Geldof blasts world leaders over Africa
Campaigning rocker Bob Geldof has slammed international efforts to eradicate poverty in Africa as "a complete and utter disgrace".
Speaking at the Scottish parliament's Conference On Africa event in Edinburgh yesterday, Geldof criticised world leaders for doing too little in the drive to help the impoverished continent.
The former Boomtown Rat told the 150 representatives at the meeting that he is appalled by the lack of progress towards the millennium achievement goals set in 2000 to end poverty and starvation, improve education and stop the spread of Aids and HIV in Africa.
Geldof, who is part of British Prime Minister Tony Blair's Commission For Africa, said: "We are supposed to have arrived at the first stage of them this year.
"But we are so far behind achieving what we promised that the targets for 2005 will not be met until 2150.
"We're a joke. We are a complete and utter disgrace and we perpetrate this falsity and this lie on the head of the already trodden-upon, mute and weak."
