Nevertheless, we embarked on our global voyage with first stop Rangoon in Burma and the ongoing social unrest. It appears that again thousands were on the streets today and the government has enforced a curfew in order to quell the disturbances. Our reporter, Jonathan, told how "army trucks full of soldiers" had arrived, images of these were shown along with more of the actual marches which were taken on a mobile phone, overseas media not being welcome. Again, reference was made to the "moral authority" of the Buddhist monks who are leading events, or are portrayed as doing such, before we saw a clip of Burmese "state television" who blamed the situation on "destructive elements". Monkey Business ?
Gordon Brown and George Bush have both spoken out against the situation and, via the UN, are urging other countries to join them and impose further sanctions on the ruling authorities and their families. We saw George meeting the UN Secretary General, - "Hey General, how you doing" and a strong gripped handshake, before images of Burmese poverty were shown. Pressure seems to be mounting on next door neighbours China to intervene, however it seems that China has invested in, and is dependent on, gas which it purchases; to close the feature we saw images of the last uprising in 1988, where we saw soldiers shooting civilians, thousands were killed.
The Labour party conference followed, Nick Robinson was our host, and the main topic was the speech by David Milliband, the new Foreign Secretary, who told how there was no "military solution" in Iraq or Afghanistan and hat we need to move on with humility. Nick called this Blair's legacy. Mr Milliband however clarified his opinions by stating that the solutions are in fact "economic, social and political" and that military action was in fact needed in order to "create the space" for these. Mention was made by Nick of President Mugabee and Gordon Brown's refusal to meet him personally before he briefly touched on Darfur.
We stayed with Nick, this time live from Bournemouth although the subject changed to that of an early election. It seems that results of a poll, post Gordon Brown speech, have shown Labour to have an eleven point lead and that this shift in opinion is predominantly made up of women. Aretha's Franklin's Son of a Preacher Man sprung to mind. However, 57% of pollsters dont think now is the right time for an election, so Nick told how the question is, "is it more cautious to go to the polls or not" and "only he can answer that". Much ado about nothing really.
Uganda was next up, a state of emergency has been called due to flooding. Images were shown of a "road" which had turned into a river, in fact "crossing the road means battling waves". We saw natives attempting this feat, "braving the waters" and "strong current with the level rising" before seeing a man "swim for his life", after being "consumed by a torrent". He was "lucky to survive" as we saw him clamber out the river, curiously no one went to help, not even the camera crew. There has been "nothing like this since the sixties" we were told to close.
Coming up - battle of the computer games rivals Hollywood.
First though was a feature on carbon offsetting, it seems that President Bush is hosting some sort of conference for the ministers of the worst offending countries in terms of pollution. It appears though that a solution to this ongoing problem is at hand, in the form of "carbon offsetting". David Shurbrook, the BBC science editor revealed more about this, it seems that as long as one purchases a manually operated "foot pad water pump" for a poor Indian farmer, then one can pollute the world because the pollution produced is somehow negated by the water pump. Questions were raised as to the ethics of this - is it fair that an Indian gentleman toils in the heat while you bask in Florida? The answer supplied seemed to be yes.
We continued with a visit to a state run chemical company somewhere, unfortunately I was busy writing and missed the location. However, the plant featured had spent 1.5 million on green measures to improve pollution output and in return had received "a bunch of carbon credits" which it sold on to a British Company for 10 million. Images of the plant,post reformation were shown, it seemed to still be spewing volumes of noxious substances. Talk moved to "carbon cowboys" and a "growing industry" before, to close, we were reminded that this was all worthwhile and making a difference to global warming. Tells you all you need to know really.
The father of the 4 year old boy who was stabbed to death on Sunday will appear in court charged with his murder and the attempted murder of his daughter. An image of the boy was shown.
A third case of blue tongue disease has been reported, we heard of restrictions on animal movement being imposed along with more on Foot and Mouth disease. Images of diseased animals were shown. Another Cook, Jeremy, reported on this story.
The Northern Rock has announced that it will not pay an interim dividend to shareholders.
More Blue, Peter not tongue or tooth, was next, again we heard details of the cat name scam; children were asked to vote for a name, they chose Cookie, someone at BP overruled this and the cat was called Socks. We saw a short clip of the show, presenter Zoe Salmon apologising to viewers for stitching them up like a kipper. (a smoked herring)
As promised, the computer game story. It seems that last night at midnight, Halo 3, a new game, was released to the UK public. Reporter Richard Scott told us of the economics and how computer games are a billion dollar plus business now, not far short of music and DVD sales. Some trick photography allowed Richard appear as if part of the game, and he stood as "humanity took on aliens" obviously with the prerequisite military hardware. Curiously, he stood on a chessboard type floor. Black and White ?
To close, the Emmy awards for television, the BBC itself scooped a couple.
cheers
Too many Browns ?
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