GERMANY:German chancellor Angela Merkel succumbed to Bob Geldof's charm and chastisement yesterday and announced an extra €750 million in African aid annually for the next four years.
Ahead of next week's Group of Eight (G8) summit on Germany's Baltic coast, the Irish singer and activist has criticised world leaders for falling to keep their promise from 2005 of an extra $25 billion in aid by 2010.
Geldof used the chance to edit Bild newspaper for a day to turn the screws on the German leader and asked her in front of 11.5 million readers why Berlin was falling behind in its aid payments.
Recalling Margaret Thatcher's famous admission in 1984 that she had wept when she saw television images from famine- stricken Ethiopia, he asked: "Do you weep for Africa too, Madam Chancellor?"
"I don't think that would be a guarantee of success," she replied. "I prefer smiles but tears are no disgrace either."
Under Geldof's editorship, Bild departed from its usual titillation for one day and enrolled every celebrity imaginable to the cause of African aid, from Pope Benedict to George Clooney.
U2 lead singer Bono said: "Every day 20,000 children die because their drinking water is dirty, they get diarrhoea or are bitten by a mosquito," he wrote.
"We have the money, the medicine and the technology to let these children live. You don't have to be a scientist or a rock star to know this is madness."
Just hours before the special Bob Geldof Bild hit the streets, one of Dr Merkel's ministers said Germany would give the Irish activist what he wanted: €750 million extra annually for five years from 2008.
"We see this as a signal to the other G8 members," said development minister Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul.