The World
Look, Hu's Trawling for Influence
Look who's trawling for influence in Africa: President Hu Jintao of China. Last week, Hu embarked on a 12-day, eight-nation African tour, an ambitious itinerary reflecting China's growing interest in the continent for both its natural resources and its growing markets. Trade between China and Africa has more than quadrupled in the past decade to more than $50 billion and is projected to grow by 2010 to $100 billion, the 2006 level of U.S.-Africa trade. And Beijing has also become a major aid supplier-notably absent Western-style human rights and anticorruption conditions-as it courts friends on a continent offering oil and other raw materials needed by China's growing industrial economy. China reportedly now gets one third of its crude oil from Africa. Hu's stops: Sudan, Cameroon, Liberia, Zambia, Namibia, South Africa, Mozambique, and Seychelles.
Just a Stone's Throw Away
An addendum to the mysteries-of-history file: the 4,600-year-old remains of a small village in Britain, about 2 miles from the mysterious Stonehenge that dates back to the same prehistoric period. Archaeologists suspect that the Stone Age settlement housed the monolith's builders and say it may have hosted ceremonial events by sun worshipers. Excavations at a site known as Durrington Walls revealed the clay foundations and other remains of eight wooden buildings-and experts said there may be dozens more in the area. Six are clustered together, but two larger structures that are set off from the others may have housed chiefs or priests or may have been used only for rituals, given that hardly any trace of household waste was found inside them.
With Kevin Whitelaw, Bret Schulte and Associated Press
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