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I think what you might need is simply to run register_sidebar() in an widgets_init hook. The TwentyTen theme has examples for register_sidebar() in its functions.php file, but here's what it might look like (I didn't test this code so you might have to play with it a bit to get it working):

add_action( 'widgets_init', 'yoursite_init' );
function yoursite_init() {
  register_sidebar( array(
    'name' => __( 'News Sidebar', 'yoursite' ),
    'id' => 'sidebar-news',
    'description' => __( 'The News Sidebar Area', 'yoursite' ),
    'before_widget' => '<li id="%1$s" class="widget-container %2$s">',
    'after_widget' => '</li>',
    'before_title' => '<h3 class="widget-title">',
    'after_title' => '</h3>',
  ));
}