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Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky Named Time’s Person-of-the-Year

Published

3 years ago

December 7, 2022

President Of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, has been named Time’s 2022 Person of the Year.

Time Magazine made the announcement on Wednesday, hailing the wartime president for his unwavering strength and “contagious” courage in the face of “unprovoked Russian aggression.”

Zelensky, who has led his country in the ongoing war with Russia, refused to leave the country at the onset of the war despite offers from other country leaders.

Instead, Zelensky has been constantly seeking support from world leaders during the war, which has lasted for over ten months.

“TIME’s 2022 Person of the Year: Volodymyr Zelensky and the spirit of Ukraine,” the magazine cover read.

Time’s reporter, Simon Shuster, wrote: “Zelensky’s success as a wartime leader has relied on the fact that courage is contagious.

“It spread through Ukraine’s political leadership in the first days of the invasion, as everyone realised the president had stuck around.

“His professional instincts derived from a lifetime as an actor on the stage meant he knew how to read a crowd and react to its moods and expectations. Now his audience was the world. He was determined not to let them down.

“Courage came to define his fellow Ukrainians, too. Instead of running for their lives, many Ukrainians grabbed whatever weapons they could find and ran to defend their towns and cities against an invading force armed with tanks and attack helicopters.”

Zelensky, who had surprisingly emerged as Ukraine’s president in 2019, was formerly a comedian and TV personality. In Wednesday’s publication, Shuster noted that the once light-hearted man had changed a great deal following the invasion of Russia into his homeland.

“In April, less than two months into the invasion, Zelensky told me he had aged and changed ‘from all this wisdom that I never wanted,’” he wrote.

Speaking on Ukraine’s recent recapture of a major city, Kherson, from Russian occupation, the president said that in making battlefield decisions, he would focus first on human lives.

“We could have pushed into Kherson earlier, with greater force, but we understood how many people would have fallen,” he said in the interview. “That’s why a different tactic was chosen, and thank God it worked. I don’t think it was some genius move on our part. It was reason winning out, wisdom winning out against speed and ambition.”

Russia continues to face international sanctions as a result of its president, Vladimir Putin’s refusal to back down from his plans to annex the neighbouring country’s territories.

Most recently, the European Union Members of Parliament passed a resolution to recognise Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism.

Headline

12 Die, 30 Missing In Peru Landslide

Published

12 hours ago

December 1, 2025

Editor

At least 12 people, including three children, died in a landslide at a river port in central Peru on Monday, and 30 were reported missing, officials said.

The landslide submerged a boat with about 50 passengers on board, and another with none, as they were docked at the port of Iparia in the Amazon jungle region of Ucayali, according to a police report cited by the Andina news agency.

Six people were injured, it added, and a search and rescue operation was underway at the start of the Peruvian rainy season.

Without giving a toll, Peru’s COEN national emergency operations centre said on X that tragedy struck at dawn due to “erosion” of the bank of the Ucayali river.

It said the navy has been called in to help.

AFP

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Nigeria Grants Asylum To Guinea-Bissau Opposition Candidate

Published

12 hours ago

December 1, 2025

Editor

The Nigerian embassy in Guinea-Bissau has granted asylum to Fernando Dias da Costa, the country’s opposition presidential candidate, following alleged threats to his life after last week’s military coup, The Cable Reports.

The coup was announced by military officers on Wednesday, just days after Guinea-Bissau’s presidential election in which both incumbent President Umaro Embaló and his main challenger, da Costa, claimed victory before official results were released.

Nigeria condemned the takeover and urged an immediate return to constitutional order.

In a letter to the President of the Economic Community of West African States Commission, Omar Touray, dated November 30, the Foreign Affairs Minister, Yusuf Tuggar, said President Bola Tinubu had approved asylum and protection for da Costa inside the Nigerian embassy in Bissau.

Tuggar wrote that the decision was made “in response to threats made against da Costa’s life.”

“In this regard, it would be appreciated if you would kindly mandate the ECOWAS Stabilisation Support Mission in Guinea-Bissau to provide him protection and security while in the premises of the Nigerian embassy,” the letter stated.

The foreign affairs minister’s Special Assistant on Media and Communications Strategy, Alkasim Abdulkadir, confirmed the letter’s authenticity to The Cable on Monday.

He said, “The decision of the Federal Government of Nigeria to grant asylum and provide protection to Fernando Dia Da Costa falls squarely within Nigeria’s sovereign responsibility and longstanding commitment to regional peace, stability, and democratic governance.”

He added that Nigeria acted “in the broader interest of de-escalation,” saying the government had exercised its discretion “to prevent further deterioration of tensions and to promote social cohesion in Guinea-Bissau and the wider West African sub-region.”

According to Abdulkadir, the intervention aligns with ECOWAS principles and reflects Nigeria’s role as a stabilising force in West Africa.

Following the coup, ECOWAS held an emergency virtual summit of heads of state and subsequently suspended Guinea-Bissau from the regional bloc until constitutional order is restored.

Headline

Trump To Attend FIFA World Cup Finals Draw On Friday

Published

13 hours ago

December 1, 2025

Editor

The White House on Monday confirmed US President Donald Trump would attend the draw for the FIFA World Cup finals in Washington later this week.

The United States will co-host the 2026 tournament alongside Canada and Mexico.

“On Friday, President Trump will attend the FIFA World Cup final draw at the Kennedy Centre,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters.

Trump has made the World Cup a centrepiece event of both his second presidency and the 250th anniversary of US independence next year.

But the giant sporting extravaganza has not escaped the political turmoil caused by Trump’s hardline stance on a host of issues.

Trump, a Republican, has raised the possibility of moving games from some US host cities amid a crackdown on what he says is crime and illegal migration in some Democratic-run areas.

AFP