BONO AND BOB GELDOF UP FOR NOBEL PEACE PRIZE

Bono and Bob Geldof were nominated for the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize, and they’re part of a shortlist for the award which is given out in December in Oslo, Norway. Bono was up for the award last year, and his efforts combating world poverty have him in the running once again. Geldof is up for his Live 8 concert, which significantly reduced Africa’s debt owed to the G8 nations.

Geldof admitted that he couldn’t have done it without Bono’s help, and it was a call by the U2 frontman that actually prompted Geldof to put the pressure on politicians to put their mouths where their rhetoric is.

“None of this was happening and Bono was calling from the [United] States and said, ‘There’s no heat here.’ And Bono has accompanied me on this intellectual journey of twenty years, along with others I have to say. And there was no heat in Paris and Berlin who were sort of dismayed by their economies, especially Germany initially. So, Live 8, I didn’t want to get into giganticism, but how do you force it into the media agenda? How do you get the media to even talk about it? How do you address the population and then force leaders to focus on this. So a concert in each capital off Philadelphia, which had hosted the last one. It worked!”

1985’s Live Aid raised more than 200 million dollars over the last twenty years, Live 8 will have the effect of 25 billion per year through the governments of the most powerful nations.