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In 1985, the Live Aid concert actually asked music lovers to do something -- to donate their own money to help the starving in Africa. Throwing money into dictatorships might not have been the smartest way to help Africa's poor, but it had a morality feeling to it -- people were asked to do something selfless in return for their entertainment. It was appropriate that one-hit-wonder Bob Geldof was knighted for his work in spearheading the event. Things have changed in the music business. In 2005 came Live 8, a concert designed to pressure the leaders of the G8 nations...

Live 8 hero Bob Geldof has been forced to cancel two concerts in Italy because of lack of public interest, after only 45 people turned up to see him perform in Milan, Italy's La Stampa newspaper reported on Saturday. Geldof walked out of Milan's 12,000-capacity Arena Civica on Friday without playing, given the paltry attendance. His manager explained that a concert for less than 400 people would not be viable, the newspaper said. The 54-year-old Irish rocker, who said he had flown in from South Africa for the gig, sought to placate angry fans afterwards by promising to give a...

LONDON (AFP) - Live 8 organisers including Irish rocker Bob Geldof has lambasted leaders of the Group of Eight rich nations for falling short of promises, made one year ago, to alleviate suffering in Africa. In July 2005, Geldof helped to organise 10 Live 8 concerts worldwide -- timed to coincide with the G8 summit hosted by Britain -- to help raise awareness of the plight of Africans living in poverty. Geldof, joined by fellow Live 8 performer and Senegalese singer Youssou N'Dour, on Thursday issued a G8 progress update alongside campaigning body DATA -- which stands for Debt, AIDS,...

JOHANNESBURG (AFP) - Billions of dollars in aid will achieve "zero" in Africa unless governments on the continent are serious about fighting corruption and poverty, Irish rocker and humanitarian Bob Geldof said. The 54-year-old political activist, who will be performing in Johannesburg and Cape Town this week, said he saw "many, many optimistic signs and just as many crap signs" that African governments were cleaning up their act. "The rich world can pour endless billions into the continent of Africa but none of this will work unless African governments are serious," Geldof told a news conference in Johannesburg. "Corruption is...

The BBC has been rapped by media watchdog Ofcom over swearing on the televised Live 8 concerts. Viewers complained about language used by Madonna, Razorlight, Green Day and US rapper Snoop Dogg during July 2005's concert in London's Hyde Park. The show was broadcast live without a time delay, and the language which sparked the complaints was heard before the watershed. The BBC said it regretted the offence caused to viewers. React The corporation said it approached some performers before the concert over the issue of language, but had not been given access to all the stars. The BBC added...

It was the year that the West tried harder than ever to save Africa -- 2005. At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, last January, British Prime Minister Tony Blair called for "a big, big push forward" to end poverty -- to be financed by an increase in traditional foreign aid. He put that cause at the top of the agenda of the Group of Eight summit in Scotland in July. The G-8 agreed to double foreign aid to Africa, from $25 billion a year to $50 billion, and to forgive the African aid debt incurred in previous years...

LONDON (AFP) - Charities have accused celebrities of "hijacking" the Make Poverty History campaign and said pledges to cut the gap between rich and poor nations has had little impact. In a year-end assessment of the campaign, The Independent quoted aid workers expressing disappointment that there had been scant progress made on promises made at the Group of Eight richest nations meeting in Scotland in July. Dave Timms, from British anti-poverty charity the World Development Movement, told the newspaper the campaign had some "good elements" in raising public awareness but described it as "perhaps bravely naive". "People like us who...

An Interview with Roger Waters! Waters flatly denies talk of a future tour in the U.S., even for the reported $150 million payday. "I don't really need it," he says. "It would be a very hot ticket. That said, I didn't mind rolling over for one day, but I couldn't roll over for a whole fucking tour." Growing up, what record changed your life? Like everyone else in England, I listened to Radio Luxembourg, a pirate station. They played rock & roll, like Bill Haley and English acts with stupid invented names like Tommy Steele and Billy Fury. Seven or...

The producer of Elton John's July 4 benefit and concert said the mega-show's hoopla affected fund-raising efforts. By Marcia Gelbart Inquirer Staff Writer Philadelphia's host role in the Live 8 concerts last month may have backfired in at least one way. As Mark Segal sees it, the July 2 mega-show on the Parkway, and all the publicity surrounding it, ate into the $1 million that he expected to raise for area HIV/AIDS service organizations. That money was to have come from the Elton John benefit and concert also held on the Parkway that holiday weekend, on July Fourth. When the...

The millions donated to Ethiopia in 1985 thanks to Live Aid were supposed to go towards relieving a natural disaster. In reality, donors became participants in a civil war. Many lives were saved, but even more may have been lost in Live Aid's unwitting support of a Stalinist-style resettlement project Isn't it better to do something rather than give in to despair or cynicism and do nothing? This is the reproachful question familiar to anyone who has criticised organisations that view themselves as dedicated to doing good in the world. To those UN agencies, relief organisations and development groups working...

U2 made more money than any other touring band in the first half of 2005. The Irish rockers pulled in more than $48 million in six months with an average ticket price of $96. So, naturally, I was a little suspicious when Bono, U2's lead singer, told me he didn't want my money. Bono said he wanted my "voice" to join the chorus of youngsters gyrating around the world at Live 8 performances leading up to the Group of Eight Summit representing the world's wealthiest nations. He and Bob Geldof, a fellow rocker and organizer of Live 8, were all...

Live 8 like a Suicide Music is fun, but it won’t save the world By Mark Derian The end of African poverty is near, or so we would think, judging by the hullabaloo surrounding the recent Live 8 concerts. The goal of the event was to raise awareness of, and eventually eliminate poverty in Africa by influencing the G8 summit to cancel Africa’s debt, rewrite trade laws, and pledge to give Africa larger portions of money. But Live 8 organizers and supporters ignore underlying principles which perpetuate a country's economic climate. The one ingredient that is necessary for the proliferation...

Live 8 may prove to have been a little too live for ABC. The Alphabet net is under fire from the Parents Television Council, which claims ABC censors were asleep at the wheel (or is that button?) and failed to bleep an F-bomb from the Who's performance of "Who Are You" during the mega-concert. The conservative media watchdog, whose complaints following Janet Jackson's infamous Super Bowl wardrobe malfunction sparked the government's crusade to clean up the airwaves, has asked political allies at the Federal Communications Commission to fine all ABC stations for the July 2 goof. "The program was aired...

LIVE 8, that extraordinary media event that some people of good intentions in the West just orchestrated, would have left us Africans indifferent if we hadn't realized that it was an insult both to us and to common sense. We have nothing against those who this month, in a stadium, a street, a park, in Berlin, London, Moscow, Philadelphia, gathered crowds and played guitar and talked about global poverty and aid for Africa. But we are troubled to think that they are so misguided about what Africa's real problem is, and dismayed by their willingness to propose solutions on our...

Live 8 Ignored Pervasive African Corruptionby Jack LangerPosted Jul 15, 2005MTV’s video jockeys (VJs) hosting the July 2 Live 8 concert certainly had their talking points well-rehearsed. In the little broadcast time allotted to the concert between the Burger King commercials and self-promoting MTV ads, viewers were bombarded with the message that this event was not about charity—it was meant to “raise awareness” about African poverty and to pressure participants of the upcoming G-8 meeting to alleviate the problem by erasing African debt and approving billions more dollars in African aid. The VJs and concert organizers repeatedly emphasized that they were...

Yaoundé, Cameroon LIVE 8, that extraordinary media event that some people of good intentions in the West just orchestrated, would have left us Africans indifferent if we hadn't realized that it was an insult both to us and to common sense. We have nothing against those who this month, in a stadium, a street, a park, in Berlin, London, Moscow, Philadelphia, gathered crowds and played guitar and talked about global poverty and aid for Africa. But we are troubled to think that they are so misguided about what Africa's real problem is, and dismayed by their willingness to propose solutions...

The Live 8 concerts were tuned to a rare collaboration of politics and music. Organizer and rock star Bob Geldof used the July 2, 2005, event to pressure wealthy nations into increasing foreign aid to Africa. The international performance left the TV media seeing stars and unable to report on Live 8 as anything other than a “good cause.” News people awed by celebrities delivered one-sided accounts about African poverty that were light on facts and heavy on promotion. Even after the event, journalists carried this skewed outlook to the G-8 conference harping on America’s “low” foreign aid and criticizing...

The Kenyan economics expert James Shikwati, 35, says that aid to Africa does more harm than good. The avid proponent of globalization spoke with SPIEGEL about the disastrous effects of Western development policy in Africa, corrupt rulers, and the tendency to overstate the AIDS problem.

Billions of people tuned into recent Live 8 concert broadcasts, some just for the music, others to support the altruistic cause spearheaded by former Boomtown Rat, Sir Bob Geldof. In today's rat-race climate, what makes some of us look out for each other, while others look out for themselves? . . . .

The first time Bono and Madonna got together to save Africa, the unintended consequence was the death of perhaps as many as 100,000 people. That's aid expert David Rieff's conclusion in the July 2005 issue of the resolutely liberal American Prospect magazine regarding the end result of Live Aid in 1985. Billed as "The Greatest Show on Earth," Live Aid was a multi-venue rock concert held on July 13, 1985 in London and Philadelphia in order to raise money for famine relief in Ethiopia. With an estimated 1.5 billion viewers watching the live broadcast in 100 countries, the event reportedly...