Colombian beauty hits Abu Dhabi

After the last minute confusion of New Year's Eve, many had expected the SHAKIRA concert at Emirates Palace to have been called off.

But no, the snake-hipped singing sensation still strutted her stuff on stage and not even the canceled festivities or dense fog and humidity could dampen the spirits of her loyal fans.

The pint-size singer kicked off the show with some of her signature Spanish songs which, despite the language barrier, went down a storm. But the real magic happened when the sultry star performed her most popular hits including Hips Don't Lie, Underneath Your Clothes and the fans' favourite Whenever Wherever.

Dressed in her trademark cropped waistcoat and sprayed-on trousers the half-Lebanese singer paid homage to her Arab roots and credited her Lebanese grandmother for passing down her dancing genes.

"I'm the fruit of an Arab land, and I'm immensely proud of my Arab heritage.

"I just wanted you to know that and also that I can't think of a better place to spend New Year's Eve," she told the excited crowd before showing off the her hidden talents by serenading them with a solo on the guitar.

The show was the singer's second concert in the region, following her gig at Dubai's Autodrome last year and after an impressive show, we hope she'll be back.

Source:http://www.ahlanlive.com

Shakira To Perform At Obama Inauguration Party

Superstar singer Shakira will celebrate U.S. President-elect Barack Obama's White House victory - with a performance at his inauguration party.

The Hips Don't Lie hitmaker is reportedly slated to join stars including Susan Sarandon, Spike Lee, and Anne Hathaway at the glitzy event in Washington, D.C. next month (Jan09).

She was a vocal supporter of Obama during his election campaign, telling reporters: "Obama can restore peace and the world's confidence in the United States."

In return, the Democrat voiced his admiration for the Colombian singer's charity work in aid of Latin American children. And Peruvian newspaper El Comercio reports that Shakira is now lined up to perform at a celebration to be held after Obama is formally sworn into office on 20 January (09). (ZN/WNWCHP/MJ)


Source:http://www.cinemablend.com/celebrity

Shakira Rests Hips to Study at UCLA

For the past month, the Colombian pop star has been taking a class at the University of California, Los Angeles, called "Introduction to Western Civilization: Ancient Civilizations from Prehistory to Circa A.D. 843."

"She went when she finished her tour, for the summer," Shakira's manager Fifi Kurzman told The Associated Press.

For years the 30-year-old has studied on her own, also taking tutorials on the history and languages of the countries she visits, Kurzman said.

The singer, known for last year's "Hips Don't Lie" and other hits, released her first album at age 14 and later took time off to finish high school.

She decided to take a musical rest this summer following her worldwide "Oral Fixation" tour to focus on social causes, Kurzman said.

The class began Aug. 6 and ended Thursday, though Shakira didn't attended the last few classes, according to course lecturer Robert Cleve. Cleve said he hadn't known she was a celebrity during the course and was astonished to learn she was a pop star.

"She told me she was visiting from Colombia and that she was just doing this for her own enlightenment and enjoyment," Cleve said. "She looked like just an ordinary student. She wasn't flamboyant ... she didn't act like a big celebrity or anything."

Shakira, who sat near the front in the third row of the lecture hall, would often discuss the course material with him after class.

"I was really impressed with how intelligent she was," said Cleve.

Source:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/

Baby name of the day: Shakira

he baby name of the day is... Shakira.

Shakira means "thankful," according to babynames.com.

The most famous Shakira is the pop-Latin singer who goes by just the one name, but whose real name is Shakira Isabel Mebarak Ripoll.

For more Thanksgiving-related names check out PregnancyAndBaby.com's story on the topic.

Source:http://www.examiner.com/x-608-Early-Childhood

Shakira highlights children's poverty during talk

NEW YORK: Shakira, a longtime activist for Latin American's poor children, plans to make her Colombian children's foundation a global one in the near future.

Shakira said Barefoot, known as Pies Descalzos in her native Colombia, will start focusing on children worldwide later this year.

"We have a model that works. Under less than $2 a day, we can provide a kid with top quality education and the nutrition that they need to be able to function and be able to learn because a kid with an empty stomach cannot learn," said the singer, a multiplatinum superstar known for hits like "Hips Don't Lie."

"So this model that has been so successful in my country, now I want to bring it to other countries in my small way."

Shakira made the comments Wednesday after appearing at Columbia University with Spanish singing sensation Alejandro Sanz and the presidents of Mexico, Argentina, Paraguay, El Salvador and Panama. The event focused on the importance of education, nutrition and health intervention for Latin American children. The singers asked the presidents to adopt an agreement on combatting child poverty during the upcoming Iberoamerican Summit in late October.
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"The presidents seem very committed and that's what we need. We need all the leaders of Latin America to have a definite commitment toward our children (because) the children of Latin America are waiting for opportunities," said Shakira in an interview after conference.

"Where I come from every child who is born poor will die poor and we have to change this, and this is the moment to do it. We are at the threshold of a new wave of awareness and sensibility toward our children's issues. But early childhood development should be at the top of our priorities and at the top of every president's agenda."

In attendance were Mexican President Felipe Calderon; Argentinian President Cristina Fernandez; the president of Paraguay, Fernado Lugo; El Salvador's president, Tony Saca; and Panamanian President Martin Torrijos. Also on hand was Dominican-born baseball star Sammy Sosa, Panamanian musician Ruben Blades and English rocker Roger Waters of Pink Floyd fame, along with Nobel Prize-winning economist James J. Heckman and Luis Alberto Moreno, president of the Inter-American Development Bank.

The event was sponsored by the Earth Institute at Columbia, led by economist Jeffrey Sachs.

Shakira and Sanz are members of Latin America in Solidarity Action (the Spanish acronym is ALAS, or "wings"), a nonprofit coalition founded by Latin American artists, intellectuals and business leaders to promote social communities and early childhood development programs in Latin America. Earlier this year, ALAS held all-star fundraising concerts in Mexico and Argentina that helped secure $200 million in donations.

"I belong to a generation that is learning new ways to get involved in these issues. We are not a passive generation, we're very proactive," Shakira said. "We want to see all those brutal contrasts in our world disappear, we want to see poverty eliminated because we believe it is possible."

She also talked about the upcoming U.S. presidential election, and urged Latino voters to use their voice and vote.

"I'd like to invite the Latino community to come out and make themselves present during this election because they can really make a difference," she said. "I care deeply about this country and I think everyone does because America's economy is so crucial for the rest of the world. The rest of the world's economy depends on the economy of this country and world peace depends on the policies of this country."

Source:http://www.iht.com/articles/ap

Shakira and Sanz to present "biggest social project of the century"

Colombian pop star Shakira and Spanish singer Alejandro Sanz announced they will present "the biggest social project of the century" at the Latin American summit in El Salvador later this week.

The artists hope to reach an inter-American consensus on how to battle the problems of children early development in Latin America.

"We are going to El Salvador with the support of the participating countries, especially that of President Saca (of El Savador, who will preside the summit and of (singer) Enrique Iglesias who leads these forces of the iberoamerican dialogue. Our goal is to achieve that early education becomes a reality in our countries, now that we know it is the real way to abandon poverty," Shakira said.

Shakira urges Latin American governments to

1. Form a regional working group DIB on early childhood development, led by Shakira's ALAS foundation, involving several NGOs like Unicef and the World Bank.
2. Promote cooperation with the DIB in each and every Latin American country
3. Monitor the progress in all countries
4. Create a pilot project in at least 5 countries
5. Come up with financial and organizational strategies for the DIT in the countries
6. Provide feedback during the 2009 Latin American summit

Source:http://colombiareports.com/colombian-news/new

Shakira named humanitarian of the year

Latin pop star Shakira has been named "Humanitarian of the Year" by the People en Espanol magazine for her work towards providing better health and education to needy children in South America.

The US magazine's next edition, which lists the year's most famous celebrities who have achieved star of the year status, selected the Colombian singer-songwriter for the title because of her charity work with impoverished children through her foundation Pies Descalzos and Latin America in Solidarity (ALAS), EFE news agency reported on Saturday.

The new edition of the magazine will hit newsstands on Monday.

The Hips don't lie singer, whose hip-swivelling dances and catchy ballads have earned her a huge global following and a string of Grammy awards, told the magazine that she learned to have compassion for the needy when she was seven-years-old and her parents' jewellery store went bankrupt.

Shakira was sent together with her mother and some friends to California, while her father sold off everything, including the bed the future music icon had slept in.

When she returned home, she had to sleep on a mattress on the floor. So she would understand that some kids were living in even worse conditions, her parents took her to a park in Barranquilla where homeless children sniffed glue to forget their hunger, the magazine said.

"We had a comfortable life and then one day I was shown something else. From that day on, I became obsessed to vindicate my family, my family's economic situation, and to one day help those kids that I saw on the streets," said the singer, who has sold 60 million albums worldwide.

"From that moment on, I was obsessed with achieving success to get my family back on its feet, to restore my family's economic position, but I was also obsessed with someday doing something for kids like the ones who made such a huge impact on my young mind," the singer told People en Espanol.

She was still in her teens when she took her first step in that direction, using some of the profits from her hit albun Pies Descalzos (Barefoot) to establish the foundation of the same name, which is currently building schools in Colombia for thousands of displaced children.

In 2006 she created, together with Spanish singers Alejandro Sanz and Miguel Bose, the Latin American Solidarity Action Foundation or ALAS (Wings), which enjoys the support of other showbiz colleagues, intellectuals and entrepreneurs.

The singer-songwriter also told the magazine about her nine-year relationship with Antonio de la Rua, son of former Argentine president Fernando de la Rua.

"I live very happily as a couple with Antonio and I think it's quite romantic to freely choose the person to be with every day. To be the eternal girlfriend is something I find very romantic. For now that's how I see my relationship, the way I'd like to stay and the way he would too," she said.
Source:http://music.ndtv.com/story.asp?id=ENTEN20080071796