Time's people of the year: Bill and Melinda Gates, Bono

Dec 18, 2005, 16:37 GMT

Picture dated 21 September 2003 shows Bill and Melinda Gates, co-founders of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, playing with young patients on a malaria vaccine trial at the Manhica Health Research Centre in Manhica, 80 km north of Maputo, Mozambique. Bill Gates, the world\'s richest man, and his wife Melinda as well as rock singer and peace activist Bono were elected people of the year 2005 by US news magazine \'Time\'. This was announced by news channel CNN on Sunday, 18 December 2005. The decision was based on the activities of all three in combatting world hunger and AIDS in Africa. EPA/JON HRUSA

Washington - The world's richest man Bill Gates and his wife Melinda, plus Irish rock singer and peace activist Bono, are Time magazine's people of the year, it was reported Sunday.

The decision was based on the activities of all three in combatting world hunger and AIDS in Africa, Time's managing editor Jim Kelly explained.

'Sudden disasters get the big headlines, but day after day other tragedies of avoidable dimensions unfold,' wrote Kelly, pointing out that one child dies of malaria in Africa every 29 seconds and that eight million people die every year from poverty.

'Who is proving most effective in figuring out how to eradicate these calamities? In different ways, it is Bill and Melinda Gates... and Bono, the Irish rocker who has made debt reduction sexy,' he added.

The Bill and Melinda Gates foundation is the world's wealthiest charitable organisation, with a capital of 29 billion dollars.

The foundation, Time said, 'spent the year giving more money away faster than anyone ever has', focusing particularly on malaria prevention. In October, the foundation announced 258 million dollars towards fighting the disease.

The 50-year-old Gates, a native of Seattle, Washington state, is the founder of Microsoft, the world's largest software company, and has a personal fortune of 46.5 billion dollars.

In recent years Gates has devoted much of his time to charitable work, declaring he wants to give between 90 and 95 per cent of his accumulated wealth to charity before he dies. This would leave his children with 10 million dollars.

Microsoft's success owes not just to Gates' technological creativity, but also his skill and vision as a businessman. He always believed in the future of the personal computer, although he would later underestimated the power of the Internet.

Microsoft's aggressive business tactics have seen the company cited on many occasions for stifling competition and reducing consumer choice.

Melinda Gates, an IT and economics specialist, also works for Microsoft. The couple live with their three children in a 100- million-dollar villa in Redmond, near Seattle.

Bono, the 45-year-old lead singer of the immensely successful Irish rock group U2, was selected for his work in the area of debt forgiveness.

'Bono charmed and bullied and morally blackmailed the leaders of the world's richest countries into forgiving $40 billion in debt owed by the poorest,' the magazine said.

The U2 frontman met with several world leaders in recent years to further that aim, including U.S. President George W. Bush, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Pope John Paul II.

Bono was also one of the organizers of the Live 8 concerts in July this year, which aimed to put pressure of the heads of the G8 wealthiest nations to eradicate poverty.

Paul David Hewson - his real name - comes from a religious Dublin family.

Alongside Bob Geldof, he is one of the most politically active rock stars.

The efforts of the rich and famous, like Bono and the Gates, towards alleviating poverty shows that everyone can work towards a better world, said Time.