Playwright, actor and filmmaker Tyler Perry, media mogul Rupert Murdoch, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg are on Time magazine's list of the world's 100 most influential people.

The 2008 list, appearing on the magazine's website yesterday and on newsstands today, also includes US presidential contenders Barack Obama, John McCain and Hillary Clinton. Obama and Clinton made the list last year. Iraq Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and President George W. Bush also are named.

The 2008 list includes more than three times as many men as women and draws nominees from 23 countries, a magazine spokeswoman said.

In an article he wrote for the magazine, former US President Bill Clinton said he advised his friend Blair to take some time off to spend with his family and make a list of issues he wanted to pursue after stepping down in 2007.

"Tony listened to my advice graciously but ignored it completely by immediately accepting a new job as Middle East envoy for the Quartet," Clinton wrote. The announcement of Blair's appointment to the so-called "Quartet" of Mideast peacemakers - the United States, the European Union, the United Nations and Russia - came hours after his resignation.

It is Blair's first time on Time's 100 list; his successor, Gordon Brown, made the list in 2005.

Others on the list include Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Chinese President Hu Jintao, African National Congress President Jacob Zuma, Cuban blogger Yoani Sanchez, Radio Publique Africaine founder Alexis Sinduhije, singer Mariah Carey and media maven Oprah Winfrey, who has made the list five times, more often than anyone else.

(Agencies via China Daily May 2, 2008)