Shakira, Juan Luis, Slim announce US$200M for poor children

Mexico City.– Colombian singer Shakira announced Thursday that Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim and American Howard Buffett will donate US$200 million to a foundation that helps poor children in Latin America. Slim, Mexico's richest man, will donate US$110 million and his business expertise. Buffett, son of investment guru Warren Buffett, will give US$85 million. The other US$5 million will be donated by people throughout Latin America.

«Imagine what Latin America could achieve if we invest in developing the potential of these children,» Shakira said. The Latin America in Solidarity Action –whose Spanish acronym is ALAS, or «wings» – was launched in 2006 with a promise to tackle poverty that kills an estimated 350,000 children each year in the region. Conceived by Shakira, the foundation is also backed by Nobel Prize laureate Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Spanish singers Miguel Bose and Alejandro Sanz.

ALAS will host two massive, simultaneous concerts Saturday in Buenos Aires and Mexico City to raise awareness about 32 million children living in poverty Latin America. The concerts will include Puerto Rican pop star Ricky Martin, the Mexican norteno group Los Tigres and Dominican singer Juan Luis Guerra among others.

news source : http://www.dominicantoday.com/

The Little Ones bask in summertime vibe

The members of Los Angeles band The Little Ones, who play Saturday at Kilby Court, choose to live their lives using Uncle Lee's Rule of Feet. "It was a turning point in our songwriting process," said Ian Moreno, guitarist and percussionist, about discovering the rule. And what is Uncle Lee's Rule of Feet? "It makes you want to shoot your booty," Moreno said. "It's finding that groove and finding that 'Eureka' moment. It pretty much applies to our [entire] catalog." "Shakira stole it from us," said singer and guitarist Edward Reyes. "I compare it to Shakira's 'Hips Don't Lie,' " Moreno said. "But we're not as good-looking as Shakira."

The rule is named after Lee LaDouceur, keyboardist and bassist for the pop-rock band, though neither Moreno nor Reyes could say if LaDouceur was an uncle to anyone. (Moreno hopes not, because LaDouceur dates his younger sister.)
But moving your feet to the music is a must for the band, and the audience. The band explains it on its Web site: "The rule stated that a song was deemed appropriate if, and only if, each of the Little Ones' feet could shuffle. Once they adopted this new rule, they began to realize what they had right in front of them." Influenced by the Beach Boys and the 1960s British Invasion, the Little Ones formed in 2005 after Reyes and Moreno were in a cult band called Sunday's Best. Sunday's Best was formed inside the studio of Loyola. Marymount University's college radio station, where the two worked. Soaking up the music of the Kinks and the Zombies, the duo found a shared love of rock music that snapped, crackled and, most important, popped.

It is a spirit that infuses the band's full-length album, "Morning Tide," which will drop this summer. "[The album] is more fitting for summer," Moreno said. "In general, that's our music. The imagery and overall vibe is more of a summer album. It's not a winter album." The band talked to The Salt Lake Tribune as its tour bus pulled into Chicago on a tour stop. Moreno was asked if Lee was in fact shuffling his feet in the bus. "Our stomach is full of Chipotle," Moreno said. "Lee would dance, but he's stuffed with burritos."

news source : http://origin.sltrib.com/

Menendez meets with Shakira

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) _ Shakira is trying to shake things up to provide a basic education to every child in the world. The pop singer met with U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez of New Jersey Tuesday to discuss The Education for All Act. The Democrat is chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee that oversees U.S. foreign assistance programs and also is co-sponsor of the proposed bill.

"I was delighted to meet an advocate who has repeatedly said that she prefers to use the light that is shone on her to shine it on the causes that are truly important, like basic education for children around the world," Menendez said. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown joined a telephone conference Monday with the Grammy-winning singer famed for her hit "Hips Don't Lie." Shakira is working to highlight the cause of education advocacy group the Global Campaign for Education.

news source : http://www.newsday.com/

All about Shakira; watching Hillary

It’s not ever day that one has the opportunity to put pictures of pop star Shakira into a political. But she was in Washington recently to raise awareness for her favorite issue, universal education, the effort to provide millions of children around the globe who are now denied even a basic education the chance at one. She’s a spokesperson for the Campaign for Global Education. A very worthy goal, indeed. But let’s face it, that’s not why the House hearing room was packed recently with gawkers. It was all about Shakira, whose hips weren’t lying on Capitol Hill.

Hillary Clinton appeared on the “Today Show” a few days ago. I watched the whole “Today Show” appearance (so you don’t have to unless you’re feeling masochistic), but you might want to watch it to hear her complain about how it’s harder for a woman to run for president. It takes her longer to get ready in the morning, and, of course, there’s all that discrimination against women. I also got a giggle when she said “you don’t know what kind of problem is going to walk in the door or the Oval Office.” I really think she’d be well-advised to keep him out of the Oval Office.

news source : http://www.kansascity.com/

In a political fix? Call Shakira!

There was a defining moment in the life of Shakira Isabel Mebarak Ripoll, one which both her army of devoted fans and her impressive publicity machine agree indicated that the world had a huge star on its hands. Aged just seven, Shakira was accompanying her family to a Middle Eastern restaurant in her home town – the steamy Colombian port city of Barranquilla. As the Arabic drums started to pulse and the restaurant's in-house belly dancers took to the stage, up leapt the little girl, overtaken by a "natural instinct", she later recalled, "to move my hips and twirl my belly to the sound of the doumbek. I fell in love with the sensation of being on stage."

It was the kind of extravagant, spontaneous gesture of which, his critics say, Gordon Brown is famously incapable. At the same age, growing up in the chilly climes of the Fife town of Kirkcaldy on the Firth of Forth, the future British prime minister would have been spending his days swotting at school, playing rugby and listening to his father's sermons. Last night, however, these two lives – the dour world of the son of the manse turned career politician, and the decidedly more exotic one of the sultry Latin singer-dancer – came together in a phone call to discuss the plight of the world's poorest children's education. Along with the president of the World Bank, Robert Zoellick, the unlikely pairing is calling on the world's governments to provide basic schooling for the 300 million young people currently missing out on any kind of formal lessons.

Today, Shakira, now 31, will be banging the drum once more, this time in Washington DC where she will be joined by congressional politicians and students from across the country seeking to raise awareness for the bipartisan Education For All Act passed last year, which calls on President George Bush to address the challenge of providing children across the globe with access to equal education. Mr Brown, despite his professed preference for policy substance over presentation, has become increasingly aware of the stardust that celebrities can sprinkle over subjects often considered too worthy or dull to penetrate the consciousness of the general public. In recent months and years he has bonded with Bono over African debt, discussed Darfur with George Clooney (the man his wife, Sarah, would choose to play him in a film of his life) while talking breast cancer recovery with Kylie Mingoue.

But in Shakira, Mr Brown is hitching his wagon to someone who shares not only his famous sense of moral purpose and extraordinary workrate – she regularly notches up 40,000 air miles a month and can talk her way through 40 interviews a day, rarely touching on the same subject twice – but also embodies the Prime Minister's admiration for allowing talent to flourish. Those who write off Shakira as some kind of Hispanic Britney Spears are very much mistaken, according to Phil Stanton, a co-founder of the World Music Network and an authority on Colombian music. "There is a real musical intelligence in her work. She has some very good ideas and a real musical brain. She has been a recording artist for many years. She started out as a child star and has been building up her career ever since, becoming a phenomenon in Latin America and the Spanish-speaking world. She is incredibly professional. When the moment came she was absolutely ready for it," he says.

Today Shakira, one of nine children of a Lebanese businessman who moved to Colombia, is worth about $38m, making her the world's fourth highest grossing female singer, according to Forbes magazine, after Madonna, Barbra Streisand and Celine Dion. She is also the biggest-selling Spanish singer of all time, feted by politicians and fans alike and one who enjoys a unique popularity among the children of the world, particularly young girls in her native continent. But the singer is no stranger to the Latin American political process in all its volatility. Though she was romantically linked with the Irish actor Colin Farrell, her regular squeeze since 2000 has been Antonio de la Rua, the son of the former Argentinian president Fernando de la Rua. De la Rua Snr was forced from office by huge demonstrations at the height of the country's financial crisis in 2001, when rioters called on his famous prospective daughter-in-law to help pay off the national debt. The former president was accused last year by a federal judge of failing to prevent the killing of five protesters during the riots, raising the prospect of a highly embarrassing trial which could coincide with the widely anticipated wedding of his son and the star.

But the incident seems to have done little to tarnish the Shakira brand. Her own charity, the Pies Descalzos Foundation, has been raising money for Colombia's poorest children since 1997, and she has performed in London for the Prince's Trust, at the Paris leg of the Live 8 concert and in Germany for last year's Live Earth environmental extravaganza. And as a Unicef goodwill ambassador she has visited Bangladesh and El Salvador to campaign for children hit by a recent cyclone and whose lives are blighted by violence.

news source : http://www.independent.co.uk/

Waco students to join Shakira for education push

Two students with Waco ties, Morgan Cunningham and Justin Kralleman, will join Grammy award-winning artist Shakira (pictured at right) and more than 50 other students selected from around the country at a 22 press conference today in Washington, D.C., for the Global Campaign for Education’s Action Week. Cunningham is a student at Baylor University. Kralleman is a Waco native and student at Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green, Ky. The press conference is at noon.

Seeking to raise awareness for the bipartisan Education for All Act of 2007 (EFA) with US leaders, he/she joins with GCE’s coalition in 120 countries to call on government leaders to support a basic education for all children, including the 72 million young children and 226 million older youths internationally who are out of school. GCE’s Action Week will take place from April 21-27 and will also include the “World’s Biggest Lesson” on April 23, when millions of children worldwide will participate in the an attempt to break the world record for the largest lesson ever through learning and teaching a curriculum about the denial of quality education to tens of millions of poor children.

news source : http://www.wacotrib.com/

SHAKIRA & SANZ DENY SEX TAPE PRANK

A sex video April Fool's Day (01Apr08) prank involving pop collaborators SHAKIRA and ALEJANDRO SANZ has been exposed as a hoax by the singers' publicists.

Bogus Internet reports suggested the stars and Shakira's boyfriend, Antonio de la Rua, were caught on film enjoying a threesome, but representatives for Sanz and Shakira insist there is no sex tape.

PeopleEnEspanol.com claims the rumour got started when Argentine DJ Javier Ceriani commented on a little Internet report on his Zona Cero radio show.

He said, "It's been said... there is a private video recorded on a yacht, one that could implicate Alejandro Sanz, Shakira and Antonio de la Rua." He suggested the tape was in the hands of the courts.

In a joint statement, the singers' representatives say, "This is a false rumour. This is totally absurd any way you look at it. There is no possibility that such a video exists. It is a baseless and malicious rumour." Sanz and Shakira teamed up on the song La Tortura, and appeared together in the tune's steamy video.

news source : http://www.pr-inside.com/