Sudanese workers are busy with Khartoum's face lift, especially on Nile Road, running along the Blue Nile River past the grand palace grounds and government ministries, the road's median lined with newly planted pink bougainvillea and palm trees, running up to a brand-new development built especially for the African heads of state due here for the two-day meeting beginning January 23rd.
An MP at just 25, he was an archetypal Victorian hearty: a double blue in rowing and running at Oxford, he had subsequently swum the Niagara rapids twice, climbed the Matterhorn three times and represented his country at fencing in the unofficial 1906 Olympics.