by the El Reportero’s news services
Nelson NedBrazilian religious and ballad singer Nelson Ned died Sunday in a hospital in Cotia, a city in the Sao Paulo metropolitan area, from a serious bout of pneumonia, health officials said. He was 66.
He died of “clinical complications” of the pneumonia and bladder problems, the Sao Paulo state Health Secretariat’s press office said.
The artist, who had been living in a nursing home in Cotia since Dec. 24, had been admitted on Saturday night to the city’s regional hospital.
“The Little Giant of Song” – so called because he was just 1.12 meters (3 feet 8 inches) tall – emerged in the 1960s as one of Brazil’s most famous romantic performers and his international success came with the recording of several albums in Spanish.
A musical idol in Argentina, Mexico and Colombia, among other nations, Ned had experienced health problems in recent years, but his situation worsened in 2003 when he suffered a stroke.
As a consequence of the stroke, the singer of “Todo pasara” became blind in his right eye and had to move around by wheelchair. He also suffered from diabetes, high blood pressure and early phase Alzheimer’s.
After a life of excess, in the 1990s Ned converted to evangelical Protestantism and thereafter made a career performing religious music in Portuguese and Spanish.
Ned, who sold 45 million albums worldwide, was the first Latin American artist to sell more than 1 million albums in the U.S. market, where he took the stage along with Julio Iglesias and Tony Bennett, and where he sang on three occasions to a sold-out Carnegie Hall in New York.
“Women in Film” to be Theme of 2014 Paraguay International Film Festival
The 2014 edition of the Paraguay International Film Festival will focus on the theme “Women in Film,” looking at the problems women face in different parts of the world, organizers said.
The festival, which will open for its 23rd edition in September, will host a series of talks and debates on the issues addressed by the films screened during the event, festival director and founder DaríoHugo Gamarra told Efe.
“The festival will draw attention and have a public debate on some of the serious problems faced by women in our country and other countries, such as domestic violence, discrimination (and) sexual exploitation, among others,” Gamarra said.
The festival, whose film screenings have not yet been determined, expects to work with the U.N. Women’s Program in Paraguay and government agencies, such as the Women’s Secretariat and the National Culture Secretariat, in developing its program, Gamarra said.
First prize at the festival will carry a cash award of $2,000 and publication of the screenplay, with the screenplays of the other finalists also receiving a publication guarantee.
The festival, organized by the Fundacion Cinemateca del Paraguay, has been sponsored by the City of Asuncion since 2013.
Innocents’ Day Joke Annoys Eva Longoria
Eva Longoria was obviously irritated by a joke that said the actress would play, among other roles, the mother of Cuban actor William Levy in a telenovela on Televisa.
Though the supposed news story turned out to be a joke, the actress apparently did not take it that way, judging by her indignant rebuttal on Twitter, in which she denied the report.
“Latin Post IS responsible for inaccuracies! U should check ur sources Melissa Castellanos before printing. And now REPRINTING! Idiots,” the actress wrote on her official Twitter account.
Longoria was talking about several local media outlets that published news stories echoing the original joke, which spoke of a contract for her to make several telenovelas in Spanish with Televisa, a company headed by Jose Baston, said by showbiz reporters to be her new boyfriend.
According to the gossip, Longoria would play the part of the wicked Maria Rubio in a new version of the telenovela “Cuna de Lobos.”
“How can people make stuff and print it? Not one word of this is true! Even has fake quotes from me!” complained the Texan actress, who won fame in the TV series “Desperate Housewives.”
