BEIT BRIDGE, South Africa-Zimbabwe border – Zimbabwean English has always been wonderfully inventive. The country itself is fondly nicknamed "Zim", a beer is a "shumba" after one of the most popular brands "Lion" beer, and a crocodile is a "flatdog."

CNN correspondent Robyn Curnow reports from the border between South Africa and Zimbabwe.

But now, it is something called "the Zek" that is consuming most Zimbabweans’ lives.

"I wonder why it is," one man asked me early this morning on the South African-Zimbabwe border post, "that the Zek is taking so long."

"The Zek??" I replied, mystified.

"Yes," he said emphatically, "the Zek is really taking its time now. I wonder what it means? Maybe the government is not doing so well after all. If they were winning the Zek would be doing its work more speedily."

"What," I pleaded with him, ‘is the Zek?"

"The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission," he told me. ZEC are its initials - so, of course, "the ZEK."

What else could it be called?

With the opposition MDC claiming to lead the polls and Robert Mugabe’s ZANU-PF party trailing in the count at this stage, many people here at Beit Bridge on the border are beginning to hope - for what they are not quite sure yet.

There is still much fear in Zimbabwe. Those who have crossed the border from Zimbabwe tell us that police are patrolling the major cities and that the army has been called back to barracks to wait in readiness.

As the slow vote counting continues, this is the time of rumor. We hear from a number of credible sources that the generals met for hours last night and then again with President Mugabe this morning.

Then there are the unfounded stories. "The borders are closed!" someone says to me on my cellphone - when it is clear to me, standing on the very border that they are open.

Callers to the morning radio talk shows in Johannesburg were claiming that Robert Mugabe had fled to Malaysia last night!Where do these rumours come from?

It is impossible to tell, but one thing is clear. People, at last, are expecting something. Do they yet dare hope for a change?

"I would caution them," another Zimbabwean man said to me at a gas station. "That old man has cheated many elections before this one. We will have to see what he does."

BEIT BRIDGE, South Africa-Zimbabwe border – "What do you think will happen?" the man asked me.  His face was apprehensive.   "I’m not sure," I replied.  He was a Zambian truck driver who had to pass through the whole length of Zimbabwe to get to his destination further north on the continent.  It was Saturday, the day of the elections and he was stuck at the border post in South Africa.

He glanced down at the ground briefly and then looked at me again.  "That’s why I want to get through Zimbabwe as soon as possible.  I’m scared they’ll close the border and then I’ll never get through.  Or - ". 

The rest of his statement he left unsaid, in the typical African way of politeness that seeks to avoid disturbing other people with unpleasantness.  I knew exactly what he meant.  On his mind was what many people around the world are wondering.  Will there be violence in the wake of Zimbabwe’s elections?

So far there has been none, and I’m sure my Zambian acquaintance got through okay.  But as the results come through, and the opposition MDC is claiming that it has won well over 60% of the vote, the question becomes more urgent.

The police have warned the opposition, or anyone else, not to announce any results before the Zimbabwean Electoral Commission (ZEC) has done so.  The MDC points out that the elections results are public knowledge.  A clash looms.  There are reports from inside Zimbabwe that police have already raided opposition offices.

On the border the trucks are flowing through the gates faster and faster.  Many of them heading not for Zimbabwe but for countries further north.  All of them are anxious that things might go wrong in that country and their route blocked.

In the blazing heat at the end of the rainy season, thousands of Zimbabweans make their way into South Africa by foot, searching for jobs, food, and perhaps some money to send home.   The elections are over; but they mean little to these desperate people.

 The results are coming out, and the world waits to see what will happen next.

BEIT BRIDGE, South Africa-Zimbabwe border – The sun rises over the Limpopo valley – a magnificent panoply of scarlet and gold soaring above a horizon of thorn and baobab trees.  A trio of baboons lope across the tarmac in the dawn light.  But as we approach the South African-Zimbabwe border post, the human suffering here is revealed all too clearly amidst the natural beauty.

The fruit and vegetable sellers – refugees from Zimbabwe – who have set up their small stalls sit bleakly in front of their produce.  Many have been up all night, hoping to sell a few pieces of fruit.  Also, the baboons might rob their stalls and the powerful animals can be dangerous.

It is our second day covering the Zimbabwe elections as best we can from the South African border.  CNN is banned from Zimbabwe.  Today voting begins and we are up early to broadcast live as the polls open.  An older man with a church membership badge on his shirt and a broad smile that reveals a pair of missing teeth comes up to us as we are setting up our cameras.  "May today see the rise of Tsvangarai!" he says loudly, stretching his arms wide. "May we see Mugabe fall on his back!"  he adds with a booming laugh, but which echoes with more than a hint of anger, even despair.

His mixture of contempt and hostility are haunting.  He has seen all of Zimbabwe’s painful road to collapse.  Born at the height of white colonial rule, he grew to adulthood in a country called Rhodesia where blacks were second, even third-class, citizens.  He would have lived through the brutal guerilla war against white minority rule that ended in 1980.  Then Robert Mugabe was a hero preaching a new dawn of freedom and reconciliation.  Now he is reviled by many of his own people – like this man – as a tyrant.  Many Zimbabweans have lost so much hope.

Are these elections a turning point?  Will they really be free and fair?  If so, will the divided opposition really succeed in defeating President Mugabe?  If he loses, will he step down?  If he wins, will those of his people who now despise him, accept the result?  Over the coming days as the votes are counted, these will be the questions many in Africa and the world will be asking.  Everything is at stake now.

BEIT BRIDGE, South Africa-Zimbabwe border – The heat at the Beit Bridge border post between South Africa and Zimbabwe is stifling and the roar of diesel engines often deafening.   A small, but steady stream of people cross through the gates of the frontier, carrying bundles of clothes and packages of food past the coils of razor wire that separate the two countries.

The CNN team reporting from the border between Zimbabwe and South Africa.

There is election fever in Zimbabwe - but we, like many international and African news organizations, are banned from that country so we have report on them as best we can from the South African side.  Our satellite transmission truck is parked in a taxi rank alongside a row of fruit and vegetable sellers.  We can go no further than the fence, so we rely on the people crossing the border to give us some sense of what is happening on the other side.

They tell us that, unlike previous election years, the levels of overt violence are down.  There are very few cases of people being beaten or jailed for supporting the opposition, but the threat remains.

"These elections might be free because people are not being harassed," a man tells us, "but I cannot say they are fair.  They have never been fair, not for 28 years."

Others are reluctant to talk on camera, fearing repercussions for themselves or their families back home. 

Zimbabwe’s catastrophic economic decline and hyper inflation is clear.  Not even the government dares dispute this.  It blames the targeted Western sanctions which it claims have destroyed an African country for daring to stand up to the West.

But what do the people of Zimbabwe believe?  No one here on the border supports President Robert Mugabe, who has ruled Zimbabwe for nearly three decades.  Many are wearing free T-shirts supporting Simba Makoni, the former cabinet minister who has declared himself an opposition candidate.  The other popular T-shirt – also free – bears the slogan: "The Party is Over.  Are You Hungry Enough?  Are You Angry Enough?"

But is the view of these migrants the whole picture?  An estimated 3 million Zimbabweans have left their country – a quarter of the population.  The people we speak to represent their voice - but what of those who have stayed on?  Do they support their President and his defiant stance against the West?  We can’t tell.  Because we cannot go to Zimbabwe, we cannot practice the oldest skills of our craft, asking questions of people and reporting what we hear to the wider world.

President Mugabe has effectively reduced our role to that of being uncertain outsiders, unable to verify for ourselves the desperation and rage we hear from Zimbabwean exiles.  He has succeeded in part in gagging us.  But in that very silence lies a paradox.  He cannot dispel the doubts that much of the world has about these elections.

LONDON, England – The front page headline of Britain’s Sun newspaper tells the story: "Mucca chucks a cuppa water over Macca’s lawyer Shacka."

For those who don’t speak British tabloid, here’s the translation: "Heather Mills throws a glass of water over Paul McCartney’s lawyer Fiona Shackleton."

She what? She couldn’t have. Surely not.

But the pictures are compelling.

On Monday morning Fiona Shackleton arrives at London’s Royal Courts of justice with Paul McCartney. Her hair styled in its usual impressive bouffant.

Then just a few hours later she leaves with Paul McCartney, looking like she’d just taken a shower, with her clothes on.

British newspapers quote unnamed witnesses who claim Heather Mills coolly and deliberately emptied a glass over her ex-husband’s lawyer.

If true, it’s a moment of drama and comedy that provides a fitting climax to this bitter, ugly and often ridiculous celebrity breakup.

Outside the court Mills didn’t hide her loathing for Shackleton. While attacking much of the legal process that led to her being awarded more than 48 million dollars, Mills said: “Fiona Shackleton has very sadly, handled this case in the worst manner you can ever, ever imagine. She has called me many, many names before even meeting me when I was in a wheelchair.”

Shackleton is known in London’s legal community as the Steel Magnolia. She’s famous because her clients are. She represented Prince Charles in his divorce from Diana.

The before-and-after images from the McCartney settlement show another interesting difference in Fiona Shackleton’s appearance. Despite her unwanted makeover she looks happy when leaving the court.

Is she pleased with the judgement? Or does she really like her new look? It’s possible. One British media outlet noted the slicked back do has taken 20 years off her appearance.

– For full judgement on McCartney-Mills click here (PDF document)

BEIJING, China – It had to happen ... sooner or later they were going to find us and stop us. This morning they did. .. Chinese police, armed with those almost toy gun-looking small caliber machine guns pulled us over, asked for passports, and told us this was the end of the road.

We were still 300 kilometers from Ngawa county in Sichuan province, where Tibetan exile groups claim Chinese security forces have killed more than 30 protesters - including monks, women and children.

I was amazed we had made this far. Far enough to see the trucks filled with heavily armed PLA soldiers heading north to Ngawa, far enough to see military helicopters in the sky. ... Memorable because after a year and a half of traveling extensively throughout this country I cannot recall ever seeing a helicopter. Tibetan exile groups say hundreds of troops were flown into Ngawa by helicopter.

There's no way to find out if any of these claims by Tibetan groups are true and it seems the Chinese authorities are determined to keep it that way.

ABECHE, Chad – A country in a state of emergency, curfews at midnight, and rumors of rebel offences - our biggest worry was our gear.

Children preparing for their journey back to their families.

Fabien decided, wisely, that our equipment was more important than our personal effects, so we left our own bags behind and rode to the airport in N'Djamena, Chad, with a four-wheel drive packed to the rafters with black gear bags.
 
The last time I was in this airport, someone was trying to take a tiny Antelope with him as hand luggage.  We didn't have anything quite that exotic.
 
We placed all our bags on the scales and were asked a dreaded question in the broadcast world, "what isn't critical for your trip?"
 
"Everything is critical!" Fabien replied.
 
The small Bombardier aircraft can't take excess baggage. But it seems, none of the other passengers planned live shots in remote Eastern Chad, so we had enough slack to squeeze everything on.
 
From the air Abeche looks like a jigsaw puzzle in dust. The plane bumped on the tarmac and we descended into crushing heat.
 
Finally, after three plane rides from Nairobi and three hours of passing through a number of accreditation hoops, we got to Bakana Assalam orphanage in Abeche. The children were sitting under a thorn tree and a shelter.
 
They have just found out that they are going home. Some are too young to understand where they are off to, though.

The Red Cross volunteers were touched by their plight. But they all seemed happy to see them off to their parents.
 
But rumors, some true, some carried away in the dust, keep swirling of rebel incursions and rebel attacks. Still tomorrow is the day. Tomorrow these children will pile on a couple of buses and head due east, across this parched piece of Africa towards Darfur.

The next day, we arrive early at the orphanage to travel with the children to Adre, on the border of Sudan. They are already packing their bags getting ready for their trip home when we get there.

They have been here for more than four months and, in many ways, the town of Abeche seems to have adopted them as their own. But the volunteers are still excited to see the children go. Because they know that they need to go to their families.

We milled around the children to see how they were feeling. A whole host of women crowded around Tahir. He is just 14 months old. The Red Cross workers told us that when Zoe's Ark went to his village they took his two brothers. But Tahir cried and refused to let them go. So the charity took him with them.

The volunteers started calling Tahir "Sarkozy," after Nicolas Sarkozy. They say it is because Tahir looks like the French president.

Finally, the governor arrived and after the requisite speeches, we assembled the convoy to leave town.

But driving to Adre isn't like taking a swing around town. It is a perilous trip into the badlands border region of Chad and Sudan. And as we traveled we got word that there were rebels somewhere in the vicinity. And that could mean any number of groups.

There are Sudanese rebels in this area allied with the Chadian government. There are Chadian rebels who have been looking to oust the Chadian government. There are Chadian military. And then there are just random guys with guns.

So when we get a flat tire in our vehicle, the radiator bursts on the children's bus and we lose track of the truck carrying supplies for the children, things start to get a little nerve-wracking.

The drive should take around three hours. Five hours into the trip and we are nowhere near our destination.

Then, finally, we hit the outskirts of Adre town itself. Curious onlookers stop on their donkeys and peer over the hardened mud walls.

We head straight to the post office. Mothers ululate excitedly when we get there. But the mothers have to wait because first the men make their speeches. But then a table is brought out and the children and mothers are brought out one by one.

There are Some tearful greetings, but mostly the spirit is killed by the officialdom and the paperwork. But behind the line of onlookers, behind the rubber stamps and signatures, private moments of joy unfold between these mothers and their sons and daughters who were caught up in this international scandal not of their making.

BEIJING, China – Tibetan demonstrators torching shops; vehicles on fire. Police troops in anti-riot gear clashing with protesters, firing live ammunition and tear gas. Many people injured, some perhaps killed. Reports were sketchy but soon it was clear: Tibet was in turmoil.

Tibetans throw stones at army vehicles in the capital Lhasa.

We’ve always found it extremely difficult to get accurate information and images from the Himalayan region.

Even without chaos, we can’t easily get into Tibet because China strictly controls our travel and reporting there. I went on a reporting trip to Tibet in 2003. That was only one of the two times CNN reporters were allowed into Tibet in 10 years.

We visited major monasteries, interviewed officials and monks, and got a good feel for the region — and the simmering ethnic tensions between the local Tibetans and the tens of thousands of Chinese migrants who have dominated trade and commerce there. Many Tibetans, we found out, deeply resented Chinese rule.

 How do we find out what’s going on?We don’t have a crew there and are not allowed to send one now. So we tap various sources, including residents and travelers in Lhasa. Using modern tools of communications, we gather dribs and drabs of eyewitness accounts from people who prefer to remain anonymous. "If you put it in Al-Jazeera terms, it is Gaza now," quips an overseas visitor.

 "It’s chaotic now, that’s all I can say," a young Tibetan told us over the phone while he was caught stranded inside an office building in central Lhasa.We also reached an exasperated young woman who had been beaten up by a mob of Tibetans apparently because she was an ethnic Han Chinese. "I am now in the hospital with bandage on my head," she whispered, sounding traumatized. "All is chaotic now," she said, wondering if and when she could get out of Lhasa.

Each time we made contact, we took steps to protect the identity of our eyes and ears. The news of the day was unpalatable to the Chinese censors, so most of CNN’s reports in the mainland were blacked out. Most Chinese seemed unaware of the chaos in Tibet. The local media blacked out the news, but there were loopholes, thanks to modern technology. Our intrepid researchers found one Chinese Weblog, a local version of Twitter, which collected and disseminated reports from citizen reporters who sent them in by SMS and Internet. It was impossible for us to independently verify the accuracy of these reports, but they gave us a sense of the mood in Lhasa."Netizen" reported seeing "troops wearing bullet-proof vests, walking behind armed personnel carriers moving in front of monasteries."

N'DJAMENA, Chad – The Ethiopian Airlines flight banked over the River Chad as fishermen poled their dugouts against the current. The dusty capital, N'Djamena, sits on the edge of the river; Cameroon visible just across its sluggish expanse.

Fabien and I have traveled from Kenya to Chad to follow the journey of over a hundred children from Abeche, in Eastern Chad, to their homes in Adre, on the border of Sudan.

The children sparked worldwide debate and national protest when Zoe's Ark, a French charity, claimed they were refugees from Darfur. The charity tried to spirit them away to France. But members of Zoe's ArK were halted at the last minute by Chadian authorities and arrested.

Fighting stopped only a few weeks ago here in the capital. There are sprays of bullet holes in shops, broken glass in buildings, wooden paneling boarding up damaged entrances. And carpet sellers everywhere in the already bustling markets.The rebels came right up to the residence of President Idriss Deby. They call it the "White House."

There is a state of emergency here and all visitors must register with the police. Residents are under midnight curfew, and Somalia-style "technicals" - improvised armed vehicles - still patrol the streets. Occasional military planes of the European peacekeeping force fly overhead and the whirl of attack helicopters drown out other sounds.

MADRID, Spain – The Prime Minister walked right past our CNN crew at Socialist Party headquarters on his way to give a victory speech to loyalists cramming the street after Spain’s elections.

Spain's Prime Minister celebrates with a thumbs-up after his victory.

I’ve been up close before with Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, a few years ago in an exclusive interview with CNN, and more recently at a year-end cocktail the government hosts for journalists. But I've never seen him this happy.

Late on Sunday night, Zapatero and his wife, Sonsoles Espinosa, were beaming as they emerged from the elevator at party headquarters. It all took place in just a few seconds.

Suddenly, burly bodyguards held everyone back to clear the narrow hallway on the ground floor, and then came the couple, beaming with broad smiles, arm-in-arm. In an instant, they were already past us, heading quickly outside, as the crowd began to roar.

Up close and personal is how Zapatero and the conservative challenger, Mariano Rajoy, made their hard-nosed campaign. Plenty of insults, inflated statistics during their televised debates, and very little common ground.

Now, as the dust settles, the main points are known: Zapatero wins a second term, and wins the rematch with Rajoy, whom he already beat in 2004 in an upset victory, in the wake of the Madrid train bombings.

Zapatero will surely find a way to govern, even though he again lacks a majority in the 350-seat Spanish parliament. He won 169 seats, five more than his first term, when he also governed without a coalition, instead making deals as he needed them with smaller parties.

“It’s a sufficient plurality, strong and solid, which has the horizon of tackling the Socialist project,” Zapatero told a nationally-televised newscast on Monday.

He was speaking at party headquarters, standing behind a large red “Z” (for Zapatero) that had been fashioned as his lectern.

Zapatero said he would have “an attitude of dialogue” with the nine other parties, including the conservatives, as he seeks a majority to win the investiture vote, still some weeks away. Then he repeated the word, “dialogue,” again and again, in case any of the journalists peppering him with questions had missed it. The message: he knows how to make a parliamentary deal.

He didn’t look at all worried. He bore the same kind of happy face I’d seen up close just hours earlier as he walked by us.

A different mood ruled across town at the headquarters of the Popular Party. The conservatives won more votes and more seats (154 now, 148 last time) than they had in the last elections, but it wasn’t enough to catch Zapatero.

Many here were analyzing Mariano Rajoy’s speech to his followers Sunday night, which he ended by saying, “adios.” Goodbye.

A top party leader, Angel Acebes, at a nationally-televised news conference on Monday repeatedly ducked questions about whether the party would look for a new leader, given Rajoy’s consecutive losses to Zapatero.

“Rajoy is here, in his office, he’s working,” Acebes said. “What’s important today are the more than 10 million Spaniards who voted for us. The party is united.”

But the party bickered openly into the campaign, as Rajoy tried to stop feuding among other top party leaders in Madrid who reportedly wanted to be on the ticket with him.

El Mundo, a paper seen as close to the Popular Party, headlined on its front page Monday that “Rajoy made it understood that he would leave the leadership of the PP.”

The party’s executive committee is to meet on Tuesday, and Acebes said, “We’ll analyze all the work we need to do about the future. Rajoy has a lot of reasons to feel satisfied.”

But various photos of Rajoy from Sunday night showed him with a tight smile, head slightly bowed, and a contemplative expression on the face of his wife, Elvira Fernandez, at his side.