Thom Yorke’s remarks about G7 in NME
From NME.com:
RADIOHEAD’s THOM YORKE has deflected attention from the band’s unanimously well-received comeback tour by again embroiling himself in the campaign to end third world debt.
Yorke, a longtime and vocal supporter of the Jubilee 2000 movement, has posted a message on his page on Radiohead’s website www.radiohead.com/thom.html attacking the leaders of the world’s richest nations – the G7 – for not fulfilling promises made last year to cancel debts and crippling interest repayments owed by developing countries to the West.
He has also encouraged fans to send an email to Prime Minister Tony Blair and US President Bill Clinton urging them to act before this year’s G7 summit due to begin in Japan on July 21.
The Radiohead frontman wrote: “Dear whoever is reading this. Please do the following if you agree with Jubilee 2000. The G7 have snaked their way out of most of the promises they made last year and this is the best way to shit them up for this yearÌs summit. The G7 in its apathy and ineffectual gesturing is now responsible directly for the deaths of millions of people this year. Years of misguided economic policy and thinly-veiled imperialism must be changed.”
The attached message to be sent to the world leaders calls it an “outrage” that children die because “money that should go on clean water and medicines is STILL being used to pay off foreign debt to rich countries.” It claims that the action, if successful, can save the lives of more than 19,000 children a day.
Yorke signs off saying: “I suggest we stick this in the G7Îs pipe and make em smoke it, love Thom.”
Yorke is just one of a number of high-profile world names to become involved with Jubilee 2000. Led by U2’s Bono, the movement has seen R.E.M’s Michael Stipe, Muhammad Ali and even the Pope pledge support.
Meanwhile, the band have posted several photographs of themselves taken during time off from the opening nights of the tour on the website. They can be seen wandering in and around Milan and Barcelona.
Radiohead play their only UK show of the current leg of the tour next Saturday (July 1) at London’s Royal Festival Hall. The night, part of Scott Walker’s Meltdown Festival, has already sold out.