Naked Science Forum
On the Lighter Side => Famous Scientists, Doctors and Inventors => Topic started by: Andrew K Fletcher on 27/04/2005 19:06:06
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Bob Geldof was born in Dublin, Ireland. He was the lead singer of the Dublin band, The Boomtown Rats, and has also recorded four solo albums. His music awards include Ivor Novellos, Brits and Grammies.
In 1984, Geldof initiated the Band-Aid project, a charity for the victims of famine in Africa. In 1985 he organised the Live Aid concert and Sports Aid in 1986, and established the Band-Aid Trust to administer the $150,000,000 raised. Band-Aid continues to operate in eight African countries. In 1986, he was awarded a Knighthood for this work, and has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize three times.
More recently, he has been a vocal supporter of Jubilee 2000, the worldwide movement to cancel third world debt, and in 2001 was involved in setting up DATA (Debt, AIDS, Trade, Africa), a lobby group focused on generating more resources and better policy for African countries.
Way to Go Bob
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England's new national stadium in Wembley, North London, will have a footbridge leading up to it. The developers are looking for a name for this bridge. BBC radio are asking for listeners to choose from a shortlist of suitable names. Live Aid gets my vote.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/fivelive/wembleybridge/
Nah pop no style, a strictly roots!
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Bob and Liveaind Got my vote also thanks for letting me know about the nominations.
Andrew
R E S P E C T !
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Cancelling world debt is fine in theory as long as the money saved is actually helping the poor and not going into the pockets of corrupt officials
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Yep it is generally unpleasent - You do feel that it should require some sort of improvement in governance back from the countries that are involved - possibly cancelling third world interest payments while they behave would be more sensible...
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Yes, the debt could be used as "reverse aid". Improvements in governance could be rewarded by debt cancellation. I think that could be made to work, but unconditional debt forgiveness will not save Africa. I expect that they will just default on the loans anyway, and go on with their genocidal ways.
Saving Africa would require a complete paradigm shift for them, and this is one case where that word applies. The entire culture(s) is out of date. It was appropriate in the small, tribal worlds of the past. In an international society the tribal thinking leads to the present situation.
However, we see this kind of thinking in other parts of the world too, usually in disguise.
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The people of africa need to sort out their own problems,
even if that means no help from us.im not being nasty its just they will never learn overwise.
if we remove there debt then they must remove there corrupt goverments.
i have no problem helping people who need help. but i cant give money when its being used to build a new palace
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A lot of the problems in Africa today relate to the plundering of Africa by Britain and other countries. Britain put in a railway network to rip out the timber heart of Africa and then blew up the railway when they left. We grabbed their diamonds and gold, exchanging it for a few glass beads; we plundered their artefacts from Egyptian tombs and still hold them in museums to this day.
We get them to grow mono-culture cash crops instead of food and when they flood the market we drop the purchase price leaving them all to go hungry and starve.
We introduced their women to venereal disease and other serious medical conditions and expect them to sort it out themselves?
We massacred whole tribes armed with spears and animal skin shields using carbine rifles and artillery, and then awarded the butchers with the Victoria cross.
Now the oil companies are harvesting the black gold in the same way. Diamonds are mined on existence wages and sold for millions of dollars.
We burn the forests and over exploit the soils using chemical fertilizers, creating huge expanses of desert. We sell them tractors and the farmers can’t even afford to maintain them or put fuel in their tanks. They lay abandoned.
We sell them fire arms and learn them how to kill and mutilate each other. Then sell them aircrafts to fight imaginary enemies and they inevitably turn on themselves.
And you say Bob Geldof does not understand the problems involved in Africa. I think Bob understands more than most people
"The explanation requiring the fewest assumptions is most likely to be correct."
K.I.S. "Keep it simple!"
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A must read for anyone interested in the facts surounding the little girls face who represented the famine in Ethiopia that motivated millions of people into giving a little to save many starving people.
Who saved Birhan Woldu's life?
Live Aid apparently saved the Ethiopian famine’s poster child in 1985, and 20 years later the UK media claims it ‘found’ her looking beautiful. Nice story - shame about the facts.
http://www.spiked-online.com/Articles/0000000CAC4D.htm