The “Princes of the Church” get ready to pick a new boss, China might scrape of an old barnacle from the past, and we’ll peek at the world’s wealthiest people. 

Roman Catholic Cardinals in Rome began discussions about how to choose the next pope.  But they haven’t publicly set a date for when that will happen.  The Conclave to replace Benedict XVI is expected to start sometime next week.

China’s National Peoples’ Congress is set to begin today, amid calls to do away with the infamous “re-education through work” camps.  Critics say the extra-judicial punishment system set up by Mao Zedong in the 1950s have people living in fear and lead to abuses of power.  350 such camps still exist in China, with punishments meted out by local officials with no accountability, the defendants having no access to legal representation.

Ghana is announcing plans to build Africa’s “Silicon Savannah”.  President John Mahama wants the $10 Billion “Hope City” to go up in 3 years.  The IT hub is planned to exploy 50 thousand people and house 25 thousand of them.  The city will have 7 towers, one of them a 75-storey, 270 meter building expected to be Africa’s tallest.

Kenyan voters turned out in massive numbers for that country’s important elections.  It wasn’t entirely peaceful as separatists used machetes to attack people in queue.  More than a thousand people were killed in the 2007 presidential election.  This is the first balloting since that time.

Mexican telecom tycoon Carlos Slim tops the Forbes list of the world’s richest.  He’s reportedly worth $73 Billion, and is followed by Microsoft’s Bill Gates and Zara fashion chain head Amancio Ortega.  Australia and Georgina Rinehart don’t even make the list until #36.