What makes a nation, other than its people? Is it the flag, the passport, the currency, the anthem? Or is it something more complex and harder to pin down?
In seeking to illustrate the latest in a series of Reuters special reports on the growing pains of South Sudan, photographer Adriane Ohanesian gathered a selection of objects.
Adriane Ohanesian / Reuters
Photo illustrations, clockwise from top left: A South Sudanese passport; A South Sudanese five pound note; A motorcycle license plate from the new nation's Eastern Equatoria State; A copy of South Sudan's national anthem handwritten by Gabriel Arnest, one of its three composers.
Adriane Ohanesian / Reuters
Photo illustrations, clockwise from top left: The South Sudan national soccer team's jersey; A bottle of White Bull beer, produced in Juba; A tote bag with the slogan 'I heart Juba'; A car air freshener showing the seal of South Sudan.
Reuters reports — Not all new countries are really new. Some are born almost fully formed; others have to start from nothing.
Adriane Ohanesian / Reuters
The flag of South Sudan.
That difference is crucial to a new nation's chances of success.
More than half the youngest nations in the world were born or reborn after the collapse of communism in Europe and had existed as independent states as far back as the Middle Ages. Most regained independence with established institutions — courts, banks, police forces, schools — and skilled people to run them.
South Sudan, which gained full independence last year, is at the other end of the spectrum. When it won a measure of autonomy from Sudan in 2005, its roster of organized, national institutions began and ended with its army.
"In the case of South Sudan, you don't reconstruct, you don't rebuild, you start from scratch," Hilde Johnson, the U.N. Secretary General's Special representative for South Sudan, told Reuters. Read the full story.
A soldier in South Sudan's SPLA army looks up at warplanes as he lies on the ground to take cover beside a road during an air strike by the Sudanese air force in Rubkona, near Bentiu, South Sudan, on April 23, 2012.
Goran Tomasevic / Reuters
A woman runs along a road during an air strike by the Sudanese air force in Rubkona on April 23, 2012.
Goran Tomasevic / Reuters
Smoke rises after the Sudanese air force fired a missile during an air strike in Rubkona on April 23, 2012.
A Reuters reporter at the scene, outside the oil town of Bentiu, said he saw a fighter aircraft drop two bombs near a river bridge between Bentiu and the neighboring town of Rubkona.
Weeks of border fighting between the two neighbors have brought the former civil war foes closer to a full-blown war than at any time since the South seceded in July. Read more.
If you've been on Twitter or Facebook recently, you've probably seen a viral campaign called "Kony 2012." But who's behind it this effort to get rid of a Ugandan warlord accused of war crimes and sexual slavery? NBC's Craig Melvin reports.
By msnbc.com staff and news services
A charity whose tactics have been criticized is making traction online with a video, "KONY 2012," that aims to bring down the leader of a cult-like rebel army in Africa.
The 30-minute documentary, which has had more than 7 million YouTube downloads, was made by Invisible Children, a charity that wants Joseph Kony, head of the Lord's Resistance Army, to face trial in an international court on charges of using children as soldiers and other human rights crimes in Uganda.
A recent Foreign Affairs report challenged the tactics used by the charity and several others, saying they had exaggerated the scale of Kony's crimes.
The blog Visible Children, written by a Canadian college student, also questioned the value of Invisible Children's emphasis on filmmaking and social media advocacy and pointed out that it was advocating for western military intervention in Africa.
Jedediah Jenkins, the charity's director of idea development, told the Washington Post that the criticism was "myopic" and that the film reflected a "tipping point" by getting young Americans to care about an issue in Africa.
"The film has reached a place in the global consciousness where people know who Kony is, they know his crimes," Jenkins added. "Kids know and they respond. And then they won’t allow it to happen anymore."
On Tuesday, the UN refugee agency said the Lord's Resistance Army had launched a new spate of attacks in the northeastern region Democratic Republic of Congo this year after a lull in the second half of 2011.
But Mounoubai Madnodje, a spokesman for the UN's Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo, said the LRA was on its last legs.
"We think right now it's the last gasp of a dying organization that's still trying to make a statement," he said. Madnodje said there are only about 200 LRA fighters left.
But experts on the LRA were skeptical about writing off Kony's force too soon. Mareike Schomerus at the London School of Economics said small scale attacks did not necessarily mean the LRA was getting weaker.
"It doesn't tell us anything because it's the same thing they have been doing for the last 25 years," she said.
The LRA, which emerged in northern Uganda in the late 1990s, is believed to have killed, kidnapped and mutilated thousands of people. Kony is wanted by the International Criminal Court and the African Union, which has designated it as a terrorist group.
In October the United States sent 100 military personnel, mainly special forces, to train and advise the forces fighting against the LRA.
This article includes reporting by msnbc.com staff and Reuters.
Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe greets the crowd upon his arrival for the official opening of the Zanu PF Congress in Bulawayo, on Thursday, Dec. 8, 2011. Loyalists of the Zimbabwe president's party are gathering for a party conference in preparation next year's election.
By Rohit Kachroo , NBC News Correspont
BULAWAYO, Zimbabwe – Dancing erratically and singing passionately outside the conference hall, an elderly woman named Grace anticipates the arrival of the president. While many people refer to him simply as a “tyrant” and a “dictator,” she calls him “our liberation hero, Mr. R.G. Mugabe.”
His smiling face is stitched onto her outfit. She sings his name and throws her body from side to side close to the edge of the red carpet. “He is our savior, he freed us from the imperialists,” she says, referring to Britain, the old colonial power.
Suddenly she spots “His Excellency” walking toward the auditorium to open the congress of his party, ZANU-PF, where he is confirmed as a candidate for elections, expected next year. Grace joins the crowd that is following him – a mix of loyal supporters, loyal civil servants and loyal security guards.
Eventually, seven hours after he was due to begin, Mugabe delivers his speech.
Familiar rhetoric It suddenly becomes obvious where Grace has picked up her language. Her leader defines Zimbabwe’s enemies as “the imperialists,” too – in this case, the American and European powers involved in the NATO campaign in Libya, a “bloody tragedy” motivated by “oil and reconstruction projects.” Only “a dead imperialist” is a good one, he says.
It is a long speech, and some of the slogans about the West are familiar. The apparent evil of the white world, particularly Britain, has formed part of the rhetoric of Robert Mugabe for his whole political life. The ZANU-PF party congress started Thursday with Mugabe’s appearance and continues until Saturday.
Delivering his speech wearing a bright red suit, Mugabe throws his fist around, switching between languages as he works through the address. But the country and the world beyond the heavily armed gates has evolved much faster than the president’s favorite lines.
Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi / AP
Supporters of Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe are seen before his arrival for the official opening of the Zanu PF Congress in Zimbabwe's second city of Bulawayo, Thursday, Dec. 8, 2011.
For one, Mugabe’s closest enemies are no longer in foreign capitals, but a few blocks from the presidential state house in Harare.
Though he remains an autocrat in control of most organs of the state, the disputed results of elections in 2008 forced him into an uneasy power-sharing agreement with his party’s rival, the Movement for Democratic Change, led by the prime minister, Morgan Tsvangirai. “They are a party for women,” said one delegate, emulating part of Mugabe’s speech, though he then named the older enemy, Britain, as Zimbabwe’s true foe.
With school choirs singing celebratory songs in the background, many ZANU-PF supporters are keen to highlight Zimbabwe’s successes. Literacy rates are relatively high; the economy is growing as natural resources are exploited; the terrifying days of 2008, when hyper-inflation forced the economy into free-fall, have passed. But in the run-down townships a few miles from the conference hall, it is clear that extreme poverty and disease haunt many parts of Zimbabwe.
Divisions among the ranks There, many people no longer accept the president’s claim that they are suffering the destructive impact of international sanctions; some do not believe his proposed solution of ensuring that black Zimbabweans own 51 percent of foreign companies based within the country. And many are concerned that under Mugabe the country will never be far from another explosion of violence.
There are rumors of divisions at the congress – unheard of at previous meetings. Independent newspapers claim that delegates are worried about the ability of the 87-year-old president to fight an election campaign and they have been plotting to find a successor. One loyal supporter rolls his eyes when I mention such concerns. He is frustrated by the very suggestion, but his response suggests that it is one that he is used to hearing. Another senior supporter calls Mugabe “the fittest public figure in Zimbabwe.”
That may be a wildly exaggerated assessment for a man who appears to nod off during some meetings, but he seemed to be healthy as he stormed into the conference hall to speak for more than two hours. However, that will not have convinced some of his opponents. They claim that the octogenarian’s frequent trips to Singapore are not to visit his daughter, as his people claim, but for medical treatment.
The now banned South African Nandos "Last Dictator Standing" ad. The ad was deemed offensive by Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe and his supporters - so out of fear of violent reprisals, the ad was pulled from the airwaves.
'Last dictator standing' ad Then there’s one unexpected issue that has cropped up as a last-minute talking point on the fringes of the congress – a controversial fast food commercial that many see as a humiliating attack on the president. When I mention it to one delegate, he gulps and warns me that “‘Nando’s’ is a dirty word here.”
We’re talking, in hushed tones, about a TV commercial for the restaurant chain that stars an actor depicting Mugabe as “the last dictator standing.” To the soundtrack ‘Those Were The Days’, the look-a-like recalls the president during happier times – laughing uncontrollably during cozy moments with the dictators of the world – playing in the sand with Saddam Hussein and sharing the microphone with Mao Tse-tung at a raucous karaoke evening. After the reminiscing, a lonely “Mugabe” is seen sitting mournfully at the head of a presidential dining table set for his fallen foreign friends. “No one should ever have to eat alone” the voiceover guy tells us, with the final pitch for a family-size portion of fast-food chicken.
The ad, broadcast across southern Africa, was pulled because of fears of attacks on Nando’s restaurants in Harare, but only after raising many laughs and a few questions about Mugabe’s future after this year of revolution.
For Mugabe, heading into a likely election year, the Arab Spring simply teaches Zimbabwe to beware of the West and to consolidate sovereignty. His opponents worry what that might mean. They believe that the pace of democratic reform must accelerate, and the president must accept the need for change.
But Grace, his singing, dancing elderly supporter outside, believes “He must rule forever.”
According to the feverish rhetoric of the Congress, there can be no Zimbabwe without him.
NBC News producer Baruch Ben-Chorin just returned from Turkana, a remote region in northwestern Kenya badly hit by the drought that is afflicting parts of East Africa. While the international community has focused largely on suffering in Somalia, relief workers say close to 40 percent of Turkana's population is suffering from hunger and malnutrition.
While concentrating on his main task of producing, Ben-Chorin took pictures for himself and his friends and family.
Editor's note: These images were altered by a software application that uses filters to mimic the effects of shooting with an antique plastic film camera, even though they were taken with a modern digital phone camera.
Baruch Ben-Chorin / NBC News
A hut in the village of Kalapata, Turkana region, Kenya. Most of the people in Turkana live in small villages like Kalapata, depending on their herds for their livelihood. But the drought has killed most of their animals, and left them with nothing. Their traditional way of life may not survive.
Baruch Ben-Chorin / NBC News
A boy, foreground, receives food for the first time in two weeks at a Red Cross feeding point at a school. His father died in the famine in Loitanit, North Turkana. The drought over the last five years has devastated this region. In some parts the the region close to 40 percent of the people are malnourished.
Baruch Ben-Chorin / NBC News
A child collects maize grains from the ground.
Ben-Chorin wrote the following upon his return from the region:
I've used my iPhone to take pictures while on assignment or on the road for a while, and discovered the Hipstamatic application while playing around with it. I find the low-tech, old-fashioned look appealing, and there is always a sense of mystery in the resulting picture. This technique adds an interesting dimension that allows me to focus beyond the immediate, which a regular camera doesn’t.
These photographs were taken during a three-day trip to the remote Turkana region, which has been badly affected by the long drought in the Horn of Africa. Because it is so remote, and to some extent ignored by the Kenyan government, there is little reporting about widespread hunger and malnutrition in Turkana. But it is bad, very bad. We visited a number of communities and witnessed these proud and beautiful people who have maintained their traditional way of life for thousands of years struggle to survive.
Baruch Ben-Chorin / NBC News
Turkana women waiting for food distribution in the village of Kalapata. Five people have died of hunger in this village alone over the last few months.
Baruch Ben-Chorin / NBC News
Turkana women. The people of Turkana are beautiful, proud and gracious, living a traditional life that dates back thousand of years.
Baruch Ben-Chorin / NBC News
Not far from the worst famine stricken areas, the USAID-sponsored Morulem project offers a sign of hope. The simple irrigation project has created vast green fields of maize and sorghum that feeds 3,000 households in the Lokori area. People here have a surplus of food that they can store or sell.
Watch an NBC News report from Turkana:
Rohit Kachroo reports from Turkana, in north-western Kenya, where famine is spreading deeper into the country causing many Kenyans to turn their attention away from the crisis in Somalia and work towards relieving the hunger within its own borders.
Millions of people in Somalia, Kenya, Ethiopia and South Sudan are being affected by severe drought conditions. One desperate woman, looking for help, walked for an entire month with her five children to try to reach a refugee camp. ITV's Rohit Kachroo reports from the Dadaab refugee camp in eastern Kenya.
By Rohit Kachroo, NBC News
DADAAB, Kenya - With a population of almost 400,000, the Dadaab Refugee Camp in north-east Kenya is beginning to resemble a city. Like in any fast-growing metropolis, the morning rush here can be a miserable time; the infrastructure creaks louder than at any other part of the day. This must be the most desperate rush-hour of any city in the world.
At around 8 a.m., a huge crowd of new residents begin to stream through the gates of the reception center. Most have been forced here by the worst drought to affect East Africa for 60 years – described by the United Nations as a "humanitarian emergency."
World Food Program officials estimate that 10 million people already need humanitarian aid, The Associated Press reported Sunday. The U.N. Children's Fund estimates that more than 2 million children are malnourished and in need of lifesaving action.
Many of the new arrivals are families who have walked from Somalia for days or even weeks in search of food and water.
Amongst the line of refugees, many terrible stories are shared about the children who have died along the way. But some prefer to keep their stories to themselves.
The United Nations says malnutrition among child refugees fleeing the drought in Somalia has reached alarming rates. Drought and famine are affecting millions of people in the Horn of Africa. NBC's Rohit Kachroo reports.
I spot a 52-year-old woman perched in the shade, sitting on her own and staring at the sky. She seems terrified, so I ask her whether she needs any help. She pauses and then explodes with an outburst of emotion and regret, telling me how she began her 200-mile journey with her 12-year-old boy – mother and son together. Then, stroking her throat and clutching her stomach, she reveals that he died along the way; his hunger and thirst had grown as they walked; his life was apparently claimed by the devastating drought. She returns to silence and, as we leave her, she seems to become engrossed in her thoughts once again.
Hunger and exhaustion Nearby, amid a swirling dust storm, three young mothers run for cover under a shelter, each clutching their baby; we run with them. The blowing sand picks up and the mothers huddle together to shield the other children from the conditions as much as they do their own. They appear to be the best of friends – but it turns out that they met along the way from Somalia to Kenya and formed an immediate bond built upon their shared circumstances. Their closeness demonstrates that the drought which has ripped families apart has also forced some people together.
Elsewhere in the camp, we find a mother cramming her children into a makeshift tent. She has six boys and girls with her, but I soon learn that they are not all her own. She welcomed the eldest child into her family during their month-long walk from the northern tip of rural Somalia. The boy's real mother died after collapsing from hunger and exhaustion on the penultimate day of their voyage; the two families had befriended each other as they made similar trips south towards the refugee camp. Yet the youngster's new mother seems to treat him no differently to any of the other children.
To welcome an orphan into your family without reluctance might seem like an incredible thing to do when your own family continues to endure so much; but this sort of charity is not unique amongst the new refugees, who are arriving into Dadaab at the rate of up to 1,500 a day. In incredibly trying circumstances, there have been great acts of kindness. But with predictions that the drought will develop into a full-scale famine, there might be need for much more generosity.
The United Nations says malnutrition among child refugees fleeing the drought in Somalia has reached alarming rates. Drought and famine are affecting millions of people in the Horn of Africa. NBC's Rohit Kachroo reports.
As we traveled north through Kenya into one of the worst-hit areas, the lush green of the Nairobi suburbs disappeared into gray sand and dry earth. In three hours, I counted the carcasses of 27 cattle by the roadside, and one giraffe - apparently killed because the land could not sustain them. The striking images of the landscape seem to represent a deceptively simple assessment of the drought: the dirty work of Mother Nature.
Rohit Kachroo / NBC News
The carcass of a giraffe on a roadside north of Nairobi, Kenya.
"The only reason for all the suffering in this region is the lack of rain," one desperate doctor told me as he lifted up yet another severely malnourished baby so that he could be weighed. The doctor is wrong.
Witness the outbreak of famine or drought and you'll usually see that there has been an outbreak of war nearby. In this case, the lawlessless of war-torn Somalia is driving people into neighboring Kenya. In Ethiopia, high inflation and fast-rising food prices have also forced people out. Many of those refugees have been competing with the recently killed animals that we saw on our journey for water and food. Consider that and the deadly cocktail behind this current crisis doesn't look so basic. Human hands are all over this.
Kenya's refugee camps are packed. Dadaab, the biggest refugee camp in the world, was originally built for 90,000 people but now has 380,000 refugees, UNICEF officials told Reuters this week. About 10,000 more stream in each week.
Bloodshed and turmoil Many of the children arriving are stick-thin and desperately hungry, fleeing the impact of dry weather. But there are adults who appear to be well-nourished. Many are escaping their homeland because life in a stinking, over-run camp is better than the bloodshed and turmoil back home.
It all suggests that the solution might not be as simple as some donor appeals might imply. Aid agencies asking for tens of millions of dollars in donations will be able to do great work easing the anguish of many people.
Jane Cocking, Oxfam's humanitarian director, told The Associated Press that 12 million people face "a fight for survival". Oxfam hopes to raise $80 million, its largest ever appeal for Africa.
The U.N. has said the Horn of Africa is experiencing one of the worst droughts since the early 1950s.
But aid groups won't be able solve the crisis on their own. They can't end war. They can't cut food prices.
Cynics will say that it is a reason for the world not to get too involved. Many people have suggested the same thing to me. "This happens every year," they moan; on that point they're correct. Some parts of the region are so familiar with drought that they are synonymous with it. These are re-occuring crises which cannot be solved by even the greatest donor appeals.
Roberto Schmidt / AFP - Getty Images
Sarura, left, her husband Ali, right and their six children look bewildered as they arrive at the Dadaab refugee camp in northeastern Kenya on Monday. Ali and his family had just finished an eight-day-journey to the camp from their home in Somalia. A complex of three settlements, Dadaab is the world's largest refugee camp.
But although the cause of the crisis is complex, the consequence is simple - painfully simple. This year's drought and "pre-famine" do appear to be particularly bad. The United Nations believes that it might lead to a "human tragedy of unimaginable proportions" - a grave warning indeed. Charities say that the world must act now to avoid a catastrophe.
But after this crisis, there may be many more - a tragedy in itself - because this is a combination of drought, refugee crisis and food crisis which has been made by men as well as nature. However, aid workers say that is no reason to look away.
The devastating drought in the Horn of Africa has sent hundreds of thousands of people from Somali seeking shelter in overwhelmed refugee camps in Kenya. ITN's Rohit Kachroo reports.
A crowd of Chinese evacuees from Libya line up at the Malta International Airport to fly back to China Thursday.
By Martin Fletcher, NBC News Correspondent
VALLETTA, Malta – How things have changed. When the 2004 tsunami hit the Indian Ocean, America sent the Seventh Fleet of the U.S. Navy to help evacuees. China sent a cargo ship.
Now to evacuate American workers from the crisis in Libya, America sent a chartered ferry too small to ride the rough seas of the Mediterranean.
China chartered a giant ocean cruise ship, 20 civilian aircraft, four military aircraft and moved 35,860 of its citizens out of danger in Libya as of Wednesday, within a week of starting the process, according to the Chinese foreign minister.
I’m thinking of the comparison as I wait for my plane in Malta, one of the evacuation hubs. Lined up in complete silence and total order are hundreds of Chinese workers wearing red caps, obeying ladies holding up red and yellow Chinese flags like any tour group at the Vatican. They follow instructions, wait in long lines, and shuffle forward when told. On command, a long single file strides through the concourse like an unstoppable column of ants. I am reminded of the 1927 German movie Metropolis.
What a difference. Not one is wearing headphones or playing with a telephone or digital device. They are all slim and fit, no sign of impending obesity. Their bags are bound with cellophane. Some are still in their orange work suits and carrying orange hardhats. They were working in Libya’s oil, rail, construction and telecommunications industries.
Dmitry Solovyov / NBC News
Chinese evacuees from Libya line up at the Malta International Airport Thursday.
China’s government chartered a fleet of planes to carry them to Shanghai. Quietly, effectively, without fuss, China is evacuating all its workers to safety. It is the silent contract between state and worker: You work abroad, we’ll look after you.
China’s People’s Daily boasted that it was the “largest and most complicated overseas evacuation ever conducted by the Chinese government.” And China’s foreign minister gave credit for the speedy and efficient evacuation to “China's peaceful foreign policy, which makes China a popular country in the community of nations.”
There are an estimated 50,000 Chinese workers in Nigeria, 35,000 in Sudan, 40,000 in Zambia, 30,000 in Angola, 20,000 in Algeria and thousands more dotted around the African continent. They are the face of Chinese industry, investment, diplomacy and eventually, power.
But what strikes me is the efficiency and order and calm. Nobody was arguing with the airline staff, objecting to orders, struggling with too many bags and bulky packages. Rather just a line of calm, single men with small cases, waiting patiently to be told what to do and where to go.
It occurred to me, is this the future?
China has invested heavily in Africa while the West turned elsewhere, and Chinese companies are spreading rapidly and silently through Latin America, too. Their insatiable appetite for coal, copper, bauxite, oil, iron ore and almost every other mineral is leading them on an economic conquest like no other. Their workers lead the rush, and their government spreads its wings to protect them, wherever they are.
As 200 men lined up in a silent single file that snaked through duty-free, with nobody eyeing all the luxuries on display, waiting for a man with a Chinese flag to raise his arm and tell them to move, I didn’t know whether to be filled with admiration or trepidation.
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