Colonies

When African leader Felix Houphouet-Boigny was laid to rest last week in Ivory Coast, 3,000 miles south of Paris, 100 French politicians stood dutifully at the graveside. But even as President Francois Mitterrand, Prime Minister Edouard Balladur and other French officials mourned an old friend and assured Africa of their support, they were steadily putting an end to the long, cozy and paternalistic relationship with France's former colonies on the continent.

HONG KONG - When Mabel Cheung, one of this city's leading directors, shot her historical-political drama "The Soong Sisters" in China in the mid-1990s, the nature of the exchange for the co-production was simple: Beijing provided inexpensive manpower, and professionals from the British colony's highly developed movie industry provided the expertise. Hong Kong cinema, after all, had been enjoying a golden age for close to two decades - celebrated directors such as John Woo and Wong Kar-wai had helped the city's filmmakers garner a global fan base.

Nearly four decades after astronaut Neil Armstrong planted his boot on the surface of the moon, the U.S. is about to take the first small step toward colonizing Earth's tag-along satellite. On Wednesday, NASA is scheduled to launch a robotic mission aimed at finding the best site for Earth's first off-world colony, the centuries-old dream of science fiction writers and utopians.

This Spanish Colonial Revival known as the Fraser House sits amid oak and olive trees in Pasadena's Historic Highlands landmark district. Vintage details include tile work and arched doorways. Location: 1026 E. Elizabeth St., Pasadena 91104 Asking price: $1.099 million Year built: 1928 House size: Four bedrooms, three bathrooms, 2,620 square feet Lot size: 10,676 square feet Features: Exposed hand-hewn ceiling beams in the living and dining rooms, hardwood flooring, wood-burning fireplace, sun room, breakfast area, laundry, guesthouse/studio with own entrance, upgraded electrical work, two-car garage, flagstone patio, built-in barbecue area, lawn About the area: Last year, 294 single-family homes sold in the 91104 ZIP Code at a median price of $499,000, according to DataQuick.

Contra leaders pledged Saturday to begin the stalled process of disarming their forces this week in return for the permanent demilitarization of a remote corner of Nicaragua where former guerrillas will settle as pioneer farmers with government aid. The accord, announced at 1 a.m. after 15 hours of talks, was the first step by President Violeta Barrios de Chamorro's 10-day-old administration to demilitarize Nicaragua after eight years of war between the U.S.

The taps are dry for days, weeks, even months in large parts of this seaside capital. Once running water disappears, whether in the poorest or the wealthiest neighborhood, it is usually gone for a long time. Angolans do not blame this on the water department or on the country's lack of trained plumbers, or even on a decade-long shortage of spare parts. They blame it on Portugal. Did They Take the Maps? It is widely believed here that the Portuguese took all the maps of the underground waterpipe network when they left at the time of Angolan independence in 1975.

If she were still alive, Ellen Babcock Dorland would be startled by what will happen at her old homestead in west Riverside County on Sunday. From 1 to 4 p.m., up to 300 visitors are expected to tour the grounds of Dorland Mountain Arts Colony, a working retreat for creative people. Visitors will sample wine and snacks, listen to poetry readings and music, look at art and absorb the atmosphere of the property, which Dorland and her husband, Robert, began homesteading in 1930.

A quaint farm on an island in Puget Sound has been converted into a retreat for women who want to write and think and dream in solitude, beyond the press of family and jobs. The writers' colony at Hedgebrook Farm, which began receiving its first authors-in-residence in August, is the creation of Nancy Skinner Nordhoff, the 56-year-old daughter of a shipping executive who has long been active in community affairs in the Seattle area.

The idled Contra army began speeding up the stalled process of disarming Wednesday after the government accepted a relocation plan allowing former rebel combatants to police their new communities. After all-night negotiations, rebel leaders promised President Violeta Barrios de Chamorro for the third time in six weeks that their forces will surrender all their weapons to U.N. peacekeeping troops by June 10.

Scientists have identified a new suspect in the mysterious die-off of bees in recent years - a class of pesticides that appear to be lethal in indirect ways. The chemicals, known as neonicotinoids, are designed to target a variety of sucking and chewing insects, including aphids and beetles. Bees are known to ingest the poison when they eat the pollen and nectar of treated plants, though in doses so tiny that it was not seen as a threat. But two reports published online Thursday by the journal Science indicate that the pesticides are not altogether benign.

Their new home has its own $2-million live theater. So it was fitting that the opening act Wednesday for actors and artists moving into the NoHo Senior Arts Colony was an improvisation. Operators of the 127-unit building had come prepared with a 4-foot-long pair of scissors for their grand opening, but they forgot to order up a ceremonial ribbon. "Do we have a ribbon? Do we have some caution tape? Anything?" asked Tim Carpenter, head of a nonprofit organization called EngAGE that will be in charge of arts classes at the $42-million Magnolia Boulevard development.

Even here in the world capital of far-fetched ideas, this one is more outlandish than most. Two Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, frustrated by the shortage of visas that keep some of the world's brightest science and engineering minds from building companies on dry land, have hatched a plan to build a start-up colony in the middle of the Pacific. Max Marty and Dario Mutabdzija say they plan to park a cruise ship 12 nautical miles off the coast of Northern California in international waters.

SICILY, Italy - Two years ago, the J. Paul Getty Museum ended a lengthy dispute with Italian cultural authorities by returning a towering limestone and marble statue of a Greek goddess to Sicily. The sculpture is now the pride of the relatively modest Museo Archeologico in Aidone - and by far its biggest attraction. The tiny hilltop town in central Sicily, near an excavation of the ancient city of Morgantina, is also the home of a Hellenistic silver collection repatriated in 2010 by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

The former home of Don Knotts in Glendale is for sale at $1.295 million. The Colonial Revival house, built in 1934, has been restored and updated. Features include a foyer that steps down to the living room, wood-beam ceilings, a decorative fireplace, coffered ceilings in the dining room, a breakfast room, a den, three bedrooms, two full bathrooms, a three-quarter bath, a powder room and 3,213 square feet of living space. Knotts, who died in 2006 at 81, was known for his role as bumbling Deputy Sheriff Barney Fife in "The Andy Griffith Show" during the '60s, about the same time he owned the house.

Actress Michelle Stafford of "The Young and the Restless" has bought a house in Glendale for slightly more than $1 million. The two-story Monterey Colonial-style house of nearly 3,000 square feet features a central hall, a formal dining room, an updated kitchen, a den, three bedrooms and three bathrooms. The two-story house with basement was commissioned by a Loma Linda Hospital doctor and built in 1948. Other medical professionals bought or lived in the house over the years, earning it the nickname "The Doctor's House.

Actress Katherine Heigl is selling her house in Los Feliz. Priced at $2.659 million, the Southern Colonial-style two-story features French doors, high ceilings and verandas. There are two fireplaces, four bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms and nearly 3,700 square feet of living space. The grounds include mature landscaping, a swimming pool and a spa. Heigl, 34, was a regular on "Grey's Anatomy" (2005-10). Her film work includes this year's "One for the Money," "Life as We Know It" (2010)

Re the American legal system: England's revenge on the Colonies. JAMES J. MURPHY Laguna Niguel

I've grown accustomed to the bugs that flit around my desk at home while I write. They're the buddies of my office mate, a puppy who naps straddling the doggy door, with his head propping open the plastic flap to outside. That's an open invitation to insects sweltering in our Valley backyard. Rio spends entire afternoons chasing down the flies that venture inside. But Rio didn't know what to make of the buzzing that greeted us on the hottest afternoon of the year last week.

French President Francois Hollande said Thursday that Algeria suffered under the "profoundly unjust and brutal system" of colonialism, but he stopped short of apologizing for French rule of the North African state. "I recognize here the suffering that colonization inflicted on the Algerian people," Hollande told Algerian lawmakers on the second day of his symbolically charged trip to the former French territory. As Algeria marks half a century of independence, politicians have pushed for a French apology for its repression during its 132-year rule and the bloody revolution that wrenched the country out of French control.

Mariette Hartley has been through drama before, with decades of experience in film, television and on local stages, beginning with a Los Angeles production of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" with Bert Lahr. But she experienced suspense unlike any other during rehearsals for "The Morini Strad" at the Colony Theatre in Burbank, where an ongoing budget crisis threatened to shut down the play before its opening night. A weak economy finally caught up with the nonprofit theater, a Burbank institution for the last 12 years after thriving for a quarter-century in Silver Lake.