Putin Tops List of Most Powerful People

MOSCOW, January 4 (RIA Novosti) - An article in leading US magazine Foreign Policy has named Putin as the most powerful person in the world, 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.

After the top spot's empty chair, Putin comes in second. “In Russia's personalized system, this is still the person who counts. He isn't as popular as he used to be, and his country has no Soviet-scale clout or influence, but no one on the planet has consolidated more domestic and regional power than Putin,” the magazine said.

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 Secretary General Xi Jinping (7), Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (8), International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde (also 8) and Saudi King Abdullah Bin Abd al-Aziz (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.

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