NEW YORK, Dec. 19 Russian President Vladimir Putin was named Wednesday as Time magazine's Person of the Year for his "extraordinary feat of leadership."
The magazine's annual year-end designation was given as "a clear-eyed recognition of the world as it is and of the most powerful individuals and forces shaping that world," the editorial said.
It cited how the former KGB agent rose to power and became president of the largest and most heavily armed country on Earth in 2000 and said "if Russia succeeds as a nation-state in the family of nations, it will owe much of that success to" Putin.
"At significant cost to the principles and ideas that free nations prize, he has performed an extraordinary feat of leadership in imposing stability on a nation that has rarely known it and brought Russia back to the table of world power," the magazine said.
The magazine said of its decision the "Person of the Year is not and never has been an honor. It is not an endorsement. It is not a popularity contest."
The four runners-up for the designation were former U.S. Vice President and Nobel laureate Al Gore, author J.K. Rowling, Chinese Premier Hu Jintao and the U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus.
Copyright 2007 by UPI
