Source: Reuters

UNITED NATIONS – The U.N. Development Program (UNDP) has named Spanish actor Antonio Banderas as a "Goodwill Ambassador" for the global fight against poverty, the agency announced on Wednesday.

The UNDP said Banderas will use his celebrity status to draw attention to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), a set of targets aimed at halving world poverty by 2015 by combating hunger, disease, illiteracy, pollution and discrimination against women.

"Poverty robs us of our potential as a people, preventing us from being all that we can be," Banderas said in a statement. "This is why it is so important to mobilize all of our efforts to defeat it."

UNDP chief Helen Clark said Banderas' "proven commitment to the causes of the less fortunate makes him an ideal advocate for our work."

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon warned U.N. member states on Tuesday that progress toward achieving the MDGs has been uneven, and stepped-up efforts would be needed to meet the targets for many countries.

Banderas, 49, was born in Malaga, Spain. He is an actor, author, singer and producer. He is currently writing, directing and producing a film about Boabdil, or Abu Abdullah Muhammad XII, the last Muslim ruler of Granada, Spain.

Other UNDP Goodwill Ambassadors include tennis star Maria Sharapova, Japanese actress Misako Kono and Crown Prince Haakon Magnus of Norway.

Source: abs-cbnNews.com

MANILA, Philippines – The concert of People’s Champ Manny Pacquiao in Hawaii has been canceled due to poor ticket sales, an online report said.

Honoluluadvertiser.com reported that promoters of the Pacquiao concert had called it off due to low ticket sales.

Quoting Ryan Chang of Island Fire Productions, the report said only 603 tickets have been sold 4 days before the show. Chang said the promoters needed to sell 2,500 tickets to break even, according to the online report.

The concert, dubbed as "Manny Pacquiao Live In Hawaii Concert Celebration," was supposed to be held at the 8,500-capacity Waikiki Shell this coming Sunday.

Ticket prices ranged from $25 to $150. The highest-priced seats, the report said, included a meet-and-greet with the Filipino boxing icon.

Chang told Honoluluadvertiser.com that he would suffer “about $50,000 loss” if it pushed through.

Honoluluadvertiser.com quoted Chang as saying: "I don't know what to say about what happened. We thought Hawaii would appreciate bringing him in and 25 bucks is pretty cheap and reasonable. We needed to either pull out now or make about $175,000 to break even. I couldn't risk dropping that much for my investors."

Pacquiao held a concert-party in his 2 previous fights. Recently, following his successful match with Joshua Clottey, Pacquiao and his band held a victory concert-party at the Dallas Rangers Ballpark where he and his supporters partied the night away.

The reigning World Boxing Organization (WBO) welterweight champion belted tunes with Lito Camo, Madonna Decena and the MP Band. Journey front man Arnel Pineda, who sang the Philippine National Anthem, also joined in the fun.

Source: Mark Vester, boxingscene.com

During a recent interview with The Philippine Star, Joshua Clottey said WBO welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao would be a very tough opponent for Floyd Mayweather Jr. Pacquiao won a dominating twelve round decision over Clottey last Saturday at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas.

Clottey says Pacquiao's high level of activity will present a lot of issues for Mayweather.

“To be frank with you, the fight will be very, very tough for Mayweather,” said Clottey. Pacquiao is very fast and he keeps on throwing punches. Mayweather doesn’t throw too much. So, Manny will give him problems. Lots of problems."

Clottey did very little in the fight. His comments to The Star give the same message that most insiders believed was the truth - Clottey was happy to go the distance and finish on his feet.

“I think I did my best. But Manny Pacquiao has defeated almost everybody and he knocked them out,” said Clottey. “Unfortunately, I lost. I did what I can. I did my best. Maybe next time I can improve."

Pacquiao's trainer Freddie Roach told the paper Clottey's safety-first style killed his chances to return to HBO, and to receive a future title shot on the network.

“He was satisfied with going the distance with Manny Pacquiao. And he did. But HBO will never use him again. They told me. If you fight for a world title, you don’t go on a survival mode. You try to win the title cause you know one it’s a once in a lifetime. He’ll never get another title shot in his life,” Roach said.

Source: Linda Gentile, Examiner.com

On the last day of their three-day trip to Poland, today, March 17, Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall met Polish soldiers on their way to Afghanistan. The royal couple traveled to Wesola to meet Poland's 1st Armoured Brigade. They witnessed a mock ambush and gunfight which had Camilla sticking fingers in her ears against the noise, to the apparent amusement of Prince Charles.

The Prince and Duchess met families of those going to Afghanistan; the couple reportedly had some sympathy for the long separation since Prince Harry and Prince William are both in the military; Prince Harry, who recently passed his helicopter training, is considered likely to return to Afghanistan.

Prince Charles also talked to a sniper wearing white clothing as disguise against the snow. Poland has had troops in Afghanistan since 2002 and now has over 2,600 soldiers in the Middle Eastern country. Before they left, the couple was presented with a coffee table book about Poland.

After the military visit, the Royals toured Poland's Royal Castle, destroyed by the Nazis and completely rebuilt between 1971 and 1984. They have now flown to Hungary in time for a state dinner and the next three-day leg of their tour.

Source: Mark Vester, boxingscene.com

Junior welterweight Devon Alexander has arrived. This past Saturday, the boxing world took notice as Alexander made quite a debut on HBO. He boxed his way to a eight round knockout of Juan Urango to unify the WBC and IBF titles. Urango had never been stopped in any of previous fights, and that includes taking hard punches in recent fights with Randall Bailey and Andre Berto. Prior to the Alexander loss, Urango had only been down once, against a pure puncher like Bailey, and he still managed to get up and win by knockout.

After the victory, HBO's official website reports that Alexander received an endorsement from one of the best pound for pound fighters in the sport, Floyd Mayweather Jr. The unbeaten Mayweather, training for his May 1 clash with Shane Mosley, views Alexander as the next great fighter in our sport. "Money" made a phone call to "The Great" and told him on speakerphone [with others listening]:

"I just wanted to tell you, when I pass the torch - I'm passing it to you," Mayweather told Alexander.