding he would go to war on the issue. We would like you to publish every engineer that you've brought in on H-1B visa and let us determine, let's just see the information and see if American citizens could not fill those billets.

Former Trump staffer Alyssa Farah Griffin says strategic immigration programs are actually traditionally quite Republican. It's actually conservative and Republican Party orthodoxy to support high-skill immigration. We've always framed it as a way to counter China, to compete with China. You want to attract the best workers. Donald Trump had previously been critical of the visa program, but told the New York Post Saturday, I've been a believer in H-1B. I have used it many times. It's a great program. But Trump also campaigned on anti-immigration tropes popular with his base, like the disproven rumor Haitian immigrants were eating pets. Republican strategist Chris Ingram.

A lot of the MAGA folks, they want Trump to come in and just be a hardliner on everything and dogmatic that doesn't work in Washington. Ingram says he thinks talk of a civil war is overblown and that in politics, there's always factions. It's on Trump to calm the rhetoric down, he says. If he wanted to change the nature of the debate right now, all he has to do is send out a tweet. For now, the incoming president is letting it all play out on social media. Katie Nicholson, CBC News, Washington.

A dire warning from the head of the United Nations. In his New Year's message, Secretary General Antonio Guterres says the world needs urgent action to counter the effects of climate change. The top 10 hottest years on record have happened in the last 10 years, including 2024. This is climate breakdown in real time. Guterres is calling on countries to drastically slash emissions and support the transition to renewable energy. Climate change is having a devastating effect on a quintessential Canadian tradition. Skating outside on a frozen pond, river or lake, maybe even an outdoor backyard

rink. But warmer winters are making ice conditions unreliable and often unsafe. Bartley Kivas reports. A snow clearing machine rumbles along the Assiniboine River at the Forks in Winnipeg. Workers are trying to get the river ice ready for skating on New Year's Day. Skating on the rivers all winter is no longer a given, not even in Winnipeg. Last season, the trail was only open for nine days. So much of our identity is tied into the winter and it being cold. Dave Pankow is responsible for operations at the Forks. He says his crews have learned to be more nimble

when it comes to building the skating trail. The days that we can get out on the ice, we have to be able to react to that quickly. And then when we have to get off quick, we have to be able to do that also. This is not just an issue in Manitoba. In Ottawa, the Rideau Canal didn't open for skating at all in 2023, and the National Capital Commission is using lighter equipment to get on the canal earlier

as a means of dealing with climate change. And in the Ontario town of Caledon, northwest of Toronto, a small body of water called Palgrave Pond isn't open for skating at all anymore. Ken Hunt maintained trails on this pond for decades before he was told earlier this month no one's allowed on anymore. Well, they wanted to shut us down. They were saying the ice was unsafe, and nobody's checking the ice, this and that.

Well, I said, I'm sorry, I've been doing this for 22 years now. Hunt says the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority cancelled an agreement with Caledon. But along with bureaucracy, there are safety concerns involved with skating on rivers and ponds. On Christmas Eve, a 58-year-old man drowned in a pond on his property in the Arm of St. Anne, southeast of Winnipeg, after his skid-steer loader went through the ice. The leader of the dive team that recovered his body warns anyone heading onto a pond to check the ice conditions. Paul Mandel is vice president of the Hutterian Emergency Aquatic Response Team.

It can be different under the layer of snow that there is now. It can change from one day to another, especially with the milder weather. Back at the Forks in Winnipeg, kids are skating on a rink up on dry land. On the river down below, the ice is thick enough to support people and machines. Dave Pankow says he couldn't imagine a Canada without outdoor skating. You know, it's just so ingrained in our psyche here. Dave Phillips, a federal climatologist, says Canada has lost about three weeks of ice-making weather over the past seven decades. Bart Lachivas, CBC News, Winnipeg.

Canadians are being warned to prepare for avian influenza. Canada's chief public health officer has listed H5N1 as a top concern for 2025. Cases have been confirmed across North America in livestock, pets and increasingly in people. Yvette Brend has more. Bird or avian flu has been spreading across Canada and the U.S. on farms, often by migrating wild birds. So it was a bit jarring when it turned up in cat food. Scott Weiss is a professor with the Ontario Veterinary College and directs the Centre for Public Health and Zoonosis at the University of Guelph. The fact that it's making it into commercial foods

is concerning from an animal health aspect because this often kills cats. Northwest Naturals, the Oregon pet food maker, recalled a batch of its frozen turkey recipe for cats after one cat's death was linked to the product. Pet food stores here check their shelves for the product that sells in British Columbia and several American states. There's fear as H5N1 shows up in poultry, cattle and now pets that it will jump to more humans. This according to Peter Chin Hong, an infectious disease specialist at the University of California. You know it's only a matter of time

before one mutation by chance will be able to be spread from human to human. We don't know when that will be, but certainly the train has already left the station. So far, the risk of avian flu spreading among humans is low. But Christopher Labos, a cardiologist with a degree in epidemiology in Montreal, says each infection increases that risk. The easier it will ultimately become for this virus to infect humans and to spread amongst humans. Now, we're not at that point yet, but any individual story about this virus gaining the ability to infect other types of animals is going to be a little bit concerning because it's inching us towards the situation where it must become much more common in humans. In November, a Fraser Valley teen became the first person in Canada to contract H5N1. That teen ended up in critical condition. Dozens of Americans have

contracted the virus, but most cases were mild. Infectious disease experts question if North America is ready if this does start to spread more in humans. If we start to see that happening, are we going to be able to do something about it? Outbreaks on poultry and dairy farms have caused an egg shortage in the U.S., but not so far in Canada, where the number of cases actually declined in December. As for pet owners who feed their animals a raw diet, veterinary professor Scott Weiss has some advice. Well, I would stop eating raw food. There are no health benefits to feeding raw over a cooked diet.

And we know there are risks. And influenza is just one. He says sticking to a well-balanced kibble may in the end be better. Yvette Brend, CBC News, Vancouver. Look, up in the sky. Is it a bird? A plane? Superman? Nope. These days, it's likely a drone. And soon, there will be even more of them in Canada, making deliveries and checking on power lines, bridges and buildings. Georgie Smyth reports.

Canada's skies are opening up with new rules for drone users. We're in visual line of sight of the drone right now. I can see the drone. For pilots like Ian Wills from Coastal Drone in Langley, BC, being able to see the drone they're flying has been a key requirement from Transport Canada. But going forward, that won't be as important. The regulator is cutting the red tape for complex, longer-distance flights, making it more straightforward for operators and opening up sections of Canadian airspace to bigger, bolder drone missions. We're aiming for the first quarter of 2025 to publish the rules in Canada. Ryan Coates helped craft the new regulations as the Executive Director for Remotely Piloted

Aircraft Systems for Transport Canada. He says the changes build on the first drone regulations that came out in 2019 and are a big opportunity for the Canada. He says the changes build on the first drone regulations that came out in 2019 and are a big opportunity for the industry. We've seen the technology become more sophisticated, we've seen drones become larger and more capable and there's been a call for more regulations to enable routine operations of what industry would call beyond visual line of sight. Beyond visual line of sight, that's the term for flights when a drone leaves the pilot's field of view and can fly kilometres away to a totally different location.

It means more room for things like large-scale drone deliveries, aerial surveys and anything else that could be carried out remotely with a drone. Beyond visual line of sight, that's a whole new realm. Glenn Lynch is the CEO of Volatus Airspace in Vaughan, Ontario. He says drones could now complete existing jobs that are too dirty or too dangerous for people. So you could deploy that, let's say, into a field in northern Saskatchewan where there's, let's say, 300 oil and gas pump jacks that are pumping oil every day and need to be inspected regularly to ensure that there's no leaks or damage to those pumps.

The rules will be most lax in sparsely populated places, meaning Canada's smaller, more remote communities could stand to gain the most. We kind of dipped our toe in the water and sent a few things. Dr. John Polovich is a family physician and clinical professor at the Department of Family Practice at the University of British Columbia. He used drones in a pilot program to deliver medicine to a First Nations community in northern BC. This technology holds great promise to kind of close,

hopefully eliminate the gap in access to medical supplies. For many in the industry, the future use cases for drones are impossible to fully realise just yet. But don't expect drone-filled skies that soon. While the laws will be published shortly, they won't officially launch until fall. Georgie Smyth, CBC News, Vancouver. Ottawa is extending the deadline

for claiming charitable donations on tax returns. Normally, Canadians have until the end of the year, but the federal government says you will now have until the end of February. The goal is to make up for the drop in charitable donations because of the four-week Canada post-strike. 2024 has been a historic year for women's sports. Ratings soared for everything from college basketball to professional hockey. The WNBA even announced expansion in Canada. That growth is also affecting grassroots sports here, where participation has never been better. Jamie Strachan has that story.

Throughout the crowd at most PWHL games, young girls in their hockey jerseys. As the saying goes, see it, be it. Olympian Marnie McBean says a new professional sports landscape in Canada is giving young girls something to shoot for. I have a daughter. I'm like her opportunities to see sport at a really competitive, like physical level. You watch the PWHL. It's a physical sport. It's amazing. It doesn't have to be dumbed down to be girls sport. There is professional soccer. The Toronto Tempo are the WNBA's newest team and PWHL players are even part of the latest EA Sports NHL game, one of the most popular video games of all time. I think not just kids but parents that their daughters can be successful at this kind of level.

And now there's the transition into professional sport. McBean was part of a recent summit that looked at girls' participation in sport. Featured at that summit, a report showing 63% of girls 6 to 18 participate in organized sports, higher than ever and only slightly behind boys. Christian Vardy is the report's lead researcher. For the first time, we're seeing that the dropout rate between girls and boys is actually starting to close and look more comparable, which is a real positive sign, a sign of progress.

Canadian basketball star Kia Nurse was also in attendance. She says young girls are thinking about sports in a different way. We tend to not put ourselves in boxes and say you can only look one certain way. We try to give ourselves an opportunity to show that you can be your most authentic self because that's when you're going to play your best. Eighth grader Valeria Long was part of the panel at the event. She says for her, sports are about being yourself, especially on the basketball court. Everyone is so competitive. You want to get better, do more. You want to join in. You want to fit in. It's a lit sport. That's why I love it so much. And experts say much more is

possible. Toronto Metropolitan University's Sherry Bradish points out the recent boom at the professional level has happened without one of the country's biggest corporate players, MLSC, which owns all of Toronto's major league sports franchises. How will the largest sport property in this country, who essentially hasn't been involved, decide to pick up a playbook and develop a playbook and get active in the women's sports marketplace? Bradish expects bigger things soon in this country's biggest venues and continued payoff in smaller gyms and arenas across Canada. Jamie Strashin, CBC News, Toronto.

Finally, you know the present you get and you squeak out the polite response, oh, you shouldn't have. A temporary exhibition in Toronto is celebrating that experience. Sherry Kasman is one of the curators of the Museum of Bad Gifts. The thing that first came to mind is this framed cat food packaging that a friend gave to me because I have a framed cat instead of a real cat since I'm allergic. And it's not a good gift. I can't put it on my wall. It's ugly. It's gross. Kasman admits the idea of a bad gift is subjective, so each item has a written description from the owner explaining why they think it's actually bad. Such as the cookbook for one that a woman

got from her boss right after her divorce. And when she tried to return it, she found he'd picked it out of the remainder bin, or the wine bottle carved from a very hairy horse's hoof, or the plastic baggie of cat nail clippings. Kazman admits there could be some hurt feelings, though she hopes not. I mean, it's honest, but it's also all in good fun, I'd say. I mean, certain people who submit things said to me, oh, it's okay that this is in the show.

The person who gave it to me is dead. Some of the items will go back to their owners. Others are up for auction with the proceeds going to local food banks. That includes, by the way, the bag of cat nail clippings. Thanks for being with us. This has been Your World Tonight for Monday, the 30th of December. I'm Martina Fitzgerald. As always, thanks for listening. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.