Look To The Stars News: Jimmy Carter

Taylor Swift Teams With Def Leppard For TV Gig

Tue, 30 Sep 2008 12:00:00 -0000

On October 6, a very special fusion of musical styles will take place in Nashville when teen country sensation Taylor Swift joins with classic British rockers Def Leppard for a one-off gig for TV. And although the event is invitation-only and closed to the public, they really want you to be there.

Swift and the Leppards have organized a charity auction that will let two couples attend the taping of Crossroads, with proceeds going to Country Music Television’s (CMT) One Country charity, Hands On Nashville.

“Every time I’ve seen ‘Crossroads’ on CMT I’ve always thought, ‘If I ever get to do one of those, it HAS to be with Def Leppard!,’ so this is really a dream come true for me,” said Swift. “I have been screaming the words to Def Leppard songs for years so it’s amazing that I’m going to get to share a stage with them this year!”

Led by Advisory Board members former President Jimmy Carter, Maya Angelou and Gen. Colin Powell, CMT One Country offers tools that enable virtually anyone to start making a difference immediately. They also celebrate the accomplishments of everyday heroes and showcase other nonprofit partners – including Second Harvest, the Boys’ and Girls’ Clubs of America, the USO, and Habitat For Humanity – working to keep America great.

According to CMT executive vice president and general manager Brian Philips, “CMT will enlighten our fans and inspire them to take action in the places where they live. With the help of our biggest stars, we’ll reinforce the messages that resonate in so much of CMT’s music. We know our viewers care deeply about the needs of their neighbors. One Country will make it easy for them to help.”

The auction, which runs until October 2, can be accessed via the CMT Auctions website.

Peter Gabriel To Receive Amnesty International Honor

Wed, 10 Sep 2008 15:30:00 -0000

Written by Tim Saunders

Peter Gabriel is to receive a special award for his humanitarian work today, September 10.

The 58-year-old singer has been named as the recipient of Amnesty International’s 2008 Ambassador of Conscience Award, an acolade that recognizes exceptional individual leadership in the fight to protect and promote human rights. Inspired by a poem written for Amnesty International by Nobel Laureate Seamus Heaney, the award aims to promote the work of the human rights organization by drawing attention to the work high profile people carry out, and former recipients include Nelson Mandela, U2, Mary Robinson and Vaclav Havel.

Gabriel is well known for his work with human rights around the world, and first worked with Amnesty when he helped organize the Conspiracy of Hope Tour with Bono in 1986. He went on to found Witness, a video community campaigning for Human Rights, and more recently became a founding member of The Elders – a private alliance of senior global figures who want to launch diplomatic assaults on the globe’s most intractable problems – along with Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu, Richard Branson, and Jimmy Carter.

The award will be presented at London’s Hard Rock Cafe by U2 guitarist The Edge, who credits Gabriel with introducing the Irish rockers to Amnesty International in the early 1980s. The event will also mark the launch of Amnesty International’s Small Places Tour 2008 , the organization’s most ambitious global music project since the Human Rights Now! tour in 1988. Details of the tour will be announced following the award presentation.

Presidents Speak Out Against Government Condoned Torture

Thu, 10 Jul 2008 13:30:00 -0000

Written by Elizabeth Willoughby

Amnesty International, in challenging the arguments for torture, has posted interviews on YouTube of former US president Jimmy Carter, former Ireland president Mary Robinson, government officials and experts to prove that “Torture Can Never Be Justified.”

“When our top leaders profess, publicly even, that torture should be permitted in our prisons in order to protect security, that is embarrassing to me,” says Carter. “It’s obviously contrary to the basic principles on which our nation was founded.”

Although most countries of the world have adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights – in which Article 5 states that “No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment” – prisoners in various regions of the world spend 23 hours a day in tiny cells and are being held illegally and treated inhumanly while governments are not only condoning it, they’re ordering it.

Murat Kurnaz, a former Guantanamo detainee, said, “They used electro shocks on me, and they did water boarding. It’s called water treatment. There’s a bucket filled with water, they stick my head in it and at the same time they hit me into my stomach so I had to inhale all this water.”

Abu Omar, a victim of secret detention for four years, said, “I feel like a destroyed man. All I want is to be on my own. All night long I suffer nightmares and all day long I remember torture. So I shake.”

“It’s important that governments do protect against acts of terrorism,” says Mary Robinson, former Ireland president. “That’s their responsibility. But they also have a responsibility to uphold their commitments to human rights. Unfortunately there is a very worrying trend… in different parts of the world: secret places of detention, abuses in detention, the ambivalence about torture that’s led to the situation in Abu Ghraib and elsewhere that has become known. What about the places that are not known, where torture is being carried out? …It’s very important that governments reaffirm that torture is not acceptable, that there is no impunity.”

See Amnesty’s Torture Can Never Be Justified here.

Time's 100 - Peter Gabriel By Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu

Fri, 16 May 2008 10:57:00 -0000

Nobel Peace Prize winner Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu wrote about Peter Gabriel’s contributions to humanity for this year’s Time 100 list:

“I did not know Peter Gabriel from a bar of soap when I met him for the first time on his friend Sir Richard Branson’s Necker Island in the Virgin Islands. But within moments, he had charmed me. I heard him sing his Biko, which still moves me to tears each time I hear it, as we stood round the piano he was playing. He volunteered to give me my first swimming lessons and was a great hit with two of my grandchildren who met him there.

“What is his secret? He has a heart—in our part of the world, we would give him our highest accolade and say, “He has ubuntu.” It is that marvelous quality that speaks of compassion and generosity, about sharing, about hospitality. Peter founded WOMAD (World of Music, Arts and Dance), presenting 50 festivals in more than 40 countries and conducting workshops in schools around the globe. He is a passionate human-rights advocate who participated in the 1988 Human Rights Now tour, and he co-founded Witness, which provides cameras and computers to activists.

“In 2007 he and Branson co-founded the Elders, which Nelson Mandela and his wife Graça Machel launched in Johannesburg on Mandela’s 89th birthday. With our world battered by so many problems—ethnic conflict, oppression of women and children, climate change—their idea was that a group of eminent people would serve as Elders for our global village. A dozen of us—including Kofi Annan, President Jimmy Carter and Fernando Cardoso (with an empty chair for Aung San Suu Kyi of Burma)—have accepted their offer and challenge.

“Peter, 58, has received many awards, including the Man of Peace award given by Nobel Peace laureates. He has ubuntu, and he deserves this latest accolade richly.”

Bishop Tutu, the former Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984, and founded the Desmond Tutu Peace Centre support and promote peace throughout the world.

Al Gore Donates Peace Prize Money

Mon, 15 Oct 2007 10:02:00 -0000

Written by Tim Saunders

Former Vice President Al Gore has announced plans to donate the money he will receive for the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize to charity.

Gore will receive half of the total $1.56 million prize money for the award, which he shared this year with the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, for his work to call attention to the threat of global warming, and will reinvest it into the cause that is closest to his heart.

“My wife, Tipper, and I will donate 100% of the proceeds of the award to the Alliance For Climate Protection,” said Gore in an email. “I am deeply honored to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. This award is even more meaningful because I have the honor of sharing it with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the world’s pre-eminent scientific body devoted to improving our understanding of the climate crisis, a group whose members have worked tirelessly and selflessly for many years. We face a true planetary emergency. The climate crisis is not a political issue, it is a moral and spiritual challenge to all of humanity. It is also our greatest opportunity to lift global consciousness to a higher level.”

Al Gore is the first American to win the Nobel Peace Prize since former President Jimmy Carter. The prize is named after Alfred Nobel, the Swedish inventor of dynamite, who established the award in his will. It has been awarded since 1901 for achievements in physics, chemistry, medicine, and for peace. Past winners include Mother Teresa in 1979, and Nelson Mandela in 1993.

Al Gore was born in Washington DC in 1948, the son of a US Representative and Senator. His early life was divided between life in the political capital of the United States and the family farm in Tennessee. In the 1970s, he served as a military journalist in Vietnam. 1993 saw Gore become the 45th Vice President of the United States, a position he held under President Bill Clinton until 2001. He narrowly missed out being voted into the Presidency himself in 2000.

In 2006, Gore presented a film called “An Inconvenient Truth”, directed by Davis Guggenheim, which publicized the facts behind climate change. It won the Academy Award for Best Documentary, and is now the fourth highest grossing documentary film in US history. The companion book to the film, penned by Gore, has been on the New York Times best seller list since June, 2006. His status as an environmental warrior was boosted in July, 2007, when he organized the worldwide Live Earth concerts. His latest book, “The Assault on Reason”, debuted at the top of the New York Times best seller list when it was released in May of this year, and in September his interactive cable network, Current TV, won an Emmy. He is also founder and chairman of the Alliance for Climate Protection, which he describes as “a bipartisan non-profit organization that is devoted to changing public opinion in the US and around the world about the urgency of solving the climate crisis.”

“Al Gore has for a long time been one of the world’s leading environmental politicians,” said the Nobel Committee who awarded the prize. “His strong commitment, reflected in his political activity, lectures, films, and books has strengthened the struggle against climate change. He is probably the single individual who has done most to create greater worldwide understanding of the measures that need to be adopted.”

But has the award changed the man at all?

“I’m going back to work right now,” answered Gore. “This is just the beginning.”

Jerry Lewis Tops Charity Survey

Fri, 31 Aug 2007 20:48:18 -0000

Written by Tim Saunders

A survey has named comedy actor Jerry Lewis as the most effective celebrity for charity causes, with 43% of those surveyed saying he is the best at raising funds and driving change for the issues he supports.

The survey, carried out by the Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company, put the 81 year old veteran of movies including “The Nutty Professor” at the top of a list of ten philanthropic celebrities, such as Oprah Winfrey, Michael J. Fox, Jimmy Carter, Bill Gates, Angelina Jolie, Bono, Lance Armstrong, Katie Couric, and Rosie O’Donnell.
Jerry Lewis helped establish the Muscular Dystrophy Association in 1952, and has organized and hosted a Labor Day Telethon every year since 1966. His fundraising efforts have raised over $2 billion for neuromuscular care and research, with last year’s telethon raising $61 million alone. He has also been involved with fundraising for The Salvation Army and the American Red Cross. He is the only media celebrity to have been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

“I’m always honored and humbled by the response of the American people to my efforts on behalf of the Muscular Dystrophy Association,” said Lewis, who will host the 42nd Labor Day Telethon on September 2 and 3. “Their generosity has allowed us to provide important services and conduct vital research for 57 years.”

The survey also investigated the issues that Americans find most important. The results showed that causes to help children and animals are the most popular, followed by education and literacy, services for the elderly, religion, health and medicine, the environment, and aid for disabled people.

Respondents of the survey aged between 18 and 42 were more interested in international causes, and were more likely to be influenced by celebrities such as Oprah and Bono, who work with developing countries to ease poverty. Respondents over the age of 43 were influenced more by older celebrities, such as Bill Gates, who supports health and education issues, and Jimmy Carter, who works with Habitat For Humanity.
42% of those surveyed said they want to donate more time to charity, but cannot find the opportunity.

Busy Month For Charity Icon Jolie

Fri, 15 Jun 2007 20:10:26 -0000

Written by Steve Purcell

Angelina Jolie recently told an interviewer from Esquire magazine of her wish to be remembered more for her charity than her acting, and the first half of June is already bringing the fulfilment of that wish closer.

Describing the satisfaction her humanitarian path has brought her, she said, “I entered this business before I had focus and purpose in my life. I was very unhappy, very unhealthy, and when I sat down for an interview, I didn’t know why. I felt like I didn’t have anything to share.”

Jolie told Esquire, “I recently had a column published in a newspaper and at the end it didn’t say I was an actress. It said that I was a UN Goodwill Ambassador – that’s all. And I was really proud.”

Alongside that much-vaunted UNHCR ambassadorship, the actress was this month voted into the Council on Foreign Relations, a think tank which boasts members such as Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, Diane Sawyer, Condoleezza Rice and Tom Brokaw.

“Angelina Jolie is accomplished in her field and has demonstrated serious interest in issues such as Darfur, international education and refugees,” said Lisa Shields, vice president of communications at CFR. “As such, her profile fits very well with other young professionals we’ve selected as the next generation of foreign policy leaders.”

Taking a further opportunity to do good, Jolie is donating the Bochic jewellery she wore to the Golden Globe Awards to a charity auction from which all proceeds will go to UNHCR programs in Chad for refugees from the Darfur region. The auction will run from June 19th to July 2nd at charityfolks.com.

And most recently, Jolie and partner Brad Pitt arranged Wednesday’s New York première of their new movie as a charity benefit event. “A Mighty Heart” recounts the story of murdered journalist Daniel Pearl, and its opening benefited the French charity Reporters Without Borders, which – appropriately – works to uphold the human rights of reporters.

Look To The Stars News: Jimmy Carter

Taylor Swift Teams With Def Leppard For TV Gig

Related past articles

Peter Gabriel To Receive Amnesty International Honor

Related past articles

Presidents Speak Out Against Government Condoned Torture

Related past articles

Time's 100 - Peter Gabriel By Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu

Related past articles

Al Gore Donates Peace Prize Money

Related past articles

Jerry Lewis Tops Charity Survey

Related past articles

Busy Month For Charity Icon Jolie

Related past articles