All In A Day's Work

Chad is a large nation in the African Sahel, bordering Libya, Sudan, the Central African Republic, Cameroon, Nigeria, and Niger. Lac Chad, for which the country is named, was once much larger. Millenia of desertification, however, have left the northern third of the country part of the Sahara desert, and the middle third is constantly in danger of draught.

A number of kingdoms, notably the empire of Kanem-Bornu dominated medieval Chad. Arab traders, slavers and conquerors took an interest in the region, and plied their trades along its borders. Much of modern Chad was dominated by Arabs during recent centuries, until France defeated an Egyptian sultan in 1900.

Chad remained French until 1960, when a republic was established under Francois Tombalbaye. Northern opposition to Tombalbaye - a Southerner, and inferior in their minds - threatened the country's unity from its birth. Dictatorship ensued, and continued until Tombalbaye's assassination in 1975.

After decades of revolts, reprisals, and foreign intervention a semblance of peace was finally restored in 1990. In 1998 however, a new rebellion broke out in Northern Chad, and the central government does not maintain effective control. Chad remains to be one of the most underdeveloped countries of Africa. The infant mortality rate is 9.5%, HIV/AIDS infects about 6% of adults, and 60% of adult Chadians are illiterate.


The island of Cyprus lies in the eastern Mediterranean Sea, south of Turkey and west of Syria. Since 1974 the island has been split into two effectively independent sections; the Turkish north and the Greek south.

Cyprus has a rich and ancient history going back thousands of years. Independence, however, has been slow in coming to the strategically located island. Empires and outsiders controlled Cyprus for thousands of years - Mycenaeans, Assyrians, Egyptians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Crusaders, Venetians, Ottomans, and Britons.

In 1960 the last foreign rulers, the British, granted the island independence based on a consociational constitution, guaranteeing rights and places in the government to Turkish Cypriots as well as majority Greeks.

Peaceful self-government, however, was short-lived. Communal strife broke out as early as 1963, and the island polarized and descended into violence. The violence tailed off later in the decade, but an attempted coup in 1974 supported by the mainland Greek government incurred the wrath of Turkey, whose troops took over the northern third of the island and have stayed there ever since, despite the hasty Greek withdrawal.