Chinese help build new highway to 'lost' Kenya

After a century of broken promises, a paved road linking Kenya to Ethiopia is no longer a mirage for a desert region choked by remoteness.

Hurling up a cloud of blinding white dust, Chinese road engineers are helping to lay down the first km of tarmac to replace a 530-km forbidding rock track that joins Kenya's farms and port to landlocked Ethiopia.

The stretch of road from Isiolo to Moyale on the border is one of the last unpaved sections of the Great North Road, a British colonial dream to connect Cape Town to Cairo.