<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR>Chinese New Year cheer in Africa
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-- PHOTOS: XINHUA
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<!-- START OF : div id="storytext"--><!-- more than 4 paragraphs -->Spring has come to Africa, the arid continent home to about 800,000 Chinese.
Chinese New Year, better known in China as Spring Festival, is being celebrated across Africa, where China is mining minerals, building roads and establishing a stronger presence.
At Nairobi University's Confucius Institute, one of about 300 schools the Chinese government has set up worldwide to promote Chinese culture, a Kenyan student sings a Mandarin song at a party to celebrate the Year of the Ox, which starts tomorrow.
In civil war-ravaged Liberia, Chinese soldiers in a United Nations peacekeeping mission take time off to make a star-shaped lantern to decorate their quarters in Monrovia. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, another African nation wrecked by internal strife, Chinese peacekeepers rehearse a dragon dance as part of the celebrations thousands of miles away from home.
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-- PHOTOS: XINHUA
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</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
<!-- START OF : div id="storytext"--><!-- more than 4 paragraphs -->Spring has come to Africa, the arid continent home to about 800,000 Chinese.
Chinese New Year, better known in China as Spring Festival, is being celebrated across Africa, where China is mining minerals, building roads and establishing a stronger presence.
At Nairobi University's Confucius Institute, one of about 300 schools the Chinese government has set up worldwide to promote Chinese culture, a Kenyan student sings a Mandarin song at a party to celebrate the Year of the Ox, which starts tomorrow.
In civil war-ravaged Liberia, Chinese soldiers in a United Nations peacekeeping mission take time off to make a star-shaped lantern to decorate their quarters in Monrovia. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, another African nation wrecked by internal strife, Chinese peacekeepers rehearse a dragon dance as part of the celebrations thousands of miles away from home.
