The country borders, among other nations, Tanzania and Ethiopia.

Its two official languages are Swahili and English.

The country became independent in 1963, but 60 years ago, it was still a British colony.

Also, it was this place, 60 years ago, where Princess Elizabeth happened to be when her father, King George VI died.

So, it was the place where Princess Elizabeth became Queen Elizabeth II.

Kenya is the answer to the Geo Quiz.

As the Queen celebrates 60 years on the throne, The World’s Alex Gallafent looks back at the circumstances in which Princess Elizabeth became Queen Elizabeth II.

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Way-C is an African-designed tablet, like an iPad and for the Geo Quiz, we are looking for the two cities where the Way-C went on sale Monday.

Both cities are in the Republic of Congo.

The cities, one capital and the other a major oil port, are the African nation’s two largest cities.

The Way-C, which means “the light of the starts” in a local northern Congo dialect, was invented by 26-year-old Verone Mankou under his company VMK.

Capital Brazzaville and oil port city of Pointe-Noire are the answers to the Geo Quiz.

It is in these cities that the $300 device went on sale.

Anchor Marco Werman talks to Global Post reporter Erin Conway-Smith, who is in Johannesburg, South Africa.

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Egyptians celebrate the first anniversary of January 25 popular uprising after a momentous year of change.

Atlantic coast, Gabon Republic. Hippopotamuses peering out of the surf. (Photo: Michael Nichols/National Geographic)

“It even looks weirder if you see the elephants,” says my guide, Wynand Viljoen.

Viljoen works for an eco-tourism company called Africa’s Eden, and he’s brought me to this rare strip of uninhabited coast, where the rainforest meets the sea, in the nation of Gabon.

This is Loango National Park, one of 13 Gabonese national parks established by presidential decree in 2002.

Just inland, Viljoen shows me forest elephants, western lowland gorillas, red river hogs, and the fresh tracks of chimpanzees and leopards.

With an abundance of wildlife and unspoiled habitat, Gabon’s parks – which cover more than ten percent of the country’s land area – made big news when they were created a decade ago.

Conservationists hailed the move as a way to protect Equatorial Africa’s endangered animals and dwindling forests.

Gabonese authorities saw the parks as a way to boost to their country’s economy, long dependent on oil. The idea was to turn Gabon into the African equivalent of Costa Rica – a country that has profited off its rainforests and wildlife through eco-tourism.

Of all the new parks, Loango held perhaps the greatest potential to lure international tourists, given its rare wildlife and unique setting.

National Geographic Magazine called Loango “the land of the surfing hippos” in a 2004 article on the park. As Viljoen says, you can occasionally see hippos here doing just that.

“They’re body surfing in the waves,” he says. “It’s quite amazing to see.”

An Investor Steps In

From the start, though, it was clear that bringing tourists to an out-of-the-way corner of this underdeveloped country would take serious investment.

That’s where Rombout Swanborn comes in.

Swanborn is Dutch, but he grew up in Gabon, where his father worked for the Shell Oil Company. As an adult, Swanborn himself made millions in the oil industry, and at the time Loango Park was being created, he used part of his fortune to open a tourist operation here.

“It was actually meant to function as a demonstration project,” he says. “I’d hoped that in our wake more people would see that Gabon would be a viable area to invest in.”

(Graphic: BBC)

Perched on a lagoon across from the park, Loango Lodge boasts a restaurant, conference center, curio shop, swimming pool, and ten bamboo-sided bungalows complete with air conditioning, hot water, and other amenities international tourists expect.

Inside the park, Swanborn’s company maintains rustic camps where visitors can spend the night in tents on wooden platforms and experience close encounters with wildlife.

“Sometimes at night you even get elephants crossing the platforms,” says guide Wynand Viljoen.

Swanborn’s investment seemed to pay off. Within a few years, Loango Lodge was drawing several thousand visitors a year, many from the U.S. and Europe. It was the busiest tourist operation in Gabon.

The tourist dollars provided local employment and supported conservation work on gorillas and elephants and sea turtles. Some of the money went to build a school in a local village. In 2008, the British Guild of Travel Writers named Loango the top new tourist destination in the world.

But then, in 2010, Loango Lodge shut down.

What Went Wrong

“As a pioneer, they became victim to the fact that Gabon wasn’t really ready,” says Lee White, director of Gabon’s national park service.

White, a British-born biologist who formerly worked for the US-based Wildlife Conservation Society, pushed for the creation of Gabon’s parks and helped launch the tourist and conservation effort at Loango.

“When you’re trying to move a country that has no experience with tourism to become a tourist friendly country, there are huge challenges,” he says.

Transportation in Gabon is unreliable. Hassles with police and immigration officials are common.

Rombout Swanborn says he was able to circumvent these problems for some time. He purchased his own planes and flew tourists directly to Loango from throughout the region.

But Swanborn faced problems with Gabon’s civil aviation authority, an agency considered so ineffectual by the European Union that the EU put Gabon on an air safety blacklist.

“These guys, before they do anything at all, they ask you for a lot of money,” he says.

Swanborn says he refused to give money when officials asked for “an extravagant additional tax of which we knew that it wouldn’t benefit the country.” (He declined to call it a bribe.) The government grounded his planes.

Swanborn tried to bring tourists to Loango by other means, involving a four-hour boat ride down the coast followed by a car ride on potholed roads. But that proved too inconvenient and time-consuming for many tourists. Reservations dried up, and the lodge shut down.

It may seem a straightforward tale of a well-meaning businessman stymied by African corruption and inefficiency, but others who were involved say it’s not that simple. They say Swanborn didn’t do enough to build trust with the Gabonese, and that undermined his efforts.

René Hilaire Adiaheno, a former head of Gabon’s national park service, says Swanborn should have done more to train and employ villagers who live near Loango.

“The definition of eco-tourism is this,” he says. “You have to help local people. You have to share the benefits.”

Romain Calaque, an early employee at Loango who now works for the Wildlife Conservation Society, says Swanborn tended to play loose with contracts and rules, including government regulations.

“The government became very upset,” he says, “and it was almost impossible to find a way to get all the partners back around the table.”

For his part, the current head of Gabon’s park service, Lee White, chalks up the trouble to a clash of cultures – an aggressive European businessman operating in a country where people prefer to avoid conflict.

“Everybody made mistakes,” he says. “The truth is there are both good and bad on both sides.”

A New Start for Eco-Tourism

Whatever went wrong at Loango, White remains optimistic about the eco-tourism potential of Gabon, and he says things are looking up.

Gabon has a new President – Ali Bongo Ondimba, elected in 2009 – and by all accounts he is serious about rooting out the corruption that plagued this country under the former president, his father, who held office for 42 years.

The new government is negotiating with tourism companies to build as many as nine new national park lodges in the next few years.

Loango Lodge, meanwhile, may still have a future.

Rombout Swanborn recently announced that he was reopening the lodge. He hired workmen to repair and upgrade the facilities, and he is trying to resolve his dispute with the Gabonese government so he can resume flights.

For now, though, his planes remain grounded, and visitors are scarce.

Everyone involved hopes things will go better this time because what’s at stake isn’t just money. If tourist dollars don’t start flowing into the economy here, pressure could mount to open the parks to other forms of revenue.

The land that had been set aside for the buffalo on the beach and the hippos in the surf could be handed over to people who value this place for other reasons – to extract its timber and minerals and oil.

The two Central African countries are co-hosting the Africa Cup of Nations.

It is Africa’s biggest and most important sports competition.

The tournament kicks off Saturday in Bata, Equitorial Guinea.

Anchor Marco Werman talks to the BBC’s Matthew Kenyon, who is in Bata and anxiously counting down the minutes.

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Marco Werman: Tourists interested in the region’s wildlife may be scarce, but those interested in soccer are flooding to Gabon and its tiny neighbor, Equatorial Guinea. The two Central African countries are co-hosting the Africa Cup of Nations. It’s Africa’s biggest and most important sports competition. The tournament kicks off tomorrow in Bata, Equatorial Guinea. The BBC’s Matthew Kenyon is in Bata and anxiously counting down the minutes. How excited are the locals on the eve of the Africa Cup of Nations there in Equatorial Guinea, Matthew?

Matthew Kenyon: Well Marco, they are pretty excited but it’s not the kind of fan fervor that you’ve seen at World Cups and other Africa Cup of Nations. Equatorial Guinea is, it seems, at any rate, to be quite a subdued kind of a place. I mean, there are flags, there are posters. But certainly, people are really excited to see their football team competing on the continental stage for the very first time.

Werman: Now, we’ll see how subdued the fans are tomorrow when Equatorial Guinea takes on Libya.

Kenyon: [Laughs].

Werman: Now, it’s 16 national teams from across Africa are competing, Libya among them. Given the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi and the turmoil that Libya experienced, how did Libya make it to the Africa Cup of Nations when traditional powerhouses like Egypt and Nigeria didn’t?

Kenyon: It was a fabulous qualifying performance, as you say, played out over the turmoil that was going on in their country back home. They started the competition playing under the flag of Colonel Gaddafi’s government and, midway through, the national team switched allegiance and at least one squad member left the camp and went to fight on the frontline. Many others, of course, had family and friends caught up in everything that was going on. But, they did it partly because of their skill as footballers and partly because, I think, they really, really wanted to achieve this goal because of what it would mean to, what is in some ways now, a new country. Egypt obviously were affected by what was going on in their country at the same time, but there were sound footballing reasons why they didn’t make it here as well, and likewise for Nigeria and Cameroon.

Werman: That’s an extraordinary story about Libya. It sounds like they are kind of a symbol of home almost for Africa and maybe for the Africa Cup of Nations.

Kenyon: Yes. If people are looking for great stories here, then Libya’s qualification and their possible progress out of a group which also includes Senegal, who are incredibly strong…if they make it out of that group, then they will have done very well.

Werman: Now, the last edition of the Africa Cup of Nations was in Angola and, frankly, it was a mess. Some listeners will recall that the Togolese team was violently ambushed on a highway there. Is Equatorial Guinea along with co-host Gabon prepared to make this one right?

Kenyon: I think they are. I mean, the security is very strong. All the teams are surrounded by security when they travel around the country and they are cloistered away in hotels which are very carefully watched over because memories of what happened to Togo two years ago are still very strong amongst everyone involved. In terms of the organization, this area where I’m sitting now, only a few months ago was a literal building site. They’re still doing a few fine touches, but the infrastructure appears to work.

Werman: The BBC’s Matthew Kenyon in Equatorial Guinea. Equatorial Guinea and Gabon are co-hosting the 28th edition of the Africa Cup of Nations which runs through February 12. Great to speak with you, Matthew. Thanks.

Kenyon: That’s my pleasure.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.

Gabon is located on the equator and nearly 85 percent is covered by rainforests.

Its capital is Libreville, but we are looking way outside the city – for a pristine freshwater lake.

It is famous for its clear blue water and for the dwarves that, according to the local legend, protect the lake.

Lac Bleu or Lake Blue is the answer to the Geo Quiz.

It is located 300 miles inland from Gabon’s capital, Libreville.

Producer Daniel Glick tells about a local legend about the spirits that abound in the natural world in Lac Bleu as well as in the gorillas, elephants and hippopotamuses that inhabit the forests.

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The Malian band Tinariwen performed, but this year’s festival was in need of companions and friends.

This was the 11th edition of the festival and almost did not happen.

The US State Department and other foreign ministries in Western Europe advised against traveling to the north of Mali where the festival takes place.

The agencies were worried about a spate of kidnappings of western tourists and aid workers by al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb

Military aircraft patrolled the skied this weekend over the concert venue near the historic city of Timbuktu.

Only about 300 fans showed up for this year’s festival, almost half of last year’s attendance.

For die-hard fans and musicians however, the festival is not about numbers.

It is about being in a place known for end-of-world remoteness and stark beauty.

And out of that, creating for a few days, a sense of community with people from all over the world.

Indian-Canadian singer Kiran Ahluwalia is one them. She performed this weekend, for the first time at the Festival in the Desert.

On her most recent album “Aam Zameen,” Ahluwalia created that global sense of community.

She covered one of the big hits by legendary Pakistani singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan; one of them a song called “Mustt Mustt,” which she performed with Tinariwen at the festival.

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A general strike is under way with public transport at a halt and shops and offices closed.

At least 14 protesters were injured in the northern city of Kano during clashes with the police, while in Lagos a demonstrator is reported to have been shot dead.

Many Nigerians saw the fuel subsidy as their only benefit from the country’s oil wealth, but the government has insisted it is economically unsustainable.

Gas prices have doubled from 40 cents per liter to 80 cents per liter since a government fuel subsidy ended on Jan 1.

Anchor Lisa Mullins talks to the BBC’s Tommy Oladipo is in Lagos says tens of thousands of Nigerians took to the streets to protest the government’s decision to remove the subsidies leading to higher gas prices.

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Lisa Mullins: I’m Lisa Mullins and this is The World. Thousands of people took to the streets today across Nigeria. They were protesting the end of a government subsidy on fuel. Since January 1 gas prices in Nigeria have doubled, but most of the population lives on less than $2 a day, even in this oil rich country. Some of the protests turned violent today with police clashing with demonstrators in the northern city of Kano. The BBC’s Tommy Oladipo says the city of Lagos saw some of the biggest demonstrations.

Tommy Oladipo: This is probably the largest protest in Lagos in a long time. Businesses around Lagos have shut down. The stock market has ground to a halt, banks have been closed. Nigeria is not used to this kind of thing, most Nigerians have been accused of being quite docile and complacent even when they’re not happy with things the government does. But today was quite a surprise really.

Mullins: And why is that the case that this one issue has galvanized people in a way that most other issues don’t?

Oladipo: I have spoken to a number of people at this protest and most of them are saying it seems like the fuel subsidy issue is a spark because of all the compounding of issues that have been around, particularly of corruption. They see the government officials earning to much and spending lavishly, that really is the main issue that people have here.

Mullins: Do Nigerians see the benefits of fuel exports given the fact that Nigeria is Africa’s largest oil producer?

Oladipo: Well, actually you know, Nigeria is also one of the world’s first countries really because corruption over the years has meant that all this oil money has not been used well, and a lot of infrastructure is not in place. There is very poor electricity supply. Roads are terrible. Healthcare is poor. Education is poor. And even the oil refineries are not working and that’s why Nigeria has to export its oil at crude oil and then import the refined product, which is where this whole complication comes in. So that’s really the root of all of this.

Mullins: So you’re saying that Nigerians don’t even reap the benefits of their country being such a large exporter.

Oladipo: For most people the fuel subsidy where they were able to buy fuel for cheap prices, most people saw that as the one benefit, the only benefit they got from being an oil producing country. So the fact that this price of fuel has gone up they now feel that they have nothing else to gain from the oil that the country has.

Mullins: When we think of fuel costs going up here in the United States the main thing that we think of is the cost of transportation getting from here to there. There’s a different knock-on effect though for the average Nigerian. Can you describe that for us?

Oladipo: It’s not just transportation that has gone up. It’s also the price of food that has spiraled up as well and landlords are now charging double for rent as well, so everything seems to have gone up and the cost of living in Nigeria has pretty much gone up overnight.

Mullins: And the food itself, why does the cost of fuel affect the cost of food?

Oladipo: Well, because a lot of the food has to be transported around the country and that’s why the open markets where people get food have become quite expensive now.

Mullins: One more thing, Tommy, how has the government responded?

Oladipo: The government doesn’t seem to want to budge at all. The government says it’s going to get about $8 billion saved from the removal of the subsidy and it says it has to put that into infrastructure development. Over the next couple of days we’ll wait and see what happens, but for now the government really is standing its ground.

Mullins: All right, the BBC’s Tommy Oladipo, in Lagos, Nigera. Thank you so much for the update.

Oladipo: You’re welcome.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.

Lake Kivu’s fish are a crucial source of food and income for local residents. But there’s something else below the surface beside fish, something fraught with both peril and, locals hope, promise. Deep at the bottom of the lake, almost a thousand feet down, Kivu’s water is rich with naturally-occurring gas – including high levels of carbon dioxide and methane.

The gas is produced by unusual geological and biological processes. It’s a natural oddity, and it could be very dangerous, says Charles Nyirahuku, who manages energy projects for the Rwandan government.

“It builds up in the water,” Nyirahuku says, “and it can cause a sudden outburst or release of methane into the atmosphere.”

Lake Kivu seen from the town of Gisenyi. (Photo: Anna Boiko-Weyrauch)

“We are told that this is one of the major environmental risks which we can face,” Nyirahuku says. And the only way to avert this kind of risk is to extract the methane.”

And that’s what his role in energy projects comes in. Nyirahuku is helping develop a project to capture the lake’s dissolved methane and use it to generate energy.

The beginnings of the project are rising on the edge of the lake, where workers chant in unison as they move metal beams next to a big blue barge, and welders fix rails that will guide the barge into the lake.

The barge will eventually float to a spot about eight miles away and become part of what’s known as the KivuWatt project. Equipment on the barge will suck the gas-rich water from the deepest part of the lake through what are called risers—“basically big straws” — stuck more than a thousand feet into the lake, says Bill Barry, a vice president at the New York-based company ContourGlobal, which is developing the unusual power plant.

Barry says the gasses will be separated from the water, and then from each other. The less-volatile CO2 will be pumped back below the surface, and the methane will be piped to shore, where it will be used to fuel a power plant.

If all goes according to plan, the process will help solve two big problems: the threat of an explosion, and Rwanda’s chronic energy shortage. Rwanda has very few energy resources of its own, which has helped make it one of the most expensive places in East Africa to power a home or business. Almost half of the electricity here is generated using diesel fuel, which has to be trucked into the landlocked country.

Backers hope the KivuWatt project will eventually double the amount of electricity generated in Rwanda and help wean the country off diesel energy.

But, there are risks.

For one thing, different layers of the lake have different concentrations of gas, and disturbing them too much could itself cause the very kind of explosion the project is meant to prevent. Experts have come up with guidelines for what they say will be safe gas extraction, and the Rwandan government has created a team to monitor the KivuWatt project.

Engineer Augusta Umutoni, who’s is in charge of the team, says she’s confident that there is no risk that the project might cause an explosion. But she says that isn’t the only risk.

A welder repairs the rails guiding the methane extraction barge into Lake Kivu at night. (Photo: Anna Boiko-Weyrauch)

That’s why the methane project will start small, with just a pilot phase expected to start producing energy later this year.

Back on the lake, the fishermen know that the power plant will change their lives, one way or another. Issa Ndungutse says he hopes it will be for the better. He says he hopes the methane project will reduce the risk of a gas explosion, and expects it to bring jobs and electricity to the area. Right now, he says, he doesn’t have power in his house.

Meanwhile the Rwandan government has much greater hopes for the unconventional project. If all the risks can be avoided, capturing Lake Kivu’s methane could be a big step in the country’s economic development.

But an outbreak of violence within South Sudan makes clear that the infant country faces other serious challenges as well.

Authorities say more than 150 people have been killed in the latest violence in South Sudan’s vast Jonglei state.

Thousands of fighters from one ethnic group, the Lou Nuer, attacked a town populated by members of a rival tribe, the Murle.

Anchor Marco Werman talks to the BBC’s Will Ross, who is in neighboring Kenya, about the inter-ethnic violence in South Sudan.

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The text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

Marco Werman: I’m Marco Werman and this is The World, a coproduction of the BBC World Service, PRI and WGBH Boston. When South Sudan became an independent nation in July there was concern that violence could break out along the new international border that separates the two Sudans, but an outbreak of violence within South Sudan makes clear that the infant country faces other serious challenges as well.

Announcer: ¨Authorities say more than 150 people have been killed in the latest violence in South Sudan’s vast Jonglei state. Thousands of fighters from one ethnic group, the Lou Nuer, attacked a town populated by members of a rival tribe, the Murle.

Werman: The BBC’s Will Ross is in neighboring Kenya.

Will Ross: We’re hearing reports from the areas outside the town of Pibor, where people have fled, that several massacres have taken place. It’s very difficult to get an idea of the scale, but I spoke to one Murle woman who told me she received a phone call fom her mother who had heard that all 20 of their relatives had been killed. They had left the town a few days ago on foot. They walked for about three hours to what they thought was a safe place, and the entire family was killed. I’ve spoken to other people who have told me about killings in far flung places outside Pibor, and basically the tens of thousands, we think somewhere between 20 and 40 thousand people on the move and they’re getting absolutely no assistance or protection whatsoever.

Werman: So is it being described as ethnic violence because as you also pointed out, this conflict began as cattle raids, which sounds very economic.

Ross: Certainly cattle are a trigger for the violence and historically that’s been the source for the conflict. I think there are many more guns in the hands of people now because of the years of war between the north and the south, and also the borders around there are fairly porous, but you can’t really overestimate the importance of the cattle to these people. They are the bank. They’re how they store their money. When somebody gets married for instance, a vast number of cattle are handed over. So when these raids take place they principally are to get cattle. And one of them I think in August last year, approximately 40,000 head of cattle were stolen. So that’s the sort of scale we’re talking about. But when those attacks happen at the same time as stealing the cattle, people are killed and also children have been abducted, especially by the Murle people. And that’s what’s angered the Lou Nuer people so much. They say we’ve gotta get our children back.

Werman: I’m wondering what people in South Sudan make of all this because I mean their country was one of the apparent success stories in 2011, became the continent’s newest independent nation. Can if live at peace within its own borders and with its neighbors? Are people there even thinking about that heady moment last summer?

Ross: Some of the problems of the south have been sort of glossed over during the celebrations, even in the lead up to those independence celebrations in July there were some terrible attacks in the south that people didn’t really talk about much because the international community was sort of building up to this momentous occasion of the south breaking away from Sudan. So obviously there’s a lot of hope, especially you know if you talk to people in towns, in the capital, like Juba. Then you go out into the villages and nothing has changed, and you get a sense that some communities might not be very aware of what the independence really is all about because their daily struggles are so immense that a celebration one day in July doesn’t really make any difference when you’re facing frequent battles with neighbors.

Werman: Will, one thing that we haven’t talked about is vast oil reserves on the disputed border region between South Sudan and Sudan, and lately South Sudan’s president, Salva Kiir, has accused Sudan’s government in the north of trying to grab that oil. I’m wondering if these two nations could cut some sort of deal to try and share the oil wealth that they both need?

Ross: Well, they’re obviously are a lot of things that weren’t sorted out when the south broke away and that is the source of a lot of tension. And the border wasn’t even demarcated properly, so there’s still a lot of tension on the border. The oil revenues weren’t worked out how they would share it all out, so it’s not surprising at this state, you know, six months down the line, accusations flying back and forth about the oil money and you know, the suggestion that some of the conflict on the border is being fueled in order to try and grab the oil fields. These two countries had a very messy divorce. Many predicted it wouldn’t even happen at all. And now they’re living with the aftermath of that messy divorce, which includes these unresolved issues. And unless they sort out the oil you know, that is very likely because obviously of the huge economic importance, it’s very likely to trigger more violence. But it’s clear if the government to the south of it really wants to have any chance of keeping the peace within the country, let alone between the north and the south, it’s gonna have to work to build the bridges between these ethnic groups because the violence is on such a scale that you don’t really know how the authority is gonna be able to stop it.

Werman: The BBC’s East Africa correspondent, Will Ross, in Nairobi talking about the roots of interethnic violence in neighboring South Sudan. Will, thanks a lot.

Ross: You’re welcome.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.

(Cartoon: Tayo Fatunla)

Africa is vast and varied. So are the news stories that affected the continent in 2011. Nigerian caricaturist and illustrator Tayo Fatunla has been commenting on Africa through cartoons for more than three decades. In this slideshow Tayo reflects on some of the major themes that confronted Africa in 2011.

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Anchor Marco Werman talks to Kinshasa-based reporter Michael Kavanagh.

He says the country’s leading opposition figure claims he won the disputed presidential poll and Congolese are girding for violence.

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Marco Werman: I’m Marco Werman. This is The World. The scenario is all to familiar in Africa. An election is held but neither front runner wants to admit defeat. It happened in Zimbabwe, Kenya, and Ivory Coast. Now it’s happening in the Democratic Pubic of Congo. The country’s president, Joseph Kabila, has claimed victory in last month’s election. Official results announced last week back him up. Kabila is rejecting accusations that the vote was rigged in his favor. Several international observers, including the Georgia based Carter Center, have questioned the votes legitimacy. Opposition candidate Etienne Tshisekedi continues to insist that he was the elections real winner. Reporter Michael Kavanagh is based in Kinshasa, the Congolese capital.

Michael Kavanagh: In Kinshasa it’s very tense. Basically the opposition is waiting to see how this process unfolds. They’ve taken the vote to the Supreme Court. They’ve challenged the vote at the supreme court. We’re expecting a decision on the 17th so I think that people are concerned thought that there could be mass protests in the streets if the election doesn’t go the way that the opposition wants.

Werman: Then tension right now has to be heightened in a certain way by the fact that the main opposition party led by Etienne Tshisekedi apparently it sounds like they’re gearing up for something.

Kavanagh: Right, and we’ve known this for awhile. I think the reality of this situation is that Tshisekedi has been an opposition leader for several decades here in Congo and he frankly has been a relatively peaceful one. He hasn’t joined militias, he hasn’t been a rebel, and his supporters for the most part don’t have weapons. So that means that they’re going to need to take to the streets. He keeps talking about the Arab Spring in Tunisia and Egypt and that’s what his followers are prepared to do is go to the streets without weapons knowing that they’re going to face a quite powerful security surface who basically supports the president and thinks that he won the election and feel like this is a major disturbance to public order and a challenge to the government of the country.

Werman: To an extent we saw the same sort of scenario a year ago in Ivory Coast where two powerful leaders dug in their heels over election results and then that resulted in massive violence for four months until the situation got settled. It sounds like you’re concerned about a similar scenario shaping up for Congo. Are others worried about that?

Kavanagh: That is definitely the biggest concern and the worst case scenario that we have. The situation in [?] was a little bit different in that you had two national institutions who basically had come up with two different results for the election. That’s not going to be true here. The Supreme Court supports Kabila just as they electoral has supported Kabila. It means that the international community is much less apt to back Tshisekedi and the opposition in this fight. They’re going to be much less patient with him when his supporters go out into the street.

Werman: Now, incumbent President Joseph Kabila says he won the election fair and square. Tshisekedi says no, so does the European Union Mission, the Atlanta based Carter Center, and the Catholic Church all there who are watching this. They say last months election wasn’t credible. What is the starkest evidence right now of fraud? Is there widespread agreement that fraud happened?

Kavanagh: Yes, these elections looked like the counting was done in a very untransparent manner. There are some very suspicious results from parts of the country where Kabila is popular where they had over 100% turnout and 100% of the voters voting for Kabila. That kind of thing never happens in an election and so these are the sorts of things that observers are worried about. Their votes, thousands, perhaps at one point 6 million votes have gone missing. Again, will that change the results? We just don’t know.

Werman: There had been such hope in recent years that this presidential election in Congo would be key to helping stabilize a country and reduce the violence actually in several theaters of conflict in Congo. Is there now a sense among Congolese that these elections are in fact the wrong direction, maybe they’re even destabilizing further their country?

Kavanagh: I think that is a worry that you hear, especially here in the capital of Kinshasa, they feel like their vote was stolen and they feel like Kabila has lost legitimacy. They feel like this democratic process which was promised to them as the thing that would change Congo and bring development and bring peace, it’s not all that it was supposed to be. Of course, the thing to remember is that Kabila was elected with quite a lot of votes in parts of the country. So it’s not as if this election is under question from the entire population of Congo. I think the question is just does he have enough support to remain legitimate? Will the international still support him? Can he find ways to build bridges to the opposition so that this country which is so rich and yet on the other hand so poor in terms of what the people actually have, can it develop to a point where it’s more stable in the next few years? For the moment, I think the jury is still out.

Werman: We’ll stay on top of it as things unfold. Reporter Michael Kavanagh, based in the Congolese capital Kinshasa. Thanks very much indeed.

Kavanagh: Thanks, Marco.

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This is not just an economic quest, it’s an existential one. Rwanda is the most densely populated country in Africa, and about 80 percent of Rwandans live in rural areas and rely on subsistence farming for their survival. Competition for land was one of the factors that drove the genocide in 1994, killing some 800,000 people – about one in ten Rwandans.

Now, about one in ten Rwandans is online, and the numbers are growing fast – just one step in the government’s ambitious plan to turn a place where only 14 percent of the population has access to electricity and 57 percent of Rwandans live below the poverty line, into an African hi-tech and services leader.

“If you want to reach the moon, you aim for the sun,” grins Patrick Nyrishema, who heads the Rwanda Development Board’s department of Information and Communications Technology – or ICT.

“Right now, we have got several areas we consider high priority,” he says. “The first is skills development. The development of Rwanda, the strategy is based on building human capacity. And so, ICT skills, both at the level of professional ICT, as well as IT literacy, for people to be able to take advantage of the technology is very key.”

And while the population is getting educated so it can keep up with Rwanda’s hi-tech aspirations, the government has laid 1,500 miles of fiber optic cable, gotten computers into rural schools through a “one laptop per child” program, and set up an online service so farmers can check crop prices on their cell phones.

Getting Used to Using Technology

Eventually, the government would like more of these farmers to consolidate land, form cooperatives, or move to cities and get trained up for services jobs – taking pressure off the land while learning skills that could earn a higher income. For now, just getting used to using technology – even a cell phone that sends produce prices by text message – is already progress.

Edward Yin, a native of the northeastern Chinese province of Harbin, opened Rwanda’s first cell phone assembly plant in 2007. He aimed to make phones cheap enough that Rwandan villagers could afford them. But since the government has eliminated sales tax on mobile phones and computers, to encourage sales, Yin has changed his strategy, and now imports already assembled phones from China.

“With these kinds of electronics, almost every day, the price goes down,” Yin says. “So if we need to wait to import parts, and assemble them here, we lose money. Better to import directly from China.”

Yin thinks Rwanda has a good chance of succeeding in its vision to become a regional services center. And he says, there’s one thing Rwanda does better than anyone else in the region – good governance. I say the government also has a reputation for being tough on corruption.

“It’s not corrupt. That’s the truth,” Yin says.

“And is that good for business?,” I ask.

He pauses. Smiles. “Difficult to say. Sometimes, maybe corruption can help business, to be frank.”

When a Chinese company got the bid to build a big conference center in Kigali, the Rwandan government put a German manager at the helm, to ensure quality control. Yin says he’s heard some of the Chinese on the project grumble.

“They say not it’s not easy,” he says. “I think it’s too strict. What they are thinking is different. I think it’s the culture.”

But Yin’s friend, Li Jianbo, likes doing business in Rwanda. Li is the general manager of China Road and Bridge Corporation – one of China’s biggest state-owned enterprises – which is building several of Rwanda’s roads.

“When there’s no corruption, businessmen can feel comfortable,” he says. “You know, corruption is a problem for both sides, so no one likes that. Here, it is comfortable for the investor and for the businessman. And the government people are also easy to work. So the investors like to come here.”

Bullish on Rwanda

At a regular Friday happy hour, Chinese managers gather at Yin’s restaurant – which he runs in addition to his cell phone import business. They sit around a huge round table in a red room, knocking back beers, eating Chinese food, and swapping stories about their work weeks. They’re mostly bullish on Rwanda. But they’re part of a fairly small group – -there are only about 1,000 Chinese in Rwanda, a fraction of those in neighboring African countries. Yin says, more Chinese investors might come here, if Rwanda made investing here more attractive.

“Right now Rwanda is very strict,” he says. “Maybe they need more open. If a foreigner came here, like a businessman, what they need is profit. If you cannot get profit, nobody wants to come.”

For instance, Yin says, there’s the 30 percent import tax, and 18 percent VAT. In some African countries, Chinese barely pay windfall profits tax on the minerals they extract.

But Rwanda is carving out a different role for itself – a different kind of relationship with Chinese, and other foreign, investors. So it is deliberately picking and choosing what works best for it, as President Paul Kagame stressed at a recent news conference.

“If you are inviting investment to come to Rwanda, you want investment that will benefit the investor, but will also benefit Rwanda, where the investment is made, “ Kagame said. “How does it benefit Rwandans? It’s the capital that comes in. It’s the technology. It’s employment.”

Clear Vision

Kagame has a clear vision of what he’d like Rwanda to become – a sort of Singapore of East Africa – small, yes, but prosperous, modern and efficient.

Kagame has a little of former Singaporean leader Lee Kwan Yew in him. Like Lee, he’s fiercely intelligent, strong-willed, and not averse to using a little velvet-gloved authoritarianism to get things done, or to silence criticism. Unlike Lee, he’s a former guerilla leader who came to power in the midst of a genocide, and, however imperfectly, has pulled his country back together.

“We need to just get up and face up to these challenges and dignify ourselves by doing it,” he said. For me, it’s a challenging situation, but it’s very exciting. I enjoy these battles very much.”

The battle now is to ensure a better future for Rwanda, with enough economic opportunity that have-nots don’t get tempted to stir old ethnic animosities for their personal gain. So far, it seems to be working.

Mnikwa Dlamini, for example, is the current chief of Hhelehhele, a rural area in the north of the country. He’s also an 88-year-old veteran of the war in Europe.

Swaziland is a small country in southern Africa. It gained its independence in 1968.

Before that it was ruled by the British, and before them the Boers. When war came to Europe, the British came knocking.

“All our life here in Swaziland was under British control,” remembers Chief Mnikwa. “It was mostly okay because the British and us had a good relationship. They at least treated us better than the Boers did.”

“We first heard in 1939 that the Germans were fighting with the British. They only said that they used to be friends with the Germans, and then after a while the Germans had started fighting them.”

As the war drew on, the then-King of Swaziland, Sobhuza, agreed to gather volunteers to fight as part of the Allied forces. In exchange, he extracted promises from the British of greater autonomy for his country in the future. But the young Mnikwa, not yet a chief, had his own reasons for signing up.

“The reason why I was eager to go to war was because there were rumors in my home that I might become the next chief,” he recalls.

“I said it’s better that I go to die. It was never in me. I said it’s better that I should go there because the way to heaven I would definitely find there.”

He didn’t want to be the chief because there would be ‘too much noise’.

So Mnikwa and a few thousand other young Swazis registered with the British authorities. They were given boots, khaki uniforms, the works.

In late 1941 Mnikwa was shipped off for training near the Suez Canal. He was soon fighting in the deserts of Libya, and then in Italy.

“[Benito] Mussolini, who was a politician, was friendly with Hitler. We then had to fight the Italians as well.”

“There were lots of bombs around. And they used to have bombs planted around in the ground, and you would touch some of them and they would go off, and people would die.”

Along the way, Mnikwa met soldiers from all parts of the world, including the United States. He remembers that they were “not people who liked to talk to other people very much. They would talk every now and then, but most of the time they kept to themselves.”

The war ended, and Mnikwa traveled back to southern Africa. He spent some time in Johannesburg, trying to avoid the inevitable. But eventually he returned to Hhelehhele to take up his responsibilities.

“I then realized that I can’t just do my own will. Clearly it was God’s wish that I should live.”

There are people who go to war out of a moral obligation, but perhaps not that many. Most sign up to pay their bills, or to pay for college. Others go because they’re told to.

Mnikwa Dlamini, the chief of Hhelehhele, a rural area in the north of Swaziland went because he didn’t want to be a chief.

Emmanuel Dolo is trying to apply on-line for a scholarship, but he’s not having much luck.

“The Internet here is very slow. Sometimes you pay for 60 minutes and you only get to use 20 minutes. It just keeps loading and loading,” Dolo said. “It’s frustrating.”

In Liberia, businesses and internet providers must pay for expensive satellite service, which is far beyond the reach of most Liberians.

Elliott Blidi, a project coordinator in Liberia for the West Africa Regional Communications Infrastructure Program, said Liberia has the lowest access to internet penetration in the region.

“In West Africa, Africa in general, our penetration is very low – about 0.02 percent. During the civil war years, the cables that were available, the financing and political will were not there to bring it in,” Blidi said.

But eight years out of war after the end of Liberia’s civil war, that is finally starting to change. Last week, a French ship arrived on the Liberian coast, carrying with it a fiber optic cable, two inches thick and 10,000 miles long. The ship is dragging the cable from France to South Africa.

Spectators watch the fiber optic cable being brought to shore in Liberia. (Photo: Bonnie Allen)

The Africa Coast to Europe (ACE) cable system, run by a consortium of telecom operators led by French Telecom, will provide broadband connectivity to more than 20 countries in Africa and Western Europe.

A crowd gathered on a sandy beach near downtown Monrovia, watching as a diver emerged from the sea, pulling a rope. Eventually, the underwater cable popped out of the ocean onto the beach, which prompted cheers from the crowd.

It was a moment of celebration for Ciata Victor. She’s a Liberian businesswoman who returned home after the war ended in 2003, armed with a degree in computer engineering technology. But she said it’s been difficult to work here.

“I moved my company home from America to Liberia and internet access has been extremely challenging. I have paid as high as $449 a month for internet access,” she said.

After lagging far behind, Africa is on the verge of an internet boom, according to a recent World Bank study. As of 2010, there were 12 submarine cables in sub-Saharan Africa and another five under construction.

For Liberia, as well as Gambia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, the ACE submarine cable is the first connection to a fiber optic system.

Elliott Blidi is confident that internet use here will increase by 75 percent in the next four years, even though many here have never used a computer.

Blidi said the explosion in cell-phone use proves it’s possible.

“Any illiterate person, any farmer who has never sat a day in school can use a cell phone. Any old mother sitting in the market can use a cell phone. If you can use a cell phone, then it’s just a next step to going online,” Blidi said.

The entire ACE cable must be in place before broadband service can begin in Liberia. That’s expected to happen by mid-next year.

Meanwhile, the Liberian government and local companies must do their part — install wires, cables, and towers to share the technology with the country.