Your World Tonight - U.S. - Iran negotiations, Liberals wrap up party convention, Converting churches into pickleball complexes, and more

Episode Date: April 11, 2026

Face to face talks between the United States and Iran are being held in Pakistan. The high stakes discussions take place against a backdrop of a shaky two-week ceasefire between the US, Iran and Israel. As talks are underway, the U.S. military says it is "setting conditions" for reopening the Strait of Hormuz. The waterway has been effectively closed since the war began, blocking a vital trade route.Also: Today, the federal Liberals wrapped up its national convention in Montreal. Prime Minister Mark Carney used the moment to signal unity and readiness. And come Monday, voters in Canada could tip the political scales on Parliament Hill — with the Liberals now on track to secure a slim majority if they win one of three byelections.And: In Quebec, three investors say they've found a way to get people back to church: pickleball. They've taken an old, decomissioned church and turned it into a pickleball complex. They say it's a sustainable solution for the hundreds of out-of-use churches across the province. But the project has some doubters.Plus: Reintroducing Rhinos to Uganda, the studies conducted on the Artemis mission, and more.

What's that noise? I don't know. I get that checked. Quickly. Yeah, good point. Point S, tires, and auto service. You think Point S has good deals on tires? Definitely.

What makes you say that? This. Until May 31st, get up to $125 on a prepaid card when you buy four eligible Yokohama tires. Details at point.c.ca. Good point. Point S, tires, and auto service. This is a CBC podcast. They're said to be the first high-level face-to-face talks between Iran and the U.S. since 1979,

and they're underway right now. Those discussions happening in Pakistan with major implications for what will happen in the Strait of Hormuz and with the war itself. This is Your World Tonight. I'm Tanya Fletcher, also on the podcast. We are meeting in the middle of a transformation that will define our country for generations. riding high on a wave of political defections, Prime Minister Mark Carney wraps up his party's

National Convention in Montreal. The Liberals razor close to a majority government that could be claimed as early as Monday. And... In the future, if they say, OK, we know which six or ten people are going to go to Mars, let's take their blood, send it to Mars on a rover, and then bring it back and see what changed.

The astronauts have landed, Today they've spoken. Now the scientific work begins to see how this moon mission affected their bodies and what health lessons can be learned for the next shot into space. Face-to-face talks between the United States and Iran are being held in Pakistan. The high-stakes discussions take place against a backdrop of a shaky two-week ceasefire between the U.S., Iran and Israel. As those talks are underway, the U.S. military says it is setting conditions. for reopening the Strait of Hormuz. The waterway has been effectively closed since the war began, blocking a vital trade route.

To talk about all of this, we're joined by Sasha Petrissik in Jerusalem for us tonight. So Sasha, Iranian and American delegations are talking to each other in Pakistan. Just how significant is this? Well, Tanya, it's historic. I mean, it's the first time in decades that senior U.S. and Iranian officials have met face-to-face. Until now and even in the past weeks, negotiations have always met passing notes and messages through other countries currently. It's Pakistan. Now we're hearing that U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance, Envoy Steve Whitkoff and Jared Kushner, that they're sitting right across the table from the Iranian Foreign Minister of Basarachi and the influential parliamentary speaker, Mohamed Bagur Galibov. So there's lots of people who are really watching to see what that can.

produce under the current circumstances, whether it can end this war. That includes Sajan Gohel. He's the International Security Director at the Asia Pacific Foundation. Pakistan has been signaling that both sides think a deal can be achievable. They also say that this only happens when negotiations are advanced, not exploratory. But there's still a long way to go. I'd say that to have any progress is potentially premature. He says that partly because Iran and the U.S. are simply very far apart, and they just don't trust each other. So what are the main sticking points here? Well, the major issue, the one that U.S. President Donald Trump keeps emphasizing and Israel says poses the biggest threat is Iran's

nuclear program. Washington's demanding that Iran abandoned that all together and get rid of some 440 kilograms of highly enriched uranium because they say that could be turned into a nuclear weapon. Iran says it's all for civilian purposes and so far it has refused to end this program. Another, of course, another problem is the Strait of Hormuz, which has also been central to U.S. concerns because it's so critical to the flow of oil and gas and to the world economy. It used to be an international waterway, but Iran has turned it into a choke point, and it wants to maintain control. And aside from all those issues, which they're actually negotiating, one other is threatening to derail these talks, and that's Lebanon. Israel has continued the fight against Iranian ally, Hezbollah there.

And despite the ceasefire in Iran, the Lebanon conflict has actually ramped up. Iran has threatened to cut off these talks. as a result, but so far it hasn't. So going back to the Strait of Hormuz, what more can you tell us about the U.S. military operation there? Well, the U.S. says it sent two guided missile destroyers through the Strait of Hormuz into the Persian Gulf to, as they put it, set conditions for mine clearing.

It's a step toward encouraging the free flow of commerce, according to the U.S. military. Now, that follows Trump's insistence that the strait has to be opened, and it was supposed to be a condition of these ceasefire talks. It wasn't until this morning that three supertankers made it through, and as the first group to go through the strait since this ceasefire actually started. Tanya. Thank you for this update, Sasha.

My pleasure. That's the CBC's Sasha Petrissik in Jerusalem. Two Russian governors are accusing Ukraine of violating a temporary ceasefire during Orthodox Easter. The governors of the Kursk in Belgrade regions say Ukrainian drones hit targets there injuring five people. It's not clear exactly when the attacks happened and Ukraine has not commented on the accusations, though Ukraine's military says it has noted hundreds of Russian violations of the Easter ceasefire. The temporary truce is expected to expire end of day Sunday.

Hungary's leader could be on the cusp of losing. his 16-year grip on power. Hungarians vote tomorrow in what many political analysts call the most important election in Europe this year. Prime Minister Victor Orban is being challenged by a former member of his inner circle turned outspoken critic. Our Breyer Stewart is in Hungary with the latest.

A few hundred people crowd around a central square in the Hungarian town of Uferhto in the eastern part of the country. This community is about 70, kilometers from the border with Ukraine. It's part of a district that typically supports Victor Orban's right-wing party, Fidesz. And it's where on the final day of the campaign that opposition leader Peter Majar made his final pitch to voters to elect members of his TISA party. Hungarian history is being written on the streets here, he said, not in Moscow, not in Brussels, not in Washington.

Orban's government has a friendly relationship with the White House and the Kremlin, but a fractious one with the EU. Billions of euros for Hungary have been frozen by the European Commission due to concerns of democratic backsliding, corruption, and the rights and freedoms for minority groups. Madar is pledging to restore closer ties with the EU and has repeatedly compared Orban's government to ruling like the mafia. with this system already. I can see some beneficial things they did, but most of the things

is really boiling my blood. Anna, who would only give CBC News, her first name, attended the opposition rally with her mother and grandmother. Are you nervous about tomorrow? Yes, I'm nervous. I try to stay realistic. Even if Orban's regime will stay, I think the system is cracking. For more than a decade, Orban has strengthened his party's grip on the state, exerting control over much of the media and judiciary. But Hungary's strongman appears to be in a weaker position. At a rally on Friday night, Orban joked that in previous elections,

he would tell voters to bring a friend to the polling station. This time around, he said they needed to bring everybody. One of his supporters, Chaba Harku, described Orban as the best person in the world. A true Hungarian, he said, someone who fights for his homeland. Throughout the campaign, there have been accusations that Orban's party has engaged in vote buying, and before the election there were concerns that electoral districts were redrawn to favor his party. We can say with confidence that there is very heavy gerrymandering. Andrea Viraj is the strategic director of the Budapest-based Republican Institute,

a non-partisan think tank. A lot of eyes will be on Hungary on Sunday. There are a lot of international observers, a lot of Hungarian observers. Everyone can hope is that the elections will be as fair as possible. And she says despite the contentious campaign, she's optimistic that by Sunday night, there will be a clear winner about just who will govern the country. Ryers-Stewart, CBC News, Ofereto, Hungary.

Still ahead, we'll take you to a church just east of Montreal where there were no ringing bells, no parishioners singing hymns, only the squeaking of sneakers and the rhythmic pop, pop, pop, pop of pickleballs hitting paddles. Why? A group of investors is eyeing the hundreds of vacant churches across Quebec, hoping to turn them into pickleball courts. That's coming up. Come Monday, voters in Canada could tip the political scales on Parliament Hill. The Liberals are on track to secure a slim majority if they win just one of three by-elections. Today the party wrapped up its national convention in Montreal. Prime Minister Mark Carney used the moment to signal unity and readiness. Tom Perry is there.

Merci, oh, my God. Merci to all my God. Prime Minister Mark Carney, who led the Liberals to their remarkable political comeback in last year's election, standing before a cheering crowd delivering a now familiar message. This is not the time for politics as usual, for petty differences, for political points scoring. United, we will build Canada strong. A Canada for all, a Canada strong that no one can ever take away.

Carney's speech leaned heavily into themes of national unity and sovereignty, with some pointed shots at Canada's neighbor, the U.S. The days of our military sending 70 cents of every dollars to the United States are over. Kearney paid tribute to past liberal prime ministers and a Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen, just back from the moon. And on a week in which the liberals took in Marilyn Gladu, a conservative floor-crosser with a socially conservative background, the prime minister underlined his party's commitment to what he calls liberal values. A just society anchored in the charter.

of rights and freedoms. Where women always have the right to choose. Kearney's speech came at the end of a three-day summit where liberal members debated strategy and policy. Delegates passing two non-binding motions in support of restricting AI and social media for people under 16 after some spirited debate. And I do wonder just how many, well,

brains are getting dissolved into go by these freaking chat bots. And I don't see why we cannot regulate this AI chat box instead of restricting it. The meeting as well coming just days before three by-elections in Ontario and Quebec that could grant the liberal something voters denied them in the last election, a majority in the House of Commons, something liberal MPs like Wayne Long say Canadians want. I think the Canadians want to see what Prime Minister Mark Carney, can deliver and I think a majority will help him continue with that mandate.

Merci Bocou et vive. Le Canada. Carney and the Liberals now get back to work with the House of Commons set to resume this week and three by-elections on Monday that could shift its political balance. Tom Perry, CBC News, Montreal. Internationally, New Zealand is bracing for intense weather as Cyclone Vianu makes a beeline for the country's North Island. It's expected to bring heavy rains and strong winds. Officials are warning there could be flooding in the city of Auckland,

with at least 110 millimeters of rain in the forecast to fall by Sunday afternoon. Several coastal areas around Auckland are already seeing power outages for thousands of properties, while others are now under evacuation orders. In China, the energy landscape has passed a historic tipping point. It is now cheaper to build wind and, solar facilities than it is to use coal. The energy giant behind the green shift credits artificial intelligence with making that possible. And it now has its site set on the Canadian wilderness. As our Chris Brown tells us, plugging into China's green miracle, comes with significant

geopolitical strings attached. On the four-hour high-speed train trip between Beijing and Shanghai, you barely ever are out of sight of wind turbines or enormous, wind farms. That speaks to the remarkable change in the math that's backstop China's economic growth. In late 2025, it finally became cheaper to build a new wind farm than to keep old coal plants running. The green electrons for renewable actually is low cost. It's outperforming fossil fuel. Le Chang is the visionary behind Shanghai-based InVision, the world's second-largest wind. turbine maker. He doesn't see green energy as just a business, but rather as a civilizational shift. I put an analogy a thousand years ago, the Chinese papermaking technology. By providing such

technology, we are able to make the cost of knowledge is extremely low cost. But to build a superpower on finicky breezes, you need a digital brain to manage the grid. And that's where China's AI comes in, by managing a level of complexity that no human can track. AI has become very important to shaping up the system. Zhang wants to bring what he calls his Gobi Desert model to Canada. That project uses massive AI-managed wind hubs to generate green hydrogen and ammonium. Industries can either plug in directly or the hydrogen can be piped out and used to generate zero-emission power in facilities elsewhere.

That creates tremendous opportunities for Chinese partnerships in these investments, including in energy storage and offshore wind. Envision has been talking to Prime Minister Mark Carney, who says Canada needs to double its energy grid in the coming years. No, we can replicate in Canada. We can bring this model, because if we can do in the Gobi Desert, why not we can do in Canada? But there's a catch. We've got to protect ourselves against the communist Chinese. Critics, including Ontario Premier Doug Ford, worn against installing a Chinese operating system

into the heart of Canada's critical infrastructure. But Zhang insists any such system would be transparent. Of course, we need working with local partners. We're working with local regulators. There are windmills all over the place. And they are losers. As the United States retreats from climate leadership under Donald Trump, China is leaning in with a goal of supplying a planet-wide uptake of new green energy projects.

For Canada, the reward is a century or more of cheap, clean energy. But the risk is becoming dependent on arrival's AI to keep the lights on. Chris Brown, CBC News in Shanghai. In the 1960s, there were about 700 white rhinos in Uganda. By 1983, there were zero wiped out by poachers. Now more than 40 years after the last rhino was killed, the country has begun reintroducing the animals inside a national park. Freelance reporter Isabel Nicaria is in Uganda's capital with that story.

Eight white rhinos from the zero rhinos sanctuary. are now starting a new life in the wild. Their move to Kedepo National Park in the northeast is a major step in restoring the country's rhinoceros population. Uganda began breeding rhinos at the Zewa Sanctuary in 2005, starting with just six animals. Today, that number has now grown to 61. The animals disappeared from the wild here decades ago,

largely due to poaching. It's a great day for conservation. It's a milestone for 200. James Musinguzi is the executive director of the Uganda Wildlife Authority. We are glad and privileged to be taking back rhinos, much as it is a different subspecies from that that used to exist because the northern white rhino is the one which used to exist there, but it was hunted to extinction.

We are now taking the southern white rhino as the beginning, and eventually we are going to take the eastern black rhino. The reintroduction is being done in phases. In January, four rhinos were moved to the Ajai Wildlife Reserved in northwestern Uganda. Wildlife authorities say both Ajai and Kedipo were carefully selected after studies confirmed they are safe and suitable for the animals. At the Zewa Sanctuary, Rangers protected the animals around the clock to prevent poaching. Local communities have also been involved with education and campaigns in the value of wildlife conservation. For residents like Nora Akong, the rhinos could bring new economic opportunities for tourists to see the animals in their natural habitat.

Before the age of my grand-grandparents, it was being forced really. But for now we need to preserve them and make sure we benefit out of it. The country benefit, the community benefit, our children benefit. Plans are underway to move more rhinos to Mackison, 9. National Park where they once lived. James Masingozy says the country expects tourism numbers and revenues to grow. We are going to see more rhinos in the world in Uganda. We are going to see more tourism growth in the country because tourists are going to be able to go to Chidepo Valley Conservation Area

and they'll be able to see the big five while there now that the rhino is back. And this implies that there will be growth in tourism numbers, there will be growth in remittances or contribution by tourism. tourism through the foreign exchange that is brought by a tourist in Uganda. With the right protection and habitat, Uganda hopes to rebuild its rhino population after decades of absence. Isabel Nakhiria for CBC News in Kampala. In Quebec, three investors say they've found a way to get people back to church.

Pickleball. They've taken an old decommissioned church and turned it into a pickleball complex. They say it's a sustainable solution for the hundreds of out-of-euvre. youth churches across the province, though the project does have some doubters. Paula Dianne Perez explains. Bells ring at the Tres Cainqueur de Marie Church in Chambly, east of Montreal. It may be a Sunday, but people aren't here for mass. In fact, this church hasn't offered services in years. Pickable is a new program. I'm not a believer at all, but I always found the church is so important in the community, you know, what it meant to a lot of generation, you know.

Martin Bisson is one of the investors behind Amen Pickleball. He says when they got their hands on the building, they had to fix several elements like the roof, the floors and redo the electrical. But they preserved key characteristics of the church. Nestor Melendez drove about 30 minutes to try it out. It's really an amazing experience. Like coming back to church on a Sunday, why not, you know? The investors now have their sights on a bigger and much older church in Montreal. Saint-Clement in the East End has been close to worship since 2009.

Bison says they want to save it. The church is for the last eight years. They have no electricity in it, nothing, so it's a catastrophe if one more winter happened. The project includes the construction of almost 150 affordable housing units in which currently the church's parking lot to be built by another developer. And the community has a chance to weigh in. Busson says if it passes a test, renovations could start this summer. But Taika Bayergen, with Heritage Montreal, has some concerns.

I'm worried about the financial program. I'm wondering if it's going to be enough for these type of costs. But I really, I really salute the idea of like going outside the box and trying something because something is better than nothing and that's for sure. Bay Arjong says after initial renovations, all churches need, lot of maintenance for decades. The Councils of Batrimand Religious, a non-profit that promotes the conservation of Quebec's religious heritage, says almost 1,000 churches in the province have been closed, sold,

demolished, or have found a new purpose. It's good that we have one project, but we know that we need to have a vision, because the problem isn't one church, it's all the churches. And we won't be able to do pickleball in all the churches. But the people behind Amen Pickleball, are ambitious. They say they plan to buy up to 10 more churches in Quebec over the next five years. Paula Diane Perez, CBC News, Montreal. The Artemis 2 astronauts are now back on Terra Firma. The crew arrived in Houston today where they spoke

publicly for the first time, nearly 24 hours after splashing down in the Pacific. Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen tells reporters what kept him grounded while in space. So I think I'll start with gratitude. Gratitude for my family. Gratitude for NASA for its leadership. Gratitude for Canadian Space Agency. Gratitude for Le Canadiens. Their historic journey around the moon was about more than just going the distance.

The crew was also doing science, studying the effects of space travel on the human body. Eli Glasner has more on that angle. In space, I didn't need my glasses because I was nearsighted, and I just took them off and never put them on again. When I was the whole of the space flight, it was great. That's Canadian astronaut Roberta Bonder talking about one of the many strange things that happen to astronaut bodies in space. Splashdown, sending post-landing command now. Splashdown confirmed. Now that Artemis 2 is over, the work begins.

And for this voyage, much of the science has been looking at. at the effects of space on the human body. Let's start with the biggest danger, radiation. When she was orbiting Earth for eight days on the International Space Station, Roberta Bonder had her fair share of radiation, but it's different. It's in low Earth orbit, and so mainly we're below the Van Allen belts with a protective layer of the magnetosphere of Earth. Once you leave the protection of Earth's magnetic field, like on a trip to the moon,

the danger grows. To measure this, Orion was kidded out. with six new radiation sensors. In addition, NASA added Avatar, a small chip like a USB drive that measures the effects of radiation and microgravity on a version of the astronauts' bone marrow. Self-described space nerd and emergency doctor Raj Bardwage explains.

So these little avatar chips, these organ chips, part of what they're doing is that they're drawing blood from the astronauts on this mission, and they're leaving some of it in these organ chips on Earth, and they're taking some of it on the organ chips to space. If successful, Avatar could help make space travel safer. In the future, if they say, okay, we know which six or ten people are going to go to Mars, let's take their blood, send it to Mars on a rover, and then bring it back and see what changed.

A big part of Artemis' research is grappling with the effect of space on the immune system. Our immune system, we found that on Space Station, for example, you get reactivation of certain viruses that down here on Earth are basically they stay quiescence. That's another word for dormant. Research has found during spaceflight some viruses like shingles can reawaken to track changes the Artemis astronauts provided saliva samples. The fact is, even though we've been traveling to space for decades, we're still learning even when it comes to vision.

During the Artemis mission, Vonder says the astronauts described seeing different shades of color on the moon. To be able to describe colors on the surface. For me, tope color, like I'm looking at all of the brown. To be able to pick out little colors of green and browns, to be able to look at the changes in vision, which is, of course, my subspecialty. And I just found it actually fascinating how they describe these things. As Bonder, who had her own eyesight improve, says the impact of microgravity changes

everything. And yet there's still so much we don't understand. Just another part of the puzzle, Artemis, is hoping to unpack. Eli Glassner, CBC News, Toronto. From seeing in space to singing about space. This song was inspired by Artemis 2 and with a personal connection. The singer is M. Griner from Ontario. She wrote Touch the Sky to commemorate the mission

and also happens to be friends with Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen's wife. Griner met Catherine Hansen a few years ago. She'd mentioned her husband was planning a trip to the moon and thought it would be cool if there was a song for it. Turns out Griner has a bit of a penchant for writing songs about space. Chris floats to the stars. In 2002, she wrote and recorded this song Christopher about Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield's Spacewalk. And later, helped him record this familiar tune as well. The two did that version of David Bowie's Space Audity while Hadfield was serving on the International Space Station.

Reiner's Artemis II song was mixed by a Canadian producer Greg Wells, who was nominated for a Juneau for his work on the Wicked soundtrack. Greiner says everyone involved in writing Touch the Sky was incredibly inspired by the mission. Proceeds of the song, by the way, are going to a local health foundation in Ontario. This has been your world tonight for Saturday, April 11th. I'm Tanya Fletcher. Good night. For more CBC podcasts, go to CBC.ca.