New York - Barack Obama on Wednesday became the first sitting US president to slide out of the top two power rankings as published by Forbes, beaten not just by Vladimir Putin but also Angela Merkel.
The magazine published its seventh annual ranking just weeks after Putin opened a new front in the Syria war by conducting air strikes, then Putin hosted Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in Moscow.
“As Obama enters the final year of his presidency, it's clear his influence is shrinking, and it's a bigger struggle than ever to get things done,” Forbes wrote.
“At home, his approval ratings are perpetually stuck under 50 percent; abroad, he's outshined by Merkel in Europe, and outmanoeuvred by Putin in the Middle East.”
In August, Putin's domestic approval rating soared to 87 percent, the highest level in six years, according to an independent polling centre.
His intervention in Syria has seen Putin seek to muscle his way back to global influence after months of Western isolation over Ukraine.
“Putin continues to prove he's one of the few men in the world powerful enough to do what he wants -- and get away with it,” said Forbes.
Despite international sanctions imposed after Moscow annexed Crimea and over the conflict in Ukraine, Putin has made the US and Nato look weak, and helped rebuild Russian influence abroad, Forbes said.
Merkel, the German chancellor, jumped up three places to grab the second spot, last year occupied by Obama.
“Merkel is the backbone of the 28-member European Union, and her decisive actions dealing with the Syrian refugee problem and the Greek credit crisis helped bump her up the list,” Forbes said.
Pope Francis was number four and Chinese leader Xi Jinping number five, falling two spots from last year. The 2015 list ranks 73 powerbrokers among 7.3 billion people on the planet.
Among the eight newcomers were Saudi Arabia's new monarch, King Salman, number 14, and US presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump at number 58 and 72 respectively.
Thirty on the list come from the United States, eight come from China, and four each from Japan and Russia.
Nine women made the cut.
The youngest on the list are 31-year-old Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, at number 19, and North Korea's 32-year-old leader Kim Jong-un at number 46.
AFP
The 2015 Forbes list of the World’s Most Powerful People
1. Vladimir Putin (Russia)
2. Angela Merkel (Germany)
3. Barack Obama (United States)
4. Pope Francis (Roman Catholic Church)
5. Xi Jinping (China)
6. Bill Gates (Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation)
7. Janet Yellen (US Federal Reserve)
8. David Cameron (Britain)
9. Narendra Modi (India)
10. Larry Page (Google/Alphabet)
11. Mario Draghi (European Central Bank)
12. Li Keqiang (China)
13. Warren Buffett (Berkshire Hathaway)
14. Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud (Saudi Arabia)
15. Carlos Slim Helu (América Móvil)
16. Francois Hollande (France)
17. Jeff Bezos (Amazon.com)
18. Ali Hoseini-Khamenei (Iran)
19. Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook)
20. Jamie Dimon (JPMorgan Chase)
21. Benjamin Netanyahu (Israel)
22. Jack Ma (Alibaba Group)
23. Christine Lagarde (International Monetary Fund)
24. Jeffrey Immelt (General Electric)
25. Rex Tillerson (Exxon Mobil)
26. Lloyd Blankfein (Goldman Sachs Group)
27. Tim Cook (Apple)
28. Akio Toyoda (Toyota)
29. Charles Koch and David Koch (Koch Industries)
30. Sergey Brin (Google)
31. Li Ka-shing (CK Hutchison Holdings)
32. Doug McMillon (Wal-Mart Stores)
33. Jay Y. Lee (Samsung Group)
34. Larry Fink (BlackRock)
35. Rupert Murdoch (News Corporation)
36. Mukesh Ambani (Reliance Industries)
37. Dilma Rousseff (Brazil)
38. Elon Musk (Space Exploration Technologies)
39. Khalifa bin Zayed Al-Nahyan (United Arab Emirates)
40. Ban Ki-moon (United Nations)
41.Shinzo Abe (Japan)
42. Ding Xuedong (China)
43. Park Geun-hye (South Korea)
44. Michael Bloomberg (Bloomberg)
45. Jim Yong Kim (World Bank)
46. Kim Jong-un (North Korea)
47. Igor Sechin (Rosneft)
48. Ma Huateng, aka Pony Ma (Tencent)
49. Abdel el-Sisi (Egypt)
50. Haruhiko Kuroda (Japan)
51. Masayoshi Son (Softbank)
52. Enrique Pena Nieto (Mexico)
53. Ali Al-Naimi (Saudi Arabia)
54. Alexey Miller (Gazprom)
55. Lakshmi Mittal (ArcelorMittal)
56. Robin Li (Baidu)
57. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi (Islamic State in Iraq and Syria)
58. Hillary Clinton (United States)
59. Michael Dell (Dell)
60. John Roberts (United States)
61. Satya Nadella (Microsoft)
62. Stephen Schwarzman (Blackstone Group)
63. Ginni Rometty (IBM)
64. Bill Clinton (Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation)
65. Mary Barra (General Motors)
66. Bernard Arnault (LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton)
67. Alisher Usmanov (Metalloinvest)
68. Wang Jianlin (Dalian Wanda Group)
69. Justin Trudeau (Canada)
70. Carl Icahn (Icahn Capital Management)
71. Aliko Dangote (Dangote Group)
72. Donald Trump (United States)
73. Margaret Chan (World Health Organisation)