(20 Apr 2006)
1. Tilt up of exterior of European (EU) Parliament in Brussels
2. Juanes, Colombian singer entering EU parliament chamber
3. Various wide of Juanes arriving with audience applauding
4. SOUNDBITE: (Spanish) Jos� Ignacio Salafranca Sanchez-Neyra, Spanish MEP:
(He explained the European Commission initiative to donate 2.5 (m) million euros for the fight against landmines. Full translation to follow)
5. UPSOUND Juanes singing at concert with crowd dancing and applauding
JUANES PERFORMS UNIQUE CONCERT
Colombian singer Juanes had the normally staid legislators at European Parliament rocking in the aisles on Wednesday, when he played a unique concert to publicise of his campaign against land mines.
Juanes, who has won 12 Latin Grammys and was named by Time Magazine in 2005 as one of the world''s 100 most influential people, was the first musician invited to perform in the auditorium normally reserved for EU parliamentarians and world leaders.
Juanes, playing guitar, sang five songs, including the anti-mine ''Fijate bien donde pisas,'' or ''Pay Attention Where You Step'', to support the European Union''s campaign for a mine-free world and to raise awareness about the devastation wrought by anti-personnel mines in his homeland.
Only diplomats, members of the European Parliament and journalists were invited to the concert, Juanes'' second in Belgium this year.
Brussels was a stop on his world tour six weeks ago.
Thousands of people have been killed by land mines in the past 15 years in Colombia, with a record 1,070 deaths last year, giving the South American country the world''s highest number of land-mine deaths for 2005, according to the Colombian government''s Land Mine Observatory.
In 2004, Colombia was third, after Angola and Afghanistan, it said.
Colombia, which has been divided by conflict among leftist rebels, right-wing paramilitaries and the army, stopped making land mines in 1997 and began removing them from areas surrounding 33 military bases. Warring parties, however, continue to lay more.
Deaths and injuries from land mines are down from 26,000 a year in the late 1990s, but devices left over from conflicts still are killing and maiming between 15,000 and 20,000 people annually, according to United Nations figures.
The EU is a key world donor in the fight against land mines. Last month, the European Commission adopted a 21.4 million US dollars programme to help affected countries.
In a resolution last year, the European Parliament criticised the United States, Russia, China and India for refusing to sign the Ottawa Convention prohibiting the use, production, stockpiling and transfer of land mines.
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