Front Burner

The U.S.-Israeli war with Iran, Operation Epic Fury, is nearly one-month old and the shadow of another war looms over this one: Operation Iraqi Freedom, George W. Bush’s 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Today on Front Burner, a documentary about the Iraq war and its parallels and differences with what is happening now. Featuring interviews with three veteran reporters: Jane Arraf, Jonathan Landay, and Jeremy Bowen.

For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

Newly declassified documents reveal the extraordinary depth and reach the Canadian government took to spy on Indigenous leaders in the ‘60s and ‘70s. 

This new reporting is the result of a years-long effort by CBC Indigenous and CBC Investigates.

Today we hear how the RCMP infiltrated and sought to disrupt legitimate political Indigenous organizations, in an extensive program of covert surveillance, informants and countersubversion.

Brett Forester with CBC Indigenous is our guest.

For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

“I do believe I will be having the honor of taking Cuba.”

Those are the words of U.S. President Donald Trump spoken to a group of reporters assembled at the White House.

For more than a century Cuba has remained a fixation of American foreign policy. The U.S. has tried everything from buying the island to taking it by force.

Today the country faces the worst economic crisis in its modern history, and U.S. officials say Cuba could face a similar fate to Venezuela, where the Trump administration launched a military operation and removed its president from power. 

We sort through the history with our guest Peter Kornbluh, senior analyst at the National Security Archive and author of ‘Back Channel to Cuba: The Hidden History of Negotiations between Washington and Havana.’

For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

This spring, just outside Regina, construction is set to begin on Canada's largest data centre. Many of these massive server farms, that train and power AI, are being built or proposed across the country.

They’re all part of a global infrastructure supercycle. In the U.S. alone, data centres have nearly quadrupled since 2010. Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and Meta plan to spend more than $600 billion on their expansion in 2026.

But as they grow – so does resistance to them, as communities begin to ask what they’re giving up to power the world’s chatbots.

Ellen Thomas is an investigative reporter with Business Insider. She’s been covering the AI data centre boom in the U.S. for years.

Ellen spoke to host Jayme Poisson about the true cost of building data centres, and what it takes to keep them open.

For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

As the world watches for updates in the war on Iran, cutting through the fog of war and getting a real sense of the extent of damage and military activity in the region isn’t easy. For some, the answer is open source intelligence: pouring over satellite images, flight radars, news updates, social media posts, and just about any kind of data someone can get their hands on.

And while OSINT investigations have worked their way into common practice for newsrooms all over the world, it’s also increasingly popular among amateurs or “OSINT cowboys” with sophisticated AI-coded dashboards streaming constant real life info so that they can monitor the situation as closely as possible and even place bets on platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket. But how accurate are these OSINT reports? And what happens when watching for war updates becomes gamified?

Tyler McBrien, the managing editor at Lawfare, joins us to talk about the piece he wrote on this topic for The Baffler.

For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

As Ottawa prepares to tighten bail laws across the country, we take a documentary look at how the issue has become a focal point of Canadian anxiety around crime and ask what might change with Bill C-14, legislation the Prime Minister has called “arguably the most aggressive tightening of the criminal code seen in decades.”

For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

On Tuesday U.S. president Donald Trump took back his appeal for help to unblock the Strait of Hormuz, and called out his NATO allies for largely ignoring his request.

Iran’s blockade of the chokepoint between the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman has effectively cut off commercial shipping. This has halted the flow of nearly 20 per cent of the world’s oil supply, caused fuel prices to surge, and sent shockwaves through the global economy.

As the Israel and U.S. war on Iran continues, today we’re asking whether the U.S. can open the Strait on its own, why allies are so reluctant to help, and if diplomacy — not military might — will be the key to unlocking the shipping route.

Guest host Jason Markusoff speaks with Aaron Ettinger, professor of political science at Carleton University.

For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

“If we lose the midterms, we’re going to jail.” That’s Steve Bannon’s warning to Republicans: a call to act urgently, to “seize the institutions,” and prevent what he calls another stolen election. 

It’s a sentiment shared by Donald Trump, who has said the midterms must be won in order to avoid impeachment. He’s also suggested that if elections are run “properly,” his supporters will not have to worry about voting again. 

In recent months, the FBI has raided an election facility in Georgia, The White House has proposed decertifying voting machines and limiting mail ballots, officials have proposed nationalizing parts of election administration, and some in Trump’s orbit have called for a military presence at every polling station across the country. The list goes on.

Our guest is David A. Graham. He's a staff writer at The Atlantic who has done a lot of reporting on Trump and election interference.

For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

One of the most brutal fronts in the escalating war in the Middle East right now is in Lebanon. Israel’s ground troops have crossed the border into the south of the country, and the bombing campaign continues in cities like Beirut. Israel says its mission is to root out and defang Hezbollah and to carve out a security buffer zone in the south. 

According to Lebanon’s Health Ministry, at least 850 people have been killed, including over a hundred children. Around 800 thousand people are now internal refugees, fueling a crisis the current government is struggling to handle. 

Beirut-based journalist Rania Abouzeid has covered political upheaval, human rights and conflicts in the Middle East for more than two decades. She spoke to host Jayme Poisson about how the conflict in Lebanon got to where it is, and where it could be headed.

For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth is one of the figures central to the ongoing war in Iran. Critics say that the former Fox News host is both dangerous and completely out of his depth. He has made headlines recently for promising “death and destruction," picking fights with the media, and using Christian rhetoric to justify war.

The Guardian's Washington bureau chief David Smith joins us to talk about the man who heads the world’s most powerful military. What is Hegseth’s worldview? How does his past shape what we are seeing from him now? And just how much influence does he wield?

For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts