The richest man in the world, Bill Gates, and his wife, Melinda, were named Time magazine"s "Persons of the Year" along with Irish rocker Bono for being "Good Samaritans" who made a difference in different ways. "For being shrewd about doing good, for rewiring politics and re-engineering justice, for making mercy smarter and hope strategic and then daring the rest of us to follow, Bill and Melinda Gates and Bono are Time"s Persons of the Year," the magazine said in its Dec. 19 issue, made public on Sunday.
Managing Editor James Kelly said the three had been chosen as the people most effective at finding ways to eradicate such calamities as malaria in Africa, HIV and AIDS and the grinding poverty that kills 8 million people a year. Time also named former Presidents George Bush and Bill Clinton as "Partners of the Year" for their humanitarian efforts after the Asian tsunami and Hurricane Katrina, and the unlikely friendship that developed from that work.