China, east African leaders sign up for new rail link

[World News]

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East African leaders and China formally signed agreements on Sunday for the construction of a new multi-billion dollar railway linking the Kenyan port of Mombasa to Nairobi and running on to neighboring states. The deals were signed in Nairobi on the last stage of an Africa tour by Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, although Kenya's president, Uhuru Kenyatta, had already signed up to the deal during his state visit to Beijing last year. \"The costs of moving our people and our goods ... across our borders will fall sharply,\" Kenyatta told a news conference with the Chinese and African leaders on Sunday. The new standard gauge line will supplement a slower narrow gauge network that now only runs to Uganda whereas the new line is designed to go on to Rwanda and South Sudan, part of an effort to cut the hefty costs of trade between east African nations which mainly rely on poor roads and the rickety narrow gauge line built in the 19th century.

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