Bono: failure to honour debt pledge is 'corruption'

'There were serious promises made. The cheques were signed but, as you know, politicians like signing cheques but they don't like cashing them', Bono

Rock star Bono yesterday challenged rich country governments to make good on their promises to help Africa, or create "a generation of cynics".

Speaking to the World Economic Forum in Davos, he said that failure to honour pledges made at the 2005 Gleneagles G8 summit would be "corruption of the highest order".

Ministers at the meeting of top political and business leaders announced an agreement to resume international trade talks, and Tony Blair outlined his hope that this year's G8 summit would agree the basis of a "comprehensive" and "radical" treaty to combat global warming.

Bono - who received an honorary knighthood in the New Year's list - did not mince his words to get leaders to implement their Gleneagles commitment to double African aid to some $47bn (£24bn) by 2010. "There were some serious promises made," he said. "The cheques were signed but, as you know, politicians like signing cheques but they don't like cashing them." He also urged a better trade deal for "Southern" developing countries, saying: "Unfairness in trade agreements is corruption from the North."

A meeting of about 30 trade ministers agreed to restart the Doha Round of talks, suspended six months ago after failure to bridge deep divisions. Mr Blair predicted that a deal was "more likely than not" within "the next few months". But more cautious observers doubted that the US or France would give enough ground over farm subsidies - a crucial sticking point.

The Prime Minister also set out his aim "to agree at least the principles of a new, binding international agreement" on climate change before he leaves office. He said that the agreement - for which he and the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, have been lobbying - would be "more radical than Kyoto and more comprehensive, one which this time includes all the major countries of the world".

Achieving such an agreement, he said ,was a "a prize of tantalising significance". He said he based his optimism on a "quantum shift" in the mood in America where, for the first time, targets for a reduction in oil consumption have been set.