ajnews

Written 30th January 2002
Angelina Jolie, first asked the fans on suggestions for a movie sequel, than said that refused ?10 million to do the sequel, because she wanted to become a mom, now according to UK newspaper Daily Star, threatened to quit movies to become a tattoo artist...

Either Angelina is not capable of making her mind, or her publicist is the worst in the business, or most probably, her publicist is the best in the business... What is certain is that Angelina Jolie keeps herself and her name in media all over the world.

But despite every (strange) declaration, and according to the New York Daily News, Jolie has contractually agreed with Paramount not to get pregnant until after she delivers the first of two sequels. Although unconfirmed by Jolie or her representative, source close to the project insists the contract has no contraceptive language.

Written March 24th 2002
Face it, any program backed by hockey legend Wayne Gretzky, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, actress Angelina Jolie and Olympic skating champion Johann Olav Koss is bound to have a fairly broad appeal. Such is the hope for Olympic Aid, the athlete-driven humanitarian group dedicated to the notion that every child is entitled to the right to play.

On Saturday, Koss, Gretzky, Jolie, Annan, Bishop Desmond Tutu and others gathered for a round-table discussion to promote the program, as the Dutch government gave 5 million euros (about $4.3 million) to the project. Koss, a Norwegian who won four gold medals for speed skating in the 1992 and 1994 Olympic Games, is in charge of the eight-year-old project. In an informal news conference, he told reporters Olympic Aid was aimed at encouraging children, especially refugee children, to learn how to play.

"We just activate it to create a sports council (in refugee camps), we give them equipment and things like that," Koss said. "They start playing, and we say, there are no rules, just play... They don't want to do that, they want to create their own rules, they learn how to set rules and why it is important to set rules for instance in their own society."

The program also organizes sports festivals in conjunction with programs to vaccinate children against disease and to teach them about preventing the spread of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, he said. Sometimes, the introduction of sport into a refugee camp can encourage school attendance, Koss said: "In Angola ... in the camps, there are 30 percent more children going to school because we introduced sport into that area."

Jolie, a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, said she has so far traveled to Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Cambodia and Pakistan. Having these experiences has made Hollywood seem "stranger and stranger to me ... it just feels very foreign," Jolie said. "I love being in my muddy boots and surrounded by people that talk about nothing but how to make the world a better place."