FILE - In this Dec. 10, 1980 file photo, John Lennon fans continue their
vigil outside the Dakota apartment building in New York, raising their
hands with the peace sign and calling for more gun control. Mark David
Chapman legally purchased the revolver he used to kill Lennon at a
Honolulu shop, and sneaked it through airport security by putting it in
his luggage. Restrictions on weapons, changes in how baggage is screened
and better technology would make that feat practically impossible
today.(AP Photo/David Bookstaver, File)
New York • German Chancellor Angela Merkel has
been named Time's Person of the Year, praised Wednesday by the magazine
for her leadership on everything from Syrian refugees to the Greek debt
crisis.
Time also cited Merkel's strong response to
"Vladimir Putin's creeping theft of Ukraine" and on its cover called her
"Chancellor of the Free World."
"Not once or twice but three times there has
been reason to wonder this year whether Europe could continue to exist,
not culturally or geographically but as a historic experiment in
ambitious statecraft," Time editor Nancy Gibbs wrote. "You can agree
with her or not, but she is not taking the easy road. Leaders are tested
only when people don't want to follow. For asking more of her country
than most politicians would dare, for standing firm against tyranny as
well as expedience and for providing steadfast moral leadership in a
world where it is in short supply, Angela Merkel is TIME's Person of the
Year."
Merkel, 61, is just the fourth woman since 1927
to be chosen and the first since opposition leader Corazon C. Aquino of
the Philippines in 1986. She is the first German since Willy Brandt,
the West German chancellor named in 1970 for "seeking to bring about a
fresh relationship between East and West" during the Cold War. In 1999,
Time picked the German-born Albert Einstein as Person of the Century.
Wednesday's news came in as Merkel's spokesman
Steffen Seibert was leading a government press conference in the German
capital, while Merkel herself was at an event in Leipzig. When asked
about it by The Associated Press, Seibert said he had only just received
word on his phone himself.
"I'm sure the chancellor will regard this as an
encouragement for her political work, for a good future for Germany as
well as for Europe," Seibert said.
The other finalists included Donald Trump, who
for months has topped Republican polls for the 2016 U.S. presidential
election and dominated headlines.
"I told you (at)TIME Magazine would never pick
me as person of the year despite being the big favorite," he tweeted
soon after Time's announcement. "They picked person who is ruining
Germany."
The other candidates for 2015 were Caitlyn
Jenner, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, the Black Lives Matter protest
movement, ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and Uber CEO Travis
Kalanick.
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