Ethiopia’s New President

Ethiopia’s parliament elected Mulatu News Roundup Teshome in October as the country’s new president for a six-year term. The 57-year-old president received his tertiary education in China, where he was awarded degrees up to Ph.D. Before being elected president, Teshome also held government positions, including Speaker of the House of Federation, State Minister of Finance and Economic Development and Minister of Agriculture.

The 2013 edition of the Forbes China Rich List published in October identified a record 168 billionaires in the country. Wang Jianlin, Chairman of Dalian Wanda Group, rose to the top spot with a fortune of 86 billion yuan ($14.1 billion) amid a recovery in China’s real estate market. Chinese beverage tycoon Zong Qinghou, the CEO of Wahaha Co. Ltd., dropped from the top of the list to the number two spot with a total fortune of 68.3 billion yuan ($11.1 billion). According to the list, the number of billionaires surpassed the previous high of 113 from last year, and the total fortune of the 400 richest people in the country has topped 3.4746 trillion yuan ($570 billion), a 35 percent increase from last year.