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DAKAR, Senegal -- First Lady Laura Bush is in Africa. Her four-nation tour is expected to focus on how the U.S. can help fight AIDS on a continent where many countries struggle to even provide basic health care.

Bush is scheduled to visit areas that have benefited from U.S. AIDS funding: the west African nations of Senegal and Mali, along with Mozambique and Zambia in southern Africa. She's accompanied by her daughter Jenna.

The first lady and her daughter were greeted on the tarmac in Senegal's seaside capital late Monday by a group of about 30 dignitaries, including Senegal's first lady and her daughter. The two first ladies shook hands and posed for photographs, but neither spoke to reporters.

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DAKAR, Senegal -- First Lady Laura Bush started a four-nation Africa tour Monday that is expected to focus on how the U.S. can help fight AIDS on a continent where many countries struggle to even provide basic health care.

Mrs. Bush, accompanied by her daughter Jenna, is scheduled to visit areas that have benefited from U.S. AIDS funding this week -- the west African nations of Senegal and Mali, along with Mozambique and Zambia in southern Africa.

Mrs. Bush and her daughter were greeted on the tarmac in Senegal's seaside capital late Monday by a group of about 30 dignitaries, including Senegal's first lady, Viviane Wade, and her daughter. The two first ladies shook hands and posed for photographs, but neither spoke to reporters.

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DAKAR, Senegal — First Lady Laura Bush started a four-nation Africa tour Monday that is expected to focus on how the U.S. can help fight AIDS on a continent where many countries struggle to even provide basic health care.

Mrs. Bush, accompanied by her daughter Jenna, is scheduled to visit areas that have benefited from U.S. AIDS funding this week — the west African nations of Senegal and Mali, along with Mozambique and Zambia in southern Africa.

Mrs. Bush and her daughter were greeted on the tarmac in Senegal's seaside capital late Monday by a group of about 30 dignitaries, including Senegal's first lady, Viviane Wade, and her daughter. The two first ladies shook hands and posed for photographs, but neither spoke to reporters.

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Until Sunday night, the screaming saxophones and shattering drums that shook Millennium Park never had been heard in the United States.

Judging by the sheer joyousness of this music and the enthusiasm it generated from the audience, however, Enzo Avitabile & Bottari—a decidedly unconventional grouping from Italy—easily could build a robust following on this side of the Atlantic.

And what a fitting opener for this year's Music Without Borders series, which will bring five more free, world-music concerts to the Pritzker Pavilion. Most are Chicago debuts and, in effect, serve as an extended curtain-raiser for the city's World Music Festival, starting Sept. 14 on various Chicago stages, indoors and out.

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Many small children die each day and adults succumb to avoidable illness in the far corners of Africa where First Lady Laura Bush will spend this week promoting an unprecedented U.S. campaign against AIDS and malaria and offering the promise of education.

At a time when the Bush administration is seeking a doubling of the U.S. commitment to a global battle against AIDS -- asking Congress to add $30 billion over the next five years -- the first lady will attempt a sales pitch to Americans in a five-day, four-nation African tour with a display of what U.S. aid can accomplish.

With this, her third trip to Africa, Laura Bush carries a certain cachet, wearing the popular face of an unpopular administration. Yet for a president dealing with war and terrorism, the African agenda represents perhaps the greatest single initiative that he can claim as a legacy-staking achievement.

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