Click on the link here for Audio Player – BBC World Service – Newshour – March 5, 2003 – BBC World Service
Looking at the days’ news from a different perspective. This time it’s news for this day in 2003 as reported by the BBC World Service program Newshour.
During this period of time, the lead-up to our invasion of Iraq (dubbed, strangely; Operation Iraqi Freedom), getting any sort of factual or at least rational news regarding the events which would propel the U.S. into a nearly 10 year protracted odyssey seemed in very short supply.
So it was necessary to look for other sources of news, from other places, to get at least a partial sense of what was going on.
During those days leading up the invasion, relying on the proverbial ABC, BBC, CBC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation, British Broadcasting Corporation, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation), and the various English-language (or native, if you could muddle through the languages) broadcasting services of French, Swedish, Spanish and German Radio, became crucial if you were to make any shred of sense as to what was going on.
So on this particular day in 2003, the news came from the BBC – and in typical BBC fashion, the news ran the gamut from all over the world – not just Washington and Baghdad.
Naturally, the lead-off story had to do with impending war and how Turkey had a change of heart via the Turkish Military who were in support of the U.S. staging a northern front via their bases. A disclosure that the United Nations had already drafted a plan for post-War Iraq; the inference being, the UN naturally assumed the U.S. was going to go to war no matter what, and they were going along with it.
During the hour long newscast, reports came in of a suicide bus-bombing in Haifa, in Israel, claiming an estimated at more than 10 lives (as of that broadcast), the first such attack since January of that year. News of racism in Football (Soccer, as we call it) and how it was being combatted.
And on this day in 1954, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin had died.
An hours worth of solid news worth having a listen. Combined with all the other news outlets at the time, it was enough to make you want to go back to bed and stay there.
It often still is – especially now.
