Time names Angela Merkel 'Person of the Year'
Time magazine named German Chancellor Angela Merkel as its "Person of the Year". The magazine cited Merkel's resolve in leading Europe through the Greek debt crisis, and her encouragement of other countries to open their borders to migrants and refugees. Mrs Merkel had provided "steadfast moral leadership in a world where it is in short supply", Time Managing Editor Nancy Gibbs wrote.
Person of the Year is an annual issue of the United States news magazine Time that features and profiles a person, group, idea or object that "for better or for worse...has done the most to influence the events of the year". It was called Man of the Year until 1999. The tradition began in 1927, with Time editors contemplating news makers of the year.
In the recent years, Time magazine person of the year was given to Mark Zuckerberg in 2010, Barack Obama in 2012, Pope Francis in 2013, and Ebola Fighters in 2014.
Born in Hamburg, Germany, in 1954 Angela Dorothea Merkel grew up in a rural area, north of Berlin in the then East Germany. Merkel attained a doctorate in physics from the University of Leipzig and later worked as a chemist at the Central Institute for Physical Chemistry, Academy of Sciences. She entered politics after the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall.
In 1989, Merkel joined the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) political party and soon was appointed as minister for women and youth and later served as environment minister. In 1998, she was named the Secretary-General of CDU and in 2000, became its leader. In 2005 election, Merkel narrowly won to become Germany's first female Chancellor. In 2013, she was re-elected as Chancellor for third time.
Angela Merkel topped Forbes magazine's list of "The World's 100 Most Powerful Women" 9 out of the 10 times she made the list (in 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2015.)
Merkel bested seven other finalists in the race to becoming Person of the Year - Black Lives Matter activists, ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, transgender figure Caitlyn Jenner, Uber CEO Travis Kalanick, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and US Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.
