Ozzy Osbourne to Help Taiwan Gain UN Membership

My friend Peter sent me this link to a headline that is not made up folks. Reuters via WaPo has the call:

After 14 failed attempts at joining the United Nations using media campaigns and presidential appeals, Taiwan is turning to a local goth-style rock band backed by Ozzy Osbourne in its quest for membership to the world body.

The band, named ChthoniC, will travel to at least 80 cities in four countries by the end of the year, supported in part by the Taiwan government, which is providing pro-U.N. literature and a slogan-painted truck.

The band will visit Canada, Germany, Britain and the United States.

ChthoniC has also recorded a song urging the United Nations to let Taiwan join, even though its bid for membership keeps getting knocked down because of objections from Beijing.

"I'm not for any political party, but I'm for my poor country's joining the United Nations," band lyricist Freddy Lim told reporters on Wednesday at the tour's launch.

Ozzy Osbourne, a satanic-theme rocker known for biting heads off bats on stage, is helping set up 20 of the U.S. gigs, paying some transport costs and letting the Taiwan band promote U.N. membership as it wishes, Lim said. He said the band hooked up with Osbourne through personal connections.

ChthoniC is a well-known local band that supports democracy and independence. It's kind of cool that Taiwan is promoting itself in imaginative ways.

UPDATE: See the comments below for the tour schedule

UPDATE: a SF area friend said that a local radio station wants to interview Freddy. And another friend writes:

Wow, the whole "Ozzy/Chthonic" story has been getting a lot of play stateside today. NPR has a bumper this morning about it: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=11744876

And CNN has been mentioning it every 30 minutes today on Headline News. Right on!

[Taiwan]