LA Weekly has an interesting story about Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue's purchase of a $35 million home in Malibu. He is slated to take over his father's role as ruthless dictator of Equatorial Guinea. (Official country website here)
The exotic-car-loving playboy newcomer to the exclusive cliff above Malibu Pier, heir to one of the most ruthless dictators in the world, now sits behind two guard shacks with the likes of Dick van Dyke, James Cameron, Larry Hagman, Mel Gibson and other biggies.
Perhaps his politically active Malibu neighbors don't know that Equatorial Guinea, on the west coast of Africa, with only 540,000 inhabitants, has neither a free press nor free speech. Its people are among the world's poorest, surviving on less than $1 a day, yet because of plentiful oil and natural gas, the country is the second richest in gross domestic product per capita, just behind wealthy Luxembourg.
Reader comment:
Hannes says:
Equatorial Guinea has not the second highest GDP per Capita. In nominal terms it comes out on place 59, and when measured at Purchasing Power Parity (PPP), which takes into account the different price levels in countries, so that countries with a lower price level score higher, it comes out on place 42.
