Chinese President Xi Jinping was ranked first in the Forbes' most powerful list this year while Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was eighth. EPA/ AP
Chinese President Xi Jinping was ranked first in the Forbes' most powerful list this year while Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was eighth. EPA/ AP
Chinese President Xi Jinping was ranked first in the Forbes' most powerful list this year while Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was eighth. EPA/ AP
Chinese President Xi Jinping was ranked first in the Forbes' most powerful list this year while Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was eighth. EPA/ AP

China's Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin and Saudi Crown Prince in Forbes' most powerful list


James Langton
  • English
  • Arabic

It could a sign of the global power struggle to come. China’s leader Xi Jinping has pushed out Russia’s Vladimir Putin from top spot in the latest list of the world’s most powerful people.

In a further sign of changing times, the annual survey by Forbes magazine sees US President Donald Trump slump to third.

Among the newcomers, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia makes the top ten in eighth place, and at 32 is also the youngest.

With 75 names on the list, the President, Sheikh Khalifa, retains his place at 43rd, two places ahead of Egypt’s President el-Sisi.

Inclusion on the list is decided by a complex equation which includes military might, economic resources, and an individual’s power to influence others.

Pope Francis, whose army consists of Vatican guards armed with halberds, and lives in the world’s smallest country, nevertheless guides the spiritual needs of 1.3 billion members of the Roman Catholic Church, and sits in sixth place.

From outside the world of politics, fifth placed Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, outranks Microsoft’s Bill Gates in seventh.

Angela Merkel, the German chancellor is fourth and the highest placed woman in a list still dominated by men. Other powerful females include the British prime minister Theresa May, who sits in 14th place despite her struggles with Brexit, and Christine Legard of the International Monetary Fund at 22nd.

One individual whose place on the next list must be doubtful is Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi, the self-proclaimed leader of the rapidly diminishing Islamic State. As the hunted leader of a terrorist organisation, he will be lucky to see 2019, let alone retain his place as 73rd in the ranks of the world’s most powerful.

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World's top 10 richest for 2018 revealed as seven from UAE make Forbes' billionaires list

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For the moment, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei and President Bashar Al Assad remain on the list, respectively 17 and 62.

Other notable members of the power club include Kim Jong-un, supreme leader of North Korea, in 36th place, Tesla chief Elon Musk in 25th and Indian prime minister Narendra Modi in ninth.

At the age of 89, Hong Kong businessman Li Ka-shing is the oldest, and with a fortune of US$34 billion, one of the wealthiest.

For the 2018 list there are 17 new names, including President Macron of France and Reed Hastings of Netflix.

Forbes does not name the 17 unfortunates who have slipped from the ranks of the powerful, but only 15 individuals can claim to have been present since the first list was issued in 2009.

As of 2018 they do not include President Obama, or Rex Tillerson, the former CEO of ExxonMobil and who must have hoped to retain his place after being appointed US Secretary of State in early 2017 – until President Trump fired him in March.

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Sterling (14'), Bernardo Silva (64')

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Infiniti QX80 specs

Engine: twin-turbocharged 3.5-liter V6

Power: 450hp

Torque: 700Nm

Price: From Dh450,000, Autograph model from Dh510,000

Available: Now

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COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Akeed

Based: Muscat

Launch year: 2018

Number of employees: 40

Sector: Online food delivery

Funding: Raised $3.2m since inception 

MOUNTAINHEAD REVIEW

Starring: Ramy Youssef, Steve Carell, Jason Schwartzman

Director: Jesse Armstrong

Rating: 3.5/5

The President's Cake

Director: Hasan Hadi

Starring: Baneen Ahmad Nayyef, Waheed Thabet Khreibat, Sajad Mohamad Qasem 

Rating: 4/5

Our family matters legal consultant

Name: Hassan Mohsen Elhais

Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.

FIXTURES

Thu Mar 15 – West Indies v Afghanistan, UAE v Scotland
Fri Mar 16 – Ireland v Zimbabwe
Sun Mar 18 – Ireland v Scotland
Mon Mar 19 – West Indies v Zimbabwe
Tue Mar 20 – UAE v Afghanistan
Wed Mar 21 – West Indies v Scotland
Thu Mar 22 – UAE v Zimbabwe
Fri Mar 23 – Ireland v Afghanistan

The top two teams qualify for the World Cup

Classification matches
The top-placed side out of Papua New Guinea, Hong Kong or Nepal will be granted one-day international status. UAE and Scotland have already won ODI status, having qualified for the Super Six.

Thu Mar 15 – Netherlands v Hong Kong, PNG v Nepal
Sat Mar 17 – 7th-8th place playoff, 9th-10th place playoff

UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
MATCH INFO

Manchester United v Brighton, Sunday, 6pm UAE

Tamkeen's offering
  • Option 1: 70% in year 1, 50% in year 2, 30% in year 3
  • Option 2: 50% across three years
  • Option 3: 30% across five years 

Best Academy: Ajax and Benfica

Best Agent: Jorge Mendes

Best Club : Liverpool   

 Best Coach: Jurgen Klopp (Liverpool)  

 Best Goalkeeper: Alisson Becker

 Best Men’s Player: Cristiano Ronaldo

 Best Partnership of the Year Award by SportBusiness: Manchester City and SAP

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Best Sporting Director: Andrea Berta (Atletico Madrid)

Best Women's Player:  Lucy Bronze

Best Young Arab Player: Achraf Hakimi

 Kooora – Best Arab Club: Al Hilal (Saudi Arabia)

 Kooora – Best Arab Player: Abderrazak Hamdallah (Al-Nassr FC, Saudi Arabia)

 Player Career Award: Miralem Pjanic and Ryan Giggs

Our legal consultant

Name: Dr Hassan Mohsen Elhais

Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.

Best Foreign Language Film nominees

Capernaum (Lebanon)

Cold War (Poland)

Never Look Away (Germany)

Roma (Mexico)

Shoplifters (Japan)

The rules on fostering in the UAE

A foster couple or family must:

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  • not be younger than 25 years old
  • not have been convicted of offences or crimes involving moral turpitude
  • be free of infectious diseases or psychological and mental disorders
  • have the ability to support its members and the foster child financially
  • undertake to treat and raise the child in a proper manner and take care of his or her health and well-being
  • A single, divorced or widowed Muslim Emirati female, residing in the UAE may apply to foster a child if she is at least 30 years old and able to support the child financially
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Starring: Mahmoud Bakri, Aram Sabbah, Mohammad Alsurafa

Rating: 4.5/5

The specs

Engine: 3.9-litre twin-turbo V8
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Six large-scale objects on show
  • Concrete wall and windows from the now demolished Robin Hood Gardens housing estate in Poplar
  • The 17th Century Agra Colonnade, from the bathhouse of the fort of Agra in India
  • A stagecloth for The Ballet Russes that is 10m high – the largest Picasso in the world
  • Frank Lloyd Wright’s 1930s Kaufmann Office
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  • Torrijos Palace dome
Five famous companies founded by teens

There are numerous success stories of teen businesses that were created in college dorm rooms and other modest circumstances. Below are some of the most recognisable names in the industry:

  1. Facebook: Mark Zuckerberg and his friends started Facebook when he was a 19-year-old Harvard undergraduate. 
  2. Dell: When Michael Dell was an undergraduate student at Texas University in 1984, he started upgrading computers for profit. He starting working full-time on his business when he was 19. Eventually, his company became the Dell Computer Corporation and then Dell Inc. 
  3. Subway: Fred DeLuca opened the first Subway restaurant when he was 17. In 1965, Mr DeLuca needed extra money for college, so he decided to open his own business. Peter Buck, a family friend, lent him $1,000 and together, they opened Pete’s Super Submarines. A few years later, the company was rebranded and called Subway. 
  4. Mashable: In 2005, Pete Cashmore created Mashable in Scotland when he was a teenager. The site was then a technology blog. Over the next few decades, Mr Cashmore has turned Mashable into a global media company.
  5. Oculus VR: Palmer Luckey founded Oculus VR in June 2012, when he was 19. In August that year, Oculus launched its Kickstarter campaign and raised more than $1 million in three days. Facebook bought Oculus for $2 billion two years later.

Coal Black Mornings

Brett Anderson

Little Brown Book Group 

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