Jolie accepts global humanitarian award

Actress Angelina Jolie said it felt strange to receive an award for her work as a goodwill ambassador for the UN refugee agency because it has been ”the greatest thing” in her life aside from her two children.

At a dinner last night attended by 700 diplomats and VIP guests, Jolie accepted the Global Humanitarian Award from the United Nations Association of the USA.

The actress said she hoped to live up to the promise she made to herself when she became a goodwill ambassador four years ago for the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees to do everything possible to help refugees all over the world because “they deserve every bit of our effort.”

“To receive an award for something which has been the greatest thing in my life” aside from my two children, Zahara and Maddox, “is very strange,” Jolie said.

She quoted from the preamble to the UN Charter which reaffirms “faith in human rights” and said: “the UN is the closest thing to fighting for justice.”

“I feel very, very privileged to be a very small part of it,” Jolie said.

Leonore Annenberg, president and chairman of The Annenberg Foundation, was awarded the association’s Global Leadership Award, but was too ill to attend the ceremony.

Former UN Ambassador John Negroponte, the US director of national intelligence, accepted the award on behalf of Mrs. Annenberg, praising her career as US chief of protocol under the late President Ronald Reagan and as one of America’s leading philanthropists.

In a tearful tribute, Annenberg’s granddaughter, Liz Kabler, promised to follow in her footsteps, drawing sustained applause from the crowd at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel.

US first lady Laura Bush delivered a videotaped tribute of her own, telling Annenberg and Jolie: “You’ve both used your gifts and talents to make the world a better place.”