Editorial: An honor greatly deserved

Sunday, Dec. 25, 2005 | 8:21 a.m.

We could not agree more with the "Persons of the Year" featured in the current Time magazine. Bill and Melinda Gates and Bono received the magazine's top honor for their work in raising worldwide awareness of starvation, disease and debilitating debt in the world's poorest nations.

Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft, paired with his wife to found the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Its current endowment is nearly $29 billion, highest in the world for a charitable group.

Bono is the lead singer for the Irish rock band U2. For more than 20 years he has been outspoken about the disparity that exists among nations, with many awash in money and resources and many others drowning in debt. Millions of people in many of the debt-ridden nations, particularly those in Africa, are dying from lack of food, AIDS and general inaccessibility to basic health care.

Time praised the Gateses for creating a foundation that spent 2005 "giving more money away faster than anyone else ever has." In concentrating on improving education, providing more nutritious foods and eradicating disease, the foundation has donated billions to poor countries. Meanwhile this year, "Bono charmed and bullied and morally blackmailed the leaders of the world's richest nations into forgiving $40 billion in debt owed by the poorest," the magazine wrote.

The Gateses and Bono are friends who have discussed their mutual interests in improving the lives of millions of people. Because of their tireless and unselfish work, and because of their enormous star power, citizens and leaders of the wealthy nations are now much more aware of the despair prevalent in so many parts of the world. Time's selection of them as Persons of the Year will help even more to advance awareness of the world's neediest people.