Monday, 16 October 2006

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Nicole Kidman tours Kosovo for the U.N.

She gets first assignment as goodwill ambassador

Nicole Kidman toured Kosovo this weekend on behalf of the United Nations, the Associated Press reports.

The actress was named goodwill ambassador for UNIFEM, the U.N. Development Fund for Women, in January, and this trip was her first assignment in that role.

"I'm here ... to learn so that I can help your country at this crucial, crucial time for the future, to meet people, hear their stories and educate myself, and I suppose be a voice for you if you need it." Kidman, 39, said on Saturday after arriving for her planned two-day stop.

Kosovo, a province of 2 million that officially is part of Serbia, has been run by a U.N. mission since 1999, when NATO forced Serb forces to cease a crackdown on ethnic Albanians who were seeking independence. The Serbs and the ethnic Albanians are currently negotiating Kosovo's status, with the Albanians still hoping for full independence.

The actress had arrived in Kosovo from the Rome Film Festival, where she premiered her movie Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus.

Kidman, who played a U.N. translator in the 2005 political thriller The Interpreter, signed on with UNIFEM after learning about it from her mother, a nurse and educator in Australia.

"My mother heard a program on the BBC about what they were doing in Cambodia, and she taped it," Kidman, who also supports a children's hospital in Sydney, told PEOPLE in May.

"She knew I was looking for something that I can get behind. She told me about the work they were doing, they were giving choices to women. They were doing something rather than just saying, 'Oh, this is so dire.' "