The LP was donated by a U2 fan who got Edge’s signature in New York on March 6 when U2 played Fordham University for “Good Morning America,” and Bono’s and Adam’s signatures when U2 was in Los Angeles on March 9 for the first night of the “U2 3 Nights Live” radio broadcasts.

“At first, I had no intentions of donating my autographs,” the donor said. “I am a huge U2 fan, so to have a Grammy-award-winning album signed by three members of the band was the ultimate treasure. But I kept feeling God tug at my heart and he led me to the scripture in Matthew 6:19 about not storing treasures on earth. I believe that when God blesses us beyond our needs, those additional blessings are for the purpose of meeting the needs of others.

“A friend sent me the link to the African Well Fund auction of U2′s ‘Under a Blood Red Sky’ CD and that’s when God prompted me to donate my ‘Joshua Tree’ album to help build a well for Bono’s birthday,” the donor continued.

The closing bid for the “Under a Blood Red Sky” deluxe CD/DVD reissue signed by Bono, Clayton and The Edge was $449. AWF volunteer Ayesha Marcel got the CD/DVD autographed by the three U2 members.

“I was thrilled to see that the auction was so successful, especially during these difficult economic times,” Marcel said. “Many thanks to everyone who bid on the reissue and to the winner: your generosity will go a long way toward helping the AWF fund a water project in Liberia, so cheers to you.”

Proceeds from both auctions will benefit Build a Well for Bono’s Birthday projects in Liberia. Learn more about the fundraiser.

The woman who hadn’t heard of U2 or Bono – to be fair, it was 1985 – is Australian nurse Sue Germein, who was part of the team Bono and Ali joined on their mission in Ethiopia. Bono now says she was the woman that got him fired up about the issues in Africa.

Read Sue’s story in the Sunday Herald Sun.

Bono: “I missed Woodstock, and now I’m not going to miss Rostock! If
the G8 heads think that they can ignore this campaign, they are making a very big mistake.”

Bono, celebrating his 47th birthday today, is set to rock the German city of Rostock during the G8 summit on June 7. He’ll be sharing the ‘Music and Messages’ bill with Die Toten Hosen, Herbert Groenemeyer and other German artists. The gig, part of Germany’s ‘Deine Stimme Gegen Armut‘ movement has been dubbed ‘P8′. The musicians are urging the G8 leaders to keep their promises regarding commitments on aid to Africa. Tickets were sold online at the simply lovely price of 2.50 euros on May 2. Needless to say there are none left.

• Blogging G8: Missed Woodstock? Don’t miss Rostock!
• Konzert in Rostock (German)
• Official press release (English, pdf)

Eyes from the frontline

When you’re done reading all that, get your teeth in Bono’s poem/lyric penned for Gégé Katana, as published on U2.com. Bono read out his tribute at City Hall in Dublin on May 1st, as he presented the Front Line Award for Human Rights to Gégé.

Miss Katana works on behalf of victims of sexual violence and founded the Solidarity Movement of Women Human Rights Activists in Uvira in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Who knows, we may see these words again, on U2′s next album perhaps?

Ricky Gervais, Stephen Merchant, Bob Geldof, Jamie Oliver and Bono team up for Comic Relief. This year’s Red Nose Day raised £40,236,142 for the poor and disadvantaged people across the UK and Africa.

“The money RED has raised means that some 160,000 Africans will be put on life-saving anti-retrovirals in the coming months, orphans are being fed and kept in school in Swaziland and a national HIV treatment and prevention programme has begun in Rwanda. Some 99 per cent of funds raised go directly to life-saving schemes.”

On the RED website, CEO Bobby Shriver also reacts to the article in Ad Age:

“Your article says that $18 million and soon to be $25 million (when we have completed our most recent accounting) is a “meager” amount. It’s five times the amount given to the Global Fund by the private sector in four years.”

Bono’s posted a question for you on Yahoo! Anwers, a question and answer community. He wants to know your solutions to end poverty.

What can we do to make poverty history? Because of people like you, leaders of the world’s richest countries met in July 2005 and made a number of historic promises to help end the kind of extreme poverty that is needlessly killing 9,000 people a day in Africa. Millions of lives and the future of a continent are at stake.

Watch a video and post your suggestions on Yahoo! Answers. And when you’re done, Stephen Hawking has another question for you.