Celebrate 70 years of international broadcasting with the BBC

• Special Live Forum with British Prime Minister Tony Blair
• The BBC World Service 70th Birthday Lecture with Kofi Annan
• The BBC World Service Global Party
• 19 December: Anniversary Day
• A Day in the Life of the World
• Talking Point with Mark Byford, Director BBC World Service
• The World’s Top Ten - Wright Round the World
• This is London
• Pick of the World
• Listeners Tales
• Play of the Week Special
• From Our Own Correspondent
• Newshour
• Network Africa and Focus on Africa
• Meridian Writing
• Science in Action
• BBC World Service Sport

A direct link between international terrorists and "unstable" countries like Iraq will develop unless dictators such as Saddam Hussein are tackled, UK Prime Minister Tony Blair has warned.

Mr Blair was answering questions from BBC News Online users and BBC World Service listeners in a special interactive edition of the phone-in programme Talking Point.

The programme is part of the celebrations to mark the 70th anniversary of the BBC World Service.

The BBC World Service birthday lecture will be delivered by the UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and broadcast on Wednesday December 11

The programme will be hosted by Robin Lustig and involves Kofi Annan’s lecture and questions and answers with an invited audience. Robin will also ask questions sent in by e-mail to the BBC Talking Point web site.

Probably one of the most ambitious and challenging broadcast events ever undertaken by WS - a live global concert linking seven bands across five continents for three hours.

Hosted by John Peel and Emma B in a giant marquee at Bush House London, it will bring in live acts from Dakar, Mumbai, Kabul and Mexico City.

London: Youssou N’dour and Miss Dynamite.

Dakar: Baaba Maal.

Mumbai: Trilok Gurtu, and Ranjit Barot.

Kabul: Local musicians in Uzbek, Pashto and Dari.

Mexico: Los de Abajos.

In 1933 after a year of broadcasting, one of the first ever rebroadcasts from the Dominions back to the Empire Service in London was from the top of Table Mountain. Produced by the Africa Broadcasting Company - the forerunner to SABC - it was a gentle description of the view that was transmitted by Post Office wireless beam, recorded in London and distributed to Canada, Australia etc. As an early symbol of the WS strategy of being creatively and technically challenging as well as collaborating with re-broadcasters it is hard to beat.

In this spirit we will be marking the 19th December - the day of the anniversary itself by re-locating much of that days programming to the top of Table Mountain.

Presenters Heather Payton from Outlook and Ben Malor from the African Service will broadcast for fourteen hours from the top of the mountain from the time the sun rises over the Indian Ocean until the sun sets over the Atlantic. They will be "taking the pulse of the world" interviewing major celebrities, making connections around the world, reading emails from listeners. Archbishop Desmond Tutu will be talking live from his garden in Cape Town.

Twice an hour between 0400 and 1800gmt you will be able to listen to "A Day in the Life of the World", an insight into the work of people who are in some way connected with the BBC around the world - "extraordinary people in extraordinary places."

Mark Byford will take part in a live edition of Talking Point to answer your questions about BBC World Service.

The search for the World’s Favourite Song is now underway. Launched by Steve Wright in Wright Round the World on November 9th, we are asking you to help us create the ultimate World’s Top Ten. The final chart will run in Wright Around the World.

A highlight of key turning points in the life of BBC World Service, for example, the people who started the WS and the impact of the Second World War, the history of the Arabic Service, the Cold War, reporting the news and new directions.

Pick of the World will be running a specially extended edition looking at some of the major programming moments of seventy years of World Service history.

Nuggets from celebrities and listeners who have something to say about how the WS has affected them. Featuring Terry Waite and a Sri Lankan listener who almost electrocuted himself mending his aerial so he didn’t miss Sports International!

WS Drama have been commissioned to do a 60 minute showcase recorded in front of an invited audience - likely to be London’s Café Royal. The programme will be a celebration of some of the seminal moments of World Drama over 70 years and will include drama, poetry and music.

Five reports in which correspondents whose names are equated with major international events write a new despatch in which, with the benefit of hindsight, they re-assess the period in question. Did they get it right at the time? Were there things that were left out? Did events work out the way they predicted?

Among those taking part: Kate Adie on Tiananmen Square, Brian Barron on the fall of Saigon or Amin’s Uganda, Mark Tully, Mike Wooldridge on South Africa under apartheid, Mark Brayne on the fall of Ceaucescu.

Newshour will run for two full hours to bring you daily in depth interviews with a key cultural, geopolitical, international figure.

Network Africa and Focus on Africa are marking the anniversary by looking at key regional events and personalities through the eyes of those who were there, for example, veteran Nigerian reporter Sola Odunfa who started his career during the Biafra War.

Science in Action is planning a major feature: "Frontiers of Science" - a round-table discussion bringing together specialists in major fields to discuss the possible breakthroughs over the next 70 years.