The Pope gets in at #5 and UK PM at #7
Chinese President Hu Jintao has replaced President Barack Obama at the top of Forbes magazine’s annual list of “The Most Powerful People in the World.”
Obama headed the list last year, followed by the Chinese leader.
Forbes describes Hu as: “Paramount political leader of more people than anyone else on the planet; exercises near dictatorial control over 1.3 billion people, one-fifth of world’s population. Unlike Western counterparts, Hu can divert rivers, build cities, jail dissidents and censor Internet without meddling from pesky bureaucrats, courts.”
As for No. 2 on the list, Forbes states: “Obama’s Democrats suffered a mighty blow in U.S. midterm elections, with the president decisively losing support of the House of Representatives, and barely holding onto the Senate. It’s quite a come-down for last year’s most powerful person, who after enacting widespread reforms in his first two years in office will be hard-pressed to implement his agenda in the next two.”
Next on the list is Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz al Saud, King of Saudi Arabia: “Absolute ruler of desert kingdom that contains the world’s largest crude oil reserves, two holiest sites in Islam.”
Rounding out the top 10 are Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, Pope Benedict XVI, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, Indian National Congress President Sonia Gandhi, and Bill Gates, co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Others on the list of 68 people are News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch (No. 13), Apple CEO Steve Jobs (17), Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (20), Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (24), Iranian Grand Ayatollah Ali Hoseini-Khamenei (26), and al-Qaida founder Osama bin Laden (57).
