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SIR BOB GELDOF took aim at world leaders and Aung San Suu-Kyi in a wide-ranging speech yesterday, calling the latter a “disgrace” that “insults” those who’ve fought for justice and peace.
Speaking at the One Young World conference in Colombia, with former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus in attendance, Geldof said that he was “fed up with this world” and “sick of what has happened” in the past 12 months.
The Boomtown Rats singer referenced the attendees and said that “one of their number in Myanmar insults them” and mentioned Suu Kyi’s own Nobel Peace Prize.
He said: “Insults them all. Took the greatest prize that humans can give one another.
And then becomes one of the great ethnic cleansers of our planet. It’s a disgrace.
I am sick of these leaders. I am sick of Putin. I’m sick of Xi Jinping. I’m sick of Trump. I’m sick of Erdogan. I loathe these people. I despise them. How dare they behave in the manner they behave.
Suu Kyi, and her government, have come in for heavy criticism for a military crackdown on Rohingya muslims, an ethnic minority in Myanmar.
More than half a million Rohingya muslims have fled from Rakhine in western Myanmar to neighbouring Bangladesh in the last month after a militant attack sparked a vicious military campaign.
A petition with nearly half a million signatures have urged for her Nobel Peace Prize to be withdrawn. Councillors in Dublin have told TheJournal.ie that they would support the award of the freedom of the city to be taken off Suu Kyi.
Honoured in 1991 for her pro-democracy resistance to Myanmar’s junta, Suu Kyi was long hailed as a champion of equality.
But now, as Myanmar’s figurehead leader, she has been broadly criticised for failing to protect the Muslim Rohingya minority from what some world leaders are calling “ethnic cleansing”.
Geldof also took aim at the current problems facing the world and said that the “old traditions have failed us”.
“They give us this imbecilic inequality,” he said. “How did we allow it to happen? How is that just? And how is it human? It is a world without leadership.”
He closed by urging the young people in attendance to come up with the ideas that would change the world for the better.
After quoting German poet Goethe, he concluded: “Ladies and gentlemen, you have the power. We need the magic.”
With reporting from AFP
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The trough just keeps getting bigger.
@Mel Fitzpatrick: not nearly as big as the social welfare entitlement trough.
@John Terry: Lol, silly comment
With less population per TD now, are they up for a paycut? Seems only fair.
They’re the least of our concerns at the moment going week to week watching those gombeans talk nonsense in the dail year in year out they’ve certainly done a fantastic job with the housing crisis over the last 10 years the future looks great if you can live in a house the size of a kennel
Now we have to listen to more waffle, pay more to hear it , this country is going down the swamp, since these crowd have taken over , we need a new party for the Irish taxpayers, not the European Puppet masters.
Netherlands 15 million has 150
Wixford lol
@Modern Irish Dad: Where’s that?? Lol
Gombeens, party comes first, then the pinsion, then the unvouched expenses, then the subsistence for turning up to do your job, What a great little country.
Lucky for Josepha Madigan but less lucky for others.
Swings and roundabouts!
@Nestor:
Definitely.
Senator Malcom Byrne FF will be counting his lucky stars, he’s based in gorey which will probably be the biggest town in the new constituency. I’d say one SF, one FF and anyones guess for the last.
Which Wexford TD will lose out?
If I was Paul Kehoe I would be worried as would the Green TD in Wicklow
@P.J. Nolan: I’m in Gorey and I’d absolutely vote for the Green TD in Wicklow over Snr Malcolm Byrne.
Unlikely you will get the chance, Steven Matthews is based in Bray.
It’s about time we had more TD’s to make us feel safe in our homes…
Is wixford a new constituity.
@Terry Mckenna: don’t give them ideas they might actually try it wouldn’t surprise us
@Terry Mckenna: ya, not to be confused with Wexlow
I read all these comments and I think, if you think you can do better then get elected. But ye won’t because you prefer to belly ache. Get over yourselves, it’s Democracy
Amazing how they adhere to the constitution when it suits them.
Anyone who votes for any one of this crowd in government who have lied consistently to their own people with regard to illegal migrants, fake Ukrainian refugees, their anti farmer stance, the price gouging by the banks and ultility companies, their attack on our freedoms during the Covid scam, the climate emergency BS etc etc etc should hang their head in shame. They are working for the WEF/EU/UN not the Irish people. They were able to get beautiful modular homes ready in jig time for military aged men from around the globe while Irish families struggle to put a roof over their heads. Please stop voting for these EU shills. The only reason we don’t have more youth homelessness is many of our graduates have left the country thinking they’ll be fine when they come back with their UAE tax free money, come back to what. Ireland in another decade of the current demographic change being implemented by our so called government won’t exist. Elections have serious consequences.
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