(06-17-2005) Newsnight, Last Night -- U2.com*

[dsmith2904]

Newsnight, Last Night

Bono grilled by Paxman on his hopes for the G8 meetings in Scotland next month. Video.

Newsnight presenter Jeremy Paxman grilled Bono about corruption amongst some African governments, whether aid really gets to the people it is meant for and if Africa can ever escape extreme poverty.

Fifteen minute video interview here at the bottom right hand side of the page.

--U2.com

 

[karls77]

Grilled?? Hardly! By Paxman standards that was a friendly chat!

Bono's voice didn't sound too good though - constantly had to clear his throat. Hope he's OK for Saturday!!

 

[hiphop]

I don´t think he was grilled. It´s an interesting talk and Bono was able to present his views very well.

 

[ShellBeThere]

Don't know anything about this newsman, but Bono surely held his own and didn't lose cool or confidence or 'niceness' highground in the face of the challenging tone of this guy's comments and 'questions' (one can ask it "so, do you think we can realistically expect to end poverty in the future?" or "Isn't this slogan ridiculous; you don't really think there will be an end to poverty, do you?" , and this guy's style was obviously the later).

I loved Bono's comment about the corruption on "our" side, by granting millions and millions in aid to the corrupt madmen running so many african nations years ago (without checking closely how they were spending the money) and then asking their grandchildren to pay it back.
And his response that we shouldn't write off a continent because of its leaders...

cheers!