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Pakistan Honors Bill Gates for Efforts on Poverty, Disease

Bill Gates speaks during an interview with Reuters in London, Britain, April 18, 2018. REUTERS/Hannah McKay
Bill Gates speaks during an interview with Reuters in London, Britain, April 18, 2018. REUTERS/Hannah McKay
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Pakistan Honors Bill Gates for Efforts on Poverty, Disease

Bill Gates speaks during an interview with Reuters in London, Britain, April 18, 2018. REUTERS/Hannah McKay
Bill Gates speaks during an interview with Reuters in London, Britain, April 18, 2018. REUTERS/Hannah McKay

Pakistan awarded Microsoft co-founder and billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates its second highest civilian honor on Thursday, in recognition of his work to alleviate poverty and diseases like polio and tuberculosis.

On a daylong visit to the capital, Islamabad, Gates was given the prestigious Hilal-e-Pakistan award by President Arif Alvi in a televised ceremony, after he met with Prime Minister Imran Khan at his office.

“Pakistan’s commitment to ending polio is inspiring,” Gates said in a statement released by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Gates is no stranger to the country, where his foundation has helped nearly eradicate the disease.

“Government leaders, health workers, and parents are working tirelessly to ensure this disease never paralyzes a child again. This is the final, and hardest, phase of the eradication effort, but by keeping up the momentum and staying vigilant, Pakistan has an opportunity to make history by ending polio for good,” Gates said, The Associated Press reported.

The statement quoted Khan as thanking Gates and saying that polio eradication is a “top priority” for the government, which is working “at all levels to ensure that every child is protected with the polio vaccine.”

Earlier, Gates visited the National Command Operations Center (NCOC), the body overseeing Pakistan's coronavirus response since the pandemic began, where he was given a detailed briefing about Pakistan's vaccination drive.

The NCOC said in a statement that Gates recognized Pakistan’s success against COVID-19 despite its limited resources, as fatalities from the coronavirus continue a steady decline in the country.

Pakistan has registered some 3,000 COVID-19 cases and 40 fatalities over the past 24 hours, compared to nearly 8,000 daily cases and about 50 deaths just weeks ago. Since the pandemic began, Pakistan has registered 1,494,293 cases, including 29,917 deaths.

Cabinet Minister Faisal Javed Khan congratulated Gates for the award on Twitter, calling it “a well-deserved honor" for his “valuable, exceptional and extraordinary services fighting poverty, disease, and inequality around the world.”

Last year, the country reported only a single case of polio, in its remote southwestern Baluchistan province. Pakistan and Afghanistan are the only countries in the world where polio remains endemic. The disease can cause partial paralysis in children.

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Varieties

Trump Renews Call for End to Seasonal Clock Changes

A bird flies in silhouette as the sun rises over the Atlantic ocean in Lido Beach, New York, US, April 10, 2025. (Reuters)
A bird flies in silhouette as the sun rises over the Atlantic ocean in Lido Beach, New York, US, April 10, 2025. (Reuters)
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Trump Renews Call for End to Seasonal Clock Changes

A bird flies in silhouette as the sun rises over the Atlantic ocean in Lido Beach, New York, US, April 10, 2025. (Reuters)
A bird flies in silhouette as the sun rises over the Atlantic ocean in Lido Beach, New York, US, April 10, 2025. (Reuters)

President Donald Trump on Friday repeated his call for an end to the "costly" custom of moving clocks back one hour every autumn, which he said was imposing an unnecessary financial burden on the United States.

"The House and Senate should push hard for more Daylight at the end of a day," Trump urged the US Congress in a Truth Social post.

"Very popular and, most importantly, no more changing of the clocks, a big inconvenience and, for our government, A VERY COSTLY EVENT!!!"

The summer clock, known as Daylight Saving Time, was adopted by the federal government during World War I but was unpopular with farmers rushing to get produce to morning markets, and was quickly abolished.

Many states experimented with their own versions, but it wasn't reintroduced nationwide until 1967.

The issue has become a pet subject for Trump, who appealed in December for more light in the evenings, but he has at times appeared confused by the terminology.

The demand would mean a permanent change to DST, whereas in December he pledged to get Republicans working on the opposite goal -- abandoning DST.

"The Republican Party will use its best efforts to eliminate Daylight Saving Time, which has a small but strong constituency, but shouldn't," he said then.

In 2022 the Senate, then controlled by Democrats, advanced a bill that would bring an end to the twice-yearly changing of clocks, in favor of a "new, permanent standard time."

The Sunshine Protection Act called for moving permanently to DST, to usher in brighter evenings, and fewer journeys home in the dark for school children and office workers.

The bill never made it to then-president Joe Biden's desk, as it was not taken up in the Republican-led House.

The bill was introduced in 2021 by a Republican, Florida Senator Marco Rubio, who is now Trump's secretary of state. He said studies had shown a permanent DST could benefit the economy.

Either way, changing to one permanent time would put an end to Americans pushing their clocks forward in the spring, then setting them back an hour in the fall.

Colloquially the practice is referred to as "spring forward, fall back."

The clamor has increased in recent years to make DST permanent especially among politicians and lobbyists from the Northeast, where frigid conditions are normal in the early winter mornings.

Rubio said the United States sees an increase in heart attacks and road accidents in the week that follows the changing of the clocks.

Any changes would be unlikely to affect Hawaii and most of Arizona, the Navajo Nation, American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands, which do not spring forward in summer.