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

Outspoken leader: The surprise winner of June's Iranian presidential election, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad defeated veteran politician and former President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.
Ahmadinejad has never been far from controversy since his election victory  facing allegations that he was one of the leaders of the 1979 Iran hostage crisis in which 66 US diplomats and citizens were held for 444 days at the US embassy in Teheran.
The Iranian president later attracted criticism for remarks in which he called for Israel to be "wiped off the map" or moved to another part of the world.