(CNN) -- The good deeds of an activist rock legend and one of the world's richest men and his wife carried the day in 2005, as Time magazine on Sunday named U2 frontman Bono and philanthropic couple Bill and Melinda Gates as its "Persons of the Year."
At Friday's photo shoot for Time, Bono said, "I'm experiencing an unusual feeling. I think it's called being humbled.
"The work that I do with DATA and the One Campaign has been helped by what Bill and Melinda do," he said. "This can be a generation in which we eradicate extreme poverty."
Bono is a co-founder of the DATA (Debt, AIDS, Trade, Africa) organization, which fights poverty and HIV in the developing world. From that organization was spawned the ONE Campaign to Make Poverty History.
"It has been a great year for global health to get more visibility," Bill Gates said Friday. "The more people know about it, the more they want to act."
The magazine said that while sudden disasters grab the headlines, other tragedies unfold daily.
"And who is proving most effective in figuring out how to eradicate those calamities? In different ways, it is Bill and Melinda Gates, co-founders of the world's wealthiest charitable foundation, and Bono, the Irish rocker who has made debt reduction sexy," Time's managing editor Jim Kelly writes.
The Gateses, the magazine notes, "spent the year giving more money away faster than anyone ever has."
In January, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation committed $750 million to improving access to child immunizations, accelerating introduction of new vaccines and strengthening vaccine delivery systems.
The foundation focuses on education, global health, improving public libraries and supporting at-risk families, according to its Web site. The Gateses awarded grants to schools in Texas, Colorado and Massachusetts, as well as the Lutheran World Relief program, which received $640,000 to help nomadic communities in Niger avert food crises.
Bono was one of the organizers behind this year's Live 8 concerts in nine cities worldwide. The concerts were aimed at getting the leaders of the world's nations leaders to come to the aid of impoverished Africa. They did so at the G8 summit, agreeing to double aid to Africa to $50 billion by 2010 and cancel the debts of the poorest nations.
"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.
Time's list of "People Who Mattered" in 2005 ran the gamut from President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney to a fictional villain, a spy and the leader of the Roman Catholic Church. (Photo essay)
Along with Darth Vader, CIA agent Valerie Plame and Pope Benedict XVI, Time tapped:
Plame's husband, former diplomat Joseph Wilson
Texas Rep. and former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay
Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
Apple computer chief Steve Jobs
New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin
U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald
British Prime Minister Tony Blair
Google's Larry Page and Sergey Brin
Chief Justice John Roberts
Peace activist Cindy Sheehan
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
"Commander in Chief" star Geena Davis
Sen. John McCain, an Arizona Republican.
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada
Rapper Kanye West
Teen golfer Michelle Wie, who turned pro in '05.
Time for Kids readers picked their "Person of the Year," choosing Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling in a narrow vote over seven-time Tour de France champion and cancer survivor Lance Armstrong.
Pulling in third were "Heroes in Times of Need" -- those who worked to help people affected by 2005's string of natural disasters, Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, the tsunami and the Pakistan earthquake. (Local heroes)
Time's editors tapped former presidents Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush as their "Partners of the Year" who came together as emissaries and fundraisers, first for victims of the tsunami in south Asia and then for the victims of the other disasters.
_________________ I remember doing nothing on the night Sinatra died
And the night Jeff Buckley died
And the night Kurt Cobain died
And the night John Lennon died
I remember I stayed up to watch the news with everyone
Joined: Mon Apr 04, 2005 2:18 am Posts: 3920 Location: Philadelphia
The list of runners up (I guess what you would call them) is a disgrace. I have nothing against someone like kanye west or geena davis, but come on. To be considered person of the year because you play a female pres. is just awful. I always thought the person of the year is someone who helps to change this world for the better.
_________________ I remember doing nothing on the night Sinatra died
And the night Jeff Buckley died
And the night Kurt Cobain died
And the night John Lennon died
I remember I stayed up to watch the news with everyone
Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2004 5:22 am Posts: 1603 Location: Buffalo
ranting in e-minor wrote:
To be considered person of the year because you play a female pres. is just awful. I always thought the person of the year is someone who helps to change this world for the better.
Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2004 3:02 pm Posts: 10690 Location: Lost in Twilight's Blue
Clubber wrote:
:throwup:
_________________ Scared to say what is your passion, So slag it all, Bitter's in fashion, Fear of failure's all you've started, The jury is in, verdict: Retarded
The list of runners up (I guess what you would call them) is a disgrace. I have nothing against someone like kanye west or geena davis, but come on. To be considered person of the year because you play a female pres. is just awful. I always thought the person of the year is someone who helps to change this world for the better.
i dont think those people in the post are the runners up, it says people who most mattered, i take that as something different than runners up
Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2004 6:41 am Posts: 5867 Location: Providence, RI Gender: Male
ranting in e-minor wrote:
I always thought the person of the year is someone who helps to change this world for the better.
Actually, Stalin and Hitler were both named man of the year by Time, way Back in the Day. It's easy to see why, considering the ways they affected the world at the height of their power. There were people who thought Osama Bin Laden shoulda gotten the title in 2001 and I can see why, but they went with Rudy Giuliani.
_________________ "I wish that I believed in fate / I wish I didn't sleep so late"
"The real truth about it is: no one gets it right / The real truth about it is: we’re all supposed to try"
Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2004 12:47 am Posts: 46000 Location: Reasonville
i don't know how it's not bush, he's singularly the most influential person in the world right now.
_________________ No matter how dark the storm gets overhead They say someone's watching from the calm at the edge What about us when we're down here in it? We gotta watch our backs
Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2004 3:58 am Posts: 2105 Location: Austin
Hinny as George Bailey wrote:
ranting in e-minor wrote:
I always thought the person of the year is someone who helps to change this world for the better.
Not necessarily.
1938- Adolf Hitler 1942- Joseph Stalin 1971-72- Richard Nixon (Not nearly as despicable as the other two, but still) 1979- Ayatollah Khomeini
I still believe 2001's choice should have been bin Laden and not Giuliani.
Mercury wrote:
Clubber wrote:
:throwup:
Should have been bin laden definetly, but considering that certain period of time, most people couldn't have handled it, and the magazine would have been the Dixie Chicks times ten.
Joined: Mon Apr 04, 2005 2:18 am Posts: 3920 Location: Philadelphia
Quote:
Hinny as George Bailey wrote: ranting in e-minor wrote: I always thought the person of the year is someone who helps to change this world for the better.
Not necessarily.
1938- Adolf Hitler 1942- Joseph Stalin 1971-72- Richard Nixon (Not nearly as despicable as the other two, but still) 1979- Ayatollah Khomeini
I didn't know that. I honestly thought it was for someone who is making the world better. I wonder if its weird for someone like rudy guiliani to win an award that hitler won.
_________________ I remember doing nothing on the night Sinatra died
And the night Jeff Buckley died
And the night Kurt Cobain died
And the night John Lennon died
I remember I stayed up to watch the news with everyone
Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2004 7:19 pm Posts: 39068 Location: Chapel Hill, NC, USA Gender: Male
Bono is great and all, but how many five-year-olds can he take in a fight?
_________________ "Though some may think there should be a separation between art/music and politics, it should be reinforced that art can be a form of nonviolent protest." - e.v.
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