WASHINGTON, Dec 17: Time magazine on Wednesday named US president-elect Barack Obama its 2008 “Person of the Year.” “For having the confidence to sketch an ambitious future in a gloomy hour, and for showing the competence that makes Americans hopeful he might pull it off, the president-elect is TIME’s Person of the Year,” the newsweekly said.

It said US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson was first runner-up followed by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin and China’s Zhang Yimou, who directed the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing.—AFP