Two Door Cinema Club will headline an anti-G8 concert in Belfast, organisers said yesterday. The indie rockers, who are also set to play Glastonbury and T in the Park this summer, will join thousands of anti-poverty protesters at the Big IF Belfast gig in the city’s Botanic Gardens tomorrow.
The ticketed event, which has been billed as a musical extravaganza and family fun day with an important message, is sold out.
Organised by the “Enough food for everyone IF...” campaign, participants will urge the leaders of the eight nations to put tackling hunger in the developing world at the top of their priority list when they meet in Co Fermanagh next week.
The IF campaign is a coalition of 200 charities, aid agencies and trade union groups.
David Thomas, chairman of the IF Northern Ireland said: “World leaders arrive in Northern Ireland in the next 72 hours and we want to make sure they hear our call for urgent action to tackle the underlying causes of hunger.
“Tax dodging by big companies and land grabs where land is used for fuel and not food also need to be addressed. Now is the time for concrete action, not just words.”
The Ulster Orchestra will be performing at the concert as will other Northern Ireland acts including Flash Harry, Belfast Community Gospel Choir and Derry singer Soak.
There will also be speakers from Tanzania, Uganda, Kenya, India and Zambia while Oscar-winning actor Jim Broadbent will recite a Seamus Heaney poem.
For more information log onto www.enoughfoodif.org.
Priorities
Meanwhile, British prime minister David Cameron has summarised his priorities for next week's G8 summit as "the three Ts" – trade, tax and transparency – where he believes concerted international action is needed to kick-start growth in the global economy.
World leaders gathering at Lough Erne in Northern Ireland on Monday will also discuss a fourth T – terrorism – but the Prime Minister has ensured that the main focus for the two-day event will be the worryingly slow economic recovery from the crisis of 2008.
The presidency of the eight rotates annually between the group’s members – the UK, US, France, Germany, Italy, Canada, Japan and Russia – allowing presidents and prime ministers a year to concentrate global attention on the issues they regard as the most important challenges facing the world. Last year’s G8 in the US was dominated by the eurozone crisis.
Mr Cameron hosted a “hunger summit” with African leaders and aid charities in London last weekend, securing a Global Nutrition for Growth Compact which commits countries to improve the nutrition of 500 million children and pregnant women by 2020.
