Hasina among top female leaders

Prime minister Sheikh Hasina seventh in a list of top 12 female leaders in the world in 2011. Newly elected prime minister of Thailand Yingluck Shinawatra topped the list published on the popular magazine's website on Aug 5. The leaders are Yingluck, chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel, president of Argentina Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, president of Brazil Dilma Rousseff, prime minister of Australia Julia Gillard, president of Liberia Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Hasina, prime minister of Iceland Johanna Sigurdardottir, president of Costa Rica Laura Chinchilla, president of Finland Tarja Halonen, president of Lithuania Dalia Grybauskaite and prime minister of Trinidad and Tobago Kamla Persad-Bissessar. About 63-year-old Hasina, the US-based magazine says she has a history of surviving brutal attacks including one in 1975 when her father independence leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was assassinated along with most of her family members. She lost 17 family members on Aug 15, 1975 during an army coup it says. , Hasina, then 28, survived as she was abroad, it adds. She later survived a grenade attack that killed more than 20 people, dodging the bullets that sprayed her fleeing car, it says. Hasina, also the president of Awami League party, was first elected prime minister in 1996. In a late 2008 election, her party won 230 in the 300-seat parliament, and the consummate survivor found herself prime minister — again, it says.

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