Your World Tonight - Trump gets ready to move back to the White House, diabetes increases around the globe, menopause marketing and more

Episode Date: January 1, 2025

In a matter of weeks, Donald Trump will be sworn in as president of the United States. And he's poised to trigger what many think will be a rapid-fire series of drastic changes. It's not an over-statement to say people around the world are watching closely.And: A ground-breaking global study on diabetes has found that rates doubled over the past 30 years. And millions of people aren't getting the treatment they need.Also: Menopause has long been a taboo topic in the medical community.But that's starting to change. As doctors are having more open conversations about dealing with menopause, health care companies are marketing a growing list of remedies that offer relief - but don’t always work.Plus: Settler violence in the West Bank, professional women’s hockey, and more.

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about hidden disabilities. Short Sighted, from CBC's Personally, available now. This is a CBC Podcast. We will begin the largest deportation operation in America. We will treat those people from January 6th fairly. We will treat them fairly. And if it requires pardons, we will give them pardons. I am your retribution. I am your retribution.

And Cheney was behind it. So was Benny Thompson and everybody on that committee. Honestly, they should go to jail. It's just a few weeks away now. Donald Trump's inauguration and the official start of an era that has the potential to change the world. From the U.S. itself to Canadian trade and borders to the wars raging abroad. It's all set to be jolted by the incoming administration, a second Trump presidency that will define the year ahead. Welcome to a special New Year's Day edition

of Your World Tonight. I'm Susan Bonner, also on the program. I think it's a marketing storm. There's just an incredible opportunity for people who want to sell stuff. Women over 40 are being targeted in a whole new marketing boom. What was once just called the change in life is now big business. Menopause and the $15 billion market for new remedies. In a matter of weeks, Donald Trump will be sworn in as president, and he's poised to trigger what many think will be a rapid-fire series of drastic changes. It's not an overstatement to say people around the world are watching closely. The CBC senior Washington correspondent Paul Hunter is here to talk about it. Paul, Donald Trump promised to shake things up from day one. Is it clear where he'll

begin? Yeah, well, I think everywhere all at once is probably only a slight exaggeration because the way Trump sees it, he's been given a big mandate to get stuff done. In the end, he got a smidge less than 50% of the national vote in the election. But he obviously won the electoral college. He won all of the battleground states. His party kept control of the House of Representatives, and it won control of the Senate. Forfecta, you could say. Almost every corner of the country stepped his way to some degree, and not least because of his one simple message, the country's not working as it should.

Not working as it should? What specifically was he referring to? Well, here are the issues in Trump's view. The southern border doesn't work, not secure. The economy's not working, at least not working for millions of Americans. Whatever the stock market looks like, regular people are struggling to afford food and housing. Meanwhile, they look overseas and they see U.S. money going into foreign wars. And they look at Washington, D.C. and they see government that is, you know, in their view, bloated and slow and corrupt and still wanting more of their money in taxes. Trump made it clear that he's going to come in like the proverbial bull in the China shop and start breaking dishes to change all of that. And by the way, I've been to enough Trump rallies, Susan.

All of that resonates hugely with those who've stood and who stand with him. So what does he say about how he's going to fix things? Well, he'll get busy with the Sharpie and start signing executive orders on day one. Expect a blizzard of them. On the border issue, he's talking about the biggest deportation program in American history under the threat of catastrophic tariffs. Even Canada now telling Trump that it'll step up security at our border with the U.S. But Canada may get hit with his tariff hammer regardless.

Mexico will for sure, as will China, because Trump's other big goal with the U.S. But Canada may get hit with his tariff hammer regardless. Mexico will for sure, as will China, because Trump's other big goal with the tariffs is to help Americans by using tariffs to drive jobs back into America, even though, of course, experts warn the short-term effect of tariffs would be higher prices for Americans all over the place. And then there's the international picture. What is Trump saying about foreign wars? Famously, Trump has said he'd end the fighting in Ukraine in a matter of days. Basically, he wants to cut off the billions of American dollars flowing into what he sees as Ukraine's losing battle. Ukraine is very worried about that, but so too Canada and all of the NATO allies who think Trump is effectively going to force Ukraine to surrender to whatever

Russia wants to end the war, i.e. land, and in so doing, shaking the NATO alliance to its core and emboldening Vladimir Putin. So turmoil, a likely theme for 2025? Yes, turmoil on steroids, because there's a lot more on Trump's agenda. I mean, he's still promising to go after his perceived political enemies. He's pledged to pardon the January 6th rioters. And along with cost cutter in chief Elon Musk, Trump is talking about mass firings of federal employees, something Trump says could cut government spending by some $2 trillion. But remember this, Susan. All of what we've just talked about is exactly what he campaigned on. None of it was a secret, and 77 million voters said yes to it.

That's enough for him to now effectively do whatever he wants. It's going to be a wild four years, Susan. And you'll be busy. Thank you, Paul. Indeed. You're welcome. The CBC's Paul Hunter in Washington. Donald Trump's election victory was met with praise from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He can expect less pushback from Washington as Israel expands in the West Bank. Trump's victory raises new fear among Palestinians. Senior international correspondent

Margaret Evans recently visited the occupied territory. The ghostly play of wind skimming the ruins of a town on a stretch of land south of Hebron, a Palestinian village called Zanuta. Its residents returned in September after fleeing threats by hardline Jewish settlers in the wake of October 7th last year. We met them as they tried to repair herding pens and clear the debris of buildings destroyed in their absence. 52-year-old Shafiq Suleiman told us the settlers had already started coming back, led by a man named Enon Levy, driving vehicles through herds, sabotaging water supplies. You're always afraid, says Suleiman.

If you'd come an hour ago, you would have seen settlers here. Levy is one of 11 extremist settlers sanctioned by Canada, accused of inciting and perpetrating violence against Palestinians. His farm outpost lies just across the valley in clear sight of Zenuta. Israeli settlements are considered illegal under international law, but even Israel considers settlement outposts like the one behind me illegal, at least technically. Most Palestinians will tell you the Israeli government is actually encouraging them and will one day support them with electricity, water, even their own access roads. It is a snapshot of the latest phase

of Israel's settlement enterprise in the occupied West Bank, an increasingly violent one, says Dror Etkes, an Israeli expert on settlement expansion. Vicious, this is the word. Targeting one community after the other. And once you are getting rid of one community, you go to the next one and to the next one. There have been more than 1,300 settler attacks against Palestinians in the West Bank over the past year, according to the UN.

And 19 hurting communities have been displaced by settler intimidation and violence, say rights groups. Complicating the situation even further, the blurring lines between the Israeli army and militant settlers, increasingly recruited as army reservists in the West Bank. Hagid Ofran, a settlement watch director for the Israeli NGO Peace Now, says it has further complicated Palestinian lives and livelihoods. The same settler from the daily harassments, now he is wearing the IDF uniform, coming and telling, don't graze here, but with weapon and with the authority. Zanuta's residents had a court order permitting their return and instructing that it should happen with Israeli army protection. When we returned a week later, it had been abandoned for a second time, save for the mayor.

Unfortunately, the settlers still attack us. Hello, is that Mr. Levy? We tried to speak to Enon Levy, but after having agreed to an appointed time for an interview, he stopped taking our calls. Nearly 70 outposts have been greenlit for government funding over the past year, according to watch groups. And 43 new outposts have been established. Margaret Evans, CBC News, in the Occupied Territories.

Coming right up, it may be preventable and even treatable, but diabetes is on the rise around the globe. We look at where and why. Also, climate change gets blamed for a lot of serious problems. In India, it's even helping human traffickers to target their victims. And later. Record after record, step after step, glass ceiling after glass ceiling being shattered, and it doesn't stop here. The successful debut of the Women's Professional Hockey League last year set the bar high for this season, and the league is back with lots of ambition and swagger. It's emotional to think about where the games come from,

where we've come to. We have the ability now for many, many young girls around the world to not see a world that doesn't have professional women's hockey. I think it changes everything. The PWHL's new look, bigger arenas, video game, and aggressive plans to establish new teams. That's later on Your World Tonight. In most cases, diabetes is a preventable disease, but that hasn't stopped the rise in the number of

people suffering from it. A groundbreaking global study has found the rates have doubled in the past 30 years and millions of people aren't getting the treatment they need. Health reporter Mike Crawley tells us why and what the picture looks like in Canada. In Johannesburg, people with diabetes rally for better and cheaper access to insulin. The demonstration in South Africa illustrates two important emerging trends about diabetes, the dramatic increase in global rates and the growing number of people who aren't getting treatment. There's this explosion of diabetes worldwide. Dr. Calvin Key is an endocrinologist in Toronto.

He's part of the team that compiled the study, published in the Lancet medical journal. This is a really monumental project. The research suggests nearly 830 million people are living with diabetes. That works out to one adult in seven. The growth has been most dramatic in lower and middle-income countries, including Pakistan, Egypt and Jamaica. Researchers link it primarily to rising rates of obesity, a key cause of type 2 diabetes, the preventable form that accounts for more than 90% of cases. The magnitude of the increase is shocking. Krista Sepak is a Canadian pharmacist

working with the international aid agency Doctors Without Borders. She's particularly concerned about the study's findings that nearly 450 million people with diabetes are not being treated. There's a kind of neglect of people with type 2 diabetes in many low and middle income countries. Sipak was at the Johannesburg demonstration where participants waved placards calling for $1 insulin pens. Just simply pharmaceutical companies are less interested in markets where there's less ability of people to pay or governments to pay. In Canada, the diabetes rate is just under 10%, putting it below the global average. It's little changed from three decades ago and roughly one

quarter the rate in the U.S. The rate for women in Canada is among the lowest in the world. I had no family history, so the diagnosis was definitely a shock. Lindsay Mitkoly is patient engagement director for Diabetes Action Canada. I didn't realize how much extra work living with diabetes is. Always figuring out the choices you need to make for your medication, the choices you need to make for your diet, for your lifestyle. The researchers behind the Lancet paper say their findings show an urgent need for ensuring early detection and effective treatment

of diabetes, especially in the lower-income countries. Mike Crawley, CBC News, Toronto. It's another health condition that a big part of the population copes with, and traditionally, without a lot of help. Menopause has long been a taboo topic in the medical community, but that's starting to change. And as doctors are having more open conversations about dealing with menopause, healthcare companies are marketing a growing list of treatments that offer relief relief but don't always work. Nisha Patel reports. As women crowd into a Toronto convention center, it seems when it comes to wellness, menopause may be the new gold rush. It comes

in two flavors. It has magnesium bisglycinate, GABA, inositol, and tart cherries. Booths are stocked with everything from skincare to supplements. After years of being overlooked, now there's a flood of products promising women relief. These women say it can all be a little overwhelming. I feel like there's a lot to learn. There's a lot of information and there's a lot of misinformation. You end up spending a lot for a whole suite of treatments that hoping something will work. With symptoms like hot flashes, mood swings and insomnia, perimenopause and menopause affect an estimated 8 million women in Canada over the age of 40. The global menopause market is worth about $15 billion a year, and it's growing, expected to hit $24 billion a year by the end of the decade. Across social media, too,

influencers claim to have a cure. So the first supplement I started using back at the very beginning was black cohosh root. The combination of reishi, shiitake, mitake, and lion's mane, you're going to turn into a whole new person. Dr. Gerilyn Breyer is a professor at the University of British Columbia. I think it's a marketing storm. I think there's just an incredible opportunity for people who want to sell stuff. She worries about the quality of the research being used to peddle the products. Anytime a study is done by a company that's going to benefit from the sale, there's bias. The statistician is biased, the company is biased. Health Canada is stepping up its regulation of natural health products. Dr. Wendy Wolfman is director of the menopause center at Mount Sinai Hospital.

When it comes to supplements, she says many are useless and potentially risky. Primrose oil, donkwai, maca, ginseng, flaxseed, chaseberry, no real good studies. We know things that work and we know things that don't work. And I would say pretty much anything you get over the counter to treat hot flashes isn't going to work really well. She encourages women to talk first to their health care provider. And we do have good therapies. You know, hormone therapy is a good therapy and that's why it's approved by Health Canada. But it's clear women like Nadine Schumann are

desperate for answers. At 54, I've tried a lot and nothing lasts. It only lasts for a month and then my body will go back to the way it was. She's learned firsthand that many remedies don't live up to the hype. Nisha Patel, CBC News, Toronto. Extreme weather is a danger to all of us. But in India, climate change is creating a new threat to one vulnerable group in particular. In the aftermath of severe cyclones, human traffickers are seizing on the chaotic conditions to force young women into sex work.

Our South Asia correspondent Salima Shivji has their story. The women sit cross-legged, tucked into a home in eastern India's Sundarbans, a weekly meeting to talk finances. But it's a deeper pain than a simple economic one that binds them all together. Each woman a victim of sex trafficking. It's rampant in West Bengal. The rise in trafficking is because of climate change, officials say.

Vicious cyclones consistently battering this part of India, pushing people further into poverty. For Mijana, life has slowly become more joyful with her young daughter in her arms. Mijana was only 17 when the traffickers came for her. I used to call her my sister, Mijana says. She was my neighbor. I trusted her. But she says the older woman tricked her into going to a nearby train station, drugged her and shipped her to Mumbai, some 2,000 kilometers away. When I came to, I was with four or five other girls, Mijana says.

My captor sent a man in who raped me. It went on for 15 days, she says, every time a different man. A police rescue and the help of a local NGO brought Mijana back to her village and her rickety family home perched above a river, where you can see the water flowing below through holes in the bamboo floor. This, Mijana says, is why she was a target, just like the children of many other vulnerable families here trying to stay above water. My neighbor was a professional, she says. Trafficking was her job.

It's a devastating story heard frequently in India's Sundarbans, one of the areas most vulnerable to climate change in the world. Several low-lying islands have already been swallowed up by higher sea levels. More frequent cyclones bring salinity that damages the soil and ruins crops. It's left many villagers in the Sundarbans desperate. Making it fertile ground for traffickers, says social worker Pampa Ghosh. They wait for parents to go looking for work, she says, leaving their children with relatives. And then the traffickers strike.

Ghosh's NGO sees more than 30 cases of women trafficked a year. Many are rescued by police, but about 25 percent can't be tracked down. That's the pain Mushumi and her husband Rana are struggling with. Their daughter Sohani was lured away, they say, with the promise of marriage from a man she had just met. We've had no contact with her for nearly two years, Mushumi says, and they fear the worst. Those who do make it back, like Mijana, face the stigma of being forced into sex work. The degrading comments from my neighbors were even more horrifying than what I had to endure while kidnapped, she says. But she's now hopeful she can help break the cycle. Mijana goes from village to village with the local NGO,

warning young people about how trafficking gangs operate. They play a game where one kid is the target and the others join hands, trying to ward off a trafficker. He's a wicked man, the social worker says. You need to protect your own at all costs. She's not just one person's daughter, they say. She's all of us. Salima Shivji, CBC News, West Bengal. The state of hockey with a championship state of mind.

Minnesota has won the first ever Walter Cup. The Professional Women's Hockey League made history in its debut season, drawing record-breaking crowds and proving the power of women's pro hockey. This year, the PWHL came roaring back bigger and bolder with new team brands, venues, and plans to expand to new cities. As Sarah Levitt tells us, all of it in a quest to win over even more fans. The players have brand new names in jerseys, plus a high-profile video game treatment for EA Sports, set to be released in January. And Canadian broadcast partners for every single one of the games secured.

The professional women's hockey league is back for its sophomore year, and the league is trying to live up to the hype of its highly successful first year. Laura Stacey is a forward with La Victoire de Montréal. Record after record, step after step, glass ceiling after glass ceiling being shattered and it doesn't stop here. It's emotional to think about where the games come from, where we've come to. Jaina Hefford is the PWHL's vice president of hockey operations. We have the ability now for many, many young girls around the world

to not see a world that doesn't have professional women's hockey. I think it changes everything. And those young girls are hyped up. At Bourget College High School just outside of Montreal, a team of 15 to 18 year olds do fast laps around the rink. The girls are coached by a hockey legend. Three-time Olympic medalist Melodie Daou decided to retire after playing in the PWHL's inaugural season. Now she coaches the next generation. They do want to continue and obviously with the new league,

it's something that the girls are looking forward to and hoping and dreaming about. Just ask 15-year-old Madison Lévesque, recently named to Quebec's under-18 girls team. It's the first year she's not playing on a boys team. Every generation before us always wished for a league like this one and yeah I think it's great for us. And do you want to play in it? Yes for sure yeah. Wins at Shelton with her stick and she gets it. Not only is there a league there are plans to expand. Cities are clamoring for a chance. More than 25 proposals have already been sent in. It's also hosting what it's calling a takeover tour, with games set to be played in non-host cities like Quebec City and Vancouver.

I think the opportunities that are the result of this league are massive. As the puck drops on season two, the key is continuing the momentum and keeping fans inspired and entertained. Sarah Levitt, CBC News, Montreal. That's been Your World tonight for January 1st, 2025. Thanks for joining us. I'm Susan Bonner. Happy New Year.