Violent storm strands Bono, O'Neill

TAMALE, Ghana - Pelting rain, thunder and lightning stranded U.S. Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill and rock singer Bono in a northern Ghanaian town on Wednesday, the third day of an African tour.

The tropical storm kept the world's most powerful finance minister and the U2 frontman at Tamale airport waiting hours for a break in the weather to fly back to Ghana's capital Accra.

They are due to head to South Africa early on Thursday for the next leg of a tour to look at the best way of spending billions of dollars to help the world's poorest continent out of its misery.

The stopover in Tamale was designed to give them a taste of life outside the big cities and away from the smart hotels where they are lodging.

One guidebook for tourists off the beaten track warns visitors that Tamale lacks "the slightest cosmopolitan spark, and you're not going to want to spend an inordinate amount of time here".

O'Neill, his Secret Service bodyguards and the rest of a big entourage sat in the VIP lounge of Tamale airport as lightning flashed outside. Bono wandered through the building, drinking beer and chatting with journalists.

The self-described odd couple have set out starkly different views on how to help Africa -- O'Neill seeing private enterprise as the way to get the economy on the move and Bono speaking out for more aid and debt relief.