May 31, 2014 PARIS – France’s embattled president, Francois Hollande, is “fini.” So goes the prevailing view here from cafes to boardrooms. With three more years to go in his term, France’s Socialist president looks like a dead politician walking. Three years is an eternity in politics. Yet things look […]

May 24, 2014 GENEVA – Russia’s leader Vladimir Putin usually wears a perfect poker face. But last week in Shanghai, the icy-cold Russian president came awfully close to bursting into a big grin. And why not? Putin had just stolen a march on his western rivals. The US-British attempt to […]

May, 17, 2014 PARIS – Of the many bridges that span the Seine River, none is more beautiful nor majestic than the Pont Alexandre III. Just south of the splendid Grand Palais, this bridge was named in honor of Russia’s Czar, Alexander III. Completed in 1892, the bridge is a […]