BRITAIN: Bono gave the British Labour Party conference a healing respite in Brighton yesterday when he hailed "a real moment in time" approaching when Britain could lead the world in ending poverty, disease and despair in Africa.
The U2 lead singer even brought a smile to the faces of Mr Tony Blair and Mr Gordon Brown when he called them the Lennon and McCartney "of the global development stage".
In an indirect reference to the continuing tension between the Prime Minister and the Chancellor over the Labour leadership, Bono reminded his audience that the brilliant musical partners did not always get on but were at their best when they worked together.
As Mr Blair and Mr Brown joined in the laughter and applause, Bono said just as Lennon and McCartney had changed his internal world, so "Blair and Brown can change the real world".
He lavished praise on both men - Mr Blair for the Africa Commission, Mr Brown for his proposed International Financing Facility - as he urged them to use their upcoming presidency of both the G8 and the EU to "make a real moment in time in 2005" in the fight against HIV/AIDS, debt and inequality.
"Forget the plundering of Empire," he told his audience laughing, as an Irishman promising that he would not even bring the subject up. "You can be the interface between the have-nots and the have-yachts - that's me."
With Britain at the helm, Bono said the G8 had the opportunity in the coming year to "make debt history" and to double aid and double its efficiency, while spelling "double trouble for corrupt leaders".
During this temporary relief from the pressures of the international situation and the all-consuming concern for the fate of British hostage Mr Ken Bigley in Iraq, Mr Blair was visibly moved as Bono told the delegates the cause of Africa was not about charity.
"It's not about charity, it's about justice," he said, reminding his audience that 6,500 people died every day for want of medicines readily available in high-street chemists.
"Africa makes a fool of our idea of justice; it makes a farce of our idea of equality. It mocks our pieties, it doubts our concern, it questions our commitment. Because there's no way we can look at Africa - a continent bursting into flames - and if we're honest, conclude that it would ever be allowed to happen anywhere else."
Following Nelson Mandela and President Bill Clinton in giving this keynote speech, Bono concluded: "You see, deep down, if we really accepted the Africans were equal to us, we would all do more to put the fire out."