Dan Damon

Tensions between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo are being played out among the diaspora communities - and perhaps nowhere more so than in one district of the Belgian capital. African grocers, dozens of hairdressers, and music and video stores line the streets of Matonge in Brussels. There is a Matonge in the Democratic Republic of Congo's capital Kinshasa too.

It was on 2 May 1992 that the heavy bombardment of Sarajevo began, less than a month after it came under siege from the Bosnian Serbs. On the same day Alija Izetbegovic, the president of the newly independent and embattled nation of Bosnia, was seized as he returned to Sarajevo from Portugal. With the president, throughout this night and day of drama, was his daughter Sabina. She remembers that her father had not wanted to leave Sarajevo in the first place.

One of today's most popular typefaces owes its inspiration to radical work done for the signage on British transport a century ago. Johnston Sans changed everything. In 1916, a small revolution in communication came about. London's Underground railway ordered a new typeface for its posters and signage from the calligrapher Edward Johnston. He handed over details and examples of letter shapes that would set the tone for printed text until the present day.