Bono Given Nobel's Man of Peace Award

Posted on Dec 15th 2008 12:00PM by John D. Luerssen
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Bono has won a Nobel peace honor for his humanitarian efforts. The activist U2 frontman was given the annual Man of Peace award in Paris on Friday for his crusades to conquer African debt, poverty and disease.

"This is a very big award for me, because let's be honest this is as close as I am going to get -- as close as a rock star is ever going to get to the Nobel Peace Prize," Bono told attendees.

"I am an over-awarded, over-rewarded rock star," Bono continued. "You are the people who do the real work," he said to the audience, which included Nobel Peace Prize winners F.W. de Klerk of South Africa, Lech Walesa of Poland and Northern Ireland's John Hume. "So I am very, very pleased to be in such esteemed company."

Bono was selected for his global campaigns to persuade wealthy countries to lighten Africa's debt burden, fighting poverty, publicizing fair trade and raising money for the prevention and treatment of HIV-AIDS and malaria.

"We decided to nominate a man who has given a lot and will continue to give a great deal to the struggle for human rights, to the fight against poverty, with his music and with his words," said Walter Veltroni (pictured, right), Italy's left-wing leader and the event's co-host. "He has put pressure on the world's governments to reach the UN's Millennium Goals. To give him the prize, is to say that fight will carry on."