Last Saturday President Bush and Russia's president, Vladimir Putin, talked hopefully about bridging the differences between Washington and Moscow on missile defense.
But they appeared to have made little progress on bridging the differences between developing countries and the United States that had scuttled the deal.
The foreign minister belongs to the dominant ethnic Tajik wing of the government, and has played a key role in bridging the differences between the Tajiks and Mr. Karzai, who is a Pashtun, Afghanistan's largest ethnic group.
He may have been tempted at the dinner to bring up possible ways of bridging the differences that the United States described in a "working paper" given to the Syrians and Israelis on Friday.
He could be a compromise presidential candidate, bridging the differences between the army and the opposition parties, especially if the most popular choice for the top job is ruled out.Lady in waitingThe people's choice would undoubtedly be Miss Suu Kyi.
To some degree, the requirements of taste may be seen as bridging the differences among people.
Finally, due to the heterogeneity of the collaboration, a translation service must exist for bridging the differences (technical, syntactic, semantic, pragmatic) between collaborating parties.
Like the rest of the world, Egypt will have a problem bridging the differences between its conservative and liberal elements.
Once again, the problem seemed to be bridging the differences between the right flank, for whom the plan didn't go far enough, and more moderate Republicans, who are fed up with efforts to appease the tea party.
