For this week, ending on May 11th in 1975, news was about the last Americans and press evacuated from Cambodia. The stories now coming out about the atrocities and the takeover by the Khmer Rouge. In South Vietnam, the Tsunami of refugees was still on, with stories of over-flowing boats and chaos and confusion.

So confusing, that the story came out of the last two Marines, killed in Vietnam were still somewhere in a Saigon hospital morgue, waiting to be picked up. Reports also came in that Laos was facing a Communist takeover, based on the elections recently held.

And that was the picture from Southeast Asia.

Meanwhile, it was reported Senator George McGovern was visiting Cuba and talk of the OAS preparing to drop sanctions against the Castro government, sometime during the Summer.

Egypt was moving to finally clear the Suez Canal of wrecked ships leftover from the 1967 War.

And on this week it was 30 years since VE day, and many comparisons were being drawn between the end of that conflict and the one just recently ended in Vietnam.

All in a week, ending May 11, 1975 as reported on The World This Week from CBS Radio.

Careening towards the end of 1998 the world was, as it seemingly always is, unsettled.

The news for this December 29th in 1998 was about, among other things, an unfolding hostage drama in Yemen, with breaking news while on the air. 16 UK and American tourists were kidnapped by an extremist group, with some held as human shields while police were engaging in a gun battle with the terrorists and reports of deaths coming in.

In Cambodia, two senior members of the Pol Pot regime defected from the Khmer Rouge, hoping for reconciliation and offering feeble apologies for the extermination of some 1 million Cambodian citizens. While Malaysia was going through its own version of gut-wrenching with the on-going sex scandal involving former Deputy Minister Anwar Ibrahim. Northern Ireland was once again front-and-center with anticipated clashes between Catholics and Protestants during the upcoming holiday. South Africa issued a world-wide appeal for blood in the wake of a rash of highway deaths, to the tune of some 600 since the beginning in December and a lack of much needed blood for the country's ER's.

The Russian Central Bank was wondering what became of an estimated $1billion in missing cash and Child Prostitution was on the rise in the UK.

The message for this day would appear to be; don't leave your house and don't consider Yemen as that "must-see tourist destination".

And so it went, this day in history, as viewed by the BBC World Service and their all-encompassing Newshour program for December 29, 1998.

Pretty much a week of turmoil, that week of May 11th in 1975. May 11th came on a Sunday that year and news from this broadcast of The World This Week was filled with stories of evacuation, mayhem, confusion and anger.

The evacuation of Cambodia was nearing completion with Khmer Rouge forces closing in on Phenom Penh, the Capitol of Cambodia. Journalists escaping told stories of forced evacuations of Phenom Penh, leaving the city virtually empty, but the roads leading from the city clogged with sick and dying. Other refugees, this time feeling South Vietnam, were heading to the U.S. - and stories of mass panic and desperate attempts to escape were filling the news on an hourly basis. Egypt was busily clearing the Suez Canal of sunken ships, remnants from the 1967 War with Israel, with the hopes of re-opening the Canal as soon as the wreckage was cleared. And this week in 1975 marked the 30th anniversary of the end of the War in Europe - VE-Day.

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