Portugal awarded U2 one of the nation’s highest honours Sunday, in recognition of the Irish band’s humanitarian efforts on behalf of African poverty and human rights issues.

President Jorge Sampaio personally pinned the Order of Liberty on each of the Dublin four ? lead singer Bono, guitar player The Edge, bassist Adam Clayton and drummer Larry Mullen Jr. ? at a ceremony held at the presidential palace.

It marks the first time Portugal has awarded the order to a foreign music group.

?Over the last 25 years you have shown that it is possible to combine the pleasure of artistic creation with civic and humanitarian intervention to help build a better world,” Sampaio said, according to AFP.

The president especially lauded U2?s efforts to help ease the debt burdens of poor nations.

“It is of course for the four of us a great, great honour,” said Bono in a short speech after the ceremony.

He also appealed for Portugal to do more to ease poverty in Africa, saying it is unacceptable for children to go hungry and for 3,000 a day to die from malaria, reported the BBC.

“If we really believed that an African life was equal to a European life we would not stand by with watering cans while an entire continent was bursting into flames,” he said.

U2 was recently involved in last month?s Live 8 concert aimed at pressuring wealthy nations to increase aid to Africa. Bono was a major figure in the Live Aid concert for Ethiopian famine relief 20 years ago.

The band has worked with Amnesty International and campaigned for global powers to forgive Third World debt. They have also lobbied on behalf of several human rights causes. In 2001, the band released the single ?Walk On,? which was written about and dedicated to Burmese democracy activist Aung San Suu Kyi. The 1991 Nobel Peace Prize winner has spent most of the past 15 years under house arrest.

A few hours after the ceremony in Portugal, U2 concluded the European leg of their latest world tour with a sold-out concert at Lisbon?s 52,000-seat Alvalade stadium.

The band returns to North America next month for the third and final leg of the ?Vertigo? tour supporting their most recent album, ?How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb.? They will open with four shows in Toronto starting Sept. 12 and wrap up in Portland, Ore. on Dec. 19.






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