Historical Perspectives

They include the Hollywood actor Leonardo DiCaprio, the Queen of England, and Tyra Banks, a model who made headlines for showing that women with curves did belong on the covers of magazines. Also featured are Maher Arar, who was abducted by US authorities because of flawed intelligence, and Peter Akinola, an archbishop who strongly opposes homosexuality. While sure to be controversial, this eclectic mix are among the cast who make up Time magazine’s 100 most influential people of 2007.

Time said the list of 71 men and 29 women from 27 different countries highlighted the people "whose power, talent or moral example is transforming the world".

There are plenty of safe bets among the 100. Who would argue, for instance, that Microsoft founder Bill Gates and presidential hopefuls Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton do not deserve to be on the list? But does Maher Arar, the Canadian-Syrian who was "renditioned" by US agents who claimed he was an al-Qa’ida operative and sent to Damascus where he was held and tortured for 10 months, really qualify as one of the world’s 100 most influential individuals?

Mr Arar said he was delighted to be featured, while his profile in Time, written by the US senator Patrick Leahy, noted: "Maher Arar’s case stands as a sad symbol of how we have been too willing to sacrifice our core principles to overarching government power in the name of security."

The magazine also listed Peter Akinola, the Archbishop of Nigeria, who has criticisedthe investiture in other countries of openly gay clergy. The magazine said: "If the Anglican Communion … falls apart, Peter Akinola … will have been a catalyst, even if he does not end up prince of one of the pieces."

A few obvious omissions include Google founders Sergy Brin and Larry Page who will soon take over Bill gates position as the richest men in the world.  Also missing are Google CEO Eric Schmidt, radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh, Rudy Giuliani, Steve Spielberg, and Thomas Sowell.  Time magazine is really floating in loose-cannon territory with this list:

The full list

Artists and Entertainers

  1. Tina Fey – television writer, producer and actress
  2. Youssou N’Dour – musician
  3. Anna Netrebko – soprano opera singer
  4. Justin Timberlake – pop singer
  5. Sacha Baron Cohen – comic actor and writer
  6. Leonardo DiCaprio – actor
  7. Nora Roberts – romance writer
  8. Rick Rubin – music producer
  9. Martin Scorsese – film director
  10. Cate Blanchett – actress
  11. Alber Elbaz – fashion designer
  12. America Ferrera – actress
  13. Simon Fuller – music manager and television presenter
  14. Brian Grazer – producer
  15. John Mayer – musician
  16. David Mitchell – writer
  17. Kate Moss – model
  18. Rosie O’Donnell – actress
  19. Brad Pitt – actor
  20. Shonda Rhimes – screenwriter
  21. Kara Walker – artist
  22. Brian Williams – news anchor

Leaders and Revolutionaries

  1. Queen Elizabeth II
  2. Tzipi Livni – foreign minister and vice president Israel
  3. Peter Akinola – Nigerian archbishop
  4. Liu Qi – Beijing Communist Party secretary
  5. Condoleezza Rice – US Secretary of State
  6. Omar Hassan al-Bashir – leader of Sudan
  7. John Roberts – US chief justice
  8. Sonia Gandhi – leader of Indian Congress party
  9. Raul Castro – defence minister of Cuba
  10. Arnold Schwarzenegger – California governor
  11. David Petraeus – US general
  12. Hillary Clinton – 2008 US presidential candidate
  13. Hu Jintao – President of China
  14. Nancy Pelosi – US speaker of the house
  15. King Abdullah – King of Saudi Arabia
  16. Barack Obama – 2008 US presidential candidate
  17. Michael Bloomburg – businessman
  18. Ayutollah Ali Khamenei – supreme leader of Iran
  19. Pope Benedict XVI – leader of the Catholic Church
  20. Angela Merkel – German chancellor
  21. Osama bin Laden – Saudi terrorist

Heroes and Pioneers

  1. Oprah Winfrey – television presenter
  2. Elizabeth Edwards – attorney and wife of US 2008 presidential candidate
  3. Warren Buffett – businessman
  4. Drew Gilpin Faust – Harvard president
  5. Wesley Autrey – subway hero
  6. Tony Dungy – American football coach
  7. Roger Federer – tennis player
  8. Tyra Banks – model and television presenter
  9. Youk Chhang – director of the Documentation Center of Cambodia
  10. George Clooney – actor
  11. Michael J Fox – actor
  12. Timothy Gittins – army officer
  13. Judith Mackay – doctor
  14. Chien-Ming Wang – baseball player
  15. Maher Arar – software engineer (wrongly accused of terrorism)
  16. Thierry Henry – soccer player
  17. Zeng Jinyan – blogger
  18. Garry Kasparov – chess player and politician
  19. Amr Khaled – accountant and website owner

Scientists and Thinkers

  1. Al Gore – former US vice president and climate change champion
  2. Neil deGrasse Tyson – astrophysicist and author
  3. J Craig Venter – geneticist
  4. Lisa Randall – theoretical physicist
  5. John Mather – astrophysicist and Nobel Prize winner
  6. Elizabeth Blackburn – biologist
  7. Alan Stern – director of Nasa Science Mission Directorate
  8. Tullis Onstott – geophysicist
  9. Svante Pääbo – evolutionary geneticist
  10. Steven Nissen – heart specialist
  11. Richard Dawkins – evolutionary biologist
  12. Chris Anderson – physicist
  13. Paul Allen – co-founder of Microsoft
  14. Monty Jones – developmental plant breeder
  15. Klaus Schwab – founder of World Economic Forum in Davos
  16. Nora Volkow – director of US National Institute of Drug Abuse
  17. Frans de Waal – psychologist, primatologist and ethologist
  18. Douglas Melton – stem cell researcher
  19. Kari Stefansson – neurologist

Builders and Titans

  1. Richard Branson – entrepreneur
  2. Cyril Ramaphosa – union leader
  3. Erik Lie – business analyst
  4. Pony Ma – internet guru
  5. Chad Hurley and Steve Chen – founders of YouTube
  6. Katsuaki Watanabe – environmental car designer
  7. Bernard Arnault – chairman of Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton
  8. Clara Furse – CEO of London Stock Exchange
  9. Ken Lewis – CEO of Bank of America
  10. Lakshmi Mittal – CEO of Arcelor Mittal
  11. Shigeru Miyam – video game designer
  12. Rhonda Byrne – author of self-help books
  13. Steven Cohen – businessman
  14. Steve Jobs – director of Apple
  15. Philip Rosedale – creator of Second Life
  16. Ho Ching – CEO of Temasek
  17. Indra Nooyi – CEO of PepsiCo
  18. Stephen Schwarzman – CEO Blackstone Group
  19. Michael Moritz – internet entrepreneur

    Via the Independent