Bono urges Japan to lead fight against poverty

from The Guardian

Justin McCurry in Tokyo

Japan's prime minister, Shinzo Abe, received a ringing endorsement from the unlikeliest of people today: the outspoken rock singer and poverty campaigner Bono.
The U2 singer, who is in Japan on the latest leg of the band's Vertigo 2006 tour, ditched his usual criticism of rich nations and said the world could learn from Japan's commitment to developing countries.

"The world doesn't really understand that Japan in the 90s led the world not just as a percentage contribution to the world's poor but as the volume contribution," he told reporters after the meeting at Mr Abe's office.

Despite evidence that Japan is dragging its heels on the millennium development goals agreed at last year's G8 summit, Bono said he believed Tokyo would make good on its promises.

"Japan made a promise in the G8 in Gleneagles to double its aid to Africa," he said. "Some countries make promises and they don't keep them. Japan, we trust to fulfil their promise, and the world believes in the honour of a Japanese promise."

Bono suggested that Mr Abe's popular image as a rather dour, quiet man was wide of the mark. "I found prime minister Abe to be a very warm man, very interested in these issues, and I was surprised he gave me twice the time I was asking for," he said.

The singer lauded Japan's pivotal role in setting up a global fund to fight Aids, TB and malaria in 2000, saying that hundreds of thousands of people are now receiving the drugs they need thanks to the initiative. "I told the prime minister that this is one of the greatest ideas of the 20th century," he said.

Japan's efforts to help the developing world have been hit by falling aid budgets and a lack of popular interest in Africa's problems.

In return for Mr Abe's pledge to continue the fight against global poverty and disease, Bono presented the Japanese leader with a pair of his trademark Giorgio Armani "Red" sunglasses, which are sold partly to fund Aids programmes.

Mr Abe then showed he could be every bit as rock 'n' roll as his new friend by immediately trying them on. "I've always seen George Bush looking at my sunglasses ... and George Bush never put them on," Bono said. "The last pope put them on, and prime minister Abe - very cool."