From AFP:  US President  Barack Obama and French President Nicolas Sarkozy celebrated more than two centuries of Franco-American military ties in a joint ceremony Friday to mark the end of the intervention in Libya.

As leaders of the world’s largest economic powers gather together at the G20 Summit this week on the French Riviera (complete with nude sunbathers turned antiglobalization protestors), the world’s attention has once again focused on Greece. 

From Helene Cooper, the New York Times:  President Hu Jintao of China will arrive in Cannes, France, this week pondering a plea from Europe for tens of billions of dollars to help the continent get out of its debt crisis. And President Obama will arrive with a smile, some hearty handshakes, and his own plea: that Greece get its act together and that Europe fix its economic ills

In 2009, G-20 leaders met in Pittsburgh and emerged with a mandate ‘to be the premier forum for international economic cooperation,' endowing the G-20 with a leading economic role on the global stage. It appeared at the time that the leaders of the G-20 had successfully defeated pessimism.

From Stephen Harper, the Globe and Mail:  Both Europe and the G20 have important roles to play in restoring market confidence and protecting the fragile global recovery.

Does anyone read G20 communiqué’s anymore?  In case you missed it, the G20 finance ministers yesterday released a statement saying they are “committed to a strong and coordinated international response to address the renewed challenges facing the global economy.” 

Traditionally, French diplomacy has been dominated by almost exclusive representation of the French aristocracy who controlled the selection and promotion processes of French diplomatic service.

From Wolfgang Ischinger, Spiegel:  China is booming, the Arab world is in tumult and the Internet is fundamentally changing the way we live -- and what is Germany doing?