G20 Seating Chart Reworked to Keep Obama, Putin Apart

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2013/09/05/g20_russia_reworks_seating_chart_to_keep_obama_putin_apart.html

When world leaders file into St Petersburg's imperial Constantine Palace on Thursday ... presidents Vladimir Putin and Barack Obama will be distant from one another literally, as well as politically.

The seating order, which would have had the Russian and US leaders separated only by the Saudi king, has been reshuffled to put five leaders, including David Cameron, between the two key adversaries over Syria and much else.

"The seating will be arranged according to the English alphabet," Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, told the Moscow newspaper, Izvestiya. Had the Russian alphabet been used, Putin and Obama would have been almost cheek-by-jowl.