TODAY: Putin named most powerful person, leaves enemies out of history books; 200 Kremlin officials fired over income declarations at anti-corruption meeting; Sochi waste threatening water contamination and coastal erosion; LNG exports open up; Rosneft wants Kremlin’s port stake; Omsk against Halloween.

The world’s most powerful person (according to Forbes magazine at least), President Vladimir Putin, has used his influence to remove his opponents’ names from new standardised history textbooks – former Yukos head Mikhail Khodorkovsky and late oligarch Boris Berezovsky are two of the names omitted from the ‘post-Soviet period’.  Regarding the Forbes accolade, the Guardian says it ‘risks raising [Putin’s] notoriously volatile machismo to bursting point’, and that he ‘does not deserve this ego-inflating boost’.  This article defends the choice against those who think that the title should have gone to the U.S. president: ‘Barack Obama is weak internationally by choice.’  Putin yesterday chaired a meeting on fighting corruption, at which it was announced that 200 Kremlin officials will be fired for providing suspect information in their income declarations last year.  The Kremlin’s administration chief admitted that corruption-related crimes may have cost over $312 million this year, and 2,500 officials reported bribe attempts.  The establishing of Skolkovo has created the potential for $4 billion in misspent funds, says the Prosecutor General, speaking of ‘uncontrolled and wasteful expenditures’ stemming from a lack of control.  Alexander Lebedev says the Kremlin has now taken from him ‘everything they want’.