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Bono tours Midwest with AIDS message
December 1, 2002
LINCOLN, Neb.--One of the world's biggest rock stars slipped into town barely recognized Saturday to begin a weeklong tour of the Midwest.
And he's not expected to give a concert.
Bono, the 42-year-old lead singer of the Irish rock band U2, is in this quiet Nebraska college town today, World AIDS Day, to launch the Heart of America Tour with his humanitarian organization Debt, AIDS and Trade in Africa.
The singer will speak about the AIDS crisis in Africa this evening at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln to a crowd that sold out in 17 minutes last week.
Leading the Heart of America Tour, where he will be joined by actress Ashley Judd and a 10-member children's choir from Ghana, Bono plans to visit several cities in Nebraska and Iowa to raise consciousness about the crisis in Africa before hitting Chicago on Tuesday. Among his stops Wednesday are a session with the Chicago Sun-Times editorial board and at Wheaton College.
Bono and his band of humanitarians also are expected to visit Indianapolis, Cincinnati and Louisville before wrapping up in Nashville next Sunday.
"We've been invited by the people of the heartland to talk about the AIDS emergency in Africa, hear what people have to say, and see what we can do about it," Bono said. "A preventable, treatable disease is killing 2.5 million Africans each year, leaving behind generations of orphaned children.
"This generation of Americans has the opportunity to change the course of history."
Earlier this year, Bono traveled to Africa with U.S. Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill on a fact-finding mission where the rock star attempted to show the powerful bureaucrat how debt relief for African nations could help control the AIDS pandemic.
Each year, African nations below the Sahara desert spend $40 million on debt payments to the United States and other wealthy nations, according to statistics from the humanitarian group. Africa spends $14.5 billion annually repaying debts and only receives $12.7 billion in aid, including $1.2 billion from the United States. The U.S. aid to Africa is the lowest in proportion to the nation's wealth of any rich country in the world, according to the humanitarian group.
More than 28 million Africans are HIV positive and 2.3 million died of AIDS last year, according to UN figures. Were it not for AIDS, the average life expectancy in sub-Saharan Africa would be about 63. Instead, today it's about 47.
At the downtown Lincoln hotel where Bono and his entourage are staying, dozens of partiers in maroon fezzes and formal wear gathered for an annual Shriners holiday ball went about their celebrating unaware of the rock star's presence.
Dave Hanneman, 50, a railroad worker from Lincoln who drives a "little car" for the Shriners, said he had heard of Bono and U2 but had no idea the singer was in town or that he had been working on humanitarian efforts in Africa.
Donna Bales and her husband, Rick, a Lincoln Shriner for nearly a decade, knew the name "Bono" but couldn't place it at first. Once her memory was refreshed, Donna Bales said she had heard about the AIDS pandemic in Africa.
"I heard it on the radio, KFOR," she said, adding that she thought Bono's humanitarian effort was "cool."
Tim Murphy, 30, a bartender at Mickey's Irish Pub at 12th and O streets in the middle of the university's party strip, needed no refresher about Bono's identity.
"They're coming through here, right?" Murphy said. "He's a super-huge guy, so people will listen.''
Bono tours Midwest with AIDS message
December 1, 2002
LINCOLN, Neb.--One of the world's biggest rock stars slipped into town barely recognized Saturday to begin a weeklong tour of the Midwest.
And he's not expected to give a concert.
Bono, the 42-year-old lead singer of the Irish rock band U2, is in this quiet Nebraska college town today, World AIDS Day, to launch the Heart of America Tour with his humanitarian organization Debt, AIDS and Trade in Africa.
The singer will speak about the AIDS crisis in Africa this evening at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln to a crowd that sold out in 17 minutes last week.
Leading the Heart of America Tour, where he will be joined by actress Ashley Judd and a 10-member children's choir from Ghana, Bono plans to visit several cities in Nebraska and Iowa to raise consciousness about the crisis in Africa before hitting Chicago on Tuesday. Among his stops Wednesday are a session with the Chicago Sun-Times editorial board and at Wheaton College.
Bono and his band of humanitarians also are expected to visit Indianapolis, Cincinnati and Louisville before wrapping up in Nashville next Sunday.
"We've been invited by the people of the heartland to talk about the AIDS emergency in Africa, hear what people have to say, and see what we can do about it," Bono said. "A preventable, treatable disease is killing 2.5 million Africans each year, leaving behind generations of orphaned children.
"This generation of Americans has the opportunity to change the course of history."
Earlier this year, Bono traveled to Africa with U.S. Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill on a fact-finding mission where the rock star attempted to show the powerful bureaucrat how debt relief for African nations could help control the AIDS pandemic.
Each year, African nations below the Sahara desert spend $40 million on debt payments to the United States and other wealthy nations, according to statistics from the humanitarian group. Africa spends $14.5 billion annually repaying debts and only receives $12.7 billion in aid, including $1.2 billion from the United States. The U.S. aid to Africa is the lowest in proportion to the nation's wealth of any rich country in the world, according to the humanitarian group.
More than 28 million Africans are HIV positive and 2.3 million died of AIDS last year, according to UN figures. Were it not for AIDS, the average life expectancy in sub-Saharan Africa would be about 63. Instead, today it's about 47.
At the downtown Lincoln hotel where Bono and his entourage are staying, dozens of partiers in maroon fezzes and formal wear gathered for an annual Shriners holiday ball went about their celebrating unaware of the rock star's presence.
Dave Hanneman, 50, a railroad worker from Lincoln who drives a "little car" for the Shriners, said he had heard of Bono and U2 but had no idea the singer was in town or that he had been working on humanitarian efforts in Africa.
Donna Bales and her husband, Rick, a Lincoln Shriner for nearly a decade, knew the name "Bono" but couldn't place it at first. Once her memory was refreshed, Donna Bales said she had heard about the AIDS pandemic in Africa.
"I heard it on the radio, KFOR," she said, adding that she thought Bono's humanitarian effort was "cool."
Tim Murphy, 30, a bartender at Mickey's Irish Pub at 12th and O streets in the middle of the university's party strip, needed no refresher about Bono's identity.
"They're coming through here, right?" Murphy said. "He's a super-huge guy, so people will listen.''
