São Paulo – The list of 70 most powerful people in the world, published last week by the United States-based Forbes magazine, includes three Arab politicians and the Brazilian president, Dilma Rousseff, among the most powerful people in the planet.
Placed sixth in the overall ranking, Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud, the king of Saudi Arabia, was highlighted by the publication for his efforts to pursue an agenda of moderate reform in his country.
“. Recently granted women the right to vote in local elections and has consistently nudged the nation’s educational system out from under clerical control,” says Forbes.
Ali Al-Naimi, the Saudi minister of Petroleum, ranks 31st. Naimi joined the Saudi Aramco oil company at age 12, in 1947. He went to school in the United States and became the company’s CEO. Now, he is the most powerful man in the global oil industry.
Among his actions, Forbes points out that he increased Saudi oil production to the highest level in the last decades, to make up for the decline in international supply caused by the Libyan war.
The last Arab in the list is Khalifa Bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, the United Arab Emirates president and Abu Dhabi emir, at 53rd. Nahyan controls 97.8 billion barrels of proven oil reserves, in addition to heading the Abu Dhabi Investment Agency (Adia), the world’s largest sovereign fund, with assets estimated at US$ 630 billion.
The Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff ranks 22nd in the list, which highlights the “house cleaning” she promoted among her ministers. “Rousseff spent her first year in office cleaning house – dismissing five cabinet ministers and dozens of officials charged with corruption,” the magazine claims. As lowlights, Forbes points out the delay and high costs of ongoing works for the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympics.
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum