Forbes names the World’s Most Powerful People, 2011

What do the president of the United States, the Dalai Lama, a billionaire drug dealer and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg all have in common? They are all featured on Forbes’ annual ranking of the World’s Most Powerful People.The ranking takes into account four factors. First, we measured how many people a person has power over. For a religious leader, like Pope Benedict XVI (#7), that would be the number of adherents, or Catholics, in the world. For a CEO, like General Electric’s Jeffrey Immelt (#28) we counted the number of employees.

Then we looked at the financial resources controlled by each candidate, whether that is revenues (for a company), GDP (for a country) or net worth (for a billionaire). Next we asked: Is a candidate influential in more than one arena, or sphere? This bumped up the ranking of people like New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg (#17), who is a powerful politician, a self-made media billionaire and a major philanthropist.

Finally, we gave consideration to how actively the candidates wield their power. This measure eliminated inactive heirs to great fortunes, semi-retired industrialists and former heads of state. In all, 70 people made the final list, one for every 100 million people on the planet.

Regaining the title of the World’s Most Powerful Man on this year’s list is President Barack Obama, who gave up the top spot last year to China’s president Hu Jintao (#3). Despite his current political weakness, Obama remains the head-of-state of the world’s largest, most dynamic economy, commander-in-chief of the planet’s deadliest military and, unofficially, the leader of the free world. Moreover, Hu’s relative power is decreasing as he starts giving up important political offices, including general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, to his successor Xi Jinping (#69).

In second place is Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin, who is poised to regain the Russian presidency this year from his loyal underling president Dmitry Medvedev (#59). German chancellor Angela Merkel ranks fourth and rounding out the top five is Bill Gates, co-chair of the world’s largest charity, chairman of Microsoft and America’s richest man.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg (#9) is the youngest person on the list at age 27, and the biggest gainer this year, jumping 31 spots from 40th in 2010. Also moving up is Jeff Bezos, the CEO of Amazon, who ranks 40th, 26 spots higher than last year. Bezos, who is already the largest “e-tailer” on Earth, is now exerting increasing power over the publishing business through the Kindle and Amazon Web Services powers some the biggest sites, including Zynga and Netflix.

On the flip side, Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, fell twelve spots this year to 51st after announcing that he plans to give up his position atop Tibet’s government in exile. The world’s arbiter of good taste, luxury purveyor Bernard Arnault (#65) of LVMH also took a tumble in the rankings, falling from 43rd in 2010.

Two criminals made this year’s list. Joaquin Guzman Loeran (#55), the billionaire head of the Sinaloa drug cartel, that operates with seeming immunity in Northern Mexico and Dawood Ibrahim Kaskar (#57), who heads an organized crime syndicate in Mumbai and is suspected of providing logistical and financial support for terrorists.

Life is not easy at the top. Ten people fell off the list this year due to declining influence, including Oprah Winfrey, disgraced French politician Dominique Strauss-Kahn and former Japanese prime minister Naoto Kan. Others departed in a more definitive way, including Apple cofounder Steve Jobs (Feb. 24, 1955 - Oct. 5, 2011) and Osama bin Laden (Mar. 10, 1947 - May 2, 2011).

Name: Barack Obama

Rank: 1

Age: 50

Title: President, USA

Residence: Washington, DC

Sure, his jobs bill was gutted, his debt-ceiling negotiating was derided and his popularity has plummeted, endangering his reelection, but Obama regains his position as the most powerful person on the planet this year. Why? Despite faddish American declinism, the U.S. remains, indisputably, the most powerful nation in the world, with the largest, most innovative economy and the deadliest military. Plus, Obama’s only legitimate rival for the title, last year’s number one, Chinese President Hu Jintao, is diminishing in influence as he gives up political office.

2011 Highlight: Took out the world’s deadliest terrorist in May.

Name: Vladimir Putin

Rank: 2

Age: 59

Title: Prime Minister, Russia

Residence: Moscow, Russia

Loyal lapdog Dmitry Medvedev recently announced he will not be seeking reelection as Russian president, setting up his mentor, Putin, for the job some would argue he never really gave up. Assuming that he serves 2 more terms, the increasingly autocratic Putin will be in office until 2024. Take that, Stalin!

2011 Highlight: Push for new Eurasian economic union of Russia and several former Soviet republics, including Kazakhstan, Belarus and Ukraine, by 2015.

Name: Hu Jintao

Rank: 3

Age: 68

Title: President, People’s Republic of China

Residence: Beijing, China

Hu currently holds all 3 offices required to be considered China’s Paramount Leader: Communist Party General Secretary, President and Commander in Chief. But as part of a well-orchestrated succession plan, he will gradually give up his titles over the next few years, starting with the most important one — General Secretary — next year. His presumed successor, Xi Jinping, will assume the presidency a year later.

2011 Lowlight: In a rare display of independence, Chinese media exposed government cover-up of a deadly bullet train crash in July.

Name: Angela Merkel

Rank: 4

Age: 57

Title: Chancellor, Germany

Residence: Berlin, Germany

The world’s most powerful woman heads Europe’s most vibrant economy and is widely viewed as the de facto leader of the EU. A recent poll in France showed that the French have more faith in Germany’s leader (46%) than in their own president, Nicolas Sarkozy (33%). Germany must take bolder measures toward resolving the euro zone debt crisis, despite the political risks to Merkel’s ruling coalition. Half-measures will not do.

2011 Lowlight: Refused to support NATO air strikes in Libya.

Name: Bill Gates

Rank: 5

Age: 56

Title: Co-Chair, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Residence: Medina, WA, USA

Microsoft’s software wizard and the world’s second-richest man is having the most productive midlife crisis in history. His focus on creating, promoting and distributing vaccines is having a massive impact on global health. Gates’ goal is to eliminate infectious disease as a major cause of death in his lifetime. He may succeed.

2011 Highlight: Malaria vaccine he backed recently passed a key clinical trial. The vaccine has the potential to save millions of lives.

Name: Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz al Saud

Rank: 6

Age: 87

Title: King, Saudi Arabia

Residence: Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

One of the world’s few remaining absolute monarchs, King Abdullah has continued to pursue an agenda of moderate reform in the desert kingdom that contains 20% of the world’s known oil reserves and Islam’s 2 holiest sites. Recently granted women the right to vote in local elections and has consistently nudged the nation’s educational system out from under clerical control. Yet al Saud is no liberal: He opposed the Arab Spring, spending more than $130 billion on social projects designed to quell any domestic pro-democracy movement.

2011 Lowlight: His younger brother, Crown Prince Sultan, died in October. Half-brother Prince Naif is the likely successor.

Name: Pope Benedict XVI

Rank: 7

Age: 84

Title: Pope, Roman Catholic Church

Residence: Vatican City

The spiritual leader to one-sixth of the world’s population — 1.2 billion souls — delivers the final word on matters of abortion, gay marriage, female priests and, most recently, Occupy Wall Street. In October the Vatican called for a supranational authority to oversee the global economy: “To function correctly the economy needs ethics, and not just of any kind but one that is people-centered.”

2011 Lowlight: Two victim groups asked the International Criminal Court to investigate and prosecute Pope Benedict XVI for covering up instances of sexual abuse.

Name: Ben Bernanke

Rank: 8

Age: 57

Title: Chairman, Federal Reserve

Residence: Washington, DC. USA

After 2 rounds of quantitative easing, the last of which injected some $600 billion into the U.S. economy, Bernanke is not ruling out QE3, yet another round of money creation. Most recently Bernanke has launched Operation Twist, an attempt to drive long-term interest rates even lower by manipulating the Fed’s $1.7 trillion portfolio of U.S. government debt.

2011 Lowlight: All of the GOP presidential candidates have vowed that they will fire Bernanke if elected.

Name: Mark Zuckerberg

Rank: 9

Age: 27

Title: Founder, Facebook

Residence: Palo Alto, CA. USA

What the CIA failed to do in 60 years, Zuck has done in 7: knowing what 800 million people — more than 10% of the world’s population — think, read and listen to, plus who they know, what they like and where they live, travel, vote, shop, worship. U.S. users spend more time on Facebook — on average 6.3 hours a month — than on any other site. The Harvard dropout is now creating his own monetary system, Facebook Credits, to facilitate transactions and profits. With a net worth of $17.5 billion, he is now America’s 14th-richest man.

2011 Highlight: The movie inspired by his life, The Social Network, which depicts Zuckerberg as a coldhearted dweeb, won 3 Oscars.

Name: David Cameron

Rank: 10

Age: 45

Title: Prime Minister, United Kingdom

Residence: London, UK

Once hailed as the second coming of Margaret Thatcher, the British P.M. now serves as the U.K.’s punching bag. Cameron faces a splintering coalition and rebellion from within as Conservatives balk at his refusal to withdraw from or renegotiate Britain’s relationship with the EU. Even there, he has few friends. “You have lost a good opportunity to shut up,” France’s Nicolas Sarkozy recently sneered at Cameron when he insisted on attending a meeting on the euro crisis. “We are sick of you criticizing us and telling us what to do. You say you hate the euro, and now you want to interfere in our meetings.”

2011 Lowlight: Phone-hacking scandal engulfs Cameron, who had hired former News of the World editor Andrew Coulson, now a criminal suspect, even after revelations of the tabloid’s snooping began emerging.