From the blogger Sudanese Thinker:
In many ways, Khartoum is a city of sharp contrasts. A donkey cart, overtaken by a brand new BMW on the same road might seem like an impossible scene, but it is a real one you can actually witness. The huge economic gap between the rich and the poor is the most obvious, but there are other contrasts that exist below the surface.
Wild parties in the religious conservative city where alcohol is illegal under Islamic law happen quite frequently behind closed doors. At these parties you can expect the unexpected.
Some mansions in the middle of farms along the Nile were built by their rich owners with the sole purpose of making them easily convertible into dance clubs – they are designed with built-in sound systems wired to speakers and subwoofers in all rooms, including the bathroom. Wherever you go, the DJ’s choice of hip-hop and trance music goes with you. The alcohol flows freely. Sometimes cocaine, marijuana, heroin and ecstasy “flow” along too. Many girls arrive at the scene covered up from head to toe, except for the hands and face. Once inside, they take off their long garments to reveal the scant stylish outfits underneath them. Outside, private security stands on guard to make sure the religious police don’t come. If they do show up, they’re simply bribed away.
The economic boom fueled by the mostly Chinese-drilled oil is attracting Sudanese from overseas back to Khartoum again. All of this would have been hardly unimaginable about fifteen years ago when political oppression and the North-South civil war were at their peaks. But now, the Sudanese diaspora, slowly returning to their homeland is bringing along with it tons of money and a lifestyle foreign to Sudanese culture, hence the increasingly common wild parties.
Emphasis above added.
In other China – Africa news, Western mining companies are fretting that China is going to do the same thing to Congo’s mineral wealth that it has done to Sudan’s oil. The Financial Times reports:
Mining companies, the International Monetary Fund and other donors were scrambling on Wednesday for clarification of a planned deal between China and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The deal would tie up mineral resources in exchange for $5bn (€3.6bn, £2.5bn) in infrastructure projects and loans. A preliminary agreement was signed this week just as an IMF mission landed in Kinshasa to review progress towards the resumption of budget support for Congo.
IMF, World Bank and African Development Bank officials seem to have been caught offguard by the scale and timing of China’s plans.
These come at a delicate stage in Congo’s negotiations towards forgiveness of debt accumulated under the dictator Mobutu Sese Seko, who died in 1997, totalling about $8bn, or equal to 800 per cent of current national exports.
Western mining groups, awaiting the results of a government review of about 60 contracts signed during the recent civil war, were also seeking more details from the Kinshasa government.