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Bono’s message: $1 a day can save a life
Posted on Tuesday, June 10 @ 01:17:43 CEST by Macphisto
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(IrishExaminer.com) -- U2 frontman Bono used this simple message yesterday to urge editors of the world's newspapers to back his appeal to help AIDS victims in Africa.
Each day in Africa, 7,000 people die from the treatable disease, he told those attending the 56th World Newspaper Congress at Dublin's RDS.
"It's not an acceptable question at the start of the 21st Century to ask about who should live and who should die," he said.
The singer said it would take $10 billion (8.5bn) a year to beat AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria in the world.
He praised US President George W Bush for providing a $15bn (12.8bn) aid package over five years.
French President Jacques Chirac and British Prime Minister Tony Blair had promised to try to secure money from Europe to match the US funds.
It was not acceptable that an accident of latitude and longitude on the map should decide whether your child lived or died, Bono said.
"We can be the generation that turns this around. We can put right the relationship that has been wrong for so long the relationship between Africa and the people who have historically exploited it. It's really time to put that relationship right."
"Urging the world to provide money for medicines, Bono said all it took was a dollar a day to bring a person "from death's door to the factory floor".
He insisted the war on terror was bound up with the war against poverty, pointing out that even military men such as US Secretary of State Colin Powell admitted they could not fight this war by military means alone.
These medicines were great advertisements for what the developed world does well, Bono said.
As a rock musician, he said, he would rather not be seeking the cancellation of world debt, fighting AIDS and looking for fair trade for Africa.
He argued it was a justice issue, not one of charity, to help the people affected by these problems.
The singer also challenged the idea that children should be held to ransom for the debts of their great-great grandparents, as was happening in Africa.
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