Putin tops US magazine's list of most powerful people
Russian President Vladimir Putin is the most powerful person in the world, according to an article published in leading US magazine Foreign Policy, Russian news agency RIA Novosti reported.
Putin comes in second in the ranking, with the top spot left empty.
The author, Ian Bremmer, President of the Eurasia Group, explains why no one is ranked first as being because "in a G-Zero world, everyone is waiting for someone else to shoulder responsibility for the world's toughest and most dangerous challenges."
He based the ranking on "a quick, informal survey around Eurasia Group on power and global politics."
"The leaders you'll see named further down this list are preoccupied with local and regional problems and don't have the interest and leverage needed to take on a growing list of transnational problems," he wrote.
The Russian president is followed by US Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke, who is ranked third, German Chancellor Angela Merkel (4) and US President Barack Obama in fifth place.
Then come European Central Bank head Mario Draghi (6), Chinese Communist Party General Secretary Xi Jinping (7), Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (8), International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde (also 8) and Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz (10).
This article has been widely reported in the Russian media as being a Foreign Policy ranking that names Putin as "the most influential person in the world," although the article itself makes no such claim, according to the RIA Novosti website.