USA: PAUL MCCARTNEY AND GIRFRIEND HEATHER MILLS ATTEND CHARITY GALA TO PROMOTE "ADOPT A MINEFIELD" PROGRAMME

Record ID: 391413

  • Title: USA: PAUL MCCARTNEY AND GIRFRIEND HEATHER MILLS ATTEND CHARITY GALA TO PROMOTE "ADOPT A MINEFIELD" PROGRAMME
  • Date: 14th June 2001
  • Summary: BEVERLY HILLS, CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES (JUNE 14, 2001) (REUTERS) ***CONTAINS FLASH PHOTOGRAPHY*** VARIOUS OF PAUL McCARTNEY AND HEATHER MILLS IN EVENING DRESS ARRIVING AT EVENT (3 SHOTS) VARIOUS PAUL McCARTNEY AND HEATHER MILLS AT PRESS CONFERENCE (2 SHOTS) SCU HEATHER MILLS / PAN TO PAUL MCCARTNEY WIDE OF MCCARTNEY AND MILLS AT PRESS CONFERENCE SCU SOUNDBITE (English
  • Embargoed: 29th June 2001 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: BEVERLY HILLS, CALIFORNIA, USA
  • Country: USA
  • Topics: Conflict,Entertainment,General,Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA5S6Z2QZIQDMED7PBK5P7KM7BM
  • Story Text: Paul McCartney and Heather Mills were the main attraction at a Beverly Hills, California gala benefiting the Adopt-A-Minefield Program of the United Nations Association of the USA on Thursday (June 14). The event featured performances by McCartney and Paul Simon, marking the first time the two legends had appeared together on stage.
    Among the other celebrities turning out for the event were former frontman for The Who, Roger Daltrey, and Sheryl Crowe.
    Former Beatle McCartney and his girlfriend Mills Monday have been instrumental in the campaign to rid the world of land mines. "My take on this is very simple," said McCartney.
    "I am basically asking the people who are reading your newspapers and are watching your telecast to understand that landmines are a cowardly weapon, they leave the war behind when the soldiers go home and the people they destroy, the lives of the people they destroy are civilians," he continued.
    McCartney and Mills were in Beverly Hills expressly to raise funds for the charity. "Tonight we are here to raise as much money as possible, of which one hundred percent will go where it is due," Mills told reporters. " A lot of charity money unfortunately can be wasted on administration and it is very important to me that all that money goes to the right cause. So anybody out there who wants to help you can contact landmines.org and help from $1 to $1 million if you got that much to spare."
    An estimated 60 million land mines may still be hidden in the ground in 70 countries. Each year an estimated 26,000 people are killed or injured by land mines. As many as a third of the victims are children. Britain's late Princess Diana made the abolition of land mines one of the causes she backed before being killed in a Paris car crash in 1997.
    In April, Mills and McCartney took their campaign to Washington where they said they found Secretary of State Colin Powell supportive despite U.S. reservations about a worldwide ban.
    Mills, 33, an ambassador for the minefield program that aids the United Nations in clearing landmines around the world, presented an award at the Regent Beverly Wilshire to Zika Zikovic, an activist who lost a leg to a mine.
    Hit by a police motorbike, Mills lost her left leg below the knee but had worked previously on medical aid in the former Yugoslavia. She has her own foundation providing limbs for Third World amputees (heathermills.org). She and McCartney saw Secretary of State Colin Powell in April on the issue.
    The evening was hosted by American late night television host Jay Leno. McCartney and Simon's performance was closed to the broadcast media.
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