NEW YORK: Vladimir Putin was the world’s most powerful person for a fourth straight year in 2016, with US president-elect Donald Trump in second place, Forbes magazine said Wednesday in its annual rankings.
“Russia’s president has exerted his country’s influence in nearly every corner of the globe,” the US business magazine wrote.
“From the motherland to Syria to the US presidential elections, Putin continues to get what he wants.”
The 64-year old Russian leader is “unconstrained by conventional global norms (and) his reach has magnified in recent years,” Forbes said.
The magazine wrote that at number two, Trump, who takes over the US presidency in a little more than a month, “has a seeming immunity to scandal, both houses of Congress on his side, and a personal net worth in the billions.”
Trump, who was elected US president last month, was listed 72nd in Forbes’ 2015 power rankings.
Third place this year went to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who has been at the helm of Europe’s economic powerhouse for 11 years and announced plans to run for reelection next year.
Barack Obama, who placed second in 2015, plummeted to 48th place this year as he waits out the final weeks of his presidency, with his Democratic Party ousted from the White House after Trump’s shock election win and out of power in Congress.
Fourth place went to China’s President Xi Jinping, while the fifth spot on the list went to Pope Francis.
Forbes said it assesses the influence of “hundreds of candidates from various walks of life all around the globe” as it compiles its annual list, which this year has on it 74 powerful movers and shakers.
Putin is world’s most powerful man, Trump in second: Forbes
Putin is world’s most powerful man, Trump in second: Forbes
DR Congo says M23 withdrawal from key city a ‘distraction’
- “The son, M23, offers itself in sacrifice before the American mediator to protect the father, Rwanda,” Muyaya said
- The announcement is a “non-event, a diversion, a distraction”
KINSHASA: The Congolese government on Wednesday said the M23 armed group’s recent announcement that it would withdraw troops from the key eastern city of Uvira was a “distraction.”
The Rwanda-backed militia seized the strategic city near the border with Burundi last Wednesday, days after the Congolese and Rwandan governments signed a peace deal — an agreement US President Donald Trump had hailed as a “great miracle.”
“The son, M23, offers itself in sacrifice before the American mediator to protect the father, Rwanda,” Congolese government spokesman Patrick Muyaya said on Wednesday.
The announcement is a “non-event, a diversion, a distraction... We are waiting for the withdrawal of Rwandan troops from all parts of our territory,” he added.
The M23’s latest advance has thrown the future of the peace process into doubt and raised fears of a wider regional war.
Its capture of Uvira — a city of several hundred thousand people — allowed it to control the land border with Burundi and cut the DRC off from military support from its neighbor.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Saturday that Rwanda had clearly violated the peace agreement it signed with its neighbor on December 4, and vowed unspecified “action” in response.
A day earlier, US ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz accused Rwanda of “leading the region toward more instability and toward war.”
Leader of the M23’s political branch announced Tuesday in a statement that the group would “unilaterally withdraw its forces from the city of Uvira, as requested by the US mediators.”
M23 fighters were still present in Uvira on Wednesday, according to residents contacted by AFP.
The DRC’s mineral-rich east has been ravaged by three decades of conflict. Since taking up arms again in 2021, the M23 has seized swathes of territory, leading to a spiralling humanitarian crisis.
While Kigali has never explicitly acknowledged backing the armed group, Washington has directly blamed Rwanda for the M23’s capture of Uvira.
Muyaya accused Rwandan President Paul Kagame of seeking to “entrench his control over this part of our country through violence,” arguing these actions “worsen an already catastrophic humanitarian situation.”
At least 85,000 refugees have fled into Burundi since the advance, with the numbers rising daily, Burundian officials said Tuesday.
