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Bono Vows to Keep Up Aid Campaign for Africa
By Lesley Wroughton
KIGALI (Reuters) - Rock star Bono on Wednesday pledged to maintain pressure on the United States and other wealthy nations to keep funds rolling for aid to Africa.
In Rwanda on a six-nation tour of Africa, the U2 lead singer and activist said there were already signs the elite Group of Eight club of industrial countries were back-tracking on last year's promises to double aid to Africa by 2010.
The G8 is scheduled to meet in Russia in July.
Bono said he had traveled to Washington recently and met members of the U.S. House of Representatives' Appropriations Committee which shaved $2.4 billion from President George W. Bush's $3 billion request for foreign aid in the next budget.
"We spoke to the good men and women about this. They welcomed us with opened arms, patted us on the back and shook our hands and their eyes misted up at the right place," Bono said.
"When we left town, they slashed the budgets by $2.5 billion."
The committee's decision in May is still an early step in the crafting of the U.S. fiscal 2007 bills and a decision will also have to be made by the senate before a final outcome.
"There is jeopardy and we have to be sanguine about that fact," Bono said after visiting a hospital in the Rwandan capital Kigali, which is a major center for AIDS testing and treatment and where three patients share a bed.
AIDS FUNDING
Bono has long campaigned for debt relief, aid and better trade for Africa and leveraged his fame to influence the policies of wealthy nations toward Africa.
Rwanda was one of 18 countries which benefited from a campaign last year to cancel the debts of some of Africa's poorest countries.
"The U.S. has its problems today, but they do not compare to what these brave men and women have to deal with on a daily basis," he said of the doctors and nurses at the Kigali hospital.
Africa relies heavily on foreign funding for antiretroviral therapy for AIDS sufferers, which significantly slows the progress of the virus.
Richard Feachem, who heads the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and is traveling with Bono, said if foreign funding for AIDS dried up, people would die.
"It is imperative that funds for the Global Fund and other sources continue to rise and are sustainable and predictable," he told a news conference.
Bono later traveled to the Nyamata Genocide Memorial outside Kigali, where thousands of people were massacred in Rwanda's 1994 genocide.
By Lesley Wroughton
KIGALI (Reuters) - Rock star Bono on Wednesday pledged to maintain pressure on the United States and other wealthy nations to keep funds rolling for aid to Africa.
In Rwanda on a six-nation tour of Africa, the U2 lead singer and activist said there were already signs the elite Group of Eight club of industrial countries were back-tracking on last year's promises to double aid to Africa by 2010.
The G8 is scheduled to meet in Russia in July.
Bono said he had traveled to Washington recently and met members of the U.S. House of Representatives' Appropriations Committee which shaved $2.4 billion from President George W. Bush's $3 billion request for foreign aid in the next budget.
"We spoke to the good men and women about this. They welcomed us with opened arms, patted us on the back and shook our hands and their eyes misted up at the right place," Bono said.
"When we left town, they slashed the budgets by $2.5 billion."
The committee's decision in May is still an early step in the crafting of the U.S. fiscal 2007 bills and a decision will also have to be made by the senate before a final outcome.
"There is jeopardy and we have to be sanguine about that fact," Bono said after visiting a hospital in the Rwandan capital Kigali, which is a major center for AIDS testing and treatment and where three patients share a bed.
AIDS FUNDING
Bono has long campaigned for debt relief, aid and better trade for Africa and leveraged his fame to influence the policies of wealthy nations toward Africa.
Rwanda was one of 18 countries which benefited from a campaign last year to cancel the debts of some of Africa's poorest countries.
"The U.S. has its problems today, but they do not compare to what these brave men and women have to deal with on a daily basis," he said of the doctors and nurses at the Kigali hospital.
Africa relies heavily on foreign funding for antiretroviral therapy for AIDS sufferers, which significantly slows the progress of the virus.
Richard Feachem, who heads the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and is traveling with Bono, said if foreign funding for AIDS dried up, people would die.
"It is imperative that funds for the Global Fund and other sources continue to rise and are sustainable and predictable," he told a news conference.
Bono later traveled to the Nyamata Genocide Memorial outside Kigali, where thousands of people were massacred in Rwanda's 1994 genocide.
Ali loves kicking him out of the house once in a while, and the girls can certainly stand for Dad to be gone a while, but the little guys must miss him....
