Congo News Blog @newzblogz.com

KINSHASA, Congo - Heavy gunfire broke out in Congo's capital Thursday near the home of a former warlord who placed second in last fall's presidential vote. Soldiers deployed throughout the city, and residents fled in vehicles and on foot.

Men wearing the uniforms of failed candidate Jean-Pierre Bemba's armed guard could be seen shooting, but most of the fighters were hidden and hard to identify, according to an Associated Press photographer at the scene.

"We've been hearing shooting from heavy arms coming from the area of Jean-Pierre Bemba's residence," Emery Makumeno, an office worker, said by telephone from a nearby building.

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While earning multiple awards, including a Pulitzer Prize, and emerging as the most popular jazz musician of his generation, trumpeter and bandleader Wynton Marsalis has frequently issued controversial statements on cultural and political subjects.

His newest release inserts vocals and spoken word commentary into songs spotlighting his latest group. Tenor/soprano saxophonist Walter Blanding and pianist Dan Nimmer are steady soloists, though not yet as commanding in their phrasing or as flamboyant in their playing as past associates like his brother Branford or Marcus Roberts. But Marsalis? trumpet work sounds as fiery, far-reaching and spirited as ever, particularly on cuts like ?Supercapitalism,? ?Where Y?All At? and the title track. With...

Willie Nelson/Merle Haggard/Ray Price

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Grace Flaten has served for over 38 years at the side of her husband, the Rev. Don Flaten, as a missionary in West Africa.

The Tribune's featured "woman behind the shepherd" this week, Grace Flaten, is the wife of the Rev. Don Flaten of the Wykoff Immanuel Lutheran Church.

They were married in 1952 at the beginning of their senior year at Concordia College in Moorhead, Minn. She was an English major and he studied psychology and speech. After completing four years at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, the Mission Board appointed them to work in Cameroun, West Africa. "By then we had two children, 3-year-old Dale, and 1-year-old Joan," comments Flaten, who worked at various jobs to help pay their way.

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A world map dotted with pushpins from Africa, New Zealand and many points in between hangs in Jean Chaffee's living room. But like the proverbial half-full glass, it's the map's empty spaces that are glaring.

"Look at all the spaces. I'm doing my best to fill in the spaces," says Chaffee, who added a push pin to Rwanda in central Africa after a February trip sponsored by the Rotary Club of Fresno to distribute wheelchairs, sewing machines and solar cookers.

"Some trips are for sightseeing, but some are life- changing. This one was life- changing," says Chaffee, who is sitting at her kitchen table sipping a watered-down cup of Rwandan tea. "It will stay with me forever."

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International aid to the Palestinians grew from about $1 billion in 2005 to more than $1.2 billion in 2006, despite a boycott of the Islamic militant Hamas government, officials said Wednesday.

Much of it was emergency aid from Europe, the United Nations and the Arab world that was funneled to people outside the government to ease a humanitarian crisis largely triggered by the international sanctions.

As the world weighs whether to also shun the new Palestinian government, a coalition of Hamas and the moderate Fatah movement, critics say the sanctions have cost the donors more money while causing long-term damage to the Palestinian economy.

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Octogenarian drummer Roy Haynes, jazz singer Mark Murphy, trumpeter Wynton

Marsalis' "Congo Square" and singers Cesaria Evora and Seu Jorge will headline

the 28th annual Montreal International Jazz Festival, running June 28 to July

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UNITED NATIONS, March 20 -- A senior U.N. mediator has proposed that U.N.-administered Kosovo be granted independence, setting the stage for a diplomatic showdown between Russia and the West over the fate of Serbia's troubled ethnic Albanian province.

Martti Ahtisaari, former Finnish president and chief U.N. negotiator on Kosovo, concluded that U.N.-sponsored negotiations between Kosovo's and Serbia's leaders will never produce a settlement, and that Kosovo cannot continue under U.N. or Serbian rule. He called for a phased transition to independence, initially supervised by a European Union bureaucrat and protected by NATO forces.

"The time has come to resolve Kosovo's status," Ahtisaari wrote in a confidential letter last week to U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon that will be presented to the Security Council on Monday. "Independence is the only option for a politically stable and economically viable Kosovo."

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RAMALLAH, West Bank -- International aid to the Palestinians grew from about $1 billion in 2005 to more than $1.2 billion in 2006, despite a boycott of the Islamic militant Hamas government, officials said Wednesday.

Much of it was emergency aid from Europe, the United Nations and the Arab world that was funneled to people outside the government to ease a humanitarian crisis largely triggered by the international sanctions.

As the world weighs whether to also shun the new Palestinian government, a coalition of Hamas and the moderate Fatah movement, critics say the sanctions have cost the donors more money while causing long-term damage to the Palestinian economy.

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JERUSALEM, March 20 ? Despite the international embargo on aid to the Palestinian Authority since Hamas came to power a year ago, significantly more aid was delivered to the Palestinians in 2006 than in 2005, according to official figures from the United Nations, United States, European Union and International Monetary Fund.

Instead of going to the Palestinian Authority, much of the money was given directly to individuals or through independent agencies like the World Food Program.

The International Monetary Fund and the United Nations say the Palestinians received $1.2 billion in aid and budgetary support in 2006, about $300 per capita, compared with $1 billion in 2005.

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Sophomore Kayla Hamm won first place and a $100 prize for her performing a song she wrote at the annual Brookings-Harbor High School Talent Safari Friday night.

Hamm played "Happy" a tune that was introduced at the show. In fact, she performed the song twice, because an equipment failure made her performance inaudible in the back of the crowded auditorium.

But because the judges were sitting up front, they had already established Hamm's score.

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Clarksvillian Chris Martin is spending part of his college career at The University of Tennessee-Knoxville, reaching out to people in need.

After attending a service in Washington, D.C.. with UTK professor Rosalind Hackett in February about the crisis in Uganda, Martin and other UT students and faculty members have created a Jazz for Justice CD to raise money for the cause. A September 2006 concert at UTK brought in $5,000.

Martin, a sophomore, became involved in the project through his affiliation with the UT chapter of Amnesty International.

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The views expressed in this column are the opinion of the writer and not necessarily those of the ownership or management of this newspaper.

After reading of investigative efforts in the Weber School Foundation missing funds, Ive learned something about myself: Im not cut out to be an embezzler.

Oh, theres all kinds of work in which Id fare poorly. I enjoy the sunlight too much to be a coalminer. Im not disciplined enough to be an astronaut. Im too impatient to teach elementary school. And I have too much integrity to be Mitt Romneys campaign manager.

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Do not miss the Scottish Games, which will be in Venice Satuday, March 24, from 9 a.m.-5 p.m. at the Venice Municipal Airport Festival Grounds. Sponsored by the Scottish Heritage Society, the all-day event will be in Venice for the first time ever this year. There will be bagpipers and all manner of sporting contests rarely seen outside of Scotland. There will be more details in Friday's edition of the Venice Gondolier Sun.

Batter up

"Yogi" is coming back for an encore from April 3-15 in the Historic Asolo Theater at the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota. For ticket availability, call the Asolo Rep box office at 941-351-8000.

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The Urban Open Space Foundation's second annual La Fete de Marquette festival on the future site of Madison's proposed central park has been expanded to three days this summer.

This year's event celebrating French music, food and culture will run July 13-15 at 201 S. Ingersoll St., the first 3-acre site purchased for the future park by the foundation. It is located next to the Capital City bike trail.

The free festival, co-sponsored by the Wil-Mar Neighborhood Center, is in honor of Bastille Day, the French national holiday.

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"Up there," the seemingly ancient Ugandan boatman pointed a gnarly finger toward a dense vine-covered ridge rising a hundred feet or so into the jungle above the hippo-and-crocodile-filled Nile River.

"That's where Hemingway crashed his plane while on safari. And tomorrow, when you leave, you'll take off from the airstrip where he crashed the second time a few days later."

The boatman, whose name I never learned, then grinned mysteriously, his white teeth flashing and head bobbing up and down in amusement, almost as if he had just told some long-hoarded secret.

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Call it the changing of the corporate guard. Call it fantastic or refer to it as a let’s-wait-and-see arrangement. Whatever one calls it, the marriage of copper giant Phelps Dodge and Freeport-McMoRan is far more than a footnote in history.Freeport bought out Phelps Dodge for $26 billion. The March 14 approval of the deal by stockholders’ approval creates the world’s largest-ever mining merger. It also creates the largest publicly traded copper producer. That is something ...

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TERVUREN, Belgium -- For decades, geologist Johan Lavreau has minded a musty maze of African maps, papers and rocks stored in the bowels of a museum celebrating Belgium's colonial stewardship of the Congo between 1885 and 1960.

Mus?e Royal de L'Afrique Centrale (The Royal Museum for Central Africa)

A photo from the museum shows Congolese miners digging for gold in eastern Congo in 1948. The Congo has long been known as one of the globe's richest mineral troves.

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      OREM — It takes heart to dance like the Congolese.

Stuart Johnson, Deseret Morning NewsMabiba Baegne instructs UVSC dance students in traditional African dances. He and Constant Massengo are internationally recognized musicians, dancers and choreographers.

      "There is joy. You need to smile. Listen to your heart," shouted Mabiba Baegne, a master dance and drum artist from Congo, Africa, who visited Utah Valley State College recently in celebration of Black History Month.

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HOUSTON — The creaky van carrying 10 members of the Daramay clan rattled down a main thoroughfare in southwest Houston, past warehouses and office parks, past a Cineplex and a Hispanic grocery store, past the dizzying array of cultures, commerce and consumerism that is their new country.Just a few weeks before, the family had arrived here from their homeland of Liberia, newly arrived refugees still sifting the myth of America from the reality of the United States. On this Friday morning, ...

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LANCASTER COUNTY, Pa. - Angola's civil war raged for almost a decade. In Sierra Leone, the war lasted more than eight years. From 1989 to 2003, Liberia was embroiled in civil war, and Côte D'Ivoire, whose present Unity Government has been described by some international observers as "unstable," has seen repeated uprisings since 1995.

What do these countries have in common? One thing is the way their coups and civil wars have been financed, mostly from the sale of illicit diamonds abroad.

Though Lancaster County is far from western Africa, several local jewelers have taken steps to ensure their diamonds arrive through reputable sources. And with the recent release of films like "Blood Diamond" starring Leonardo DiCaprio, as well as 2005's "Diamonds from Sierra Leone" from Grammy-winning rapper Kanye West, local consumers also are going out of their way to make sure the diamonds they buy are conflict-free.

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Wick News ServiceCLIFTON — Call it the changing of the corporate guard.

Call it fantastic or refer to it as a let’s wait and see arrangement.Whatever one calls it, the marriage of copper giant Phelps Dodge and Freeport-McMoRan is far more than a footnote in history.Freeport has bought out Phelps Dodge for $26 billion. Wednesday’s approval of the deal by stockholders approval creates the world’s largest-ever mining merger. It also creates the largest publicly traded copper producer. That is something for the history books, even in a world where...

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Ronald Reagan and parachute pants were a little strange. The Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival was wonderful.

Milli Vanilli was strange. The Bravo! Guild was wonderful.

In the beginning, at least beginning in 1987, was Bravo! At the same time was the Guild, doing the kind of stuff volunteers do, which is all the stuff that needs to be done and which organizations pray to Heaven they dont have to pay people for. Because, in Bravo!s case, that means less money for the world-class musicians they bring to the Vail Valley every summer.

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Día 78 del año. Quedan 287 días para que termine el año.

Acontecimientos sobresalientes en esta fecha:

1775- Flota portuguesa es repelida en ataque a Montevideo, Uruguay.

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HOUSTON A creaky van carrying ten members of the Daramay clan rattled down a main thoroughfare in southwest Houston.It passed warehouses and office parks, a cineplex and a Hispanic grocery store -- a dizzying array of cultures, commerce and consumerism that is the Daramays' new country.Just a few weeks before, the family had arrived here from their homeland of Liberia -- and the newly arrived immigrants are still sifting the myth of America from the reality of the United States.On this morning, ...

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HOUSTON ? The creaky van carrying 10 members of the Daramay clan rattled down a main thoroughfare in southwest Houston, past warehouses and office parks, past a Cineplex and a Hispanic grocery store, past the dizzying array of cultures, commerce and consumerism that is their new country.

Just a few weeks before, the family had arrived from their homeland of Liberia, new refugees still sifting the myth of America from the reality of the United States.

On this Friday morning, the Daramays ? six young men, two teenage girls, a little boy and their mother ? were going on a field trip that would school them in the basics of life in Houston and dazzle them with a 45-mile-per-hour view of the city's diversity.

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GENEVA (AP) Polar bears and hippos are among more than 16,000 species of

animals and plants threatened with global extinction, the World Conservation

Union said Tuesday.

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Downtown Tacoma venues open during ArtWalk, from 5 to 8 Thursday, include:

The museums

Museum of Glass 1801 Dock St.: ?Transparently Built: A Group Show of Glass Installations,? through May 27; ?Quantizing Effects: The Liminal Art of Jim Campbell,? through June 3; 253-284-4750; www.museumofglass.org.

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Emergency Trauma 40-hour Training Course for Nurses: 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. on consecutive Thursdays between April 5 and May 10 at Sacred Heart Hospital, 5151 N. Ninth Ave. The course will be limited to 10 nurses with minimal requirements of two years or more of medical-surgical experience and will be taught by emergency physicians and nurses. Cost: $100, refunded only if participants complete the course and are hired by Sacred Heart Emergency Trauma Center. Details: Alexa Horak at 416-4151 or Lyle Levesque at 416-2389.

Chamber Academy "Marketing 101": 1 to 3 p.m. Wednesday, April 18. Pensacola Junior College Downtown Center, 418 W. Garden St., room 108. Cost: $35 for chamber members. All participants must register and pay prior to the class. To register, call Melinda Ross at 484-1364 or e-mail mross@pjc.edu.

2007 Gulf Breeze Expo: 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., Saturday, March 31, South Santa Rosa Recreation Center, 800 Shoreline Drive. The Gulf Breeze Area Chamber of Commerce will have a preview and business after hours from 5:30 to 7 p.m., Friday, March 30 before the Expo. Sponsorships are $100 and $75. Admission to the Expo is free. Details: 932-7888 or visit www.gulfbreeze chamber.com.

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Mount Shasta Bioregional Ecology Center's 6th annual Telluride MountainFilm on Tour, featuring selections from America's premier festival of mountain, adventure, cultural, and environmental films and videos, is coming to College of the Siskiyous in Weed on Saturday, March 24.Doors open at 5:30 p.m. for food and raffle ticket purchases. The films will begin at 6:30 p.m. with an intermission at about 8 p.m. A bonus film beginning at 10 p.m. will play for an extra hour for those wanting ...

This year's feature film will be “Pururambo” by the Slovak director Pavol Barabas. The film takes place in New Guinea, the largest tropical island in the world.A wealth of mysteries, myths, and undiscovered secrets hide behind the green curtains of the island's impenetrable forest. In a labyrinth of dark swamps, people live high in the trees in primitive conditions that have changed little since the Stone Age. To enter their territory is a dangerous adventure.Another key fi...

Other short films play out their adventures in both the air and under water.The bonus film, “The Queen of Trees,” filmed in Kenya by Mark Deeble and Vicky Stone, tells the story of an African fig tree and its interdependent relationship with a tiny insect.The film details an amazing story in the natural world, one filled with intrigue and drama, and set against a backdro

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• In 1922, Mohandas K. Gandhi was sentenced in India to six years in prison for civil disobedience. He was released after serving two years.

• In 1766, Britain repealed the Stamp Act of 1765.

• In 1837, the 22nd and 24th U.S. president, Grover Cleveland, was born in Caldwell, N.J.

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Douglass (Mont.) Township officials will meet next week with a state Department of Environmental Protection team to discuss plans for delivering clean drinking water where wells contain excessive levels of tetrachloroethylene (TCE), a degreasing agent.

On March 12, Solicitor Lawrence Sager and Township Manager Pete Hiryak will meet with officials to discuss state funding for the project, which would provide public water from the Boyertown Water Authority to 17 residences and a handful of business between Rhoads Avenue and Sweinhart Road.

The Boyertown Water Authority recently informed the township supervisors that the year-old plan has been stalled due to lack of funds.

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Today in HistoryToday is Saturday, March 17, the 76th day of 2007. There are 289 days left in the year. This is St. Patrick's Day.Associated PressArticle Last Updated: 03/17/2007 09:37:45 AM PDT

Today's Highlight in History:

On March 17, 1776, British forces evacuated Boston during the Revolutionary War.

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NEW ORLEANS — The decision by Carnival Corp. to delay indefinitely the arrival of its 2,758-passenger Triumph vessel to the Port of New Orleans will not affect plans to erect the city's third cruise ship terminal, port president Gary LaGrange said.

Carnival had planned to begin cruising from New Orleans in August. But earlier this year, the company moved the vessel to Miami, saying advance bookings were slower than expected. The decision means New Orleans will have three homeported ships, instead of the four it had before Hurricane Katrina. Only one of those — Carnival's Fantasy — will sail year-round.

The port will spend up to $13 million to convert a cargo shed into a terminal by 2008, LaGrange said. The third terminal was proposed while New Orleans was one of the country's fastest-growing ports — a pattern that was washed away with the storm. LaGrange said he is personally calling travel agents and travel writers to encourage them to promote cruise travel from New Orleans.

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Today is Sunday, March 18, the 77th day of 2007. There are 288 days left in the year.

Today's highlight in history

On March 18, 1937, some 300 people, mostly children, were killed in a gas explosion at a school in New London, Texas.

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Today is Sunday, March 18, the 77th day of 2007. There are 288 days left in the year.

Today's Highlight in History:

On March 18, 1937, some 300 people, mostly children, were killed in a gas explosion at a school in New London, Texas.

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Today is Sunday, March 18, the 77 day of 2007. There are 288 days left in the year.

Todays Highlight in History:

On March 18, 1937, some 300 people, mostly children, were killed in a gas explosion at a school in New London, Texas.

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Today is Sunday, March 18, the 77th day of 2007. There are 288 days left in the year.

Today's Highlight in History:

On March 18, 1937, some 300 people, mostly children, were killed in a gas explosion at a school in New London, Texas.

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Seg–n Naciones Unidas los humanos vamos poco a poco convirti–ndonos en una masa cada vez de mayores dimensiones. Gracias a que vivimos m–s a–os y a la mejora del tratamiento de enfermedades como el vih-sida, dentro de menos de 50 a–os seremos justamente 9,200 millones. Pero lo importante es saber qu– cambios supondr– este aumento.

El estudio, elaborado por la divisi–n de Poblaci–n del Departamento de Asuntos Sociales y Econ–micos de la ONU (DESA), analiza las tendencias demogr–ficas a nivel nacional, regional y mundial, con la idea de servir como indicador para las encuestas y estad–sticas que se realizan en el organismo mundial.

Se prev– que la poblaci–n mundial experimente un incremento de 2,500 millones de habitantes en los pr–ximos 43 a–os, con lo que pasar– de los 6,700 millones que alcanzar– en julio de este a–o a 9,200 millones en el 2050, seg–n el informe.

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    On March 18, 24 and 25, Memorial Presbyterian Church, Elizabethton, will hold their annual missions conference.

    The theme for this year's conference is "Unless There is an Element of Risk in Your Exploits for God, There is no Need for Faith." (Hudson Taylor)

    During Sunday school on March 18 at 9:45 a.m., Ed Robinson and his wife, Nancy, will share their trip to the Congo, where their daughter and son-in-law, Ben and Amy Snyder, are missionaries under Missionary Aviation Fellowship.

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GENEVA - Meningitis has infected nearly 16,000 people and killed 1,670 in sub-Saharan Africa in the last two months, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Friday.

The United Nations agency said it was working with Medicins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) to contain the outbreak with vaccinations in Burkina Faso, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan and Uganda.

Some 1.5 million people in the four affected countries have been targeted by mass vaccination campaigns so far, though large numbers of displaced people and those living in hard-to-access areas have presented a challenge, the WHO said.

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Call it the changing of the corporate guard. Call it fantastic or refer to it as a let's wait and see arrangement. Whatever one calls it, the marriage of copper giant Phelps Dodge and Freeport-McMoRan is far more than a footnote in history.Freeport has bought out Phelps Dodge for $26 billion. The March 14 approval of the deal by stockholders approval creates the world's largest-ever mining merger. It also creates the largest publicly traded copper producer. That is something for the history...

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Atlanta's first big yearly movie confab — the Atlanta Jewish Film Festival — has already come and gone (and played to a few sold-out houses). It will return in early 2008. But from now till the end of 2007, there's at least another 15 area film festivals gearing up. Here's the rundown:

INDEPENDENT BLACK FILM FESTIVAL

March 14-18

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KEY WEST ? A subtle concrete slab soon will mark the final resting place of about a dozen Africans who were rescued from a life of slavery in 1860, only to succumb to the hardships of the journey from their home to the New World.

That journey ended in Key West for a total of 1,432 Africans, most of them between the ages of 10 and 16. They had been aboard three different slave ships bound for Cuba that were captured by the U.S. Navy in its attempt to stop illegal slave trading.

Key West, being the closest port, became the temporary home for the rescued Africans between May and July of 1860. But during that time, 295 of them died.

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All telephone numbers are area code 503, and admission is free unless otherwise noted.

Buckman Art Show & Sell: Buckman Arts Magnet Elementary School's 17th annual juried arts festival features the work of more than 120 regional artists and craftspersons. Proceeds benefit the school. 5-9 p.m. Fri, $5, 10 a.m-2 p.m. Sat, $2, 2-4 p.m. Sat, free; 916-3506.

Portland Art Museum artist talk: Photographer Elliot Erwitt gives a public lecture, followed by a book signing. Erwitt's photos are on display at the museum through April 29. 7 p.m. Fri. Whitsell Auditorium, 1219 S.W. Park Ave.; $25, $15 PAM members; 226-0973.

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THE 50TH anniversary of the independence of Ghana last week serves as a convenient benchmark for taking a look at the overall performance of African countries at this time.

I often find myself in conversations about Africa, given that I lived in Nigeria, Libya, Burundi, South Africa, the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Central African Republic, and Somalia for appreciable periods of time and have visited most of the rest of its 53 countries.

Last week my column revealed a weakness that I have always had for Ghana. Over the years that I have been writing about Africa, I have also tried to convey something of the spirit, history, and current issues of other African nations. It remains true that Africa is at the bottom of the list of U.S. foreign policy priorities. That, however, is a sad truth, not something for Americans to be proud of or smug about, given our heritage, history, and principles.

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UNITED NATIONS - The world's population will likely reach 9.2 billion in 2050, with virtually all new growth occurring in the developing world, a U.N. report said Tuesday.

According to the U.N. Population Division's 2006 estimate, the world's population will likely increase by 2.5 billion people over the next 43 years from the current 6.7 billion — a rise equivalent to the number of people in the world in 1950.

Hania Zlotnik, the division's director, said an important change in the new population estimate is a decrease in expected deaths from AIDS because of the rising use of anti-retroviral drugs and a downward revision of the prevalence of the disease in some countries.

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UNITED NATIONS (AP) The worlds population will likely reach 9.2 billion

in 2050, with virtually all new growth occurring in the developing world, a

U.N. report said Tuesday.

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LONDON - You look at the numbers and you think: "That's impossible." Uganda had about 7 million people at independence in 1962, and in only 45 years it has grown to 30 million. By 2050, just over four decades from now, there will be 130 million Ugandans, and it will be the twelfth largest country in the world, with more people than Russia or Japan. Its population will have increased 18-fold in less than 90 years.

Many people think that population growth is no longer a problem, and everybody somehow knows that it is politically incorrect to talk about it. Back in 1968, when Paul Ehrlich terrified everybody with his book, The Population Bomb, it was seen as the gravest long-term threat facing the human race, but now it scarcely gets a mention even in discussions on climate change - as if the number of people producing and consuming on this planet had no relevance to how great the pressure on the environment is.

True, the population explosion has gone away in large parts of the world, in the sense that most developed countries now have birth-rates well below replacement level (2.1 children per woman), and that the global average, including the developing countries of Asia and South America, is now down to 2.3 children. That's pretty impressive, given that it was 5.4 children per woman as recently as 1970. But there remains the problem of what you might call "inertial growth."

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Zimbabwe's rate of inflation, already the world's highest, could pass 4,000 percent by year's end. Commercial agriculture has collapsed. There is massive unemployment.

Hundreds of thousands are going hungry, and even civil servants are living below the poverty line. Dissent is ruthlessly crushed, opposition protesters are beaten up.

Yet, Robert Mugabe, the country's dictatorial president since 1980, has been able to withstand external opprobrium, even targeted sanctions, and so far has outmaneuvered the loftiest international organizations.

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The last major hurdle to the $25.9 billion acquisition of Phelps Dodge Corp. by Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold was cleared Wednesday when shareholders of both companies voted for the merger.

About 98 percent of the votes cast at two special shareholder meetings supported the transaction. The acquisition is expected to close Monday.

The combined company, which will be the largest publicly traded copper producer in the world, will operate as Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold, though businesses operated by Phelps Dodge will continue to use that name.

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Phelps Dodge Corp. has been acquired by Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc. for $29.5 billion, creating the world's largest publicly traded copper producer, officials confirmed Wednesday.

Shareholders of both companies signed off on the deal at a special meeting Wednesday, with nearly 98 percent supporting the transaction.

Phoenix-based Phelps Dodge (NYSE:PD) is one of the world's leading producers of copper and molybdenum and is the largest producer of molybdenum-based chemicals and continuous-cast copper rod. The combined headquarters will stay in downtown Phoenix and the Phelps Dodge name will remain. Officials also said minimal impact is expected on employment.

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On the opening night of "King Hedley II" at the Goodman Theatre in the fall

of 2000, August Wilson leaned forward to make an introduction.

"Do you know Derrick Sanders?" the playwright said, mischievously. "He's

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Congo supposedly won't forget me - and I certainly won't forget her.

Sitting on an animal that stands about 8 feet tall, I wanted to hold on, but her rough, gray skin didn't make the best handrail.

I grasped at her ears and tried to steady myself between them.

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You look at the numbers and you think: "Thats impossible." Uganda had about 7 million people at independence in 1962, and in only 45 years it has grown to 30 million. By 2050, just over four more decades, there will be 130 million Ugandans, the 12 th-biggest population in the world, with more people than Russia or Japan. Its population will have increased 18-fold in fewer than 90 years. Many people think that population growth is no longer a problem, and everybody somehow knows that it is politi...

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NEW ORLEANS – Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc.'s $25.9 billion cash-and-stock acquisition of rival Phelps Dodge Corp. was approved Wednesday by shareholders of both companies. The deal would create the world's largest publicly traded copper company.

In separate votes by shareholders of New Orleans-based Freeport and Phoenix-based Phelps Dodge, the buyout was approved by about 98 percent of the votes cast, the companies said in a joint statement.

The deal is expected to close next Monday the companies said.

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NEW ORLEANS — Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc.'s $25.9 billion cash-and-stock acquisition of rival Phelps Dodge Corp. was approved Wednesday by shareholders of both companies. The deal would create the world's largest publicly traded copper company.

In separate votes by shareholders of New Orleans-based Freeport and Phoenix-based Phelps Dodge, the buyout was approved by about 98 percent of the votes cast, the companies said in a joint statement.

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The Central Michigan football team has added Cocon