For the second year in a row, Michael Jackson has topped Forbes magazine‘s list of top-earning dead celebrities.

The King of Pop, who died two years ago at the age of 50, brought in $170 million for his estate over the past 12 months, enough to place him ahead of every other pop music act of the past year — both living and dead — except for Irish rock band U2.

Elvis came in second place, earning $55 million, thanks to his songbook and a hit Las Vegas stage production featuring his tunes mounted by Cirque de Soleil.

Qatar surpassed Luxembourg as the world’s richest nation in 2010 and is set to pull away with wealth that’s almost twice that of the US.

The IMF’s Chart of the Day shows Qatar’s gross domestic product per capita at $88,221 in 2010, beating Luxembourg for the top spot.

The figure may reach $111,963 by 2016, surpassing Luxembourg’s $94,621 and Singapore’s $70,992, the IMF said.

Forbes magazine has released its annual Fictional 15, which ranks the richest characters from television, film, comics and books.

On top of the list is Scrooge McDuck, a billionaire bird known for storing a fortune in gold coins inside a massive Duckburg “money bin.”

With the price of gold up more than 30% year over year, the quacking Croesus’ net worth soared to $44.1 billion.

Carlos Slim Helu remained the world’s richest person, but Asia is where today’s big money is flowing, Forbes magazine said in its 2011 list of the world’s billionaires.

Slim, who is almost unknown to the general public outside Mexico, weighed in at a staggering $74 billion of net wealth thanks to his telecoms empire. Already the top dog last year, he increased his fortune by $20.5 billion dollars.

In a now familiar second place was Microsoft founder Bill Gates with $56 billion. The relatively lowly ranking reflected his enormous philanthropic give-aways over the year.

The New York Post picks up a Guardian report that embattled Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak could be the richest man in the world.

Worth about $70 billion, the Post says most of his money is stashed in foreign bank accounts and “shadowy real-estate holdings.”

That sum makes Mubarak more wealthy than Mexico’s Carlos Slim and Bill Gates, whose fortunes clock in at $53.5 billion and $53 billion, respectively.

Hurun Research Institute has released the Hurun Rich List 2010, the twelfth annual ranking of the richest individuals in China.

The list names 1,363 individuals with a personal wealth of 1 billion yuan (US$150 million), up from 1,000 last year and just 24 a decade ago.

China – the world’s second largest economy – has the fastest growing wealthy population in the world, according to a report by Merrill Lynch and Capgemini.

65-year old Zong Qinghou of Wahaha is the richest man in China with a personal fortune of US$12 billion.