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From: C-afp@clari.net (AFP)
Newsgroups: clari.world.europe.british_isles.uk,clari.world.europe,clari.world.europe.british_isles
Subject: World pop and sports stars campaign for debt relief
Organization: Copyright 1999 by Agence France-Presse (via ClariNet)
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Date: Wed, 17 Feb 1999 8:16:49 PST
ACategory: international
Slugword: Britain-debt
Threadword: britain
Priority: urgent
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   LONDON, Feb 17 (AFP) - Stars from the worlds of pop and sport,  
including former world heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali, united in 
London this week to begin a campaign to cancel third world debt. 
   Led by Bono, singer of Irish rockers U2, and Ali, Jubilee 2000  
aims to cancel the estimated 371 billion-dollar debt of the world's 
52 poorest countries by the millennium. 
   It is one of the few concerted expressions of celebrity  
conscience since Live Aid in 1985. Then a donations campaign led by 
Irish singer Bob Geldof raised 200 million dollars to fund famine 
relief in Africa. 
   On Wednesday 57-year-old Ali was visiting Brixton in south  
London, home to a large section of the capital's black population, 
to promote Jubilee 2000. 
   He spoke with refugees from Africa, Asia and Latin America,  
opened a campaign office and toured the area in a motorcade. 
   Kofi Mawuli Klu, co-ordinator of Jubilee 2000, said: "Muhammad  
Ali shook off the chains of racism and slavery. He is coming to 
Brixton to help the black people of the world shake off the chains 
of debt bondage." 
   On Tuesday night the annual Brits rock and pop awards ceremony  
was interrupted so Bono and Ali could launch a campaign to "Drop the 
Debt". 
   Participants in the campaign include US acts Lauryn Hill,  
Smashing Pumpkins, REM and Michael Jackson, Britons David Bowie, 
Oasis, the Prodigy, as well as Geldof and Italian opera singer 
Luciano Pavarotti. 
   Outside rock and pop, supporters range from South African  
President Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, to the Dalai 
Lama, Pope John Paul II and the Anglican Church. 
   Bono told BBC radio on Wednesday: "There is this huge desire in  
the world to have a reason to celebrate on New Year's Eve 1999. 
   "This sort of naive idea that we could possibly make the world  
better in the next century shouldn't be laughable. It should be what 
everyone is working towards. We are here to take advantage of the 
new millennium." 
   He said on average Africa owed 379 dollars per head of  
population to the West. "For every one dollar the West gives in aid 
to developing countries, nine dollars comes back in debt service. 
   "These days we don't have debtor prisons for people. We have  
them for countries instead." 
   He believed leaders such as US President Bill Clinton, British  
premier Tony Blair and German counterpart Gerhard Schroeder would 
support the campaign if there was an "extraordinary public outcry". 
   Jubilee 2000 plans a series of events leading up to the G7  
meeting of world leaders in Cologne in June. Bonn has indicated it 
will present an initiative to speed debt relief at the conference. 
   Last year the G8 meeting in Birmingham, England, was roundly  
criticised for failing to produce any breakthroughs. 
   The leaders of Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan,  
Russia and the United States decided to retain as a condition for 
debt relief the requirement that debtors pursue agreed economic 
policies. 
   On Wednesday the Financial Times said creditors "should take  
notice" of the new campaign, adding "the case for appropriate and 
radical action is compelling". 
  	   	

