Thanksgiving is almost here! Yes! And how, you may ask, will Brangelina and the Rainbow Bunch be celebrating the occasion while normal Americans gorge and pretend that Europeans besieging America was a good thing for the natives? As with each of life's most important questions, it depends on your glossy of choice.

Shiny happy OK! claims that after spending the last few turkey days making the third world a hipper place, Brad is dragging the whole crew back to his home planet of Springfield, Missouri, and forcing them to toss the pigskin around with his fam. The PR flak for Springfield's Visitors Bureau says Ange can look forward to "Black Friday" shopping fest at Bass Pro Shops—an outdoor sporting goods store. Super!

Meanwhile Us Weekly has Angie's chatty brother, James something or other, on record claiming that even he got the nod, and that his Beowulf babe sis will helm the stovetop. "Angie's been saying she's going to cook a turkey ... I'm going to have to see it to believe it." Oh yeah, and he says she's not knocked up.

But if Star's to be believed, it looks as though Brad might spend the holidays sneaking off to iChat with lonely ex-wife Jen Aniston. According to a "friend" of the former Friend, Jen has been e-mailing Brad following a fight with her best pal, actress-ish Courtney Cox. "She's really winning Brad's heart with her e-mails. She know that Angelina Jolie doesn't have much of a sense of humor, so she makes her e-mails to Brad extremely entertaining. She's flirty. She's like Meg Ryan with Tom Hanks in You've got Mail." (Gobble gobble, gack!) Watch out, Angie, everyone knows the way to a man's heart is through e-mail forwards.

In Touch, for its part, claims the Jolie-Pitts have bigger problems than Jen and her laptop. The Bauer bunch has traveled to Ethiopia—or run up quite a long-distance tab—and found Zahra's grandma-ma who claims Z's bio-mama is still alive and kicking and wants to see Z! Says the might-be-mama, "I want her to come home and regain her identity." Hmm, life of privilege with adoring adoptive parents, or ... you see where this is going.

Or it could all be moot. Life & Style says that a neglected Brad
stormed off with a tall blonde woman (and some other person) following
the Beowulf premiere in L.A. The two (plus random third) were spotted going into the Peninsula Hotel and he didn't go home until four in the morning. Stuff that in your turkey!

Source: Radar.

A mystery blonde that is not Jennifer Aniston has sparked what is described as a bit of a fight between Brad Pitt and his girlfriend Angelina Jolie. A report from this week's Life & Style Weekly details a story from a witness that spotted Brad Pitt chatting up and allegedly flirting up a mystery blonde woman at a red carpet event.

The cover story reports: As the night wore on, the insider says, Brad felt so ignored, he turned his attention to an unidentified tall blond woman, who, says the insider, “Brad spent a lot of the night talking to.” Angie, adds the insider, "lost it when she saw Brad flirting. Her jaw clenched, and she looked really jealous."

Hmm, I wonder if she looked like Jennifer Aniston. Now the story gets really interesting, the magazine claims that after Brad and Angelina had at it over his supposed flirting with the woman he left. The report claims that he jumped in a car with the woman and another person and drove away.

Was there anything going on? The story doesn't make that allegation. The claim is that drove to the Peninsula Hotel with the woman and another person. The insider says, “I don’t know what happened at the hotel,” notes the insider, “but he decided he should go home to Angie. He looked really sullen and downbeat when he left the hotel.”

Cue the rep™: According to Life & Style His rep says Brad wasn’t at the Peninsula then.

Source: National Ledger.

Reports that Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie have purchased a man-made island in the shape of Ethiopia off the coast of Dubai are "completely made up", Pitt's publicist tells The Celebrity Truth.

The story, which originated from the newspaper Emirates Today and was subsequently picked up by news organizations around the world, stated that the couple had purchased one of 300 man-made islands that are shaped like a world map, within a project called 'The World.'

The report also claims that Pitt and Jolie intend to use the island to showcase environmental issues, and states that "Developer Nakheel declined to comment on the couples's purchase. But reliable sources said the deal had gone ahead – and this was confirmed by representatives of the pair in the United States."

The Celebrity Truth contacted Pitt's publicist, Cindy Guagenti, who stated that this was certainly not the case and that the story is false.

"It's not true and completely made up," Guagenti said.

Source: The Celebrity Truth.

Angelina Jolie is reportedly furious that Jennifer Aniston is spend-ing Thanksgiving with Brad Pitt's mother.

The Beowulf actress went 'berserk' when she found out Brad's mother Jane had invited his ex-wife to her home in Missouri for the annual United States holiday on November 22, and has branded their continued friendship "sick" and "sneaky".

A source claims that when Angelina learned of the invitation, she screamed at Brad: "That's it then, we'll be staying in Los Angeles. It's all so cosy it's sick."

The source added to Britain's Star magazine: "When she found out, Angelina went 'berserk'. She thinks Jane is keeping up what she calls a sneaky relationship with Jennifer.

"She has pulled no punches and has made it clear to Brad that there will be no family harmony while Jane keeps up her friendship with Jen.

"But Brad has told Angelina that what his mother does in her own free time is her own business."

Jane and Angelina are reported to have had a furious bust-up over the phone which was caused by a recent interview in which Angelina talked candidly about her drug use, saying: "In the past I took just every drug possible, coke, ecstasy, heroin, everything."

Jane allegedly accused the 'Tomb Raider' star of failing to consider Brad and their children - 17-month biological old daughter Shiloh and adopted kids Zahara, two, Pax, three, and Maddox, six.

Jennifer and Brad's marriage ended in 2005, but she has remained close with her former mother-in-law.

The former 'Friends' star even spent last Thanksgiving with the Pitt family.

A source said: "Jennifer sees no reason to stop being close to Jane. They speak on the phone at least once a month and exchange cards and emails. But, apparently, it makes Angelina's skin crawl."

Source: Jamaica Gleaner News.

We reported earlier this week that Goodwill ambassador Angelina Jolie wrote an essay in the upcoming issue of 'The Economist' calling for justice in Darfur. Here is the full essay...

On a recent mission for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, I had the opportunity to visit a refugee camp in Chad just across the border with Sudan. Sitting with a group of refugees, I asked them what they needed. These were people who had seen family members killed, neighbours raped, their villages burned and looted, their entire communities driven from their land. So it was no surprise when people began listing the things that could improve their lives just a little bit. Better tents, said one; better access to medical facilities, said another. But then a teenage boy raised his hand and said, with powerful simplicity, “Nous voulons un procès.” We want a trial.

A trial might seem a distant and abstract notion to a young man for whom the inside of a courtroom is worlds away from the inside of a refugee camp. But his statement showed a recognition of something elemental: that accountability is perhaps the only force powerful enough to break the cycle of violence and retribution that marks so many conflicts.

I believe 2008 can be the year in which we begin seeking true accountability and demanding justice for the victims in Darfur and elsewhere. Through accountability we can begin the process of righting past wrongs, and even change the behaviour of some of the world’s worst criminals.

The international tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and for Rwanda have shown the way in convicting heads of state and generals for genocide and crimes against humanity. The UN-backed special court for Sierra Leone has already sentenced three former leaders of a pro-government militia to jail for war crimes committed during the country’s civil war in the 1990s.

In Cambodia, the joint UN-Cambodian court to try top former Khmer Rouge leaders with war crimes and crimes against humanity has begun calling witnesses. It has taken a long time to get even this far, but a trial is likely in 2008. In The Hague, the International Criminal Court (ICC) has begun trials of two of the Congolese leaders charged with fomenting killings and rapes amid the violence that has raged there for over a decade.

Make no mistake, the existence of these trials alone changes behaviour. Seeing the indictment of Thomas Lubanga and the detention of Germain Katanga by the ICC brought to mind a trip I had taken to Congo five years ago. In the Ituri region, where Mr Katanga’s reign of terror had been most intense, our group attended a meeting of rebel leaders. They had gathered in a field to discuss the prospects for a peace agreement—which were not looking very good. The conversation turned hostile and the situation grew extremely tense. At that point, one of my colleagues asked for the name of one of the rebels, announcing, perhaps a bit recklessly, that he was going to pass it along to the ICC.

It was remarkable: this rebel leader’s whole posture changed from aggression to conciliation. The ICC had been around for only five months. It had tried no one. Yet its very existence was enough to intimidate a man who had been terrorising the population for years.

Ending the cycle of violence

This is not an isolated example. Accountability has the potential to change behaviour, to check aggression by those who are used to acting with impunity. Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the prosecutor of the ICC, has said that even genocide is not a crime of passion; it is a calculated decision. He is right. Common sense tells us that when risks are weighed, decisions are made differently. When crimes against humanity are punished consistently and severely, the killers’ calculus will change.

My hope is that these examples of justice in the name of accountability will be just a few of the many to come. I hope that the Sudanese government will hand over the government minister and the janjaweed militia leader who have been indicted for war crimes by the ICC, and that the teenager I met in Chad will get to see the trial he seeks. I hope that those responsible for the atrocities in Darfur will be held to account, not only for that young man’s sake, but for the world’s.

Only through justice will we achieve peace. And only when there is peace will the world’s nearly 39m displaced persons and refugees be able to return home.

The strong preying upon the weak and the weak, upon achieving strength, extracting retribution: this is the nature of so many of the world’s conflicts. The role of aggressor and victim may alternate over time, the tools of destruction may become more sophisticated, but little else changes.

Source: Holly Scoop.

News outlets, including Us Weekly, reported that Angelina Jolie's black Versace pants split on the red carpet at the London premiere of Beowulf November 11.



Though a seam appeared to be split in photos, her stylist Jen Rade tells Usmagazine.com it was a zipper.

In fact, Rade says Jolie "even wore the pants home on the plane."

Source: US Magazine.

The birth family of Angelina Jolie’s daughter wants her to bring Zahara home to Ethiopia



Angelina Jolie shares a special bond with her daughter Zahara, whom she adopted more than two years ago from Ethiopia. Malnourished and suffering from rickets, Zahara was days away from death when Angelina found her, bonded with her and nursed her back to health. Today, she cherishes time alone with her happy toddler, 2, and “chooses special stories” to read to her when they’re together, a pal says. But now a dark cloud of unhappiness hangs over their relationship. And Angelina’s worst nightmare may come true.

On June 20, 2006, Angelina proudly told CNN’s Anderson Cooper about the daughter she named Zahara. “She’s from Ethiopia. She’s an AIDS orphan,” Angelina said. But Zahara’s adoption papers, which an In Touch representative was shown on November 12, clearly states that Zahara has a grandmother and extended family alive in Africa— and the grandmother introduced In Touch to her daughter, who claims to be Zahara’s mother.

In 2005, the U.K.’s Sun also talked to the woman, who claimed to be Zahara’s birth mother. In the town of Awassa, 140 miles south of the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa, In Touch spoke with that woman again. She’s very much alive, she doesn’t have AIDS — and she’d love to be with the child who was taken away. “I want my daughter to come home to see where she is from,” the woman who says she’s Zahara’s mother, Mentewab Dawit Lebiso, 24, tells In Touch. “Her grandmother and I both tried very hard to raise her, and I want her to come home to regain her identity.”

Was Angelina lied to?

While her birth family may not be able to afford to challenge Zahara’s adoption, they do claim they were misled. They say a local official, who took Zahara to the adoption agency, told the family they would get to see the baby again and maintain contact with her. Most people hoping to adopt who are working with the U.S.- based agency Wide Horizons for Children (which Angelina used to adopt Zahara) visit the child’s village and surviving family members. But Angelina, 32, could not do so when she adopted Zahara more than two years ago. “There were a lot of journalists following her,” the agency’s Ethiopian head, Dr. Tsegaye Berhe, tells In Touch. “She was not able to travel as much as she would have liked or as we would have liked her to do.”

Still, after speaking to the agency, family members hoped Angelina and her partner, Brad Pitt, 43, would bring Zahara back for a visit. But that has not happened. “After they took the baby, they didn’t keep in contact. They didn’t tell us anything about her,” Zahara’s aunt, Zinash Haile Yenero, 20, tells In Touch. “My mother was very sad. At one point she was even thinking of trying to find a way to bring her grandchild back, but she has no money, so she can’t.”

Angelina, an insider says, has heard the published tales of Zahara’s African family, but feels on a deeper level that Zahara is part of her family. “She believes that Zahara is an orphan and the woman who claims to be her mom is mistaken,” says a friend. Government papers said Zahara was an AIDS orphan, says the pal, and “Angie had no reason to believe otherwise. Zahara was days away from death and Angelina saved that child. As far as she is concerned, that bonded her to that little girl forever.”

Because of her own stormy relationship with her father, Jon Voight, Angelina has strong feelings about parenthood. “She feels that while a person may have a biological parent who is still alive, that parent has to earn the right to be with their child,” the pal explains.

Zahara’s real story

Dr. Tsegaye says that Angelina has no obligation to keep in touch with Zahara’s blood family. “It’s up to the adoptive parents,” he says. “We cannot force them.” But Zahara’s grandmother, Almaz Elfneh, 45, insists that the circumstances behind their decision to put the baby in an orphanage must be told to Zahara and to her adoptive parents. “I miss my grandchild a lot,” she adds. According to Mentewab, Zahara was conceived when she was raped by a stranger who broke into her home. After the baby — whom she named Yemasrech, which means Good News — was born on January 7, 2005, she moved in with her mother and got a job as a laborer. But Mentewab became overwhelmed. “I thought the baby was going to die because there was no food, so I ran away,” she confesses.

Unable to care for her alone, Almaz says she brought the child to a local authority, explaining that her daughter had run away. Another man, who worked on behalf of WHFC, but was not an official employee, took the baby away and told the agency that her mother had died. “What he has done is equal to murder,” charges Mentewab. “He took my daughter away and he just disappeared with her. He said I was dead, but I heard from my mother that she never said that.” But Dr. Tsegaye disputes this account.

Despite their sad story, Angelina feels that she must put Zahara’s needs first, says an insider. “She believes that you protect your child and put them first,” says the pal. Another friend says that Angie thinks contact with Zahara’s birth family at such a young age would be too confusing. Others disagree. Adoption specialist Jerri Jenista says, “Most parents want their children to have some contact with where they came from.”

The choice, however, remains Angie’s until Zahara has grown and can choose for herself. Much as they’d love to see her, Mentewab and her family know they cannot force Angelina to bring Zahara home. They realize they could never give the child the happy, privileged life she shares with her new parents. Maybe one day, Zahara will enjoy the best of both worlds.

Angelina thought she had no mother

Angelina, who proudly introduced Zahara to her co-stars on the set of The Good Shepherd in August 2005, believes Zahara’s mother died.

They will adopt again

Despite the heartache involved with international adoptions, Angelina and Brad plan to have more children together, say friends, with at least one through adoption.

Could her birth mother get Zahara back?

Mentewab never signed the papers giving up her daughter, which could give her a case for getting Zahara back — if she had the money to pursue it. “If some family member comes in and leaves the child at an orphanage and signs her over, and then the mother wants her back, you can make the argument that the person didn’t truly understand that their child is gone forever,” says adoption specialist Jerri Jenista.

Mentewab struggled to feed her family. “Sometimes all I had was a piece of bread all day,” she tells In Touch.

Zahara’s mother Mentewab sells onions at the market. Her grandmother Almaz says they couldn’t afford to keep Zahara

“I would tell other families not to give up their children,” says Zahara’s aunt Frehiwot, 18, with another aunt, Zinash Haile Yenero. “I would tell them what happened to us.”

Two neighbors, including Asegadech Asefaw, concurred that Mentewab had run away — not died.

Another neighbor, Bekelech Haile, accompanied Almaz to the government offices.

But the agency says Angelina adopted legally

Wide Horizons for Children claims it told Angelina that Zahara’s mother was dead because the documents that her real grandmother, Almaz Elfneh, and three witnesses signed said so. “We have to trust the documents we received from the local government,” says Dr. Tsegaye Berhe, who tells In Touch that Almaz is indeed the baby’s grandmother. “She’s signed a document saying, ‘My daughter had died and she left the child behind.’”

Madonna’s son also isn’t an orphan

Madonna has had trouble with a foreign adoption, too. Yohane Banda (right), the father of her son David, protested that he didn’t know he was giving up his son forever. Angelina also appeared critical of Madonna for taking a child from Malawi. “It’s a country where there is no real legal framework for adoption,” she told a French magazine. “Personally, I prefer to stay on the right side of the law.” But later, Angelina insisted she favored Madonna’s adoption. “I said many positive things that were omitted,” she said. “I encourage everyone to be supportive so that every child can adjust nicely to their new home.”

Should celebrities help children stay with their families?

The plight of Africans affected by AIDS and living in poverty has led other stars to lend financial support to communities without removing children from their homes and villages. For instance, in 2005, the Charlize Theron Africa Outreach Project was created by the Oscar-winning actress to fund mobile health clinics to serve the poorest and most rural areas of South Africa. Save the Children’s Tonya Nyagiro tells In Touch, “It’s more acceptable for most of these kids to remain in their villages among family and friends who do their best to care for and support them.”

In Touch Weekly

Source: Perez Hilton.

ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) - Angelina Jolie's adoption of an Ethiopian baby was legal, the agency involved said on Thursday, rejecting reports that the child's relatives want her back.

Newspapers have reported this week that relatives of two-year-old Zahara, including a woman who says she is her birth mother, want the child returned to Ethiopia. Jolie adopted Zahara in July, 2005.

"The court in Addis Ababa approved the adoption after studying the document her grandmother wrote ... saying her daughter, the mother of Zahara, had died and she was too poor to bring her up," Tsegaye Berhe, the head of Wide Horizons for Children, which conducted the adoption, told Reuters.

"The grandmother brought three witnesses to court who testified that Zahara's mother had died and that her father was unknown ... The court also investigated the social status of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt before approving the adoption."

Tsegaye said the adoption was "legal and irrevocable," and he blamed reporters who he said had paid the relatives to raise the dispute.

"The controversy is media hype by unethical journalists exploiting the poverty of the grandmother," he said.

(Reporting by Tsegaye Tadesse; Editing by Daniel Wallis and Michael Winfrey)

Source: Yahoo! News.

Members of Angelina Jolie's adopted daughter's lost family have come forward in an effort to reclaim the Ethiopian child who was close to death and riddled with disease when the actress rescued her from an orphanage.

Little Zahara Jolie-Pitt's grandmother claims the AIDS orphan's paperwork is not correct - insisting that her granddaughter's mother is still alive.

The adoption papers, which have been obtained by magazine In Touch Weekly, clearly state that Zahara has a grandmother and extended family alive in Africa - but no living parents.

But now the grandmother insists her daughter, Mentewab Dawit Lebiso, never died - and she's Zahara's mum.

The woman claiming to be the mother tells In Touch, "I want my daughter to come home to see where she is from.

"Her grandmother and I both tried very hard to raise her, and I want her to come home to regain her identity."

And little Zahara's aunt, Zinash Haile Yenero, is upset that Jolie didn't make sure the child's paperwork was correct before adopting her, and she's angry the actress hasn't brought her daughter back to her homeland.

She rants, "My mother was very sad. At one point she was even thinking of trying to find a way to bring her grandchild back, but she has no money, so she can't."

The new article is sure to upset Jolie and partner Brad Pitt, but friends insist the actress will stand firm.

On pal says, "She believes that Zahara is an orphan and the woman who claims to be her mom is mistaken."

"Zahara was days away from death and Angelina saved that child. As far as she is concerned, that bonded her to that little girl forever."

Source: KFTY TV50.

BEIJING, Nov. 15 (Xinhuanet) -- Sometimes on-screen romance leads to off-screen romance. Just ask Brad Pitt who hooked up with Angelina Jolie while filming "Mr. and Mrs. Smith."

That may be why Pitt is feeling a bit edgy about Jolie's love scenes with co-star James McAvoy in her upcoming film "Wanted." In fact, Life & Style magazine says Pitt is jealous. Apparently, Pitt had difficulty watching Jolie and McAvoy share a passionate kiss.

"Brad knows it's only a movie," a friend of the couple told L&S. "But seeing them together still stung. She hasn't done anything that erotic since 'Mr. and Mrs. Smith.'"

To make matters worse, the magazine reports the sexiest scenes were added because Jolie wanted them. She even brought her favorite writer, Dean Georgaris, on board to beef up the interaction between the characters.

"The changes meant she spent way more time with James, and the sexual tension got a lot more intense." The L&S insider added that the co-stars became extremely close while filming, and the further inclusion of a nude bath scene "was entirely Angelina's idea."

Source: China View.