Madonna gives Guy £50m in divorce

Madonna has paid former husband Guy Ritchie around £50m as part of their divorce settlement.

The pop star's US spokeswoman Liz Rosenberg told The Associated Press (AP) the figure included the value of the couple's Ashcombe home in England.

She said the financial part of the settlement had been worked out but custody of the couple's children had yet to be finalised.

"I'd assume it's one of the largest payouts ever in a divorce," she said.

The payout is much larger than the £24.3m Heather Mills received from Sir Paul McCartney earlier this year.

Ms Rosenberg told AP that Ritchie had been given £50-£60m ($76m-$92m).

In an e-mail to BBC News, she said she was confirming an earlier report, which said he would get $60m-$70m (£39-£46m). She declined to give further details and was unavailable to clarify the discrepancy.

When the divorce was made official last month, Ritchie told the Daily Mirror the split was "never, ever about money".

The couple, who wed at Skibo Castle in Scotland in December 2000, were granted their divorce at the High Court in London.

A sworn statement released by the court showed the pop star petitioned for divorce on the grounds of the film director's unreasonable behaviour.

Madonna also said in the statement that they had not been living at the same address for the six months before the date of the petition.

At the time, the couple had reportedly agreed to share custody of their two boys, Rocco, eight, and three-year-old adopted David Banda, while it was reported that Madonna's daughter from an earlier relationship, 12-year-old Lourdes, would stay with her.

The singer is currently on her Sticky and Sweet world tour, and is due to perform in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on Monday.


Source : http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/7784519.stm

Brazil icon takes bossa nova on 50th birthday tour

Grammy-winning Brazilian singer Milton Nascimento didn't make his musical mark with bossa nova, but for the genre's 50th birthday, he decided to take it for an international tour.
Nascimento was only 16 years-old when composer Antonio Carlos Jobim began scoring the breezy Brazilian music that would travel the globe with hits like "The Girl from Ipanema" and "Desafinado."
But as Nascimento's music career took off in the 1960s in Rio de Janeiro, he found himself frequently in the company of Jobim, known as "Tom" to his friends.
Jobim, who died in 1994, would have turned 80 last year.
"I was almost always in Tom's house and every day there was a new song playing," Nascimento told Reuters in Los Angeles, where he and the Jobim Trio, which includes Jobim family members, played in the city's premier music venue, the Walt Disney Concert Hall.
"Tom always told us: 'When I go on the big trip, don't let my music disappear,'" Nascimento added.
So to honour him, Nascimento teamed up with the trio formed by Tom's son Paulo Jobim, grandson Daniel Jobim and Tom's drummer Paulo Braga first for a concert and then for the album "Novas Bossas."
To record the new songs, the friends reunited last year in Nascimento's Rio de Janeiro home studio and tried to evoke the laid-back bohemian way of the city's musicians that has succumbed to the fast-paced modern life.