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10/04/2004:

"20 years on, Ure finds Ethiopia is still suffering"

The rock musician Midge Ure has returned to Ethiopia 20 years after he co-wrote the charity record that publicised its desperate plight, only to discover that millions of people there are still threatened by starvation.

The musician said he was dismayed to find that, two decades on from the drought that claimed 500,000 lives, the region remained the most famine-prone in the world.

The former Ultravox frontman last came to Ethiopia after producing the 1984 Band Aid hit "Do They Know It's Christmas?" with Bob Geldof. The record spawned Live Aid, which raised £90m for Africa and launched a famine-relief operation that saved two million lives.

Full Article : independent.co.uk