MIDGE URE - URE ASKS LEADERS TO SPEED UP FREE AFRICAN HEALTHCARE

Veteran campaigner MIDGE URE has urged world leaders to abolish fees for medical treatment in Africa. The former ULTRAVOX frontman, who masterminded Live Aid and Live 8 alongside SIR BOB GELDOF, has just returned from a week-long visit to Sierra Leone. Ure visited the war-torn African country on behalf of charity Save The Children and hopes world leaders will now fast-track their promise, made at last year's (05) G8 summit, to provide free healthcare on the continent by 2015. Ure was shocked by what he saw in Sierra Leone, saying the country is in as bad a state as Ethiopia was in 1984, the impetus for Live Aid in 1985. He says, "I've seen some hideous things in Sierra Leone. Ethiopia was a natural disaster. The one in Sierra Leone is man-made. "But whatever the cause, this just isn't right. It's not on in this day and age."