Singer Pete Doherty cancelled the rest of a British tour with his band Babyshambles to give himself more time to recover from his drug addiction treatment.
Doherty, 27, known as much for his on-off relationship with model Kate Moss and his well-publicized drug problems as his music, was more than halfway through the 13-date tour.
The concerts were his first since leaving a drug London rehabilitation clinic.
PHOTO: AP
“It is now clear that Peter embarked on this arduous and high profile tour too soon after his discharge,” Doherty’s spokesman said Saturday.
The band cancelled a concert in Liverpool on Friday night and the remaining four dates in Glasgow, Nottingham, Manchester and Newcastle.
Critics have praised Doherty’s performances during the tour, with several newspapers using the headline “Pete’s no shambles.”
Moss joined the band onstage to sing during La Belle and La Bete. One reviewer said she “chirped self-consciously and almost inaudibly, then ran off, waving her arms like an excited schoolgirl.’
On Saturday, the Sun showed pictures of a bare-chested Doherty supposedly “storming out” of Moss’s home at 3:30am after a row.
Meanwhile, pop diva Cher has put up 700 items and says she’s amazed by what people were willing to spend for them.
Of the dozens of vintage gowns and flashy costumes she put up for auction, a skimpy black number made of fishnet, rhinestone and patches of fabric got the highest bid.
The Bob Mackie-designed outfit, which came with a black leather jacket, sold for US$60,000 — about twice the asking price, said Darren Julien, president of Julien Auction. His firm helped administer the two-day auction, which brought in a total of US$3.5 million, at the Beverly Hilton Hotel with Sotheby’s.
Cher’s asking that all winning bidders send her pictures of the items in their new homes.
While Cher is making money from old fans, Madonna is earning new ones.
The singer visited an orphanage in the impoverished African country of Malawi last week, handing out copies of her book English Rose to a crowd of AIDS orphans as her publicist dismissed claims that she was going to adopt a child herself.
The pop star was greeted by about 50 children as she arrived in a four-vehicle convoy. Bodyguards prevented journalists from getting access to the premises or approaching her.
Madonna’s publicist, Liz Rosenberg, said the pop star was on a private visit working on projects for children and dismissed statements from Malawian government officials that she and her husband, film director Guy Ritchie, would adopt a boy.
“I have no information or confirmation regarding Madonna adopting an individual child. She’s kind of adopting an entire country of children,” Rosenberg said.
“She is on a private visit to Malawi and is involved in the building of an orphanage/child care center as well as other initiatives to help the children of that country who have lost parents to AIDS.”
The visit has generated huge excitement in Malawi, one of the world’s poorest countries, which usually only makes headlines because of its grim cycle of drought, hunger and disease. More than 14 percent of Malawi’s 12 million people have HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, and an estimated 1 million children have been orphaned.
Madonna was greeted Thursday at the Kondanani children’s village near Malawi’s commercial capital by a crowd of about 28 singing orphans, who each received a translated copy of Madonna’s book.
Orphanage officials said Ritchie accompanied the singer and filmed the children.
“She and her husband are very lovely,” said orphanage director Anne Chikhwaza. “She has a kind heart; she really wants to help.”
Madonna’s project, called Raising Malawi, aims to set up an orphan care center to provide food, education and shelter for up to 4,000 children. It will have projects based on Kabbalah, Jewish mysticism that has gained popularity in recent years and which counts the 48-year-old singer among its devotees.
Last week Joseph Nye, the well-known China scholar, wrote on the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s website about how war over Taiwan might be averted. He noted that years ago he was on a team that met with then-president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), “whose previous ‘unofficial’ visit to the US had caused a crisis in which China fired missiles into the sea and the US deployed carriers off the coast of Taiwan.” Yes, that’s right, mighty Chen caused that crisis all by himself. Neither the US nor the People’s Republic of China (PRC) exercised any agency. Nye then nostalgically invoked the comical specter
Relations between Taiwan and the Czech Republic have flourished in recent years. However, not everyone is pleased about the growing friendship between the two countries. Last month, an incident involving a Chinese diplomat tailing the car of vice president-elect Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) in Prague, drew public attention to the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) operations to undermine Taiwan overseas. The trip was not Hsiao’s first visit to the Central European country. It was meant to be low-key, a chance to meet with local academics and politicians, until her police escort noticed a car was tailing her through the Czech capital. The
April 15 to April 21 Yang Kui (楊逵) was horrified as he drove past trucks, oxcarts and trolleys loaded with coffins on his way to Tuntzechiao (屯子腳), which he heard had been completely destroyed. The friend he came to check on was safe, but most residents were suffering in the town hit the hardest by the 7.1-magnitude Hsinchu-Taichung Earthquake on April 21, 1935. It remains the deadliest in Taiwan’s recorded history, claiming around 3,300 lives and injuring nearly 12,000. The disaster completely flattened roughly 18,000 houses and damaged countless more. The social activist and
Over the course of former President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) 11-day trip to China that included a meeting with Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping (習近平) a surprising number of people commented that the former president was now “irrelevant.” Upon reflection, it became apparent that these comments were coming from pro-Taiwan, pan-green supporters and they were expressing what they hoped was the case, rather than the reality. Ma’s ideology is so pro-China (read: deep blue) and controversial that many in his own Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) hope he retires quickly, or at least refrains from speaking on some subjects. Regardless