I don't think a week has gone by in history without some crisis developing, or some settlement reached with regards to the Middle East.

On March 12th in 1979 talks were going on in Israel between Menachem Begin and Jimmy Carter, with an emergency session being held on this day. Speculation among Middle East watchers was President Carter to spend an extra day trying to hammer something out.

And to go along with the negotiations were reports of continued violence in the West Bank, anti-Carter riots around Jerusalem and a general feeling of tension while some sort of peace process was being arrived at.

And if that weren't enough, talk on Capitol Hill centered around what was being described as a disastrous Energy policy and a looming crisis by way of Arab Oil. Only time would tell on that one.

Meanwhile, news from overseas, aside from the Peace talks, centered around continued Rhodesian attacks on rebel bases in Zimbabwe and the Women of Tehran turning out en masse to protest the latest edicts from the Ayatollah regime regarding a severe curtailing of civil rights for women and a reintroduction of the Chador as required apparel for all Iranian Women.

And when the talk wasn't focused on the potential energy crisis or the Middle East, Capitol Hill was focusing on calls for a Constitutional Amendment to the Balanced Budget, with John Stennis leading the charge. And if Jimmy Carter didn't have enough trouble, Republican Presidential hopefuls Howard Baker and Bob Dole were busy making political hay from calls for an investigation of the Carter Family Peanut business based on an FBI investigation that alleged Prodigal Brother Billy was busy cooking books at the warehouse.

And so spiraled this March 12th in 1979 as reported on CBS Radio via their 8:00 am-9:00 am (PST) network news and The World Tonight.

If you happened to have fallen out of bed today and found yourself in the middle of Manhattan and the year just happened to be 1964, this is what you'd be hearing about if you turned on WNBC AM and FM and caught The 6:30 New York News Special.

C.O.R.E. (Congress Of Racial Equality) had scheduled a mass Stall-In for opening Day of The New York World's Fair. Civil Rights demonstrations were going on seemingly everywhere, especially at schools. Mayor Wagner was issuing stern warnings to demonstrators who showed up to ruin the event, pointing out there were three detention centers set up to house over 3,000 arrests. Various Civil Rights leaders in the New York area, although not necessarily condoning the demonstrations weren't condemning them either. Meanwhile, last minute preparations were underway at the site of the World's Fair with some of the exhibits not quite on schedule to open in the morning. There was a subway fire between Times Square and Grand Central Station that reeked havoc with commuters with fears that 42nd Street was in danger of sinking due to fire damage to supports. Oh, and it was going down to 40 with rain predicted and a high on Opening Day in the low 50's.

Okay, you can come back to 2011 now.

And don't forget to drop off the odd penny, nickel or dollar on your way out.

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.

(Vietnam War Protest May 9,1970 - The reflecting pool was going into overflow)

With the recent deaths at Kent State still sending shock waves all over the country, over 100,000 protesters converged on Washington D.C. and held the largest Anti-War protest rally yet. For the most part it was a peaceful rally. It was during this rally that President Nixon snuck out of the White House at five in the morning for a much publicized mingle with the crowd. Our recent turn of events in Cambodia made protesting the war an almost daily occurrence, with demonstrations going on all over the county.

How long these rally's would stay peaceful was only a matter of time, and less than four days later the outbreak of violence at Jackson State would add another dimension in the protest movement.

Here is an NBC Special report on the Washington D.D. Protest as it was held on that day, May 1970.

(November 12, 1979 - Getting a bit testy all around)

As the hostage drama continued to unfold (still at over 60 sitting in the Embassy in Tehran), Jimmy Carter started imposing sanctions on the Iranians, to not much success.

Jimmy Carter: “I am ordering that we discontinue purchasing of any oil from Iran for delivery to this country."

Making matters worse, demonstrations were popping up at college campuses all over, especially in Los Angeles, where Iranian students demonstrated in support of the hostage takers and the anti-Iranian crowd started making their presence felt.

All in all, it was clearly not going to be solved any time soon, and situations only made a bad situation worse.

And there was that added bonus of Ronald Reagan declaring his candidacy for President - to be official the next day.

Interesting coincidence, that.

Here is an excerpt of the day, as heard over KNX in Los Angeles