Live8

[Mr T.]

One of the inspirations for the show, here pictured and allowing Madonna to look 'cred' (Madonna subsequently dragged this poor creature around the stage for the best part of a complete song like 'pet Etheopian'):




And the night's 'Biggest Twat' awards goes to:



Who managed to butcher Mark Bolan's Children of the Revolution and:




Who slightly over-did it with the mascara - alas, I can't find a picture of Snoop Dog Shit, who was genuinely appalling and needs to be stopped at port of entry next time he attempts to enter the UK.


And the awards for 'Best Blinding Set' go to....





and

[hopper]

Originally Posted by Tim Ingmire

Has he bollocks. Until he does something like this and stops behaving like an arrogant sixth-former why should anybody take him seriously?

Because unfortunately no bugger else was/is prepared to do anything. He may well have made a career out of 1 song and 1 concert but he has made a difference, whether that difference is enough I doubt it but still you cannot take away what LIVE AID did (and why was Midge Ure forgot about?), it probably saved 100's of lives.

It didn't change the world, but 20 years later we now have a change of emphasis, we realise that a quick fix will not do this time, real change - almost if we may say, regime change has to happen for the continent of Africa to move forward. This cannot happen without the consent of the G8, the most powerful people in the world. We have to make these leaders of men realise that Africa needs to be able to trade with the rest of the world. Cut them some slack, allow them to use their low wage economies to benefit their nations as a whole whilst making sure that within their countries the rich don't get richer on the backs of the poor. Sanctions only ever effect the poor, the rich of these nations have the money and contacts to get around sanctions.

Debt cancellation is only a minor step, if we had allowed these economies to trade on an equal footing, without sanctions, they may well have made their debt payments and fed their poor.

[Steve S]

I didn't see it as I was on a liveboard with no tv, I am however in SWMBO worst books ever as we won tickets for the Hyde park gig which arrived [thanks to the vagiaries of the post service] on friday morning 2 hours before I was leaving

We cannot turn our backs on Africa's plight and due to the way of things rich musicians seem to be able to motivate more people than any government can.

Safe diving,
Steve

[Mr T.]

Originally Posted by Tim Ingmire

This isn't even a begining, it's a rant from a faded rock-star with time on his hands.

Have Bob et al published recommendations, developed with appropriate experts (which excludes Bono BTW), showing his strategy and detailing exactly what he'd like to see happen, covering all possible ways to achieve his objective - ie. show exactly how to actually make it happen, how to actually "Make poverty history?". Has he bollocks. Until he does something like this and stops behaving like an arrogant sixth-former why should anybody take him seriously?

Africa needs honesty
(Filed: 03/07/2005)

Yesterday's Live 8 concerts were testimony to the enormous enthusiasm there is for helping the sick and starving people of Africa. To sneer at such events demeans the generosity which they embody. Unfortunately, there is no magic wand for transforming Africa's underpowered and undernourished economies. The real question is how best to channel the global philanthropic spirit. No one has a moral monopoly on how best to help the world's impoverished.

Tony Blair, who hosts the G8 summit at Gleneagles this week, is right to say there is a great opportunity to improve Africa's wretched condition. But if that opportunity is to be seized, absolute candour will be required on all sides. Over the past 40 years, the West has given $450 billion in aid to Africa. The result? Africans are now poorer, on average, than they were 40 years ago. Child mortality has gone up, not down. Life expectancy is shorter. African politicians and bureaucrats export money back to Western economies almost as fast as the West hands it to them, re-investing 40 per cent of the continent's wealth overseas - a large portion of it in Swiss bank accounts.

It will be relatively easy to give a higher proportion of our own national wealth to Africa than we do at present: the rich countries' total contribution still only amounts to only 0.25 per cent of their collective GDP. It will be much harder to ensure that the money enables most Africans to live longer, richer and better-educated lives. Spurts of generosity, however well motivated, do not always help. The Hollywood star Sharon Stone, moved by a speech from Tanzania's president on how many children's lives could be saved if only Africa had more mosquito nets impregnated with insecticide, did exactly what Bob Geldolf, Bono, the Prime Minister and the Chancellor would like us all to do: she donated $10,000 of her own money, and challenged others to do the same. Her generosity was not appreciated in Africa. Imported mosquito nets are resented in many African countries because they put local netmakers out of business. Distributed free, the nets are often not even used for their intended purpose: in Uganda, officials have had to ask villagers not to turn their nets into wedding dresses.

Aid needs to be carefully targeted, and its aim must be exclusively to improve the lives of Africans, not the moral self-esteem of Western donors. Spokesmen for aid charities can sound as if Africa's problems are entirely the result of greedy Western capitalists and a lack of central planning. In reality, industrious African entrepreneurs will be the solution to Africa's problems, as much as greedy African politicians have been a large part of their cause.

To escape from deprivation, Africans need secure property rights and the rule of law, along with freedom from bullying, thieving and corrupt officials. They also need free and fair access to Europe's and America's markets - a measure that is not even being considered at Gleneagles. Without such liberalisation, ever-greater subsidies from the developed world will certainly not "make poverty history". Africa deserves effectively targeted help. It won't receive it until we are honest about what needs to be done.

[Tim Ingmire]

The concerts with the biggest stars had the biggest turnout's yes? Look at Rome as an example of this. This great turnout for Africa's plight was more to do with getting to go to a free festival on the part of the majority than any real concern about poverty. But, just to help you along, they trot out the tear jerkers which are proven to make you feel guilty, make you pay up and then, guilt assuaged you can get on with the rest of your life knowing you've helped in some way.

IMO, the real generosity was shown by those unnamed people that gave freely to make these events happen, not the faded has beens or 'column inches'-hungry pop-stars on show.

If Bob really wants to do something he needs to do something on the back on this which will have real impact with the politicians and commercial captains of the world who are the ones that can really make changes happen. eg Are GlaxoSmithkline really going to turn around and start giving out free Anti-HIV drugs that they have spent millions developing without some sort of grant / funds / tax incentives from the governments? Not likely. And having the WTO allow companies to make generic drugs will only help to make the whole market that bit less attractive to the major drugs companies and so research funds go elsewhere.

Fact is, like it or not, the article above really hits a nail on the head, only Africa can really sort Africa's problems. Maybe Bobby needs to hold festivals in democratic African countries to embarase their govenments into not supporting the likes of Mugabe. But then, it did seem hard enough to get him to allow African artists into the whole fest thing in the first place. But maybe he was right, who really wanted to see that? I mean people only really wanted to see the big stars anyway, right?

[Adrian Kelland]

Originally Posted by Fiona

So it's alright for you to own them then Adrian.

OK I am going before someone thinks I need to apologies for something

Nothing to apologise for Fiona.

In the end, I would rather it be me/my family/my friends/my tribe whom I would rather be comfortable than someone I don't know better off than me. I think that is why most of us go to work.

If every adult had a car, what price fuel etc. With China and USA using all they can get, Africa will have to burn something cheaper - coal? - or build Nukes. I've seen esimates that the avg US citizen has the power consumption of 10,000 Africans. Bring Africans to the standard of the poor of the US and I think the planet will get much hotter.

Adrian

[ahar]

I was left wondering, while watching live 8 whether the people there, filled with good intentions, really understand what it would take to start to end African poverty...

One of the good things I saw about the original Live Aid concerts (looking at it now rather than then, I was only 7 in 1985) was that it personalised the problem and showed people that their actions could help by donating cash.

I thought that this was missing from the Live 8 stuff. It's a good thing that we put pressure on our leaders, but there is also a hell of a lot that we can do.

1) Buy fair trade goods as much as possible, even if they are more expensive

2) Do research in to the purchasing policies of companies and boycott those without proper fair trade purchasing strategies

3) Be prepared to pay more tax - the aid money has to come from somewhere, it's not just going to be pulled out of thin air

4) Really change your habits to help combat climate change - countries that have a high level of the population that support themsleves via subsistence farming are the worst affected by a change in climate. Already the annual rains are starting later and later on average in the East of Africa affecting crops, and it'll only get worse.

5) Be prepared to lose British jobs. How do you think that people end poverty? By becoming richer, which will mean developing their economy. Obviously this will mean internal changes but a large component of this will be exporting goods and services to countries like the UK. If we are buying goods and services from other countries, we're not buying home grown stuff which will mean less jobs here.

Some of the things I've listed are easy - buying fair trade goods just pushes up the cost of our grocery bills, but changes in habits to combat climate change and paying more tax are very difficult things to accept. I'm not convinced that Live 8 have pushed these messages enough to make people accept what must be done. Blair can double our aid budget, but you watch the backlash when taxes are raised to pay for it.

[Mr T.]

Here you go people. You can download the Windows Media Video from the link below by right-clicking on it and selecting save target as or your browsers equivalent.

http://www.btinternet.com/~kjnpf/video/20050702PinkFloydLive8.wmv (18.8MB)

Torrent

For those of you who are after higher quality video, you can download the 600MB+ video using Bit Torrent with thanks to Dshow...

http://www.torrentbox.com/download.p...08.rar.torrent

[abucksdiver]

err.. pardon my ignorance, but how does this bittorrent stuff work... what do you play the downloaded file on?


Thanks

Andrew

[ahar]

Originally Posted by abucksdiver

err.. pardon my ignorance, but how does this bittorrent stuff work... what do you play the downloaded file on?


Thanks

Andrew

It's a bit complicated for a single post as it's not a single P2P application like Kazaa or Napster - best to do a search on Google for Bittorrent (I would do it for you but I'm at work and they screen these things) as there are a lot of sites that explain how to use it.