"Are you ready, are you ready to make poverty history!"

Such are words echoing long over the sky in London's Hyde Park on Saturday afternoon when Live 8 concerts featuring the world's megastars, are taking place in the park and around the world to put pressure on political leaders to tackle poverty in Africa.

Microsoft tycoon Bill Gates' appearance on the stage gave the concert a big stir. Bill reinforced the call to end poverty in Africa, saying that "if we show people the problems and solutions,they will act."

The world's megastars in Hyde Park like Madonna, U2, Coldplay and Elton John performed to 200,000 people well into midnight.

"Are you ready to start a revolution? Are you ready to change history? I said, are you ready?" Madonna, the rock&roll queen as introduced by organizer Bob Geldof, pushed the concert to a climax when she was later joined on stage by 24-year-old Birhan Woldu, one of the starving children featured in the original Live 8 concert back 20 year ago.

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, also in London, said: "This is really a United Nations. The whole world has come together in solidarity with the poor."

"On behalf of the poor, the voiceless and the weak I say thank you, " Annan said.

All will unite behind one simple message for world leaders: end poverty in Africa.

Twenty years after he organized the landmark Live Aid concerts,Bob Geldof planned the concerts just days before leaders of the world's richest countries, the G8, meet in Scotland, Britain.

"We don't want people's money. We want them," Geldof and his Live 8 web keep saying.

Live Aid concerts, two decades after the 1985 ones in London and Philadelphia, grew into a global event with another six cities of Berlin, Paris, Rome, Mexico, Johannesburg and Tokyo joining in.

The 1985 Live Aid concerts, held in London and Philadelphia on the same day, sold out both venues, drew a TV audience of millions around the globe and raised 40 million US dollars for poverty relief in Africa.

After then, Geldof said, Africa has only become poorer.

Just as Geldof said, "twenty years on, it strikes me as being morally repulsive and intellectually absurd that people die of want in a world of surplus," Geldof said. "This is to finally, as much as we can, put a stop to that."

The aim of the concerts was to create attention and "political heat" ahead of the G8 meeting to persuade the leaders to agree to cancel Africa's unpayable debts, double aid for the continent and make trade fair, Geldof said.

Africa is expected to be high on the agenda of the meeting of the group of eight wealthy nations -- which groups Britain, the United States, France, Germany, Russia, Canada, Italy and Japan.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair has said he wants rich nations to write off the debts owed by the world's poorest countries and to double international aid, initiatives the White House has ruled out.

Source: Xinhua