Madonna follows Angelina

The U.K. gossip rags say Madonna is shopping for a baby girl, in Cambodia.

POP queen MADONNA wants to adopt a girl from CAMBODIA, The Sun can reveal.

The millionaire singer, 49, and husband GUY RITCHIE, 39, have sent aides to scour the poor Asian country for a new daughter.

Madonna chose Cambodia after being impressed by ANGELINA JOLIE’s adoption of Maddox, six, from the country in 2002.

She was also frustrated by the red tape involved in her adoption of two-year-old Malawi youngster David Banda. That adoption is still waiting to be formalised.

The Angelina Jolie cocktail

Khmer Intelligence, the web site dedicated to publishing sensitive information about Cambodia, courageously negotiates the deadly world of international espionage to pass along this bit of highly sensitive SIGINT:

ANGELINA JOLIE has been honoured in Cambodia – by having a cocktail named after her.

A bartender at The Red Piano restaurant in Siem Reap created the drink especially for the actress, when she visited the south east Asian nation to shoot Tomb Raider in 2002. …

The cocktail is a mix of vodka, Malibu rum and pineapple juice, served with an umbrella.

Great work, comrade.

Angelina Jolie on the ECCC

Writing for the Economist, Angelina Jolie takes a brief survey of the history of war crimes tribunals. Far from being useless bureaucratic money pits, she says, such trials often make profound impacts at the grassroots level.

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.

As the ECCC appears poised to begin trying “those most responsible” for Khmer Rouge atrocities, the local courts are showing a new interest in prosecuting ordinary KR crimes, as evidenced by the recent arrests in the Christopher Howes murder case.

So will the ECCC ultimately prove to be some watershed moment in Cambodia’s long quest to erase the country’s notorious “culture of impunity”?

Such optimism might seem ridiculously naive. But looking back, many people thought the ECCC would never happen. They argued, not too unconvincingly, that Ieng Sary would never, ever, be arrested in a Cambodia ruled by Hun Sen. Those nay-sayers were wrong. And it seems likely that those who would now dismiss the Extraordinary Court’s positive impacts on the local judicial system will ultimately prove mistaken, too.

Brad Pitt’s new Khmer tattoo

Brad Pitt got a new tattoo. It’s on his stomach. According to the gossip mags, it’s Angelina’s birthday written in Khmer script. As everybody obviously knows, Angelina was born on June 4, 1975. The picture of Brad’s new tattoo, however, clearly displays 4.6.74. For Mr. Pitts sake, let’s hope the photo is a hoax, and not yet another lesson in the perils of foreign-language tattoos.

UPDATE: As pointed out in comments, this interpretation is almost certainly wrong.

Baby trading and Angelina Jolie

This is preposterous.

On the manicured lawn between the Royal Palace in Phnom Penh and the Tonle Sap River, a young couple sitting under a banyan tree offered me their 14-month-old son in exchange for my wrist watch.

“Angelina, yes! Angelina, yes!”

All of all the misinformed, parachute journalism that gets slung Cambodia’s way, this story from Earth Times is one of the worst to come along in quite some time. The lead about poor people trying to trade their babies for watches is just the beginning. The idea that they would do so while reciting the name of Angelina Jolie is just completely unhinged from reality.

For starters, the odds that such a couple would possess an English vocabulary beyond “hello” already pushes the limits of mathematical possibility. Further, Western personalities are virtually unknown in Cambodia. (Just ask Ronan Keating.) The chances of some random homeless couple knowing not just about Angelina Jolie, but also her proclivity toward adoption, are about the same as Sam Rainsy becoming Prime Minister.

Hollywood backpackers

Hello Magazine has a few exclusive shots of Angelina and Brad during their jaunt through the Land of Wonders. Cleverly, Brad dressed to blend in. Disguised in the garb of a clueless tourist — a krama wrapped around his head — he looked just like any other of the thousands of unwashed travelers that come wandering over the borders every year, except for, you know, that he is Brad Pitt.

Angelina Jolie visits Pailin

Angelina Jolie choppers in to Pailin, presumably on the case of her missing money.

Jolie paid a brief visit to officials in Pailin, a former Khmer Rouge stronghold in northwestern Cambodia, said Keut Sothea, a deputy governor for Pailin municipality.

He said Jolie had a brief discussion about a forest conservation project near Pailin with Ieng Vuth, another municipality deputy governor and the son of former Khmer Rouge Foreign Minister Ieng Sary.

Kong Duong, the head of Pailin information office, said Jolie and her party arrived on two helicopters.

“They came very briefly before flying out. They seemed not to have much time for us,” he said, declining to elaborate.

Angie’s new tattoo

Angelina Jolie got a new tattoo for Pchum Ben. It’s a Khmer inscription on her left shoulder blade:

May your enemies run far away from you.
If you acquire riches, may they remain yours always.
Your beauty will be that of Apsara.
Wherever you may go, many will attend, serve
and protect you, surrounding you on all side

It appears extremely unlikely, however, that the person actually doing the tattooing was, you know, literate in the language, because to the fractionally less illiterate, Angie’s new ink displays what might generously be called a slightly unorthodox interpretation of the Khmer alphabet. So if the magic doesn’t work, you know why.

UPDATE: Arrgh! This tattoo is apparently ages old (blog first, ask questions later.)

Working for Angie and Brad

Apropos of pretty much nothing, The Maddox Jolie Pitt Project in Battambang is looking for a finance manager. The position requires five years experience and a relevant degree, and could be the launch pad for a wickedly satirical deconstruction of Hollywood charities, The Devil Wears Tevas, if you will. Direct your soon-to-be dashed dreams to info@mjpasia.org.

Gratuitous Angelina Jolie blogging

Not only does she have a new baby, Angelina Jolie has a new tattoo (pictures).

N11º 33’ 0” E104º 51’ 00”
N09º 02’ 00” E038º 45’ 00”

That's what it says. The top line is the latitude and longitude for Phnom Penh, where Jolie adopted her first child Maddox. Below that are the coordinates of the place in Ethiopia where Jolie adopted her second child Zahara.

Ohmygodthatmorphineisgood!