Geldof urges G8 Leaders & Blair to Make Anti-Poverty Progress

As Christian Aid has appealed to the British government to end its support of devastating free trade rules and trade injustice, rock star and anti-poverty campaigner Sir Bob Geldof has joined calls, and has given a warning to the world's wealthiest nations preparing to participate at the upcoming G8 summer conference to be held at Gleneagles hotel in Perthshire.

During the conference organised by Jack McConnell, the Scottish first minister, Sir Bob Geldof, who set up the Band and Live Aid campaigns 20 years ago, criticised failings to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDG's).

The MDG's have the aim of eradicating extreme poverty and hunger, and Geldof expressed that G8 leaders should use their summer conference to make real progress towards poverty-reduction.

"We are supposed to have arrived at the first stage of them this year, but we are so far behind achieving what we promised, what we swore we would do five years ago, that the targets or 2005 will not be met until 2150," told Geldof. He was speaking to an audience of members of the Scottish Parliament concerning the lack of progress that has been made towards the goals, including the eradication of extreme poverty and hunger, universal primary education and halting the spread of HIV/AIDS and Malaria by 2015.

Sir Geldof, one of the co-authors of the recent Commission for Africa report also added, "We are a joke, we are a complete and utter disgrace and we perpetrate this falsity and this lie on the head of the already trodden upon, mute and weak."

He warned the G8 leaders not to bother coming to the conference unless they were prepared to deliver on promises on aid, trade and debt.

"If they come here with the attitude that I know they currently have today, of doing nothing – don't come, stay at home, not welcome, but on the other hand, should you come with the intent to stop this open wound then you will be embraced and remembered throughout this century," he stated.

Joining Christian Aid and other campaigners appealing to the British Government to fighting against the world's poverty, Sir Geldof has also urged Tony Blair to use his credit with George Bush to get a 'payback' from the US president "as he put a lot of political credibility into doing what he thought was right, but also supporting a man he thought was right," to increase foreign aid for Africa.
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