THIRD World campaigners are to hold a three-hour vigil at the Angel of the North to urge world leaders to scrap the unpayable debts of the poorest countries.

Members of the Catholic Fund for Overseas Development (Cafod) are staging the protest over frustration at what they see is a lack of action from world leaders.

Campaigner Pat Martin, from St Cuthbert's parish in Chester-le-Street, County Durham, said: "World leaders have betrayed the hopes of the poor and of the millions of debt-relief campaigners who wanted to mark the millennium by wiping out Third World debt.

"It's time for Tony Blair, and the others, to prove their promises were not empty rhetoric.

"We would like to ask the people of the North-East to come and join us. There's still time to organise the biggest celebration of the millennium."

Designed to coincide with the G8 meeting of the world's most powerful nations, in Japan, on July 21 to 23, the vigil will include prayers, a rich/poor picnic, updates on the Jubilee 2000 anti-debt campaign and Japanese kites and cranes.

Cafod campaigners say leaders pledged to wipe out world debt after the millennium, but there has been precious little evidence of this yet.