In an episode never before seen at the United Nations, violence erupted on the floor of the General Assembly while U.S. Ambassador Adlai Stevenson delivered a Foreign Policy Address. The violence, stemmed from protests to the actions of the Belgian government over the situation in the former colony of the Congo, and the death of a much loved leader Patrice Lumumba, sparked a demonstration that turned nasty and forced Stevenson to step down from the podium while the protesters were removed.

Stevenson is 15 minutes into his address when the violence breaks out, and the tapes kept rolling.

Here is a special report, aired some 45 minutes after the incident occurred on February 22, 1961.

Who said the UN was boring?

News on this January 12th in 1980 was just as skewed and drama-plagued as any other January day in 1980.

Starting off with word that UN voting on sanctions against Iran had been postponed from the previous night because of hints from Tehran there might be softening on demands for release of the American hostages.

The Hostage drama entered week #11.

In Iran, word of crackdowns on opposition came from Tabriz, where supporters of opposition leader Ayatollah Shariatmadari were rounded up and summarily executed by militia loyal to Ayatollah Khomeni. The end result were riots throughout Tabriz with businesses and banks looted and torched in protest.

Meanwhile, the Soviet excursion into Afghanistan was weighing on people's minds, with the US grain embargo being given support by everyone except Argentina.

Further fallout from Afghanistan came in guise of Canada, who offered the facilities of the former Montreal Olympics site as alternative to Moscow - although the offer wasn't exactly squared with the Montreal Expos who were using the stadium for baseball during the Summer.

In Africa, Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) was readying for it's first legitimate Majority Rule general elections and relations between Salisbury and Mozambique took a rosy turn as the border re-opened and trade resumed between the two countries, who were only weeks before exchanging raids and artillery fire.

On the Domestic front - The Illinois State Legislature approved financial bailout for the bankrupt Chicago School System, the 3rd largest in the U.S.

And election season was heating up with the Iowa Caucuses poised to go on January 20th and word that Ted Kennedy was behind Jimmy Carter a whopping 25 points - but there was still 8 days to go.

And anything could (and would) happen by then.

And that's what that January 12th looked like in 1980, via Neil Strawser and The CBS World News Roundup.

Kind of a mess on this particular May 31st in 1978. The world was distracted with finances and violence. On the domestic front it was disclosed that Consumer Prices had hit an all-time high for everything from beef to lettuce. Inflation was skyrocketing and homeowners were taking the worst of the drubbing. Internationally, the NATO summit concluded with stinging denunciations of Communist involvement in Africa, the Soviets and Cubans being singled out. In return, Soviet Premier Brezhnev condemned the action by taking to the airwaves and offering a long and lengthy dirty laundry list of Imperialist contretemps as rebuttal. Meanwhile, the Civil War in the former Belgian Congo, now renamed Zaire (and since re-renamed Congo) got the ire of the French and Belgians who sent in troops to quash the uprising, but not without wholesale massacres of Europeans still living there. On this day Morocco sent in its first contingent of troops to act as peacekeepers while French and Belgian forces withdrew. The UN decided to extend its peacekeeping mission in the Golan Heights, since it was deemed a success. Egyptian President Sadat pledged to keep Middle East peace negotiations alive, despite qualms and rejections from the Israelis.

On Capitol Hill a proposal was put forth by Congress to offer Tuition Tax Credits to students and Senator William Proxmire concluded the all-volunteer Army wasn't going to be a success if it didn't encourage recruitment and training of more females.

For scandals, it was Italy's turn and specifically the Italian Opera Houses, as a financial scandal triggered the arrests of over 29 people, mostly prominent figures from such institutions as the La Scala, Turin and Naples Operas. And the age-old Sicilian tradition of knee-capping finally went international with the first such case reported from the streets of Berlin.

What a day, as reported on The CBS World News Roundup for May 31, 1978.

With the latest wave of pro-democracy protests, one of the latest (but by no means newest) democracy movements has been taking place in the West African nation of Ivory Coast (Cote D'Ivoire). For those of you following the goings on in Africa for the past few years, you will know Ivory Coast has been a hotbed of unrest for a very long time with Ivorian strongman Laurent Gbagbo (pronounced Bag-Bo) at the center of rebellions, takeovers and now rigged elections. Late in 2010 there was a movement to unseat Gbagbo from his vice-like grip and elections were finally (albeit begrudgingly) held, after which opposition candidate Alassane Ouattara contested the elections outcome which showed Gbagbo the winner, but under highly suspicious circumstances. Truth of the matter was, Ouattara won the election but Gbagbo chose not to notice.

And so the struggle to oust Gbagbo from power has been ongoing. But fueled largely by the wave of protests throughout the rest of the region, it has given impetus for a renewed call for the ouster of Gbagbo and the instating of Ouattara to his rightful place of leadership.

Sounds easy. But no. It has gotten very ugly the past 48 hours with protests increasing as well as violence and severe crackdowns on the part of Gbagbo's military. As of yesterday (March 4th) reports of troops opening fire on unarmed women protesters in the Abidjan district of Abodo, killing six and wounding scores have only increased the fears that a civil war in, if not already underway, just about to happen.

At last report, there were indications Nigeria may enter the conflict by forcing the ouster of Gbagbo, but a hastily called meeting of other African leaders signify there are at least attempts at a peaceful solution.

Still, this story like all the others at the moment, is far from over.

So today I'm including two reports - the top player is a report via the BBC Africa Service Africa Today Program from Friday at 2:30 pm GMT and the bottom player, for those of you who speak or understand French, is the latest report (as of 12 noon today March 5th) from the West African Service of RFI.

Hopefully, this story will have a successful ending - but it's been going on for so long it's anyone's guess.

Just to let you know there really IS news of importance going on in the world.