● <B>China to spend $35 m on W.Africa’s biggest theatre . </B>China, keen to raise its profile in resource-rich Africa, will plough $35 million into building West Africa’s biggest theatre in Senegal, an adviser to Senegal’s president said on Tuesday. China is strengthening its political and economic ties with the world’s poorest continent as it chases oil and raw materials to feed its fast-growing economy.

Beijing has funded the construction of sports stadiums around Africa but the theatre in Senegal is one of its first major forays into the realms of high art. It also plans to build an arts museum in Senegal before the end of 2007. Atepa said the theatre would combine classic and modern architecture and would be built on three levels with 18,000 seats and parking for 3,000 cars.Beijing announced debt relief for Senegal worth 160 million Yuan ($20 million) after Wade’s visit to China last week.

Senegal and China resumed diplomatic ties last October after Dakar broke its relations with Taiwan. China will also build a 250 megawatt coal-fired power station in Senegal to help the country deal with power shortages.

● <B>$ 500 000 to dine with Warren Buffett.</B>It will cost more than half a million dollars for a successful bidder to dine with Warren Buffett, with bidding for that privilege in an online charity auction on eBay Inc now reaching a record $500100.

Buffett, the 75-year-old chairman of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., will dine with up to eight people, as he has since 2000, to benefit the Glide Foundation, a San Francisco non-profit that helps the poor, hungry and homeless.Bidding began on June 22, and will end Thursday at 10 p.m. (0200 GMT Friday). The winner will dine with the world’s second-richest person at a Manhattan steakhouse, Smith & Wollensky.

The bids increased after Buffett on Sunday announced plans to give about $37.1 billion of his $44 billion fortune to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and to foundations on behalf of his late wife Susan and his three children.