Hayibo.com - Developing world saved as U2 announce new album

Developing world saved as U2 announce new album

ROME. The news that Irish rock group U2 will release a new album in March has been hailed with relief and joy throughout the developing world. Millions of grateful peasants and refugees mobbed aid workers in Africa and Asia, offering sacrifices of new crops and young lambs to lead singer Bono for gracing the world with yet another insight into poverty.

The band made the announcement this morning from the Pope's private balcony overlooking St Peter's Square in the Vatican, while a text version was transmitted simultaneously to non-governmental aid missions around the world.

According to Vatican insiders the Pope had been asked to surrender his private rooms to accommodate Bono, and had gratefully accepted, leaving a glass of milk and some cookies next to the microphone.

Meanwhile UNICEF spokesman Pierre Saboteur said that the announcement was a "Christmas and New Year miracle for the squalid, the oppressed, the filthy and downtrodden".

He would not be drawn on whether this group included young South African graduates living in London.

"For years we have been praying to our respective gods, all over the world, to inspire Bono with divine wisdom so that he might compose some more rousing riffs for The Edge to play, to help us all understand the plight of the needy," said Saboteur.

"This is an answer to those prayers."

He said that aid workers in South-East Asia had reported a surge in charitable donations from starving peasants in recent weeks, as tens of millions offered lambs, bushels of corn and IOUs for future earnings at temples and mosques across the region in the hope that they might expedite the release of the new album.

The news also prompted fresh celebration of Bono’s net worth, which is estimated to be about $500 million, an amount that inspires and reassures billions of malnourished children around the planet.

"Sometimes when I am chewing my daily rice grain I feel sad," said Joseph Kibuki, 9, of Burundi.

"But then they tell me Mr Bono is so rich, and I know that there is a God and that good people are rewarded.

"Or at least cool people.

"Perhaps one day Mr Bono will come to my country and shine his holy light onto me. And he will bring running water. And pretty back-up singers wearing ethically made T-shirts highlighting my plight on television, between The Apprentice and reruns of The Golden Girls."