It was 22 years ago and I was covering a meeting of the Libyan Leader Muammar Gaddafi and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Egypt at the border town of Marsa Matrouh.

Gaddafi was late. Really late. We were all waiting for him, including Mubarak. As a Reuters photographer based in Cairo at the time, I had covered a lot of official visits but this was the first time that I saw Mubarak waiting for someone. As usual, nobody bothered to tell us the reason for the delay, but it was so long that Mubarak started talking to us. The atmosphere was jovial. So jovial in fact, that my Egyptian colleague, Aladin Abdel Nabi, dared to ask Mubarak if he would have his picture taken with me. “Why?” was the cold answer and we left it at that. The mood returned to “official mode.”