Chinua Achebe, 74, Nigeria, novelist
Yusuf al-Qaradawi, 79 - Egypt, cleric
Ali al-Sistani, 75 - Iran/Iraq, cleric
Ayaan Hirsi Ali, 35 - (female) Somalia/Netherlands, politician
Jean Baudrillard, 76 - France, philosopher/cultural theorist
Gary Becker, 75 - US, economist
Pope Benedict XVI, 78 - Vatican, religious leader
Jagdish Bhagwati, 70 - India/US, economist
Fernando Henrique Cardoso, 74 - Brazil, sociologist/former president
Noam Chomsky, 76 - US, linguist/author/activist
JM Coetzee, 65 - South Africa, novelist
Gordon Conway, 66 - Britain, agricultural ecologist
Robert Cooper, - Britain, diplomat and writer
Richard Dawkins, 64 - Britain, biologist and polemicist
Hernando De Soto, 64 - Peru, economist
Pavol Demes, - Slovakia, political analyst
Daniel Dennett, 63 - US, philosopher
Kemal Dervis, 56 - Turkey, head of United Nations Development Programme
Jared Diamond, 68 - US, geohistorian
Freeman Dyson, 81 - US, physicist
Shirin Ebadi, 58 - (female) Iran, human rights activist
Umberto Eco, 73 - Italy, philosopher and novelist
Paul Ekman, 71 - US, anthropologist
Fan Gang, 52 - China, economist
Niall Ferguson, 41 - Britain, historian
Alain Finkielkraut, 56 - France, essayist and philosopher
Thomas Friedman, 52 - US, journalist and author
Francis Fukuyama, 53 - US, political scientist and author
Gao Xingjian, 65 - China, novelist
Howard Gardner, 62 - US, psychologist
Timothy Garton Ash, 50 - Britain, historian and commentator
Henry Louis Gates Jr., 55 - US, theorist of race
Clifford Geertz, 79 - US, anthropologist
Neil Gershenfeld - US, physicist and computer scientist
Anthony Giddens, 67 - Britain, social and political theorist Germaine Greer, 66 - (female) Australia/Britain, writer and academic
Ha Jin, 49 - China, novelist
Jürgen Habermas, 76 - Germany, philosopher
Václav Havel, 69 - Czech Republic, playwright/statesman
Christopher Hitchens, 56 - Britain/US, essayist and contrarian
Eric Hobsbawm, 88 - Britain, historian
Robert Hughes, 67 - Australia, art critic
Samuel Huntington, 78 - US, political scientist
Michael Ignatieff, 58 - Canada, human rights theorist
Shintaro Ishihara, 72 - Japan, politician and author
Robert Kagan, 47 - US, political commentator
Daniel Kahnemann, 71 - Israel, psychologist
Sergei Karaganov, 53 - Russia, foreign policy analyst
Paul Kennedy, 59 - Britain/US, historian
Gilles Kepel, 50 - France, expert on Islam
Naomi Klein, 35 - (female) Canada, anti-globalisation journalist
Rem Koolhaas, 61 - Netherlands, architect
Enrique Krauze, 58 - Mexico, historian
Julia Kristeva, 64 - (female) France, philosopher and feminist
Paul Krugman, 52 - US, economist and commentator
Hans Küng, 77 - Switzerland, theologian
Jaron Lanier, 45 - US, virtual reality pioneer
Lawrence Lessig, 44 - US, law scholar
Bernard Lewis, 89 - Britain/US, historian
Mario Vargas Llosa, 69 - Peru, novelist and politician
BjØrn Lomborg, 40 - Denmark, environmental sceptic
James Lovelock, 86 - Britain, scientist and Gaia theorist
Kishore Mahbubani, 57 - Singapore, diplomat and author
Ali Mazrui, 72 - Kenya, political scientist
Sunita Narain, 44 - (female) India, developmental environmentalist
Antonio Negri, 72 - Italy, philosopher and activist
Martha Nussbaum, 58 - (female) US, philosopher
Sari Nusseibeh, 55 - Palestine, philosopher/diplomat
Kenichi Ohmae, 62 - Japan, management theorist
Amos Oz, 66 - Israel, novelist
Camille Paglia, 58 - (female) US, critic and feminist
Orhan Pamuk, 53 - Turkey, novelist
Steven Pinker, 51 - US, linguist
Richard Posner, 66 - US, judge and author
Pramoedya Ananta Toer, 80 - Indonesia, author and dissident
Robert Putnam, 64 - US, political scientist
Tariq Ramadan, 43 - Switzerland, writer on Islam
Martin Rees, 63 - Britain, astrophysicist
Richard Rorty, 73 - US, philosopher
Salman Rushdie, 58 - Britain, novelist and commentator
Jeffrey Sachs, 51 - US, development economist
Elaine Scarry, 59 - (female) US, literary theorist
Amartya Sen, 71 - India, economist and author
Peter Singer, 59 - Australia, philosopher
Peter Sloterdijk, 58 - Germany, philosopher
Abdolkarim Soroush, 60 - Iran, scientist/religious theorist
Wole Soyinka, 71 - Nigeria, playwright and activist
Larry Summers, 51 - US, economist and academic
Harold Varmus, 64 - US, medical scientist
Craig Venter, 59 - US, biologist
Michael Walzer, 70 - US, political theorist
Florence Wambugu, 52 - (female) Kenya, plant virologist
Wang Jisi, 57 - China, foreign policy analyst
Steven Weinberg, 72 - US, physicist
EO Wilson, 76 - US, biologist
James Q Wilson, 74 - US, criminologist
Paul Wolfowitz, 61 - US, head of World Bank
Fareed Zakaria, 41 - US, journalist and author
Zheng Bijian, 73 - China, political scientist
Slavoj Zizek, 56 - Slovenia, sociologist/philosopher