{"id":27989,"date":"2012-12-07T23:10:09","date_gmt":"2012-12-07T21:10:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=27989"},"modified":"2012-12-07T23:11:15","modified_gmt":"2012-12-07T21:11:15","slug":"the-most-powerful-people-in-the-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/trending\/27989\/the-most-powerful-people-in-the-world\/","title":{"rendered":"The most powerful people in the world"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Forbes has listed its pick of the most powerful people in the world for 2012, with heads of state, financial leaders &#8211; and the Pope himself &#8211; filling in the top ranks.<\/p>\n<p>Every year, Forbes compiles its list of the most powerful people in the world following the guidelines of four criteria:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Must have power over a lot of people;<\/li>\n<li>Must have control over large financial resources;<\/li>\n<li>Are powerful figures in many spheres\/sectors;<\/li>\n<li>Must actively make use of their power.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Each candidate was looked at in their own personal contexts, and the final choices were decided by an average score derived from rankings made by 10 senior Forbes editors.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The top rank<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Topping the list is US President Barack Obama, who retained the top spot from the previous year. In 2012, Obama secured a second term in office of the US president &#8211; making him the commander in chief of one of the world&#8217;s most powerful nations.<\/p>\n<p>Germany&#8217;s chancellor, Angela Merkel is second. Merkel is subsequently also the most powerful woman in the world, according to Forbes&#8217; ranking.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Merkel is the backbone of the 27-member European Union and carries the fate of the Euro on her shoulders; she\u2019s shown her power through a hard-line austerity solution for the European debt crisis,&#8221; Forbes said.<\/p>\n<p>Other heads of state in the top 10 include Russian President Vladimir Putin (#3); King of Suadi Arabia, Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz al Saud (#7); Xi Jinping, General Secretary of China&#8217;s Communist Party (#9); and the UK&#8217;s Prime Minister, David Cameron (#10).<\/p>\n<p>Head of the Roman Catholic Church, Pope Benedict XVI places 5th on the list, being the spiritual leader of more than a billion Catholics, or about one-sixth of the world\u2019s population, according to Forbes.<\/p>\n<p>President of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi (#8) makes an entry into the top 10, while Mark Zuckerburg (#25) drops out of the top 10, where he placed 9th in 2011.<\/p>\n<p>Microsoft founder and chairman, Bill gates retains his crown as the most powerful person in tech, placing 4th, overall.<\/p>\n<div class=\"table-responsive\"><table class=\"table\" width=\"100%\" border=\"1\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"5\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td valign=\"top\" bgcolor=\"#CCCCCC\"><strong>#<\/strong><\/td>\n<td valign=\"top\" bgcolor=\"#CCCCCC\"><strong>Name<\/strong><\/td>\n<td valign=\"top\" bgcolor=\"#CCCCCC\"><strong>Title<\/strong><\/td>\n<td valign=\"top\" bgcolor=\"#CCCCCC\"><strong>Place<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>1<\/td>\n<td>Barack Obama<\/td>\n<td>President<\/td>\n<td>United States<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>2<\/td>\n<td>Angela Merkel<\/td>\n<td>Chancellor<\/td>\n<td>Germany<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>3<\/td>\n<td>Vladimir Putin<\/td>\n<td>President<\/td>\n<td>Russia<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>4<\/td>\n<td>Bill Gates<\/td>\n<td>Co-Chair<\/td>\n<td>Bill &amp; Melinda Gates Foundation<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>5<\/td>\n<td>Pope Benedict XVI<\/td>\n<td>Pope<\/td>\n<td>Roman Catholic Church<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>6<\/td>\n<td>Ben Bernanke<\/td>\n<td>Chairman,<\/td>\n<td>United States Federal Reserve<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>7<\/td>\n<td>Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz al Saud<\/td>\n<td>King<\/td>\n<td>Saudi Arabia<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>8<\/td>\n<td>Mario Draghi<\/td>\n<td>President<\/td>\n<td>European Central Bank<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>9<\/td>\n<td>Xi Jinping<\/td>\n<td>General Secretary<\/td>\n<td>China Communist Party<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>10<\/td>\n<td>David Cameron<\/td>\n<td>Prime Minister<\/td>\n<td>United Kingdom<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table><\/div>\n<p>You can find the full list of <a title=\"Forbes most powerful people in the world\" href=\"http:\/\/www.forbes.com\/powerful-people\/\" target=\"_blank\">Forbes&#8217; 71 most powerful people in the world<\/a> here.<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"my-4\">Related articles<\/h3>\n<p><a title=\"Forbes lists Africa\u2019s power players\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/general\/10779\/forbes-lists-africas-power-players\/\"><strong>Forbes lists Africa\u2019s power players<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a title=\"Richest IT people in South Africa\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/general\/22288\/richest-it-people-in-south-africa\/\"><strong>Richest IT people in South Africa<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong><a title=\"South Africa\u2019s richest people\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/general\/21775\/south-africas-richest-people\/\">South Africa\u2019s richest people<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a title=\"BusinessTech Article\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/general\/10779\/forbes-lists-africas-power-players\/\"><strong>Forbes lists Africa\u2019s power players<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a title=\"BusinessTech Article\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/general\/7464\/forbes-lists-1226-billionaires-around-the-globe\/\"><strong>Forbes lists 1,226 billionaires around the globe<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Forbes has listed its pick of the most powerful people in the world for 2012, with heads of state, financial leaders &#8211; and the Pope himself &#8211; filling in the top ranks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":28010,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[4798,4794,577,4797,1851,1431,1896,26,1898,4799,4796,4795,4800],"class_list":["post-27989","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trending","tag-abdullah-bin-abdul-aziz-al-saud","tag-angela-merkel","tag-barack-obama","tag-ben-bernanke","tag-bill-gates","tag-david-cameron","tag-forbes","tag-headline","tag-list","tag-mario-draghi","tag-pope-benedict-xvi","tag-vladimir-putin","tag-xi-jinping"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27989","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27989"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27989\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28123,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27989\/revisions\/28123"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28010"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}