Mum's the word at 'Time' after mother nature of all years

NEW YORK - Time magazine's annual 'Person of the Year' for 2005 may not be a person at all.

Mother Nature topped the unofficial list of nominees to grace the cover of its December 19 issue.

Time does not prepare or publish a formal list of nominees; instead, its editors make the selection privately after reporting by the staff. The choice of "the person or persons who most affected the news and our lives, for good or for ill, and embodied what was important about the year, for better or for worse" is supposed to stay secret. Mother Nature - encompassing natural disasters from the Asian tsunami to Hurricane Katrina and the Pakistan earthquake - evokes issues ranging from presidential politics to race to oil to infrastructure and leadership, said NBC news anchor Brian Williams.

Other suggestions included terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Microsoft founder Bill Gates, Pope Benedict, and author JK Rowling.

- REUTERS