Beware who you shake hands with!

Donald Trump shook his hand. Theresa May shook his hand but tried to look grim. Vladimir Putin gave him a high five and a cheery hail-brother-well-met grin. Everyone at the G20 summit in Buenos Aires was clearly wondering and worrying about what to do if they came anywhere near Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia. Putin was just outrageous. He couldn't care less that a leader of a country as rich as Saudi Arabia is suspected of ordering the murder of a Saudi dissident journalist. Bodies of Putin opponents, including investigative journalists, have turned up in dark alleys in Moscow, so the killing of an MBS critic in Istanbul probably came as no surprise to the Russian leader. Anyway, he was very happy to give MBS the full welcome in Buenos Aires which must have been painfully embarrassing to everyone else in the vicinity. As for Trump and May, Trump gave what looked like quite a warm handshake, while Theresa May tried desperately to make it look like she was shaking hands with a lump of wood. Nevertheless, she shook his hand. She could have ignored him or chatted briefly without shaking his hand. That, clearly, would have been viewed in Riyadh as a diplomatic snub, but she decided against it, presumably on the advice of her foreign secretary. If no one else among the G20 leaders shook his hand, three out of 19 was probably considered not bad by the Saudi leader. At least he wasn't arrested by the Argentine police. For that, Riyadh will be relieved. But the Khashoggi murder is not going to be swept under the carpet. I suspect more and more details are going to slowly emerge, and may be at some point in the future, Trump and May - but not Putin - will be forced to think twice before shaking the hand of the beaming Crown Prince.