More bad news, Mr President... Obama no longer 'world's most powerful man'

Barack Obama's disastrous week was complete today when he was toppled from the number one spot as the world's most powerful man.

Fresh from his battering in Tuesday's mid-term elections, the President leaed that Forbes magazine has named Chinese president Hu Jintao as the lead figure in the magazine's Most Powerful People on Earth list.

President Obama came in second this year after topping the list last year, which was the first time Forbes began rating world figures on a power scale.

List compilers Nicole Perlroth and Michael Noer wrote: 'The people on the list were chosen because, in various ways, they bend the world to their will'.

None of the Republican leaders who gave Obama his self-confessed 'shellacking' made the grade but New York's mayor Michael Bloomberg came in 23rd place.

He trailed three spots behind Hillary Clinton and just ahead of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.