In tune for Africa  Here is an intriguing question: if it had
not been for Bob Geldof and his inspired launch of Band Aid and
Live Aid, where would we be now? Would the current state of
Africa be both the headline item on the agenda of the coming
Group of Eight summit in Edinburgh as well as the source of
tension between the G8 heads of government? It would be wrong to
pretend that Mr Geldof is a secular saint for his involvement in
this issue, but it is hard to dispute the idea that his
persistence and energy has given the well-being of Africa a
higher profile than it otherwise would have had.  Mr Geldof
would be the first to say that he has not been alone, nor indeed
even largely responsible for the intermittent public interest in
sub-Saharan Africa's plight. But it is possible and plausible to
trace a direct connection from the huge impact of Live Aid in
1985, through the debt relief campaigns of the 1990s, to today's
Make Poverty History multi-polar groundswell. Many other
individuals and groups have been