Thursday, April 19, 2012

Prince William's reign ends in Time's top 100

MICHELLE COOKE

Prince William has been bumped off Time Magazine's list of 100 most influential people to make way for his sister-in-law Pippa Middleton.

Last year William and his new wife Catherine, the Duchess of Cambridge, made the list. This time the names of the duchess and her sister appeared instead.

Celebrities, politicians, economists, sportspeople and even controversial figures such as internet hacking group Anonymous and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un made the top 100.

"They are the people who inspire us, entertain us, challenge us and change our world," Time said of 2012's most influential people.

Those who made the list included celebrities Kristen Wiig, Adele and Rihanna and politicians Angela Merkel, Mitt Romney and Barack Obama.

Obama nominated businessman and philanthropist Warren Buffett, who also made the list.

"Today Warren is not just one of the world's richest men but also one of the most admired and respected," Obama said.

"He has devoted the vast majority of his wealth to those around the world who are suffering, or sick, or in need of help. And he uses his stature as a leader to press others of great means to do the same."

Singer Pink nominated fellow singer Adele and Time's Europe editor Catherine Mayer nominated the Middleton sisters, saying they had become "avatars of aspiration".

"Latter-day Mona Lisas, they smile mysteriously and keep their mouths closed. In an age of bleating, tweeting, confessional celebrity, the middle-class Middletons show real class," Mayer said.

Times said the list included breakouts, pioneers, moguls, leaders and icons.

"We look for those whose influence is at a tipping point," the magazine's editor Rick Stengel said.

"In Russia, Alexei Navalny is harnessing the growth of internet use to connect protesters via blogging. While there are new types of influence, some are as old as Adam. In Egypt, Samira Ibrahim demonstrated old-fashioned courage by standing up to the military in a court of law over forced "virginity tests".

Stengel said the world was in a "transformative period" in which leadership was emerging in unlikely places, such as in Saudi Arabia where Manal al-Sharif was jailed for nine days after posting a video of herself driving on YouTube. Women are not allowed to drive in the Middle Eastern kingdom.

The list also included "rogues" Kim Jong Un, Syrian President Bashar Assad, Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar and Somalia's Islamic militia leader Sheik Moktar Ali Zubeyr.

"Villainy is often in the eye of the beholder, and sometimes the more heinous the crime, the more clinging the adulation," Time's news director Howard G Chua-Eoan said of the rogues.

"It should be no surprise that the four rogues in this year's TIME 100 have supporters. That is a measure of their influence: the willingness to defend partisan ideologies with weaponry."

THE TOP 100:

Jeremy Lin

Christian Marclay

Viola Davis

Salman Khan

Tim Tebow

E.L. James

Louis CK

Rihanna

Marco Rubio

Ali Ferzat

Rene Redzepi

Kristen Wiig

Anthony Kennedy

Novak Djokovic

Ben Rattray

Jessica Chastain

Yani Tseng

Raphael Saadiq

Elinor Ostrom

Samira Ibrahim

Jose Andres

Ann Patchett

Dulce Matuz

Henrik Schadiarfe

Freeman Hrabowski

Maryam Durani

Manal al-Sharif

Anjali Gopalan

Rached Ghannouchi

Barbara Van Dahlen

Ron Fouchier

Donald Sadoway

Hans Rosling

Asghar Farhadi

Sarah Burton

Anonymous

Pete Cashmore

Cami Anderson

Ali Babacan and Ahmet Davutoglu

Ai-jen Poo

Marc Andreessen

Preet Bharara

Robert Grant

Andrew Lo

Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy

Alexei Navalny

Ray Dalio

Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber al-Thani

Chelsea Handler

Harvey Weinstein

Chen Lihua

Warren Buffett

Alice Walton

Harold Hamm

Sheryl Sandberg

Sara Blakely

Tim Cook

Eike Batista

Daniel Ek

Virginia Rometty

Barack Obama

Goodluck Jonathan

Xi Jinping

Fatou Bensouda

Christine Lagarde

Mario Draghi

U Thein Sein

Ayatullah Ali Khamenei

Mitt Romney

Juan Manuel Santos

Timothy Dolan

Portia Simpson Miller

Mario Monti

Wang Yang

Maria das Graas Silva Foster

Andrew Cuomo

Iftikhar Chaudhry

Mamata Banerjee

Walter Isaacson

Ron Paul

Benjamin Netanyahu

Dilma Rousseff

Erik Martin

Cecile Richards

Angela Merkel

Lionel Messi

Tilda Swinton

Hillary Clinton

Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, and Pippa Middleton

Adele

Matt Lauer

Oscar Pistorius

Claire Danes

Stephen Colbert

Rogues

Kim Jong Un

Mullah Mohammed Omar and Sheik Moktar Ali Zubeyr

Bashar Assad

- © Fairfax NZ News

No comments:

Post a Comment

Share Your Imagination with Us