Bono to Meet Palin

According to tvnz and others:

Palin, the Alaska governor who Republican presidential nominee John McCain picked to be his running mate earlier this month, will meet with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani on Wednesday. She has meetings with Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko, Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari, and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on the same day. The appointments are in addition to meetings the campaign previously confirmed for Palin on Tuesday with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Colombian President Alvaro Uribe as well as a sit-down with former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. Palin will also meet with U2 lead singer and activist Bono on Wednesday.

And look who Bono took to church in NYC yesterday:

Blair, Bono Win One for Africa

Blair, Bono Win One for Africa | csmonitor.com:

"It's been a long campaign of persistent persuasion by British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Irish rock star Bono. But finally, on Saturday, they won a victory for the world's poorest continent.

The finance ministers of the G-8, the wealthiest nations, decided to forgive 18 countries, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa, more than $40 billion of debt owed to the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the African Development Bank.

The deal means G-8 taxpayers will be obligated by up to $8 billion to those finance institutions. It's a small price to pay to keep Africa from further backsliding into poverty, disease, and violent chaos.

President Bush could hardly say no to the deal. Many of the 18 nations can't pay their debts anyway. Also, because of a new US strategy to try to keep impoverished nations from becoming terrorist havens, Africa is prime turf. Most of all, Bush couldn't resist the pleas of Mr. Blair, who chairs the G-8 this year, because the US recently won about $33 billion in debt relief for Iraq from 19 nations."

(Bo)No Debt!

Sweet victory ahead on debt relief? | csmonitor.com:
"The 10-year battle to wipe out the debt burden of the world's most impoverished nations is reaching a climax.

Hopes are running high that when leaders of the richest countries gather next month in Scotland, they will insist that two key players - The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) - forgive billions of dollars of debt.

The logic behind debt relief is twofold: 1) Countries no longer indebted would have more money for education, health programs, sanitation, and services for the poor. 2) Many of these loans are so-called 'odious' debts, made by onetime dictators instead of elected representatives. Since the United States has already persuaded other countries to forgive loans made to Iraq under Saddam Hussein, the logic goes, then debts made under other former dictatorships, from Nigeria to the Philippines, deserve similar treatment.

The US stance on Iraqi loans, plus repeated high-profile protests at international meetings of wealthy nations, have moved debt relief from the bottom of the international agenda to near the top.

In addition, thousands of people are expected to protest in Scotland July 2 to help keep President Bush, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, and the other leaders of the G-8 (the G-7 industrial nations plus Russia) on track to forgive billions of dollars of debt, primarily for poor sub-Saharan nations, when they meet four days later in Gleneagles, Scotland.

'Expectations have been raised very high,' says Mark Engler, an analyst with Foreign Policy in Focus, a New York think tank."

What's this....something good has come from the Iraq invasion? Alert George W., he should be draping himself in this, but alas, my guess is more promises with little to back it up.
"The gold....it's in the...."