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"Our music is not something to lie down to, to get out of to, to die to, to commit suicide to. It's not a soundtrack to a nervous breakdown." -- Bono |
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"Our music is not something to lie down to, to get out of to, to die to, to commit suicide to. It's not a soundtrack to a nervous breakdown." -- Bono |
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In Tiny Kingdom, Bono Presses New Africa Agenda
Reuters,
May 16, 2006
Irish rock star Bono began a new African tour on Tuesday in Lesotho where he will unveil a new initiative to fight AIDS in its ailing textile industry.
"In a small African country the three issues -- debt, aid and trade -- come together in an unholy trinity," the U2 frontman told Reuters as his plane landed in the capital Maseru with a delegation of activists and private sector executives. Bono has billed this as "Measuring Success and Promises Kept" to highlight the progress in the treatment of HIV/AIDS in Africa, the search for economic growth and rich nations' pledges to cancel some debts and more than double aid to Africa by 2010. The 10-day trip also marks four years since he traveled to Africa with then-U.S. Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill to urge wealthy nations to do more for the world's poorest continent. On this tour Bono also hopes to show that even more needs to be done for countries like Lesotho, where a once-vibrant textile sector has been hit by low-cost Asian producers and uncertainty over duty-free access to the U.S. market. Lesotho, a mountainous country of just two million people, has a history of food shortages caused by drought and struggles with one of the world's highest rates of HIV/AIDS with nearly a third of its adult population infected. New AIDS Treatment Initiative Bono is due to announce a new initiative to fight HIV/AIDS in Lesotho's textile and garment industry with U.S. clothing maker Gap Inc, which has signed onto his Red Products branding scheme to raise cash to fight the epidemic. Gap is contributing 50 percent of its profits from the sale of GAP Red products to a global fund for AIDS in Africa and has committed to make some of the Red Products in Africa. The Apparel Lesotho Alliance to Fight AIDS (ALAFA) project will ensure workers have access to free drug therapy for the prevention and treatment of AIDS among factory workers. "It's an important moment because what you see here and the reason why we have people with us, we're attempting to gang up on the continent's problems from many angles. It's a swarm of bees," he said. Bono has long championed the fight against poverty in Africa and used his fame to get access to the world's powerbrokers. The Irish rocker successfully campaigned last year to have the debts of 18 mostly African countries written off in a $40 billion agreement in June by the Group of Eight industrialized countries, which agreed to more than double aid by 2010. His current visit to Africa will take him to Lesotho, Rwanda, Tanzania, Nigeria, Mali and Ghana, where he is expected to push wealthy countries to keep their promises to Africa on increased financial assistance and debt relief. © Reuters, 2006.
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