Pavarotti to call for debt relief
ROME (CWNews.com) - Famed opera tenor Luciano Pavarotti will
call for industrialized nations to write off $300 billion in
Third World debt during his appearance at Italy's largest music
festival, according to the debt relief group Jubilee 2000.
"Pavarotti has been quite clear -- he's doing the San Remo
festival to support Jubilee 2000," spokesman Jamie Drummond said
today. The festival begins today. Other musical stars have said
they will also use their appearance to call for debt relief, but
Irish rock musician Bono said he will only appear at San Remo if
Italian Prime Minister Massimo D'Alema made a pledge to increase
Italy's debt relief.
Drummond said Italy's pledges to date, in the form of a bill
expected to go before parliament soon, would only write off some
three trillion lire ($1.53 billion) in debts from the poorest
countries.
The debt relief movement stems from Pope John Paul II's 1997
call for a Jubilee Year to be called in 2000, including the
forgiveness of debts, including debts owed by the poorest nations
to the wealthiest.
Last year, British Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown
said he would propose to the G7 group of seven-most
industrialized nations that they speed up debt relief and wipe
out $50 billion of debt. The G7 agreed last June to cancel about
$70 billion in loans to help 36 nations emerge from debt. Last
September, US President Bill Clinton pledged to cancel all
debts.
© 2000 CWNews.com
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