Bono and Gates are honoured

U2's Bono and Microsoft billionaires Bill and Melinda Gates were today named as TIME magazine's Persons of the Year

The Irish rocker was instrumental in the debt relief campaign for the poorest countries in the world, while the Gateses committed billions of dollars to help fight infectious diseases in Africa.

TIME Editor-at-large Nancy Gibbs said the three had been selected for being shrewd about doing good, for rewiring politics and re-engineering justice and then daring the rest of the world to follow.

"2005 is the year they turned the corner, when Bono charmed and bullied and morally blackmailed the leaders of the worlds richest countries into forgiving 40 billion (£27m) in debt owed by the poorest."

She said the Gateses had built the worlds biggest charity, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, with a 29 billion dollar (£16.3m) endowment.

"They spent the year giving more money away faster than anyone ever has, including nearly half a billion dollars for the Grand Challenges, in which they asked the very best brains in the world how they would solve a huge problem, like inventing a vaccine that needs no needles and no refrigeration, if they had the money to do it."

Last year, TIME magazine named US President George W Bush as its Person of the Year.

The award is given to recognise the individual or group of individuals who have had the biggest effect on the year's news.

However, some the US newsmagazine's choices over its 82-year history have proved controversial, with Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin named as the winners in 1938 and 1942 respectively.

TIME, which circulation of 5.4 million, and an audience of 27 million readers worldwide, will publish its Persons of the Year edition tomorrow.