Emmanuel Braun was named as Reuters Video Journalist of the Year this month for his coverage of Africa.

The call takes me by surprise. It is our contact at the CNDP, the rebel movement in eastern Congo, telling us its leader Laurent Nkunda has agreed to meet us in his stronghold in the Masisi Mountains.

It would normally be a three-hour drive from our base in Goma to the region. But the government has banned journalists from using the main road to its enemy so we are forced to take muddy mountain paths. What follows is a 27-hour ordeal by car, motorbike and foot.

Our problems start as we approach the Rutshuru mountain area, a beautiful volcanic landscape. Our heavy 4x4 car is designed for deserts and is sliding toward the chasm below us. We get out and push it out of the mud. Night is falling. Some CNDP political advisors show up but are vague on how far we are from Nkunda’s headquarters. ”Twenty minutes,” says one of them. Pushed, he ups his estimate to 15 hours, maybe.

We decide to spend the night in the next village, Tongo, which is now in rebel hands. A young fighter stands with his RPG balancing on his shoulder as wide-eyed, laughing children scatter around us. In this remote place, white people are rarely seen. Villagers organize us a room and we go to bed exhausted at 6 pm.

We wake up with the first light to find a group of villagers gathered around two women sitting outside a hut. Behind the women are a dozen big shell canisters. “Look at what the government is sending us!,” says one of the women. “They are killing us. We are happy with the CNDP, they protect us …”’

A nice quote and visual, but the scene has clearly been organized by the CNDP. This is where getting to the truth of a situation becomes kind of an art. Guns in between witnesses and journalists can distort the most simple tale. But propaganda is easily detectable in every conflict and we are used to dealing with it.

The car has died. Before we understand what is going on, several barefoot young men have loaded themselves up with our luggage and equipment and hit the path at a remarkable speed. Progress is slow and exhausting. After a few hours of this treatment, I cannot count the mountains anymore. When my colleague Sarah stops at a big puddle, a young CNDP officer who’s escorting us barks an order in Swahili. A rangy soldier picks up Sarah, hurls her on his shoulder and crosses the puddle in his Rwandan army plastic boots.

After a six-hour trek, we reach a place at the edge of a tropical rainforest where a group of young men and rebel soldiers are waiting for us. We are delighted to see their Chinese-made motorbikes, but there are only three bikes for them and the six people in our party. The bikes are loaded with our equipment and we squeeze on three to a bike. We are so happy not to be walking anymore and at first the journey is a fabulous adventure. The drivers are amazing but we fall as the bike gets stuck in the mud. My buttocks are almost numb with pain. Then it starts raining. We stop at some nearby huts but the drivers insist on pushing on. The rain won't stop soon and we are expected at the CNDP headquarters before nightfall. It's impossible to open my eyes as I hold tight to Sarah, who is sitting in front of me on the bike.

Two hours later and 27 hours after we left Goma we finally reach the CNDP headquarter fence. We are standing in semidarkness, frozen and ready to kill for a piece of stale bread. A guard tells us the boss is out and we must wait.

It is another hour before we enter the headquarters, a brick room with only a table and a few chairs for furniture. A lit fireplace warms the room. A man brings a big jar full of fresh milk and several round yellow cheeses. I have to stop myself from rushing at the food like a starving dog. It is delicious.

Our first meeting with Nkunda takes place in this room with the fire and a weak bulb the only light. A tall man in a beige battledress appears suddenly out of the dark, a stick with a golden eagle head knob in his hand. He is followed by his wife, who is also wearing a battledress. I barely saw him when he entered the room and I know I won’t film him today.

He seems satisfied to see us and strikes up a conversation right away.  When asked how he felt about living in hiding, he starts to compare himself to General De Gaulle in his English exile during World War Two. I relay the quotes to my colleagues in Dakar.

We meet again in the morning for a proper interview and pictures.  In total, I have just four hours to make the most of this encounter, a difficult exercise when your brain and body are just begging for a break.  A UN armoured car takes us back to Goma.  As I write this four months later, Nkunda has been betrayed by his friends and ousted from Congo. He’s probably sitting in Kigali considering his plans.

Congolese rebel leader Laurent Nkunda attends a rally in Rutshuru, north of Goma in eastern Congo, November 22, 2008.  REUTERS/Finbarr O'Reilly

More Reuters coverage:
Rwandan troops leave Congo, stoking reprisal fears
Democratic Republic of Congo rebel leader arrested (video)
SCENARIOS: Nkunda arrest boosts risky Congo peace plan
FACTBOX: Conflict in eastern Congo

Reuters has interviewed Benjamin Stora, Professor of Maghreb history at Paris IX University and one of the world's leading authorities on Algeria. Stora predicts a hollow victory for Abdelaziz Bouteflika in April's presidential election and says it will take a new generation of leaders to bring change to a country where social problems are profound and there is 70 percent unemployment among young adults (according to official figures).
Below is a partial text of the interview.

Q - What is the significance of Algeria changing its constitution to allow Abdelaziz Bouteflika to run for a third term?
A - Algeria is an Arab-Muslim country with a strong revolutionary tradition marked by abrupt changes, reversals, overthrows and coups. It's true there has never been a long continuity at presidential level. Presidents had been imprisoned (Ben Bella), or died (Boumediene), or been deposed (Chadli) or assassinated (Boudiaf), or given up politics (Zeroual). This is the first time we see this sort of continuity at the state level.
This is disorientating for many Algerians and has provoked a torrent of commentary in Algeria about a Tunisian-style continuity. The widespread suspicion is that the current president wants to be president-for-life. This comes not just from his political opponents but also from intellectuals inside Algeria and in exile and from journalists. Algerians reject this notion as counter to their revolutionary tradition.

Q - But how much power does Bouteflika really have? For all the past change of leaders, haven't the same people kept power?
A - In Algeria, there is this very strong feeling that things happen behind the scenes, that the people who are at the front of the stage aren't really those who hold power. This feeling has been particularly strong since Boudiaf was assassinated. But it's not entirely true in the case of
Bouteflika. Of course, there are still decision-makers in the security services but Bouteflika has imposed his authority in particular on the top ranks of the army. He is surrounded by security services and a faction of the army, and a lot of new business people who have gotten rich very quickly. Some of these new rich are former Islamists. Even some former FIS (Islamic Salvation Front) officials have become wealthy. That was one of the results of Bouteflika's national reconciliation.

Q - How stable is the Algerian government?
A - There is a certain stability, it's illusory to think this regime is unstable or weak. There is a tactical alliance among these different forces.

Q - So what are the main threats and challenges that Bouteflika faces?
A - The first problem is the young. We see it in explosions of violence in soccer stadiums, in urban violence and harragas, the boat-people trying desperately to reach France. Several thousand young people try to escape to France by sea. These young people see no future, no solution. The unemployment level is very high, and enormous among young people.
The second big problem is the collapse of the oil price, which has fallen from $140 to $40 in 9 months. The Algerian economy is going to be hit severely because the gas price is indexed to oil. Algeria is 90 percent dependent on hydrocarbons. So welfare redistribution, social security, health care, education are facing terrible budget cuts.
Beyond that, the big challenge is the modernisation of society. Each president has represented a period in the history of Algerian independence. Ben Bella stood for revolutionary Third World enthusiasm; Boumediene stood for the stabilisation of a strong, authoritarian state; Chadli represented a sort of Gorbachevian transition, the end of the one-party state; the presidents of the 1990s were consumed by the civil war.
Q - Is there a risk of a social explosion?
A - One cannot rule out a social explosion, but it would be without danger for the regime if it doesn't find a political expression. The state just pulls back and lets the situation degenerate. There are riots, everything is trashed, but there are no political consequences.
The regime has very strong international support from everyone -- Europe, the United States, the Arab world, Russia, China, Iran. Their diplomatic strength is having united all these extremes, from Raoul Castro to Hu Jintao to Nicolas Sarkozy.
The Europeans are more dependent on Russian gas than on Algerian. But there is a quest for stability. It's the biggest Mediterranean country and no one has an interest in seeing instability spread from Israel/Palestine.

The Somali pirates who released a Saudi supertanker got a $3 million reward, according to their associates. Good money in one of the world’s poorest and most war-blighted corners.

But the waters off Somalia are getting ever more crowded with foreign ships trying to stop the pirates. As well as potentially making life more difficult for the hijackers, it has become a real illustration of the much talked about global power shift from West to East in terms of military might as well as economic strength.

This raises a question as to whether this will lead to close cooperation, rivalry or something altogether more unpredictable.

This week the United States said it planned to launch a specific anti-piracy force, an offshoot of a coalition naval force already in the region since the start of the U.S. “War on Terror” in Afghanistan in 2001.

It wasn’t clear just what this would mean in practical terms since U.S. ships were already part of the forces trying to stop the modern day buccaneers, equipped with speedboats and rocket-propelled grenades. It was also unclear which countries would be joining the U.S.-led force rather than operating under their own mandates.

The U.S. announcement came two days after Chinese ships started an anti-piracy mission in the Gulf of Aden. This is the first time Chinese warships have sailed to Africa, barring goodwill visits, since Ming Dynasty eunuch Admiral Zheng commanded an armada 600 years ago.

As my colleague Sanjeev Miglani wrote last month, the Chinese deployment was being scrutinised by the strategic community from New Delhi to Washington.

The Chinese had actually been catching up to other Asian countries. India already had ships in the region. So did Malaysia, whose navy foiled at least one pirate attack this month. Reasserting its might, Russia had sent a warship after the big surge in piracy in the Gulf of Aden between Somalia and Yemen. The European Union has a mission there.

For Asian countries there is good reason to send warships. This is the main trade route to markets in Europe and their ships have been seized. Attacks on shipping push up insurance rates and force some vessels to use more fuel on the longer, safer route around Africa instead of taking the Suez Canal.

But there certainly appears to be evidence too to back up the U.S. National Intelligence Council’s “Global Trends 2025” report late last year that highlighted the relative decline in Washington’s long term influence in the face of the rise of China and India.

As well as being a chance for the world’s old and new powers to show their strength in terms of numbers, the anti-piracy operations off Somalia could prove something of a test of effectiveness.

While the hardware the navies have will always outclass that of the pirates, the new powers may have an advantage in more robust rules of engagement. That might lead to mistakes, however. In November, India trumpted its success in sinking a pirate “mother ship”. It later turned out that a Thai ship carrying fishing equipment had been sunk while it was being hijacked. Most of the crew were reported lost.

There is a lot of sea to cover, one of the reasons why naval forces have had so much difficulty in stopping the hijackings, but the presence of so many navies in the same area at the same time must raise questions over how well they are going to work together.

Will this become a model for cooperation in a new world order? Or are there dangers? Might this also end up being a display of how little either East or West can do in the face of attacks by armed groups from a failed state with which nobody from outside seems prepared to come to grips? What do you think?

(Picture: Commanding officer of a U.S. Navy guided-missile cruiser monitors the pirated ship off Somalia REUTERS/U.S. Navy/Handout)
(Picture: Forces from French naval vessel "Jean de Vienne", seen in this January 4, 2009 photo, capture 19 Somali pirates in the Gulf of Aden. REUTERS/French Navy/handout)

Fifteen years ago this month, Guinea’s late ruler Lansana Conte made clear what form democracy would take under his rule.

We answered a summons to a late night news conference to hear the result of his first multiparty election, speeding through silent streets where armoured vehicles waited in the shadows. The interior minister announced that ballots from the east, the opposition’s stronghold, had been cancelled because of irregularities. Conte had therefore won 50.93 percent of the vote. There was no need for a run-off because he had an absolute majority.

The show was over.

We rushed off to file our stories at the press centre, set up helpfully by a government under pressure to show the world it was ready for fair elections. The press centre was gone, the lines cut. In the morning, fighter jets swept over Conakry in case the message had not been clear already.

There were more elections, there was occasional turmoil on the streets, sometimes bloodshed. At one point Conte was almost overthrown, but he managed to hold on until his death from illness on Monday.

In a matter of hours, the army - Conte’s real constituency – made clear he would be succeeded by one of his own instead of any of the civilian politicians who prospered under the system over which he kept such strong control.

Captain Moussa Dadis Camara, the head of the junta, was the first soldier to announce the coup on state radio. A Guinean website said the choice was made by drawing lots. Camara's promises - heard many before times in Africa - are to fight corruption, to hold elections in a set period – in this case two years - and not to stand himself.

Thousands of Guineans have come out to cheer, hoping for a clean break from the Conte era. But thousands once cheered Conte as a reformer. His 1984 coup followed the death of Sekou Toure, the independence era leader who became paranoid, cruel and isolated during more than a quarter century in power.

It is interesting to compare Guinea and Ghana, the first former European colonies in West Africa to win independence - Ghana in 1957 and Guinea in 1958.

In recent years, Ghana seems to have escaped its own cycle of coups and counter coups that brought ruin for decades. On Sunday, it will hold a presidential election run-off after a first round that set an example to the continent. The two candidates both appear to have a genuine chance of winning. Investment has been flowing in and living standards have, overall, been rising.

Look at the World Bank data and the winner is very clear. In the decade between 1997 and 2007, Guinea’s per capita income, in current U.S. dollars, dropped from $500 to $400. Ghana’s has risen from $370 to $590.

Will Guinea have a better chance of success this time? Is Western-style democracy appropriate in a country carved up by colonialists across ethnic lines? Is there a better alternative?

What should the world do? Western countries were never particularly vocal about Conte’s version of democracy. Will they be as critical of the junta as they have been of Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe, or do different standards apply?

There was jubilation, defiance and a sense of history in the making in this farming community this week when some 4,000 South Africans gathered to lay the groundwork for what may be a seismic shift in the political landscape.

It is too early to say whether the birth of the Congress of the People will be the political equivalent of an earthquake or a minor tremor. But there is no denying that the new political party caught the nation's attention with the inaugural conference in Bloemfontein.

Delegates sang anti-apartheid anthems, danced and denounced the ruling African National Congress. Many had recently defected from the ANC, which has ruled since the end of apartheid in 1994. Some admitted they had fallen out of favour with the party after new leader Jacob Zuma took over a year ago.

The COPE faithful speak of a need to save the country from Zuma, who is the frontrunner to become the country's next president after the general election in 2009. They believe he will reverse the gains made under Nelson Mandela and Thabo Mbeki, ousted as president by the ANC in September.

"We cannot allow a man like Zuma to take power. This would be a disaster for our country," Joseph Mabunda, a COPE supporter from Bloemfontein said on Tuesday after the new party named its leadership team and outlined its programme for the 2009 election.

COPE's leader is former defence minister Mosiuoa Lekota. Many South Africans refer to him as "Terror," a nickname picked up on the soccer pitch decades ago. It is said he was an accomplished though aggressive player, and his supporters believe he can rekindle that magic against Zuma.

COPE supporters were buoyed by recent by-election victories - their candidates took slightly less than a third of the seats in contention. On Tuesday, delegates carried a mock ANC coffin outside the conference hall.

But the ANC is fighting back and remains very confident.
The ruling party, unlike its new rival, can count on a formidable political machine and healthy campaign coffers.

"You can hang that in a museum next year" says an ANC supporter, pointing at the COPE media credential badge hanging around my neck. "Nobody will beat us."

What do you think of COPE's chances?

As Ghanaians get set to elect a new president and parliament on Sunday, there seems to be as much attention on what a new leader will mean for Ghana as on what message Ghana will send the world about the state of Africa today. After a dismal year with elections rigged or marred by violence in Kenya, Zimbabwe and most recently Nigeria, to name but a few, Africa could do with a pick-me-up.

Despite some wobbles and sporadic violence in northern Ghana where several people were killed in the early stages of the campaign, preparations for Sunday’s elections have gone relatively smoothly.

Sure, there have been arguments over voter registration, and worries voter lists may not be perfect. But politicians, civil society groups and even local hip-life artist Obour have joined a campaign against violence and to ensure electoral disputes are dealt with by the courts.

Yet some people worry too much power has been concentrated in the presidency under the administration of John Kufuor, who is standing down after the maximum two terms in office, and fear the capacity of the courts to judge electoral complaints impartially may be compromised.

These will be the fifth national elections since the charismatic former coup-leader Jerry Rawlings introduced multiparty democracy in 1992. They follow Ghana’s celebrations last year of 50 years of independence and hosting this year of the African Cup of Nations soccer tournament.

A successful election, free from violence and in which all candidates accept the result, would be a further boost for Ghana as it hopes for more rapid economic growth once offshore oil fields start pumping in late 2010.
 
So what does it mean for Ghana? And what does it mean for Africa? Would good elections here make a difference to the rest of the continent? Tell us what you think.

From a distance it is always hard to picture just how hard life is in Zimbabwe and to imagine how much worse it can get. For so long we have been writing about economic collapse, inflation statistics beyond comprehension, the fact that at least a quarter of the country has fled to seek work abroad and that life expectancy has tumbled.

Commentators have long spoken of the dangers of a possible ‘meltdown’. The signs of what that might look like have grown stronger this week.

The death toll from the worst cholera epidemic in recent records is near 500 – and possibly double – with shortages of water in Harare and elsewhere and a health system hopelessly ill equipped to cope. Not so long ago, one of the region’s more prosperous countries would probably have been able to prevent an outbreak of cholera and would certainly have been able to treat it.

Unprecedented clashes on Monday between what the army described as “indisciplined” soldiers and Zimbabweans have added to fears the situation could get out of hand. The army understandably said it was worried by the troubles, put down by police. As too many other African countries have found out, angry soldiers can prove a danger to everyone.

Banks are so short of cash that queuing for almost worthless notes has become a full time occupation for some of those lucky enough to – in theory at least – have jobs. But the amount of cash the banks can give out each day is often not enough to buy a loaf of bread.

President Robert Mugabe's government says the health system and economy are foundering because of sanctions imposed by Western powers it says are trying to oust him for seizing thousands of white-owned farms and redistributing the land to black Zimbabweans.

Mugabe’s critics, such as opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, say it is his policies that have ruined Zimbabwe.

But no matter who is to blame, the situation looks dangerously as though it could get beyond anyone’s control.

Should the crisis force Tsvangirai to join Mugabe in the power-sharing government they had agreed to - even if he doesn’t get all the posts that he wanted? Should Mugabe give way to the opposition leader’s demands? Tsvangirai’s MDC said talks between the parties on the unity government would resume in two weeks. Is that soon enough? Does Zimbabwe have any choice but a deal between the two old rivals?

 A little while back, we asked who is and isn’t fighting corruption effectively in Africa. This week, a number of examples bring us back to the subject.

In Tanzania, two former ministers have been charged with flouting procurement rules over the award of a tender for auditing gold mining back in 2002. The pair, who deny wrongdoing, served in the government of President Jakaya Kikwete’s predecessor Benjamin Mkapa. One of them also served under Kikwete himself.

Tanzania’s pledge to fight corruption is under close donor scrutiny and given the level of aid that Tanzania gets - more than one tenth of GDP by 2005 figures - it has little choice but to show willing. There have been doubts in the past, however, about how serious the government really was about going after the most senior and the best connected.

“By hauling the long-serving politicians to court, the Government has dispelled the rumour that some influential personalities are being shielded,” commented The Citizen newspaper of the charges against the former ministers.

Is Tanzania's anti-graft drive now fully on course or will these two turn out to be scapegoats while others are ignored?

 

In Nigeria, the troubles of the former head of the anti-corruption agency are back in the headlines.

Nuhu Ribadu was sacked by President Umaru Yar’Adua’s administration despite winning favour from many Nigerians, foreign investors and western donors as head of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission. He had targeted some senior politicians and was widely credited with doing more than anyone had previously, although critics accused him of pursuing only those out of favour with former President Olusegun Obasanjo.

Ribadu’s position has been getting ever rockier since he was sacked and demoted. At the weekend, he and his family were bundled out of a graduation ceremony from the government institute where he was sent after being fired from his top post – although the presidency later intervened to say he would get his certificate after all and ordered an inquiry into the incident.

“The entire Ribadu family must by now be wondering, as are millions of other Nigerians, if it’s a curse to serve this country with all one’s heart and whether it’s a country worth dying for,” wrote Thisday’s Funke Aboyade after the ceremony.

Ribadu may now face a police disciplinary panel next month. Meanwhile, a top official of the anti-corruption agency has resigned after failing to report suspicious payments, another setback for the troubled body.

The very different examples bring up the issue of how politics complicates the fight against corruption - something in no way exclusive to Africa. Is it possible to fight corruption without truly independent and trustworthy police and courts? And if not, how is it possible to put those in place when leaders promise to stamp out graft but fail to live up to their words?

As one Nigerian leader remarked not so long ago: “This administration will mobilise all resources at its disposal to fight the menace of corruption.”

President Yar’Adua? His predecessor President Obasanjo? No. That was General Sani Abacha, who died in suspicious circumstances a decade ago with billions of dollars thought to be stashed in foreign bank accounts (If you still get emails from people purporting to be his relatives, it’s probably best not to reply).

Members of Guinea-Bissau's unruly armed forces have blotted the military's record again with another attack against the country's political institutions. Early on Sunday, Nov. 23, renegade soldiers, their faces hooded, sprayed the Bissau residence of President Joao Bernardo "Nino" Vieira with machine-gun and rocket-propelled grenade fire. The president survived unhurt this latest apparent attempt to topple him.

But The attack underlined the fragility of the small, cashew nut-exporting West African nation, one of the poorest in the world and a former Portuguese colony which has suffered a history of bloody coups, mutinies and uprisings since it won independence in 1974 after a bush war led by Amilcar Cabral. The assault followed parliamentary elections on Nov. 16 which donors were hoping would restore stability and put in place a new government capable of resisting the serious threat posed by powerful Latin American cocaine-trafficking cartels who use Guinea-Bissau as a staging post to smuggle drugs to Europe.

How can a little-known African country like Guinea-Bissau, prostrated by poverty, its government and military undermined by the corrupting influence of multi-million dollar drug-trafficking, dig itself out of underdevelopment?

What should foreign donors do? Invest hundreds of millions of dollars to back security reforms to downsize and modernise the bloated army and struggling police and fund development programmes -- even though aid workers say the government and state often appear barely functional and incapable of presenting or implementing programmes.

Or, at a time of global economic crisis when financial resources are stretched and Africa seems filled with conflicts, election disputes and refugees, (Congo, Darfur, Chad, Somalia, Zimbabwe), should the international community look for more deserving (or strategic) cases than little Guinea-Bissau?