Time magazine has named US President Barack Obama as its Person of the Year for 2012 - the second time it has accorded him the accolade.
Obama now not only has a reelection as America's first black president and a Nobel peace prize under his belt, but he beat fancied runners-up including brave Pakistani girls' rights activist Malala Yousafzai, to be enshrined again as Time's dominant personality of the year.
The venerable American news magazine put Obama on its cover, striking a thoughtful, statuesque pose, and said he deserved the honour as "the symbol and in some ways the architect of this new America".
The magazine lauded Obama's campaigning prowess, noting he was the first president since Franklin Delano Roosevelt to win more than 50 per cent of the vote in two straight elections and the first president since 1940 to be re-elected despite a jobless rate above 7.5 per cent.
Obama beat Republican Mitt Romney soundly in last month's election to win a second four-year term, despite presiding over a chronic economic slump.
"In 2012, he found and forged a new majority, turned weakness into opportunity and sought, amid great adversity, to create a more perfect union," said Time, which had named Obama Person of the Year in 2008 when he won his historic first presidential election.