Obama, Merkel top Forbes' list of world's most powerful people
From saints to sinners, Forbes magazine ranks those who would rule their worlds
The US president leads it, and then there's the Pope, and Angela Merkel, and Facebook's founder, and other global rainmakers on Forbes' ranking of the mightiest earthlings.
But the magazine's 2012 list of the planet's 71 most powerful people also features folks who might raise an eyebrow or two: a Mexican drug baron and the young leader of North Korea, a hermit state assailed for pursuing a nuclear programme at the expense of feeding its poor people.
Last year's No.2 on the list, Chinese President Hu Jintao , is among the heavyweights off the list altogether this time because he's on his way out of office. His successor, Communist Party general secretary Xi Jinping , is the first Chinese on the list at No.9, one place behind Mario Draghi, president of the European Central Bank, but one place ahead of British Prime Minister David Cameron.
Chinese Vice-Premier Li Keqiang appears at No.13, while Li Ka-shing is the first of Hong Kong's power players deemed worthy of the list. He appears at No.31, just one place behind UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. The other Hong Kong figure is Margaret Chan Fung Fu-chun, director general of the World Health Organisation, ranked at No.58.
The ranking features 71 names because there are an estimated 7.1 billion people in the world and thus the ranking works out to one very heavy hitter for every 100 million people. By that reckoning, Hong Kong is punching about 30 times above its weight.