Le Luong Minh among 500 most powerful people on planet TUOITRENEWS   ASEAN Secretary General Le Luong Minh.   ASEAN Secretary General Le Luong Minh is the sole Vietnamese representative finding a place in the prestigious Foreign Policy magazine's list of the 500 most powerful people in the world. The list is dominated by the US as 141 Americans, including President Barack Obama and software mogul Bill Gates, made it to the top 500. Meanwhile, China has more than 30 people included in the list. Chinese President Xi Jinping, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, and Indian leader Manmohan Singh are among the most noticeable Asian names on the list. North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un also figures in the list. “Is it possible to identify the 500 most powerful individuals on the planet — one in 14 million? That’s what we tried to do with the inaugural FP Power Map, our inventory of the people who control the commanding heights of the industries that run the world, from politics to high finance, media to energy, warfare to religion,” the Foreign Policy magazine said. Vietnamese veteran diplomat Le Luong Minh, 61, officially took leadership of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) at a handover ceremony held at ASEAN head office in Jakarta on January 9, 2013. The new ASEAN Secretary General drafted his major duties for a five-year term (2013-2017) including an overall plan to build an ASEAN community in terms of politics and security and to continue pushing for negotiations with China to reach a consensus on a code of conduct for the East Sea (COC) based on the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the East Sea (DOC), ASEAN six-point Principles with China's policy on the East Sea, and Joint Declaration of ASEAN and China. Minh is the first Vietnamese to head ASEAN. Minh was elected to head ASEAN at 21st ASEAN Summit held in Phnom Penh, Cambodia in November, 2011. Minh graduated from Diplomatic Academy of Vietnam and Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, India.  He used to be head of Vietnam’s permanent delegation at the United Nations and Vietnam's Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs.