UK clips on calls for debt cancellation

[Robert Weissman <rob@essential.org>]

Excerpts from UK news outlets:

THE GUARDIAN: Jubilee 2000: Tomorrow Muhammad Ali and Bono take to the
platform at the Brit Awards to voice their support for the demand that
Western Governments cancel the Third World's debt by next year. "This is
Live Aid grown up", says Angela Travis of jubilee 2000, which is
spearheading the initiative. "Live Aid was about nice Western people doing
good things for Africans. We don't plan to stage a huge concert and raise
loads of money. Instead we are taking up the issues that were raised in Live
Aid and making something of them in the long term." While organisers concede
that Live Aid's attraction was its simplicity, they argue that the public
will have far less problem grasping the issues surrounding the debt crisis
than many imagine. "It doesn't take people long to work it out," says Ms
Travis. "You don't have to have a degree in economics to understand that a
poor country should not be paying millions of pounds to rich ones." The
campaign signals a new chapter in the complex relationship between pop and
politics, which has its roots in the protest songs of the 1960s. Marc Marot,
managing director of Island records, believes that the energy that made Live
Aid a success will prove equally rewarding for Jubilee 2000.

Debt/ChristianAid: Article by ChristianAid's Andrew Simms says that "Unless
a more realistic approach to poor nations' debt is taken by the G8 when it
meets next weekend the last mantra (we'll halve global poverty by 2015) is
in danger of joining the better known falsehoods. The 2015 targets will
remain a mirage unless there is more realistic debt relief. So we invite the
G8 finance ministers to make a modest resolution. Rather than telling poor
countries that the cheque is in the post, they should work out how to make
the promise of poverty reduction a reality,a dn act on it before the next
millennium. Sierra Leone: The West African intervention force in Sierra
Leone denied UN accusations of involvement in atrocities in Freetown but
suggested that its militia allies may have carried out summary executions.
IMF/Reform: Coordinated pressure from European Union finance ministers has
forced a reluctant US to agree to a special meeting of IMF policy makers to
accelerate reforms of the global monetary system. The prime movers behind
the initiative are the Italian finance minister, Carlo Ciampi, backed by the
Chancellor, Gordon Brown, and French finance minister Dominique
Strauss-Kahn, who are determined to keep up the pressure for reform. 

SUNDAY EXPRESS: (14th February) Debt/Jubilee 2000: Article by Martin Wroe
entitled "Why We must Drop the Debt." It is rare for Keith Flint of The
Prodigy and John Paul of the Vatican to adopt common cause in public. But as
the French writer Victor Hugo once put it: "There is no greater power on
earth than an idea whose time has come." This week at the London Arena, a
great idea will break cover before 10 million television viewers. At the
Brit awards on Tuesday night, the shiniest of Nineties pop icons will stamp
their approval on a millennium project that might just change the world.
Forget the parties or the sky-high Millennium Eve wage demands. Here, just
in the nick of time, comes a simple idea pure enough for a millennium to
turn on. Former boxer Muhammad Ali and Bono of U2 will head an all-star cast
igniting the Jubilee 2000 campaign to force Western governments to cancel
the £100 billion debts they are owed by Third World countries.  Success will
free one billion of the world's poorest from economic slavery. Jubilee 2000
could become the anti-apartheid movement, Live Aid and the anti-nuclear
campaign all rolled into one-not least because it has to deliver so rapidly.

The UN calculates that the lives of 21 million children could be saved if
money used for debt servicing was diverted into health and education. So
it's not about writing a cheque, it's about rewriting the rules. "It's wrong
to make children pay for the sins of their fathers-it's economic
colonialism," says Martin Mills, founder of record label Beggars Banquet.
"If this campaign succeeds it will make Live Aid look like a drop in the
ocean." Bono adds: "Without a real commitment to do something about the dire
circumstances of a third of the population of the planet, all New Year's Eve
1999 will amount to is an up-drawbridge scenario, a fancy dress ball at the
castle where we all play Louis XIV." Cancelling Third World debt is an idea
whose time has come. By exploiting their celebrity in this way, pop stars
may be doing the world a huge favour. Otherwise our millennium celebrations
could ring as hollow as a dome.