Angela Merkel named Person of the Year 2015 by Time magazine

#angelamerkel #timepoy #germany #personoftheyear Angela Merkel (61), the Chancellor of Germany, has been chosen by Time magazine as its Person of the Year for 2015. Her image on the cover of its upcoming issue bestows upon her the title of "Chancellor of the Free World."
She is the first woman to receive the honor by herself in two decades. Her leadership in the refugee crisis, and her help in keeping the Euro afloat were her achievements.
This has been reported in foxnews.com dated 9 December 2015.

Editor Nancy Gibbs has said that Time chose the world leader "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."
Her strong response to Russian President "Vladimir Putin's creeping theft of Ukraine" also went in her favor.
Incidentally, Angela Merkel is the fourth woman since 1927 to be chosen and the first since opposition leader Corazon C. Aquino of the Philippines in 1986. Moreover, 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.
Other finalists for 2015 included Donald Trump, Islamic State leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, Caitlyn Jenner, the Black Lives Matter protest movement, Putin, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and Uber's CEO, Travis Kalanick.

(Image courtesy wikimediacommons.org)

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Iranian women have tickets but cannot watch volleyball match in Tehran

The Iranian Volleyball Federation had provided special accreditation to 200 handpicked women to watch a volleyball match between Iran and the United States in Tehran but, the women were not permitted to enter the stadium. It was a Volleyball World League match.
This has been reported in zeenews.india.com dated 20 June 2015.

The tickets had been reserved for "family members of players, supporters of the visiting team and executive officials" but, the accreditations had not been validated by security services at the arena. As a result, the women could not enter.
Iran had introduced rules after the 1979 revolution prohibiting women from gaining access to stadiums.. The official reason was to protect them from obscene behavior of the male fans. But, President Hassan Rouhani's government has been trying to relax the rules in spite of opposition from religious conservatives.
Quite recently, some women were allowed to watch a male basketball match in Tehran – they had to sit in a cordoned-off section of a venue.
Incidentally, Iran won the match 3 sets to 1 and, there are reports that there were some women present inside the arena, including female referees.
The international volleyball federation FIVB, had in November last, indicated that it would not allow Iran to host international events so long as women are banned from attending games. This announcement was a fallout of the jailing of British-Iranian Goncheh Ghavami – she had been arrested after she tried to attend a volleyball match last year.
(Image courtesy wikimediacommons.org)

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