Word: summiteer
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Russia where he has brought most things under his control, even the weather seemed to do President Vladimir Putin's bidding last Saturday when his U.S. counterpart flew in for a valedictory summit. The rain clouds that had threatened all week were nowhere to be seen, and the Black Sea, usually choppy at this time of year was preternaturally still, providing the perfect backdrop for the two leaders to be photographed walking off into the sunset...
...declaration emphasized, for example, that the Cold War was over - although there was not much news in that observation, first made at an equivalent summit 18 years ago by President Bush's father and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. The document affirms their commitment to improve relations on all fronts, but the trend in U.S.-Russian relations may be moving the two countries further apart than closer together...
...Sarkozy was being ungrateful. Earlier, President Bush, attending his last-ever NATO summit, had almost literally sung the praises of the French politician, whom he said had made an impact on the American people "like the latest incarnation of Elvis." Flattery of this kind is rare in any context, yet delegates in Bucharest, despite behind-the-scenes rows and disappointments, generally seemed more inclined to compliment than to complain. Though Macedonia packed its bags in disgust, Georgia and Ukraine managed to put some positive spin on events. And though Washington was disappointed, there was success...
...sharp contrast to NATO's Riga summit in 2006. "The tone of the discussion is a lot lighter now than it was two years ago," says a NATO official. "Then the whole thing appeared to hang by a thread." In the Latvian capital, tensions ran high over the inequitable commitments of NATO members to military operations in Afghanistan - what the countries with sizable troop deployments in dangerous areas refer to as "burden sharing." Those tensions remain, but a commitment by France to send up to 1,000 troops to eastern Afghanistan, made before this summit and confirmed on Thursday...
...Britain, the second largest contributor of troops to Afghanistan, proposed a new initiative at the summit: A so-called trust fund to encourage countries that are not contributing troops to instead donate money and equipment to NATO operations. On Thursday, Prime Minister Brown revealed that 18 new helicopters and 8 nations had declared themselves ready to contribute to the fund. "This will become known as the burden-sharing summit," said Brown. That, at least, should be a name delegates can agree...