SUDAN: Central Business District, The gateway to a world of opportunity

[NASSIR]

SUDAN: Al-Sunut Project: The gateway to a world of opportunity

 

Monday, October 17, 2010

 

 By: Stephen Leng Akol,

 

During my official visit to Mr. Mohamed Al-Shafei, one of DAL Group staff, I was astonished and amazed by what I saw in DAL reception hall in Khartoum North.

 

The wonderful huge engineering structure of Al Sunut Project. It was designed and put on a table in the hall of the building, which they named Hithru.

 

Al Sunut project or the Central Business District (CBD) will really be an addition to development movement for the capital and a high jump to modern technology in development in the Sudan. The project is considered as one of the peace blessing steps Sudan exposed to the world.

 

Thanks and gratitude to the brilliant brains through whom the idea came to light to take the country to the age of technological development and information - as I gaze on the engineering structure of Al Sunut Project that will be implemented in Al Mogran area - the confluence of the Blue and White Nile Rivers. I immediately remembered and memorized south Sudan seen, full of astonishment and overwhelming natural views.

 

How wonderful it will be to have such nice dreams for the South!

 

Moreover south Sudan forests are not Al Sunut trees alone, much more it has many trees that each can be a proposal by itself. Therefore, it is for the South Sudan government in cooperation with the interim national unity government to study or at least have a look on such experiences even if it could not be implemented fully, but can be in I a similar way. So as not to fall in the same mistakes of the past after independence which has been confirmed as not true independence, to start a coping up, modernized, developed and structured way of sustainable development.

Source: Sudan Vision Daily

[NASSIR]

The foreseeable future of Sudan.

 

 

[Libaax-Sankataabte]

NASSIR, nice renderings.

 

Sudan is a great friend of the Somali people.

[RedSea]

woow Masha Allah! I hope this is materialized.

[NASSIR]

Indeed bro. You know the exchange rate of 100 pound of Sudan is like $65 USD. That shows the strong growth rate of Sudan's GDP because of the oil revenue and other joint venture projects with China.

 

Yet I see the country is on the brink of getting partitioned into two or three.

The West is about to create another CONGO in Sudan because of how unprepared and vulnerable South Sudan is to outside intervention and exploitation.

[Taleexi]

Good read indeed. Thanks NASSIR.

[Som@li]

Go Sudan. It is the next UAE in making

[General Duke]

^^^No its not, its much better than that. It has land, educated people and Oil. UAE only has Oil.

 

Good read, though the South Sudan issue is a big worry.

[Mad_Mullah]

Sudan has to be destroyed because they're able to become a real powerfull player both in Africa and the Middle East, (Stronger than Egypt, Jordan etc.) that plus the people/goverment are against the west unlike their neighbours (Masar).

[N.O.R.F]

These projects are dependent on income from oil. Most of the oil is in the south who are gearing for a referendum (and war) in Jan 2011.

 

Sudan is about to enter into a defining moment in it's history. May peace prevail. Amin.

[RedSea]

^^^That seems like a major bump on the way.

 

Article from the Wallstreet Journal.

JUBA, Sudan—China is courting the secessionist government of oil-rich southern Sudan, an apparent departure from Beijing's decades-long opposition to independence movements abroad.

 

Sudan, after nearly constant civil war over the past five decades, is seeing tensions boil again ahead of a planned independence referendum early next year that stands to split Africa's largest country in two. Voters from the oil-rich, largely Christian south are expected to vote to break away from the country's largely Muslim north. As the Jan. 9, 2011, election date approaches, both sides accuse the other of amassing troops.

 

View Full Image

 

European Pressphoto Agency

 

Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, right, attends the dedication of the Chinese-built Merowe Dam in the Nubia region in April.

The vote poses a conundrum for China. Beijing has consistently opposed independence movements abroad, lest it embolden separatist sympathies at home. And despite its recent overtures to the south, Beijing seeks to maintain its longstanding economic ties with Khartoum, the seat of Sudan's government and center of northern power. China armed and supported the north in the 23-year civil war against the south from 1983 to 2005, in which two million people are believed to have died. It continues to arm Khartoum and has built the north infrastructure projects, including the largest hydroelectric dam in Africa.

 

China's predicament in Sudan underscores the perils of its push into Africa, as it attempts to lock down resources to fuel its double-digit economic growth. The resources that have attracted big investments from abroad have also stirred political turmoil in other countries such as Guinea, a leading producer of bauxite, and Niger, home to huge uranium reserves.

 

"It is a delicate issue for China," said Dru Gladney, an expert on Chinese minorities at Pomona College in California. China has until now portrayed itself as a leader of developing countries, he said. But its own rapid development has changed that relationship. "Encouraging a so-called separatist movement is one that is going to complicate that [noninterventionist] position very much."

 

China has a pragmatic reason for tolerating a potentially independent south: It is home to 80% of Sudan's oil reserves, including most of the China National Petroleum Corp.'s four oil concessions, granted to it by Khartoum. Beijing's stake amounts to 40% of Sudan's oil industry.

 

Sudan exports 60% of its oil to China. Sudanese production accounts for 7% of China's annual consumption.

 

In 2008, China opened a consulate in Juba, the south's capital, an unusual move for China in a place with separatist aspirations. Last week, a Chinese Communist Party delegation visited southern officials. Top officials from the south have also visited China, said Li Baodong, China's U.N. ambassador, in an interview during a United Nations Security Council diplomatic mission to Sudan this month.

 

And Kenyan officials say China has expressed interest in a new pipeline for southern oil. Last week, the south's government collected bids to build a route that would avoid the country's current main line to the north, a 1,000-mile pipeline to a Chinese-financed refinery, and go through Kenya instead.

 

"China is one of the parties that has been invited to participate," said Alfred Mutua, a Kenyan government spokesman.

 

Sudanese officials didn't respond to requests for comment.

 

Mr. Li said the referendum is "their internal affair and we are not getting into it. We respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of this country."

 

Sudan has fought two civil wars starting at its 1956 independence from Britain. The second ended in 2005, when a U.S.-brokered cease-fire offered Sudan's south the option to vote for independence from the north.

 

The vote's timing has been cast into doubt amid disputes over which Sudanese will be eligible to cast ballots and where the future states' borders would be drawn.

 

A further complication is a deadlock over the division of oil revenues. Under terms of the 2005 peace deal, the north and south have shared the country's oil proceeds equally, though the south claims it is being short-changed. The south's proposal to pump oil through Kenya is likely to further inflame the Khartoum government of President Omar al-Bashir.

 

Mr. Bashir has threatened renewed civil war if these matters aren't resolved before the vote. Salva Kiir, president of the semi-autonomous south, has warned that if the vote is dragged out, the south might hold its own referendum. The majority of southerners favor secession. The U.S. has asked China to use its influence with Khartoum to hold a credible vote on time, a senior U.S. official said.

 

Beijing has cracked down, often violently, on independence protests in Tibet and Xinjiang. Beijing also considers Taiwan a breakaway province and seeks reunification, by force if necessary.

 

Those separatist pressures have shaped China's outlook on independence movements in other countries. China opposed independence declared in 2008 by Kosovo, the breakaway Serbian province. Taiwan was among the first to recognize Kosovo's independence.

 

Until early this year, Beijing staunchly opposed independence in Sudan's south. But that stance has appeared to shift as the international community has pushed the vote.

 

"I don't think anyone believes that the referendum process can be stopped," said Fabienne Hara, an Africa specialist in New York for the Brussels-based International Crisis Group. "It is pragmatism."

 

While it is caught between its stance on separatism and its economic-self interest, Mr. Gladney of Pomona said Beijing had reluctantly made its choice. "It's whichever cat catches mice—and in this case, the cat that supports a separatist, Christian group will catch more mice for China," he said.

 

—Sarah Childress in Nairobi contributed to this article.

Write to Joe Lauria at

newseditor@wsj.com

[RedSea]

Juba, the south's capital. Interesting didn't know that.

[Mad_Mullah]

War Saaxib these Southerners are even worse than Somalis, the tribes even started amongst each other, but Bashiirs forces stopped them, imagine if they break free.

[NASSIR]

Voters from the oil-rich, largely Christian south are expected to vote to break away from the country's largely Muslim north.

 

- wsj

Nonsense, the Christians in the South constitute only 5% of the population, the rest are 25% animists. A Quick reference to the World Factbook could have helped the Wall Street journalist or does he have an ax to grind.

Sudan is 70% Muslim overall including Darfur.

[Mad_Mullah]

^ They do that on purpose, just like claiming that Ethiopia is a 'Christian' country.