China Daily select Top 10 Newsmakers 2005
(China Daily)
Updated: 2006-01-02 07:42

Long wait pays off for Merkel: Germans experienced a nail-biting two months after the nation's inconclusive legislative elections, which failed to give any party a significant enough share of the vote to form a government.
Not only is Merkel the first citizen of the former East Germany to become chancellor, but this daughter of a Protestant pastor is also Germany's first woman leader.
Merkel may have been dubbed the "Iron Lady" in some quarters, but does she have the mettle to get Germany out of its current economic woes?