こんにちは。えっと、今日ですね、日本についてお聞きしてるんですけど。
今日ですね always sounds a bit funny to me because I keep thinking about it as "it's today, isn't it?" (and then the answer could be "well, yes, it's not yesterday or tomorrow, so it's today":-))
Why didn't the speaker say こんにちは。えっと、今日、日本についてお聞きしてるんですけど?
What's the difference between 今日 and 今日ですね?
As a rough English equivalent, I would suggest that it's a bit like saying "How about today, huh?".
It's fairly common when someone asks you about X to start with "X ですね。" in an almost filler-fashion, just like you would say something like "Oh, about X? Yeah, speaking about that ...", so this may just be either responding to or preempting the question of "How's today going?"
