NEW DELHI, India - It was a concert backed to the hilt by Indian politicians otherwise opposed to “Western culture.”

It was Michael Jackson’s first and only show in India in its commercial capital of Mumbai.

Jackson performing in Mumbai.

Amid a row about tax concessions the pop icon landed in the home of Bollywood cinema on October 30, 1996.

It was around 9 a.m. local time and some 10,000 fans had crowded outside the airport, recalled Sabbas Joseph, director of Wizcraft, the company that organized the concert.

Bollywood actor Sonali Bendre, clad in a saree, gave a traditional Indian welcome to him, as a group of artists danced to drumbeats.

The excitement was such that most airport staff abandoned their posts to have a glimpse of the “King of Pop” as he walked out to the cheers of the thousands assembled at the main entrance, Joseph recalled.

He addressed them with the Hindu greeting of “Namaste” from a makeshift podium, before he got into his open-top car and traveled along a route lined with thousands more fans.

Among them were Mumbai’s slum kids and the singer would often jump out to cuddle them, Joseph said.

Jackson spent the evening of his first day in India meeting the who’s who of Mumbai — from Bollywood stars to captains of industry and politicians — at a banquet.

On his second day he met the slum children again.

This time at poolside in his hotel for a photo shoot that Joseph remembers was for a calendar the entertainer was making in honor of the children of the world.

Jackson also sought blessings from Mother Teresa as he spoke with her on phone, his show organizer said.

But all these activities didn’t exhaust him for his big night in Mumbai.

On November 1, 1996, he chose to drive down to the concert venue. No matter, if it meant spending an hour on the congested roads of Mumbai.

Around 20,000 fans packed the stadium as the singer made a spectacular appearance on stage — a touchdown from a specially-designed rocket capsule.

“It was incredible,” recalled Joseph. Thousands chanted his name while some fans even fainted. The two-hour show created history in India’s entertainment world. Revenues for the sold-out concert were staggering — $1 million.

But organizers say the money is still with the court where a petition was filed against the then state government for exempting the show from entertainment tax.

“Michael Jackson had come to India ahead of India’s time,” remarked Joseph. “India was a different country 13 years ago.”

OLD BEICHUAN, China — The mourners were already gathering at 4 a.m. The government had declared old Beichuan open to the public for four days, yet a growing crowd of people were told to wait outside a steel gate manned by Peoples’ Armed Police. “It’s for your own safety,” an officer told me. “We can’t have you climbing around on the rubble in the dark”.

Mourners at Beichuan Middle School hold a ceremony for children killed in the 2008 earthquake.

By 7a.m., it was light. We did our first live shot in front of several hundred people, half an hour later the gates opened and the crowds pushed past police. The officer in charge wasn’t happy and told us to move on, so we followed the crowd downhill towards old Beichuan.

Look at Wen-Chun Fan’s photos of Old Beichuan

I still vividly recall climbing around on the ruins of Beichuan, which was flattened in the Sichuan quake, a year ago. A pile of rubble seven stories high formed as the ground heaved and buildings across the street from one another slammed together. Smoke was still rising from smoldering fires burning under our feet and people were crying, digging and desperately shouting the names of their loved ones. And, there was that unmistakable, faintly sweet scent of death.

Now as I walked past the same rubble, the smell was of burning incense and the crackle of firecrackers echoing through the valley. Those who desperately searched for their loved ones back then now set up makeshift shrines along a police line. They burned paper money, paper clothes, even little paper houses.

Some buildings that were barely standing after the quake had been worn down by raging floodwaters released from the Tangjiashan “quake-lake” just upstream. Others stood half buried in mud from a huge landslide last September, but for the most part, old Beichuan was still as I remembered it: The huge, house-sized boulders shaken loose from the mountains above that came crashing down into six-story apartment blocks; a Volkswagen that somehow ended up in a tree; furniture in living rooms with only two walls left standing.

After two hours of walking with 100 kilograms of gear split between the three of us on the CNN team, we finally made it to a spot with a decent satellite signal. We did live shot after live shot from almost the exact same spot we broadcast from last year. The crowds kept on coming, it felt as if thousands, if not tens of thousands, had made the pilgrimage to old Beichuan today, some family members of those lost in the quake, others just tourists who wanted to have a look.

Our original plan of doing live broadcasts late into the evening was not to be. By 4:30 p.m., police were asking people to head back. Old Beichuan, at night, was not a safe place. As we started walking, a bright red spot in the crumbled cement caught my eye. It was a geranium flower growing out from the rubble of a collapsed house.

NEW DELHI, India — Covering political rallies in India is never peachy. The weather is gruesome, the wait is long, the music is blaring at its cacophonous best and as we experienced today, there is the chance of being caught in the midst of an excited crowd. Today’s political rally in India’s capital, New Delhi, was addressed by one of India’s most recognized youth politicians, Rahul Gandhi. 

Enthusiasm grips a crowd at a political rally in New Delhi.

Often touted as the prime minister in waiting, the young Gandhi scion swooped down in a helicopter to adoring fans, more than an hour behind his scheduled appearance. As he approached the venue, a party member encouraged the masses to keep shouting slogans. And the masses complied. When Rahul got onto the stage there was welcoming applause. I saw some familiar faces from the other rallies as they screamed and waved toward the stage. 

When Rahul starts speaking, most of the folks in the VIP section climb on top of their chairs and listen, laughing when he says a joke or clapping when he points out why his party is best suited to lead the nation. 

When the 5pm deadline approaches (the public campaign has to end at 5 p.m., Tuesday, ahead of Thursday’s phase four of India’s polls) the crowd starts surging forward. Our cameraman, Sanjiv Talreja, and I make our way to the exit as the podium goes quiet. Little did we expect to be squashed, shoved and pushed. In an effort to catch a glimpse of Rahul taking off on the helicopter, the crowd surged forward and many people rushed toward the same exit that we took. I almost lost the ladder that I was carrying and held on with all my might to the battery bag. Sanjiv, who was carrying both the camera and the tripod, was more or less knocked over. We both managed to get out without a bruise and heaved a sigh of relief! 

As we left the grounds, we could see hundreds of people standing across the open ground watching skyward. As Rahul’s chopper took to the skies, people waved enthusiastically. 

Campaigning in India is never short of drama and the colors, songs, dances and speeches are all vibrant. And no matter how often you attend a rally, there is always some new quirk to take you by surprise.

NEW DELHI, India — India’s capital is sweltering and so is the rest of the country. The oppressive heat wave felt across India has sent temperatures soaring well beyond 43 degrees Celsius (110 degrees Fahrenheit) in many parts of the country.

In the midst of this brutally hot weather we have been out covering political rallies.

CNN correspondent Sara Sidner gulps down water during a sweltering rally.

The latest one began at three in the afternoon, the absolute hottest part of the day. One would think this is a bad time to hold a rally but India is right in the middle of a general election.

Elections here take place once every five years. So no matter when rallies are held they are a huge draw, as people attempt to catch their favorite candidate in action.

Inevitably the politicians arrive late, which means we spend even longer at the mercy of the sun. “Under the sun,” might sound very romantic for a movie title but let me tell you it’s anything but romantic in this context.

Lugging around heavy equipment, the crew sweats so much it feels like there’s no liquid left in our bodies. Between the long wait for the candidate and the quest for the right shot, it is something of a small miracle that none of us have had heat stroke. Luckily water is handed out periodically.

The odd thing is the crowd seems immune to the heat. When the music plays, ladies in colorful saris dance with genuine enthusiasm. The men chant, push and shove to try and get a closer look.

Meanwhile the electric fans set up all along the huge field are not turned on and no one is complaining – well almost no one.

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa – The bikers on their Harley-Davidsons were the first surprise. They roared down the street on their slick expensive machines to the sound of bellowing exhausts and equally thunderous approval from the crowds of ANC supporters who had gathered in downtown Johannesburg to await the arrival of their hero, Jacob Zuma.

Zuma (center) jumps in the air as he celebrates on stage with supporters.

The next surprise was the skinny transvestite in the miniskirt dancing with a poster in and out among the journalists and waving to the crowd.

They were both symbolic of the diversity and freedom that exists in this country that was once ruled by the deeply conservative, right-wing values of the apartheid regime.

The bikers, in particular, symbolize the paradox of the African National Congress’s hold on South African society.

Their arrival was, at the same time, both a celebration and flaunting of wealth in the face of the poor. The wealthy bikers represent the wealthy black elite that supports the ANC.

They have benefited most visibly from the organization’s hold on power since the first democratic elections; the poor lining the streets and cheering them, have benefited the least – and yet, such economically different groups of people still feel bound together by a common loyalty to the ANC.

It is a paradox that the opposition parties, even the newest one, a breakaway from the ANC called Congress of the People, or COPE, seem unable to exploit.

Not all the votes are in yet, but it is clear that the ANC is set for a landslide victory.

As their president Jacob Zuma took the stage to roars of approval from his jubilant supporters, as the champagne corks popped, and the fireworks soared into the night air above the skyscrapers of downtown Johannesburg, it was clear that the ANC has lost nothing of the massive electoral power it has held since Nelson Mandela was elected as the first president of a democratic South Africa in 1994.

Still, there is a tiny chink visible in their armor. Roughly one in three South Africans did not vote for the ANC – and they are made up of all races and classes.

The ANC rules supreme, but not without some meaningful resentment left in its wake.

Still, two in every three South Africans did vote for them – and they are the ones celebrating tonight.

Zuma is the pivot of this country’s political future. And yet, his broad smiles and celebratory dancing cannot hide the fact that things are not quite as simple as they might look.

His detractors probably fear him too much; while his supporters certainly believe in him too uncritically.

He has won a huge victory tonight. He rules the hearts and minds of most South Africans, but how will he govern them?

Underneath the razzmatazz and champagne, many questions remain about Zuma and how he will lead South Africa.

As one man said to me on the streets of Johannesburg tonight. “The ANC will have to work very hard. Things will not be so easy for them anymore. If they don’t succeed, maybe Zuma will be thrown out like Mbeki was.”

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa – Standing in the queue waiting to vote, I allowed myself a few moments to reflect on some childhood memories.

Voters queue up in Soweto on Wednesday.

The polling station I am registered at is the primary school I attended in the 1960s and 1970s, and just exactly where I was standing was where, every morning and afternoon, one of the younger relatives of the Shah of Iran would roll up with his driver and bodyguard in a Rolls Royce.

He was a popular kid and I have often wondered what happened to him in the tumultuous decades that have followed since the revolution in Iran.

It was another world then, South Africa at the height of apartheid and the Shah resplendent on his magnificent throne. Both have long since disappeared into history.

Standing there in front of my old school, I thought of how much has changed in South Africa. Back in those days I didn’t understand much of politics, but I did know that apartheid was wrong.

I remember watching, as a little boy, about 10 years old, with a mixture of fear and innocent outrage as a van-load of police came onto the school grounds.

They headed for the compound where the black workers who cooked our lunches and tended the grounds lived. They were looking for black people who didn’t have the correct “passes” — papers that allowed them to live and work in white areas.

There wasn’t much we boys could do, but I remember that some of the older kids jeered at the police as they took away two or three black men whose papers apparently weren’t in order.

The brutality of apartheid is still very much alive in the collective mind of South Africa’s people, so to stand in a long line of black and white people waiting patiently together to vote remains an emotional experience for most of us.

To watch South Africans vote is to see them at their best. There have been a handful of unpleasant incidents: a hundred or so pre-marked ballot papers were found in Kwa-Zulu Natal; there have been one or two angry protests, and one election official was shot in the leg by an armed robber.

Crime and corruption are big problems in the country today, as is entrenched poverty and joblessness. Many of the elite feel dismay that the country’s constitution and the rule of law have been threatened by the long saga of ANC President Jacob Zuma’s corruption trial; many of the country’s poor, on the other hand, feel rage at how little their circumstances have changed since the ending of apartheid.

However, when we look back at the divisions that apartheid created and the rage that existed at its unfairness, it remains a miracle that South Africans are here today 15 years after the first democratic election in 1994, still voting tolerantly and peacefully, still queuing under the African sun for hours, laughing and joking with one another — and still believing that their vote can make a difference to the country they now share.

JAKARTA, Indonesia – I voted in Indonesia’s first “democratic” elections in 1999. I remember things being incredibly tense and uncertain. Suharto’s authoritarian regime had just come to an end and I was so excited – it was the first time that I really felt that I could change the course of the country.

Indonesian election officials with a voting paper.

I didn’t vote in 2004 because I was disappointed by the 1999 election results.

I felt that we had staked all our hopes in our politicians and they had failed us. Nothing had changed. It was a new game but with the same players.

I don’t think that my generation has fully recovered from the frustration of the 1999 elections. Most of my friends aren’t voting today.

Now a decade after I first cast my vote I am covering the elections, watching new voters as excited as I was.

We met Rini, an 18-year-old first-time time voter. I walked away with the impression she really felt she could impact, not necessarily the whole country, but her own life. It made me feel excited again, especially coming off the back of our US election coverage. I felt that this time perhaps the elections could mean something.

In 1999 the main issues were political and economic reforms. We were transitioning from an authoritarian regime to trying to establish a democratically elected one. Now the issues being talked about are voter list fraud, the confusion about the political parties and the ballot, corruption and the economy.

The ballot is about the size of a newspaper. I, like the majority of my fellow countrymen and despite my work in the news business, have not heard of the vast majority of the candidates.

We watched the votes being cast, and we watched them being counted. Out in the open, seeming to be fully transparent. It was a process that made me feel I could say “my country is democratic.”

But still many questions remain. For my generation, by virtue of what we have been through, is still highly skeptical of the institutions we are trying to uphold.

We can’t seem to shake the notion that, no matter what, our politicians are corrupt and to be honest, we have yet to be proven wrong.

In 1999 it was enough just to have something called a democratic process. Now we want more. We want to see this done right.

“No,” Hugh Masekela said to me. “Not that way, if you get your feet wrong, then everything’s wrong.

Legendary musician Hugh Masekela shows CNN around Johannesburg.

It’s not every day you get to do tai chi with an international music superstar, but “Bra” – “brother” Hugh, as he is known affectionately in South Africa’s streets and townships, is not a man to stand on ceremony.

I was shooting an episode of “My City, My Life” on Bra Hugh and his Johannesburg and we were waiting while cameramen, Chevan Rayson and Shadley Lombard set up the lights to do a long interview with him.

“Come on,” Bra Hugh said, and before I knew it, I was doing my best to follow him around the hotel room floor as he moved in a light, almost balletic series of movements. It was an impressive display for a man turning 70.

I spent three nearly full days with Bra Hugh — and they were one of the highlights of my career. With humour and unstoppable enthusiasm, he showed us his Johannesburg and Soweto, with a side trip to Witbank township where he grew up. See Hugh Masekela’s Johannesburg

He took us to The Bantu Men’s Social Centre, an old building in the south of downtown Johannesburg. It is an elegant brick building, erected in the 1920s and overlooked both by modern skyscrapers and the old rusting headgear of the original gold mines.

 ”Here,” he told us on the sidewalk. “Is where I met Miriam.” (Makeba) The two of them went on to live in exile in the US and become probably South Africa’s most famous musicians.

He took us through the famous old Dorkay House. Once a smart office building where the liberal white owners allowed Hugh and other black musicians to practice and gather.

Now it is a run-down slum where people live cheek-by-jowl separated by cardboard partitions. Bra Hugh looked around him sadly. “Not everything here has changed for the better,” he said. “These people’s lives have not changed much.”

Amidst the joy of his music, there is a sadness in his conversation that echoes how so many people feel in South Africa today, which is beset by such a terrible crime rate. “Can music heal?” I asked him while he was rehearsing in his studio.

He put down his trumpet gleaming with light. “This whole nation needs therapy,” he replied.

The next day we went to where it all began. The beautiful manicured gardens of what is now St. Martin’s College. It was once called St. Peter’s and was run by the famous Archbishop Trevor Huddleston who was so outspoken against racism in South Africa.

Bra Hugh gave us an hilarious demonstration of how, as a young new boy at the school, he had to rush around the dining hall clearing the older students’ plates.

Then he took us to where Trevor Huddleston had given him his very first trumpet. It is a nondescript small office, but the memories of that small beginning echo as loudly as his famous songs.

Bra Hugh looked fondly around the school chapel. “These were the greatest years of my life,” he said.

Soon, though, the cruelty of apartheid closed in on St. Peter’s and on Bra Hugh. The school was closed and Bra Hugh went into exile.

It’s been a long road for him from South Africa, to America, to Ghana and finally back home to Johannesburg. But the music has always been with him. “Where does your music come from?’ I asked him.

He looked at me and smiled. “It’s not my music, music is like air. It’s there for everybody.”

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan – A year ago I filmed supporters of Pakistan’s top judge Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry with their faces red from tear gas as they protested for the ousted chief justice — sacked by former President Pervez Musharraf — to be restored to his post.

Pakistanis celebrate Sunday in Islamabad.

On Sunday, as their wish was granted, their faces were red with laughter.

“Today is a day of celebration,” said human rights activist Tahira Abdullah, one of hundreds who had gathered outside the chief justice’s house for a flag-raising ceremony. “And a day of dancing,” she added, breaking into a jig.

Even against a chaotic backdrop of rising militancy and crippling economic instability, this is a moment that has restored hope for many Pakistanis.

Whether they took part in the protests or not, many here believe Chief Justice Chaudhry’s return signals real democratic change in the country. Chaudhry, the man who has come to symbolize democracy and fairness, carries a lot of expectations on his shoulders as he goes back to work.

One member of the lawyer’s movement said Sunday’s ceremony recognized that the office of chief justice was untouchable, either by a military dictator or any other government. She called it the most momentous occasion in Pakistan’s 61-year history.

While critics question whether Chaudhry is a suitable vessel for such hopes, the fact is that people rallied behind the lawyers’ movement and rallied for the supremacy of law and order in the face of authoritarianism. At the end of the day, it isn’t about the man as much as the office he represents.

Sunday’s festivities were as chaotic as the marches and demonstrations had been. Over the years, the lawyers have attracted political parties, activists and anyone with a cause. Today was no exception.

Political parties clamored to break through the gates and police barricades to take part. There were arguments and scuffles. A microcosm of Pakistani politics played out on the chief justice’s doorstep as I saw one woman fighting a man twice her size.

Black-suited organizers tried to cajole the crowd, thanking political groups for their support, pleading with attendees to maintain an apolitical presence and scolding those who chanted party slogans. The chief justice himself was not present at the festivities.

Whether they like it or not, the lawyers’ movement has now become politicized. Unlike mainstream political groups, the lawyers weren’t driven by an individual or an individual’s agenda, so people rallied behind them across party lines and sectarian divides.

With this political powerbase, the lawyers are now setting their sights on a new target: dissatisfaction with President Asif Ali Zardari’s government.

“Watch out Zardari!” said one lawyer Sunday. “We’re free now.”

ST. POELTEN, Austria — We’re waiting to be allowed back into the courtroom at the St. Poelten state court. The jury are still deliberating — in a few hours we’ll know for sure what their verdict is, how long Josef Fritzl will go down for.I can’t imagine there’s a single journalist here or indeed a single person in the whole of Austria who doesn’t hope it’s for the rest of his life.

Josef Fritzl hides his face as he arrives at court for his trial this week.

Josef Fritzl’s crimes are monstrous. We journalists and the public have been excluded from much of the trial out of regard for the privacy of his victims — his own daughter Elisabeth and her six surviving children.

But the very existence of those children bears witness to the crimes committed. The state prosecuting attorney said Thursday he had raped his daughter more than 3,000 times in the 24 years she was holed up in a dank, dark, airless dungeon. There are gruesome details we now know about her years of abuse which we cannot write for fear of litigation.

In court on Thursday CNN’s correspondent Fred Pleitgen said Fritzl’s voice broke when he said how sorry he was. Sorry? Now?

Many journalists here have complained at being shut out of the proceedings: many have suggested this is an example of Austria not wishing to confront its dark secrets. On the dustcover of a book detailing Fritzl’s crimes which I found lying in the press tent here, reference is made to the “Nazi Austria” Fritzl grew up in. I find those suggestions that this is somehow an Austrian phenomenon grossly unfair, as I know the Austrians do themselves. We are not allowed into the court because to document the obscene acts Fritzl inflicted on his daughter might curtail any fragile recovery she and her family might ever hope to make.

Does the public have a right to know every horrendous detail that happened in that underground cell? I personally believe not.

The family are in a safehouse somewhere in Austria. Their identities have been changed, authorities are doing their utmost to make sure that the press do not track them down. Amazingly Elisabeth we now know did appear in court on Tuesday to watch her father’s reaction to the evidence she gave on tape. A brave woman.

In our evenings here in St. Poelten, Fred Pleitgen, Claudia our amazing camerawoman and I have debated at length what we would do if we for some reason stumbled on Elisabeth Fritzl, discovered the safehouse, found one of the children. Theirs are obviously the unknown voices in this huge media story. But besides the sure knowledge we’d be sued to distraction if we were to publish anything, we all agreed we would prefer to leave them be. Once the verdict comes down, once Fritzl goes down, there should be at least the opportunity for the family he so heinously wronged to find some peace.