Aftermath of Live 8 - G8 must take lead from music stars

IT was the most powerful expression of people power in the 20 years since Live Aid, with the Live 8 concerts in ten cities around the world attended by hundreds of thousands of people and attracting global television audiences estimated at three billion.

The world’s biggest music stars united to convey the message to the most influential leaders of the industrialised nations that poverty must be made history.

To quote Bob Geldof, Saturday was a day “full of hope and possibility and life”, but that hope and possibility can only be realised through the political will of the leaders of the G8 nations, including Russia.