The Statesman's "Who's Who" List of 2007
Austin-American Statesman: Who's who in 2007 - A look at a few notables worth watching this year
Gordon Brown, Chancellor of the Exchequer, Great Britain
Vladimir Putin's successor, Russia
Segolene Royal, Socialist Party leader, France
Muqtada al-Sadr, Shiite cleric, Iraq
Tariq al-Hashemi, Vice president, Iraq
Mahmoud Abbas, President, Palestinian Authority
Hassan Nasrallah, Leader of Hezbollah, Lebanon
Ami Ayalon, Politician and peace activist & former admiral, Israel
Mohammad Ali Alabbar, Tycoon and visionary, Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Felipe Calderon, President, Mexico
Hugo Chavez, President, Venezuela
Fidel Castro, President, Cuba
Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman, Drug cartel leader, Mexico
Ban Ki-Moon, U.N. secretary-general, South Korea
Muhammad Yunus, Founder and director of Grameen Bank, Bangladesh
Shinzo Abe, Prime minister, Japan
Margaret Chan, Director-general of the World Health Organization, Hong Kong
Zackie Achmat, AIDS activist, South Africa
Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, President, Liberia
Good gawd, what a generally depressing list of characters. They're despots, despots-to-be, or soon-to-be-ex-despots; hopelessly overwhelmed leaders tasked by swaths of society to defuse long-standing conflicts or fix looming national and regional emergencies; or deal-swindling criminals working with the tacit approval of corrupt governments.