The Foreign Policy (FP) is a global magazine of politics, economics, and ideas.
Here is the list of top 10 that Foreign Policy Magazine presents with a unique portrait of 2012’s global marketplace of ideas and the thinkers who make them.
1. Aung San Suu Kyi , Thein Sein (Member of parliament, President Burma)
For showing that change can happen anywhere, even in one of the world’s most repressive states.
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Aung San Suu Kyi, Burma’s pro-democracy leader and Nobel Peace laureate, has come to symbolise the struggle of Burma’s people to be free. Aung San Suu Kyi MP AC is a chairperson of the National League for Democracy in Burma. Suu Kyi is the third child and only daughter of Aung San, considered to be the father of modern-day Burma.
Thein Sein is a Burmese politician and former military commander who has been President of Burma since March 2011. He was the Prime Minister from 2007 until 2011 and considered by some as a moderate and reformist in the post-junta government.
2. Moncef Marzouki (President Tunisia)
For keeping the ideas of the Arab Spring alive.
Moncef Marzouki is interim President of Tunisia. Through his career he has been a human rights activist, physician and politician. On 12 December 2011, he was elected President of Tunisia by the Constituent Assembly.
3. Bill and Hillary Clinton (Former president New York, Secretary of state Washington)
For still thinking about tomorrow.
William Jefferson “Bill” Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president.
Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton is the 67th United States Secretary of State, serving in the administration of President Barack Obama. She was a United States Senator for New York from 2001 to 2009.
4. Sebastian Thrun (Computer scientist | Palo Alto, Calif.)
For revving up the robot-car revolution.
Sebastian Burkhard Thrun is an educator, programmer, robotics developer and computer scientist from Germany. He is a Google VP and Fellow, and a part-time Research Professor of Computer Science at Stanford University.
5. Bill & Melinda Gates (Co-chairs, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation | Seattle)
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William Henry “Bill” Gates III is an American business magnate and philanthropist. Gates is the former chief executive and current chairman of Microsoft, the world’s largest personal-computer software company, which he co-founded with Paul Allen.
Melinda Gates (For insisting on women’s power to choose.)
Melinda French Gates is an American businesswoman and philanthropist. She is the wife of Bill Gates.
6. Malala Yousafzai (Student | Pakistan)
For standing up to the Taliban, and everything they represent.
Malala Yousafzai is a school student and education activist from the town of Mingora in the Swat District of Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. She is known for her education and women’s rights activism in the Swat Valley, where the Taliban had at times banned girls from attending school. On 9 October 2012, Yousafzai was shot in the head and neck in an assassination attempt by Taliban gunmen while returning home on a school bus.
7. Barack Obama (President | Washington)
For redrawing America’s global footprint.
Barack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. He is the first sitting U.S. president to publicly support legalizing same-sex marriage.
8 . Paul Ryan (Congressman | Washington)
For doubling down on the debt crisis.
Paul Davis Ryan is the United States Representative for Wisconsin’s 1st congressional district and current chairman of the House Budget Committee. He was the Republican Party nominee for Vice President of the United States in the 2012 election.
9. Chen Guangcheng
For envisioning a China with the rule of law.
Chen Guangcheng is a Chinese civil rights activist who worked on human rights issues in rural areas of the People’s Republic of China.
10. David Blankenhorn, Narayana Kocherlakota, Richard A. Muller
Activist, economist, physicist | New York, Minneapolis, Berkeley, Calif.
For changing their minds.
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David Blankenhorn is the founder and president of the Institute for American Values and the author of The Future of Marriage and Fatherless America.
Narayana Kocherlakota is an Indian American economist and is the 12th and current president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
Richard A. Muller is an American professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley. He is also a faculty senior scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
