A recent addition to the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), Angola today produces on average 2 000 000 barrels of crude oil per day from deep-water, offshore platforms near the coast of Cabinda, an isolated satellite province to the north of Luanda. This exploitation has produced radical investment principally from China, as well as Brazil, Portugal and from the private sector in the form of Chevron, BP, Haliburton and Exxon-Mobile, amongst many others. Driven by massive growth, abundant foreign currency from oil rents, direct foreign investment and ‘soft’ loans – Luanda has recently come of age as the most expensive city in Africa, and in the top five globally. It has been variously dubbed the Monaco of Africa, and the Dubai of Africa. Ambition fails to mask the realities though; planned and built by the colonial Portuguese for a population of 800 000, today the city houses close to 3 million people. The city is a real-time test-case for the unfolding shift in foreign political and economic dominance in the region in a globalised post-Cold War, New World Order.