Geldof blasts Bush and Mugabe

Live Aid founder Bob Geldof today launched into a four-letter-word tirade against President George Bush - and won the backing of Tony Blair.

The rock star said Mr Blair should tell the American president that it would cost the United States "f*** all" to help relieve African poverty.

Speaking at the launch of the British-led Commission for Africa report, Geldof also attacked several African leaders, calling Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe an "ageing creep" and attacking Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni for trying to stay in office for life.

The Prime Minister then surprised his audience by backing Geldof. "Because I'm a politician in a suit I wince at the occasional word - but actually what he said is really what I think."

Unveiling the report, Mr Blair challenged the international community to free the African continent from the shackles of poverty, disease and war.

"There can be no excuse, no defence, no justification for the plight of millions of our fellow beings in Africa today. There should be nothing that stands in our way of changing it. That is the simple message from the report published today," said Mr Blair.

"In a world where prosperity is increasing and more people sharing each year in this growing wealth, it is an obscenity that should haunt our daily thoughts that four million children in Africa will die this year before their fifth birthday," he added.

The 400-page report by the 17-strong Commission called for a doubling of foreign aid to Africa to $50 billion (?26bn) a year by

2010. It also sets out plans to fight Aids, cancel debt and remove trade barriers on poor countries.

Other recommendations of the report - dubbed the Marshall Plan for Africa - include a renewed drive to clamp down on bribery and corruption; a blueprint for improving governance in some African states and a new arms treaty to regulate the flow of weapons into the continent.

But aid experts questioned the scope of the report, claiming it fell short of what was required if Africa's fortunes were to be turned round.

Even before its publication, a central plank for funding the plan - Gordon Brown's proposed International Finance Facility - has been vetoed by the US.

"This report can be a rallying call for a generation that will no longer tolerate the obscenity of extreme poverty in Africa - or it could end up gathering dust," said Adrian Lovett of Oxfam. "It's now up to world leaders to rise to the challenge, to take long-overdue action and make this a breakthrough year for Africa," he added.

Mr Blair has promised to make Africa a priority of Britain's presidency of the G8 group of nations this year. He called for a new partnership between rich nations and Africa. But the 17 members of the Commission, who include Geldof and Ethiopian prime minister Meles Zenawi, acknowledged that other high-profile efforts to rescue Africa have foundered.

Speaking at the British Museum launch, Geldof said he hoped the Commission's wish list could be transformed into action.

"It redefines the dysfunctional relationship between the developed world and Africa," he said.

But Peter Hardstaff of the World Development Movement claimed the report said nothing " particularly new, innovative or radical". "It falls well short of the radical break with the past necessary if Africa's fortunes are to be turned round. There are no recommendations on climate change, no action to deal with the collapse of commodity prices and it endorses a discredited voluntary approach to regulating multinational corporations."

Tory Alan Duncan said: "The Commission will only ever deliver results if each and all of its participant countries subscribes to a collective commitment to govern well."