There are seven billion people on the planet. These are the 10 that matter. The Most Powerful People ranking takes into account four factors.
- Measured how many people a person has power over.
- Looked at the financial resources controlled by each candidate, whether that is revenues (for a company), GDP (for a country) or net worth (for a billionaire).
- Is a candidate influential in more than one arena, or sphere?
- Consideration to how actively the candidates wield their power. In all, 70 people made the final list, one for every 100 million people on the planet.
10. David Cameron
Title: Prime Minister, United Kingdom
Age: 45
Once hailed as the second coming of Margaret Thatcher, the British P.M. now serves as the U.K.’s punching bag. Cameron faces a splintering coalition and rebellion from within as Conservatives balk at his refusal to withdraw from or renegotiate Britain’s relationship with the EU.
2011 lowlight: Phone-hacking scandal engulfs Cameron, who had hired former News of the World editor Andrew Coulson, now a criminal suspect, even after revelations of the tabloid’s snooping began emerging.
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9. Mark Zuckerberg
Title: Founder, Facebook
Age: 27
What the CIA failed to do in 60 years, Zuck has done in seven: knowing what 800 million people — more than 10 per cent of the world’s population — think, read and listen to, plus who they know, what they like and where they live, travel, vote, shop and worship. Zuckerberg, a Harvard dropout, is now creating his own monetary system, Facebook Credits, to facilitate transactions and profits. With a net worth of $17.5 billion, he is now America’s 14th-richest man.
2011 highlight: The movie inspired by his life, “The Social Network,” which depicts Zuckerberg as a coldhearted dweeb, won three Oscars.
8. Ben Bernanke
Title: Chairman, Federal Reserve
Age: 57 
After two rounds of quantitative easing, the last of which injected some $600 billion into the U.S. economy, Bernanke is not ruling out QE3, yet another round of money creation. Most recently, Bernanke launched Operation Twist, an attempt to drive long-term interest rates even lower by manipulating the Fed’s $1.7 trillion portfolio of U.S. government debt.
2011 lowlight: All of the GOP presidential candidates have vowed that they will fire Bernanke if elected.
7. Pope Benedict XVI
Title: Pope, Roman Catholic Church
Age: 84
The spiritual leader to one-sixth of the world’s population — 1.2 billion souls — delivers the final word on matters of abortion, gay marriage, female priests and, most recently, Occupy Wall Street. In October the Vatican called for a supranational authority to oversee the global economy: “To function correctly the economy needs ethics, and not just of any kind but one that is people-centred.”
2011 lowlight: Two victim groups asked the International Criminal Court to investigate and prosecute Pope Benedict XVI for covering up instances of sexual abuse.
6. Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz al Saud
Title: King, Saudi Arabia
Age: 87
One of the world’s few remaining absolute monarchs, King Abdullah has continued to pursue an agenda of moderate reform in the desert kingdom that contains 20 per cent of the world’s known oil reserves and Islam’s two holiest sites. He recently granted women the right to vote in local elections and has consistently nudged the nation’s educational system out from under clerical control. Yet al Saud is no liberal: He opposed the Arab Spring, spending more than $130 billion on social projects designed to quell any domestic pro-democracy movement.
2011 lowlight: His younger brother, Crown Prince Sultan, died in October. Half-brother Prince Naif is the likely successor.
5. Bill Gates
Title: Co-Chair, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Age: 56
Microsoft’s software wizard and the world’s second-richest man is having the most productive midlife crisis in history. His focus on creating, promoting and distributing vaccines is having a massive impact on global health. Gates’ goal is to eliminate infectious disease as a major cause of death in his lifetime. He may succeed.
2011 highlight: Malaria vaccine he backed recently passed a key clinical trial. The vaccine has the potential to save millions of lives.
4. Angela Merkel
Title: Chancellor, Germany
Age: 57
The world’s most powerful woman heads Europe’s most vibrant economy and is widely viewed as the de facto leader of the EU. A recent poll in France showed that the French have more faith in Germany’s leader (46 per cent) than in their own president, Nicolas Sarkozy (33 per cent). However, many believe that Germany must take bolder measures toward resolving the euro zone debt crisis, despite the political risks to Merkel’s ruling coalition and that half-measures will not do.
2011 lowlight: Refused to support NATO air strikes in Libya.
3. Hu Jintao
Title: President, People’s Republic of China
Age: 68
Hu holds all three offices required to be considered China’s Paramount Leader: Communist Party General Secretary, President and Commander in Chief. But as part of a well-orchestrated succession plan, he will gradually give up his titles over the next few years, starting with the most important one — General Secretary — next year. His presumed successor, Xi Jinping, will assume the presidency a year later.
2011 lowlight: Chinese media exposed a government cover-up of a deadly bullet train crash in July.
2. Vladimir Putin
Title: Prime Minister, Russia
Age: 59
Loyal lapdog Dmitry Medvedev recently announced he will not be seeking re-election as Russian president, setting up his mentor, Putin, for the job some would argue he never really gave up. Assuming that he serves two more terms, the increasingly autocratic Putin will be in office until 2024. Take that, Stalin!
2011 highlight: Push for new Eurasian economic union of Russia and several former Soviet republics, including Kazakhstan, Belarus and Ukraine, by 2015.
1. Barack Obama
Title: President, USA
Age: 50
Sure, his jobs bill was gutted, his debt-ceiling negotiating was derided and his popularity has plummeted, endangering his re-election, but Obama regains his position as the most powerful person on the planet this year. Why? Despite faddish American declinism, the U.S. remains, indisputably, the most powerful nation in the world, with the largest, most innovative economy and the deadliest military. Plus, Obama’s only legitimate rival for the title, last year’s number one, Chinese President Hu Jintao, is diminishing in influence as he gives up political office.
2011 highlight: Took out the world’s deadliest terrorist in May.
