Barack Obama Suffers Another Defeat as He Is Knocked Off Forbes Power Top Spot
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Hu Jintao, the Chinese president, has been named the most powerful person on Earth knocking Barack Obama off the top spot.

The annual list, compiled by Forbes, the business magazine, places David Cameron, the British prime minister, at seven, behind Angela Merkel, the German chancellor in the list of 68.

Forbes explained that those on the list had been chosen “because, in various ways, they bend the world to their will”.

King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz al Saud of Saudi Arabia came in third behind Mr Jintao and Mr Obama, while Vladimir Putin, the Russian prime minister was fourth, ahead of Dmitry Medvedev, who only came in at 12.

Pope Benedict XVI was in fifth place, while the rest of the top 10 was rounded off by Ben Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve, Sonia Gandhi, the Indian president, and Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Mr Gates finished ahead of Steve Jobs, the CEO of Apple, who was in 17th place.

The list, another blow to the US president, cited his party’s poor performance in the midterm elections. Read on and comment >>> | Friday, November 05, 2010

Only 14 of World's 1,000 Billionaires Are Self-made Women
THE TELEGRAPH: Only 14 of the world's 1,000 billionaires are self-made women, and only nine of them had no help from relatives, a new list has found.

In a list of the world's richest self-made women, American business magazine Forbes published the names of 14 women who have accrued $1 billion or more thanks to their own entrepreneurship rather than inheriting part or all of their fortune.

Seven of the women on the list were Chinese, Harry Potter author JK Rowling was the only British-born woman, and of the fourteen, at least five built their business empires with the help of husbands and brothers or sometimes both.

By contrast, Forbes said that 665 of the world's 1,011 dollar billionaires, including the three wealthiest men on the planet, Carlos Slim, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, were self-made men. That, it said, meant that the 'female billionaires' club' accounted for two per cent of the total number of self-made billionaires.

"All of these self-made female billionaires have impressive personal stories, but the dearth of them is itself a story, and begs the question of why so few?" Forbes wrote. >>> Andrew Osborn in Moscow | Tuesday, June 15, 2010

The World’s Richest Self-made Women >>> | Tuesday, June 15, 2010

If Forbes Can Put a Drug Baron on the List of the Most Powerful, Is It Such an Honour for Obama to Be Number One on That List?
TIMES ONLINE: He is Mexico’s most wanted drug lord, the head of a cartel that has brought billions of dollars’ worth of cocaine into the United States, a man with a $5 million (£3 million) price tag on his head — and he has been named by Forbes magazine as one of the world’s most powerful people.

Joaquin Guzman, known as “El Chapo” or Shorty, took 41st place in the new ranking, ahead of Presidents Medvedev and Sarkozy and Binyamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel. Guzman is the alleged head of the Sinaloa drug cartel that has funnelled up to $19 billion worth of cocaine into the US through tunnels under the border fence.

He was arrested in Mexico on drug and murder charges in 1993 but managed to escape from prison in 2001. Cocaine baron makes it on to magazine's list of world's powerful >>> James Bone in New York | Friday, November 13, 2009

For the Third Year Running, Angela Merkel Tops the Forbes List of the Most Powerful Women in the World
Photo of Angela Merkel, the Chancellor of Germany, courtesy of Google Images
THE GLOBE AND MAIL: BERLIN — German Chancellor Angela Merkel topped Forbes magazine's list of the world's 100 most powerful women for the third year running, while U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice slipped to seventh from fourth last year.

Ms. Merkel, who became Chancellor in November, 2005, was cited by the magazine in its latest edition for her efforts to streamline Europe's biggest economy, increasing the national retirement age and putting more women in senior government posts.

The magazine was impressed with her because she “bulldozes through controversy,” referring to her meeting with the Dalai Lama last year, her chastising of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and her push “to make the euro a bigger player in global financial markets as the dollar wanes.” Merkel Tops Forbes List of Powerful Women >>> Associated Press | August 28, 2008

The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Paperback – Canada) >>>
The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Hardback – Canada) >>>