Hmm it seems to be something with wordpress escaping the string. E.g. If i put the whole url int othe query the result is this: '%http://bestafricanvideos.com/videos\\_top\\_10.xml%' )

Wow, thanks. It works. Any idea how can we combine them into one function?

To show widgets in the sidebar location of your choice in the frontend, head into header.php or footer.php etc. inside of your tempalte folder and put there this code <?php dynamic_sidebar( 'sidebar-2' ); ?> . Of course, put some widget in the newly created "Sidebar 2" box in the widget section of WP admin, so something will show in header or footer etc. section of your page.