Hundreds of students are queuing in the rain outside the Oxford Union’s venerable old debating chamber when the guest speaker arrives. As she clicks across the courtyard in high heels and a knitted pink dress, an excited squeal is clearly audible: “She’s so cute!” I bet they don’t say that about most of their guests. Standing at a podium in a cold, high-ceilinged room, in front of faded oil paintings and stern busts of venerable academics, the small but perfectly formed pop star tells the packed assembly: “There won’t be any singing, or any hip-shaking whatsoever”. Indeed, when she is introduced with a roll-call of illustrious former speakers, Shakira poses the most obvious of rhetorical questions: “So how do I go from Barranquilla, Colombia, to occupy the same stage as Newton and Churchill? Lord knows I’m no Mother Teresa.” This gets a big laugh. It is, thankfully, impossible to imagine Mother Teresa pulling the kind of salaciously gymnastic poses that feature in the video for Shakira’s recent number one single, She Wolf. At 32, Shakira Isabel Mebarak Ripoll is a global superstar, famed for her sexy image, sensuous dancing and lyrically clever, sonically bold, self-written and self-produced pop music. Read more and watch video here. Semana International delivers news about Colombia in English. Find more in our home.