Breakfast with Auntie

The BBC breakfast is always one of the best-attended fringe events at LibDem conferences. Sponsored by the BBC World Service (radio), BBC World News (TV) and BBC Monitoring, it’s a good opportunity for the external services of the corporation to unveil new developments to a sympathetic audience. As Nigel Chapman, Director of the World Service, admitted, there have been highs and lows over recent years. Closing down remaining European language services (including latterly the Romanian service) was a tough decision. But on the up-side, BBC Arabic television was successfully launched esrlier this year — or more accurately, relaunched, as it had a short life once before. Soon it will provide 24-hour broadcasting, competing strongly with al-Jazeera and other Arabic-language channels. The best news, though, is that a new BBC Persian TV service will begin this autumn, opening up an exciting new channel for dialogue with people in Iran and other Farsi-speaking regions.

This evening, in collaboration with the British Council, the World Service will host another fringe event: a debate on the transatlantic relationship in the post-Bush era, chaired by my old Bush House colleague Nick Childs and featuring the LibDem Shadow Foreign Secretary, Ed Davey, the Chair of Democrats Abroad, Bill Barnard, and others.

Link: www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice