I am so pleased this is finally happening. Haiti has been burdened by its national debt for a long time and this will help speed their recovery from the massive earthquake:

The world's leading industrialised nations have pledged to write off the debts that Haiti owes them, following a devastating earthquake last month.

Canada's finance minister announced at a summit in Iqaluit, northern Canada, that Group of Seven countries planned to cancel Haiti's bilateral debts.

Jim Flaherty said he would encourage international lenders to do the same.

Some $1.2bn (£800m) of Haiti's debts to countries and international lending bodies has already been cancelled.

"We are committed in the G7 to the forgiveness of debt, in fact all bilateral debt has been forgiven by G7 countries vis-a-vis Haiti," Mr Flaherty said at the end of the two day gathering of finance ministers.

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(Pink Floyd 1970 - A period of transition)

A few years before Dark Side Of The Moon became the classic it has, Pink Floyd were in the process of drifting. Syd Barrett, the guiding light and voice of the band had been out of the picture for two years and the remaining members were in search of their own. They were trying various things out, but to not much success. At the time of this live performance at the BBC's Paris Theatre in London, they had released Atom Heart Mother to decidedly tepid reviews. Their previous album Ummagumma was something of a failure and even the band on occasion have disowned it. But throughout all that, Pink Floyd had a large and loyal following and no one, least of all their fans, were ready to write them off. And it's good they didn't, because Dark Side Of The Moon was just around the corner.

This set consists of two tracks from Atom Heart Mother, Fat Old Sun and If as well as One Of These Days.

Pink Floyd at the crossroads.

Baby needs shoes!

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(U.S. Troops in Haiti in 2004 - ten years after we put the guy we're getting rid of in power . . confused?)

After invading Haiti in 1994 to unseat Military dictator Raoul Cedras, and reinstate Jean Bertrand Aristide as President of the country, ten years later we're getting rid of Aristide in favor of someone else.

Now you know why the Haitians are a bit nervous around U.S. Marines? Wouldn't you?

The 2004 coup was murky at best. Generally acknowledged to have been aided and abetted by the U.S. government, the Bush Administration put U.S. troops ashore to "establish order and set up a democratic government" - or words to that effect.

One of the key players in the overthrow was a right wing think tank known as Haiti Democracy Project, their spokesman Lawrence Pezullo was interviewed by the BBC on February 26:

Lawrence Pezullo (Haiti Democracy Project): “I think the Haitian people have had enough experience with something short of democracy, and have had a lot of experience looking at the means to put governments together that might offer participation by the citizens. And I think the leadership level, certainly that you see today is mature enough to at least put the form together whether or not they have the means to educate the people and contain it remains to be seen.”

The 2004 coup and our involvement was only the latest in a long line of "excursions" into the business of our Caribbean neighbors going back to the beginning of the last century. It further establishes a certain skittishness where the subject of American aid is concerned, even in humanitarian terms. The concept of "once bitten, twice shy" seems more than appropriate here.

Above is a capsule rundown of events on March 2, 2004 as reported by the BBC.

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And for our French friends, or readers who are fluent, I am adding a bonus broadcast from Radio France International concerning the situation in Haiti and the ouster of Aristide. A special program from RFI Soir on February 26, 2004 with interviews and actualities of the situation on the ground.

Two points of view. One big mess.

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(Roy Young Band - Roy 2nd from left - Virtual unknown in the States)

Unless you are a devotee of all things First British Invasion, you may never have heard anything of Roy Young. He wasn't a household name here, but in the U.K. and in Germany he was something of a legend and a pioneer in the early days of the British Invasion.

Young was actually involved in the early days of British Rock n' Roll. And like so many bands of the day, migrated for a while to Hamburg where the nightclub scene was a great place to hone skills. Young had a distinctive voice and fit right in with the early blues outfits gaining popularity in the UK at the time. He has a website and offers some fascinating glimpses into the early scene which he was so much a part of. Roy Young is still around and playing, but this particular concert, recorded by the BBC at their Paris Theatre in 1972 gives you an idea of what the fuss with Roy was all about and how influential he was in shaping the direction of a lot of bands during the 1961-1963 period. The rest, of course is history.

If you haven't heard of him before, now's your chance.

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January 15, 2010 BBC World--US officers face investigation over Fort Hood suspect:

Several US army officers should face an investigation into their failure to supervise the Fort Hood massacre suspect, an official report says.

Thirteen people died when psychiatrist Major Nidal Hasan opened fire at the army base in Texas last November.

Unnamed officials earlier said up to eight officers would face action as his behaviour should have caused concern.

Defence secretary Robert Gates said army superiors must be "attuned to personnel who may pose a danger".

"Failure to do so, or kicking the problem to the next unit, may lead to damaging or even devastating consequences," he warned, after reading the Pentagon report on the incident.

Continue reading...

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January 12, 2010 BBC World

New to Facebook, Brandon Neely was searching the site for acquaintances in 2008 when he typed in the names of some of the detainees he had guarded during his tenure as a prison guard at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Neely, an army veteran who spent six months at the prison in 2002, sent messages to one of the freed men, Shafiq Rasul, and was astonished when Rasul replied. Their exchanges sparked a face-to-face meeting, arranged by the BBC.

Neely, who has served as the president of the Houston chapter of Iraq Veterans Against the War, says his time at Guantanamo now haunts him, and has granted confessional-style interviews about the abuses he says he witnessed there. In a message to Rasul, Neely apologized for his role in the imprisonment.

Gavin Lee, a BBC correspondent, learned about the Facebook messages from Rasul, who lives in Britain. Lee tracked down Neely — on Facebook — and asked, “would you consider meeting face to face?”

“He thought about it and he said, ‘I would love to,’ ” Lee recalled last week.

The BBC paid for Neely’s flight to London last month, where a camera crew filmed him meeting Rasul and a second ex- detainee, Ruhal Ahmed. From India Times

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(Blackshirt Women in England - fun loving girls . . .really!)

I normally don't run things that are currently available, but the BBC just ran this on Radio 4 and it's currently available via their BBC iplayer. I would urge you to go over there and check out their site if you haven't already and bookmark it. The BBC are always a wealth of useful information, many times information regarding our own country and politics our msm shove to the back or ignore completely in favor of "info-tainment".

This is a fascinating piece of history, during a disturbing period of time and it illustrates how seemingly normal people are duped into believing they are really doing the right thing with catastrophic and long lasting results.

I'm not making assumptions here - but I wonder if in 30 years time we won't be hearing a similar documentary "Mother Was A Teabagger", with similar results. Just wondering.

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Sean Hannity keeps claiming that 2009 was the "coldest year on record." He did it again, as you can see, on Monday night.

It's not the first time. It is, in fact, the fourth time he has made this claim in recent weeks, or one like it (at first he claimed it was the "ninth coldest year on record" -- the guy can't even lie consistently).

As Media Matters notes, Hannity's not even close -- in fact, 2009 was one of the warmest years on record:

NOAA: 2009 year-to-date global temperatures tied "as fifth warmest January-through-October period." NOAA's National Climatic Data Center stated in its October Global Analysis that "[f]or the year to date, the global combined land and ocean surface temperature of 14.7 °C (58.4 °F) tied with 2007 as the fifth-warmest January-through-October period on record."

Met Office: 2009 will be one of top five warmest years globally. The BBC reported on November 24 that "[t]his year will be one of the top five warmest years globally since records began 150 years ago, according to figures compiled by the Met Office." The BBC further reported that "[o]ther sources say it could even be the third warmest."

How long will Fox let him flagrantly, nakedly lie on his national broadcasts?

Oh, forever, probably.

h/t Driftglass

A portion from the BBC's documentary 'The Power of Nightmares'. You can watch the entire three hours here:

This film explores the origins in the 1940s and 50s of Islamic Fundamentalism in the Middle East, and Neoconservatism in America, parallels between these movements, and their effect on the world today. From the introduction to Part 1:

"Both [the Islamists and Neoconservatives] were idealists who were born out of the failure of the liberal dream to build a better world. And both had a very similar explanation for what caused that failure. These two groups have changed the world, but not in the way that either intended. Together, they created today's nightmare vision of a secret, organized evil that threatens the world. A fantasy that politicians then found restored their power and authority in a disillusioned age. And those with the darkest fears became the most powerful. " The Power of Nightmares, Baby It's Cold Outside.

And more from Wikipedia:

The Power of Nightmares was first aired in three consecutive weeks on BBC 2 in 2004 in the United Kingdom, beginning with Baby it's Cold Outside on 20 October, The Phantom Victory on 27 October and The Shadows in the Cave on 3 November, although the murder of Kenneth Bigley led the BBC to curtail their advertising prior to its airing... It was rebroadcast, in January 2005, over three days, with the third film updated to take note of the Law Lords ruling from the previous December that detaining foreign terrorist suspects without trial was illegal.

In May 2005, the film was screened in a 2½ hour edit at the Cannes Film Festival out of competition. Pathé purchased distribution rights for this cut of the film.

As of 1 January 2008, the film has yet to be aired in the United States. Curtis has commented on this failure:

Something extraordinary has happened to American TV since September 11. A head of the leading networks who had better remain nameless said to me that there was no way they could show it. He said, 'Who are you to say this?' and then he added, 'We would get slaughtered if we put this out.' When I was in New York I took a DVD to the head of documentaries at HBO. I still haven't heard from him.

Although the series has not been shown on U.S. television, its three episodes were shown in succession, on 26 February 2005, as part of the True/False Film Festival in Columbia, Missouri, with a personal appearance by Curtis... It has also been featured at the 2006 Seattle International Film Festival and the San Francisco International Film Festival, with the latter awarding Curtis their Persistence of Vision Award... The film was also screened at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York, and had a brief theatrical run in New York City during 2005...

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(Jack Bruce and trusty sidekick)

The legendary Jack Bruce tonight. A concert from the Paris Theatre in London on April 14, 1977. Playing mostly tracks from his then-new album "How's Tricks?"

Aside from his obvious involvement in supergroups Cream and West, Bruce and Laing (among many others), Jack Bruce has had a stellar solo career fronting his own bands since Cream split up over 30 years ago. This concert features one of those solo efforts and one of the reasons why he's been on top of his game for so many years.

Where would we be without the BBC Transcription Service? One wonders.

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December 29, 2009 BBC World

URUMQI, China - China brushed aside international appeals Tuesday and executed a British drug smuggler who relatives say was mentally unstable and unwittingly lured into crime.

Britain's prime minister quickly criticized the execution — China's first of a European citizen in nearly 60 years.

"I condemn the execution of Akmal Shaikh in the strongest terms, and am appalled and disappointed that our persistent requests for clemency have not been granted. I am particularly concerned that no mental health assessment was undertaken," Prime Minister Gordon Brown said in a statement issued by the Foreign Office. Read more at MSNBC

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(With each new minute the news got worse)

Five years ago this weekend, the worst earthquake and Tsunami in recorded history devastated a wide area around the Indian Ocean. The initial quake was felt as far away as South Africa - with a magnitude of between 9.1 and 9.3 the initial reports were sketchy. At first the death toll was thought to be in the hundreds and then the thousands. In the end it will probably never be known how many died - the latest estimate, some five years later puts it at over 300,000 people with untold billions of dollars in damage.

Even as reports were coming in and the news was becoming more grim by the minute, there were those who thought it wasn't all that bad. That tourism would come back to the region and everything would be back to normal in "three days".

Here is a group of news broadcasts between December 26 and 27th from the BBC World Service and Thai Radio, giving some hint at what was unfolding before a horrified world during the first 25 hours.

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A little something to help the festivities go down.

Don't thank me - thank the BBC.

Westlake, Nigel (b. 1958): Winter in the Forgotten Valley
Guitar Trek

Samuel-Rousseau, Marcel (1882-1955): Variations pastorales sur un vieux Noel

Erica Goodman (harp)
Members of the Amadeus Ensemble:
Moshe Hammer and Barry Schiffman (violins)
Douglas Perry (viola)
Jack Mendelsson (cello)

Boccherini, Luigi (1743-1805): Quintet in D for guitar and strings, G448 (arr. for guitar quartet and string orchestra)

Zagreb Guitar Quartet
Varazdin Chamber Orchestra

From Christmas Night 2008.

If you aren't familiar with any of the above music, or composers, check out the BBC Radio 3 site - there is wall to wall great music and streaming the audio may save your life . . .or at least your sanity.

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(King Crimson - Went from "The Cheerful Insanity Of Giles, Giles and Fripp" to this - and never looked back)

A special installment of the Roundtable tonight. A live performance during what is considered the heyday of one of the milestone Progressive rock bands, King Crimson. This 1970 concert, recorded by the BBC has as close to the original lineup as possible.

I've often wondered what would have happened, had King Crimson never existed in the first place. So many bands from 1969 on owe so much to the pioneering work of Robert Fripp and company. I'm sure someone would have come along, and maybe the direction would have been totally different. Or maybe it would have stayed frozen in time.

No. The nice part about music is that it constantly changes - it never quite stays the same. That's what's great about it.

And that's what was so great about King Crimson - they were constantly evolving.

as are we . .

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(The Charlatans - going on 20 years and still one of the best)

I have been a huge fan of The Charlatans ever since I first saw them live at The Hollywood Palladium in 1993. It's been one of my favorite memories of a live gig (and this goes back to 1966, so they're in some good company) ever since. They've gone through numerous changes in personnel, label and direction since then. But they've always been an exciting band to listen to especially live, and the best part is they're still going strong and sounding great as ever. New album slated to come out in 2010.

I ran across this recording of their 2001 Birmingham Academy gig by way of the ever-astounding BBC6 Music. Naturally, I had to post it and, if you aren't familiar with The Charlatans, give you a one-hour taste of what you're missing.

Believe me, it's not too late to add them to your favorites list.

. . .or us, for that matter . . .