Mali

For some delegates, just getting to the West African Journalists Association (WAJA) regional conference in Dakar, Senegal, was an impressive achievement. While his colleagues used more conventional modes of transportation, Sierra Leone Association of Journalists (SLAJ) president Frank Kposowa navigated his way out of the country by night in a hired motorized dugout canoe. The state of anarchy in Sierra Leone since the May 25, 1997, coup d'?état had rendered travel virtually impossible, and Kposowa's risky passage was just another example of the challenges facing courageous journalists who chose to remain in the country and risked losing their lives by practicing their profession.