Kenya invited tenders Monday for the building of phase one of a new port in the coastal town of Lamu, which is part of a huge infrastructure project to link the port with Ethiopia and south Sudan.

The first phase will see the construction of three berths to accommodate 100,000 dwt (deadweight tonnes) container ships, 30,000-dwt general cargo ships and 100,000-dwt bulk cargo carriers, according to a newspaper advertisement.

Other infrastructure will include access roads, railway sidings, warehouses and other buldings at Lamu's Manda Bay.

China is to help finance the construction of the port set to become Kenya's second along the Indian Ocean coast after Mombasa.

The development of the new port is part of massive project which includes a transport corridor traversing eastern Kenya and to neighbouring Ethiopia and south Sudan.

The road could provide a route to export Chinese oil from southern Sudan, which is to vote in a referendum in January whether to secede or remain part of Sudan.

earlier related report

Senegal to send contaminated sand to China
Mont-Rolland, Senegal (AFP) Sept 13, 2010 –

Senegalese authorities are planning to send lead waste in sand to China for treatment after the waste killed 20 children in Dakar in 2008, a senior official said Monday.

"The ministry is trying to come up with 200 million CFA francs (305,000 euros, 395,000 dollars) to transport the sand to China where it will be treated," said the head of the Senegalese environment and protected sites office, Cheikh Ndiaye Sylla.

The office brought journalists on Monday to a site near the village of Mont-Rolland, 85 kilometres (50 miles) from Dakar where they could see about 15 young men in masks and gloves putting the contaminated sand into sacs.

Villagers have demanded the removal of the waste which was dumped at the end of June and early in July near their land after killing 20 children in the capital Dakar in 2008.

The sand dumped at an unfinished disposal plant in Mont-Rolland came from the Thiaroye suburb of Dakar, where a score of children died of lead poisoning in 2008, while many adults were sick.

The pollution came from attempts to recover the lead while recycling motor batteries on the black market. The illicit depot was eventually sold to an Indian firm.

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