(12-06-2002) U2 star urges help for Africa - AP

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U2 star urges help for Africa
JOHN NOLAN
Associated Press

CINCINNATI - The United States can reaffirm its status as the leader of the free world by helping relieve African nations of debt and helping them fight the spread of AIDS, U2 star Bono said Friday.

Bono said that he has included newspaper editorial boards, college campuses, churches and industrial plants on his current U.S. tour to use every possible avenue to spread his plea that Africa receive help.

"To reach the people, we need the church, the media, the colleges," the Irish singer told a Cincinnati news conference. "It's a real opportunity for the United States to show off what it can do."

Americans can help to save millions of lives in Africa in the coming years by giving Africans AIDS-fighting medicines that are widely available in the West, Bono said during his latest stop on a U.S. tour to urge help for Africa. He began the tour Dec. 1 in Lincoln, Neb., and will conclude it this weekend with stops in Louisville, Ky., and Nashville, Tenn.

Bono said Western nations can also help by forgiving African debt to free up millions of dollars that Africa now pays in interest, which could be used instead for health care and education.

Bono has met with President Bush and toured Africa with Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill this year to lobby for support. Bono said he was saddened to learn that O'Neill had resigned Friday from his Cabinet post.

"He came to see the problem in the field," Bono said, referring to O'Neill's visit to Africa. "I'm sure he will continue to fight for change."

Bono also visited Caracole, a Cincinnati organization which ministers to AIDS victims, and met with the editorial board of The Cincinnati Enquirer. A day earlier, he visited Indianapolis and met with the editorial board of The Indianapolis Star.

Among those touring with Bono is Agnes Nyamayarwo, a former nurse in Kampala, Uganda, who quit that profession in 1992 to raise her eight children after her husband's death. She discovered her husband had died of AIDS, sought testing and found that she is carrying the HIV virus.

Nyamayarwo said she later found that she had unknowingly passed on HIV to her youngest child at birth. The child died six years later and Nyamayarwo said she blames herself.

She said Friday that her mission now is to work to make AIDS-fighting drugs available in Africa to combat the fatal disease.

"I know Americans are good people," Nyamayarwo told reporters. "I wanted to give them a picture of the problem."
 
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