EIGHT WISHES

During the G8 summit on the isle of Hokkaido in Japan from 7-9 July, the leaders of the world's foremost nations - US President George Bush, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Russian President Dmitriy Medvedev, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper - had the opportunity to take part in a ritual of the traditional Japanese Tanabata festival (the celebration of two "lover" stars who are divided by the "river" of the Milky Way) which coincided with the summit. It is the Japanese custom to write a wish on a small strip of paper and hang it on bamboo. That is why the G8 leaders were given strips of white paper with silver borders and each one of the "powers that be" wrote down their desires. Now no one knows what awaits the world if the ancient Japanese ritual really works. Only the Bush administration found it necessary to announce exactly what wish the US president had made. "I wish for the advance of new technology that will improve the human condition and protect our environment. I wish for a world free from tyranny: the tyranny of hunger, disease and free from tyrannical governments. I wish God's blessings on all," read the "tanzaku" of the White House tenant. Well, at least one of those eight desires sounds very nice. The only problem is when it will come true...

In the meantime, besides the heads of states of the permanent G8 member countries, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso and heads of 22 developing states took part in the summit. George Bush was the "veteran" of the G8 summit and Dmitriy Medvedev, Gordon Brown and Yasuo Fukuda attended the summit for the first time. One of the novelties of the summit was that on the first day of the forum, the leaders sat at a long rectangular table, not a round one. A 46-kilometre zone was created around the Lake Toya recreation area, in which no aircraft were allowed to fly and which was guarded by 20,000 policemen.

The summit's schedule was a very busy one. During the three days of the forum, the G8 leaders signed a series of documents on combating global warming, in support of the development of the African countries, on the global economy, the food crisis and a number of political statements.

The main topics discussed at the meeting were: global warming, the food crisis and the catastrophic rise in energy prices. This is where the G8 leaders would be very happy to use magic to resolve these problems. If only it was so simple...

While climate change, although it causes more and more problems year by year, still seems to be a problem which we have time to solve (despite the certainty of some experts that humanity is already too late), energy prices going through the roof and the food crisis are real horrors for today. And these horrors influence, one way or another, practically all spheres of everyday life - unless, that is, you live somewhere deep in the Amazonian rainforest. Literally on the eve of the Japan summit, Gazprom head Aleksey Miller forecast that, "by the end of 2008, natural gas in Europe will cost $500 per 1,000 cubic metres." He added, at the same time, that if "world oil prices go above $250 per barrel, the price of natural gas will exceed $1,000 per 1,000 cubic metres."

In this context, the G8 leaders stated in their final declaration their intention to curb the record hike in oil prices which, "poses a threat to the international economy." The state of the latter was described as uncertain and therefore "tending towards a slow down." G8 voiced its concern that high oil and food prices might lead to increased "international inflationary pressure" and lead to "serious consequences for the most vulnerable." As a result, the leading world powers will now do their best to make the oil market more transparent. However, no specific measures were announced. For now, the G8 have concluded that balancing supply and demand in this sector is impossible without beginning a dialogue between oil producing and oil consuming countries.

It was also announced at the summit that oil production and the capacity of oil processing facilities "should increase in a short period of time" and that steps should be taken in the medium term to increase investment in the oil sector. The importance of increasing transparency in energy markets was also noted.

As foreign periodicals note, there is only one G8 member which exports crude oil - Russia - and it said that it is going to broaden its "partnership" with oil producers and create a new "energy forum" which will work on issues of energy efficiency and new technology. In the opinion of a number of experts, although G8 said nothing new and did not set any special obligations, the very fact that the leading world powers reached consensus is welcome.

As for the issue of global warming, the main difficulty here is the impossibility of reaching agreement among all nations, including the leading world powers and developing countries. As is well known, the Kyoto protocol on cutting carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere will need to be extended in 2012. Late last year, a UN conference on climate change decided that a new agreement will be written within the next couple of years to replace the Kyoto protocol. It was suggested that the new document will be based on agreements which were reached at the Japan summit, but the final declaration of the summit does not mention any specific goals. This time around, the sides have again failed to reach agreement on a long-term programme to halve emissions of greenhouse gases by 2050. To be more precise, agreement was reached, but only within the G8 itself. Other countries disagreed, however. Major energy consumers, China and India, are convinced that G8 should take on more serious obligations; in particular, to cut emissions by mid-century, not by 50%, but by 85-90%. As a result, the leaders of the 16 largest industrialized powers (the G8 and 8 other industrial nations) stated only that they "commit to combat climate change in accordance with our common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities and confront the interlinked challenges of sustainable development, including energy and food security, and human health" and to "contribute to efforts via the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, the global forum for climate negotiation."

Naturally, the representative forum focused on so-called traditional issues too: the fight against international terrorism and the nuclear programmes of Iran and North Korea. The G8 countries agreed that North Korea should abandon its nuclear programme and urged Tehran to end its uranium enrichment programme. Obviously, Iran is unlikely to take heed of this recommendation. From the very first day of the summit, the influential British periodical The Telegraph reported, citing the latest reports from the secret services, that Iran had resumed work on high-tech centrifuges for uranium enrichment. The R-2, new-generation gas centrifuges under development are mainly intended for nuclear weapons. The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which is in charge of the implementation of the nuclear programme, has established several private companies to work on the project. These firms are based in Tehran's suburbs and their operations are deliberately kept secret from the IAEA. The designs which Iran received in the early 1990s from Abdul Qadir Khan, "father of the Pakistani nuclear bomb", serve as a basis for their ongoing research and development.  Tehran also produced a trump card on the last day of the summit, when it was reported that it had launched nine ballistic missiles of different class, among which was the Shahab-3, with a range of 2,000 kilometres, which is more than enough to reach the territory of Israel.

Yet another issue which has already become traditional at G8 meetings, and which opened the summit, was the situation in Africa. Leaders of Algeria, Ethiopia, Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa and Tanzania and the chairman of the African Union attended the summit. The continent, which suffers permanently from armed conflict and humanitarian catastrophes of various kinds, clearly needs assistance from the world's leading countries. The G8 meeting in 2005 decided to provide $10 billion in assistance to the poorest African countries. This time, however, the effectiveness of the spending of previously allocated funds was discussed more than was new financial assistance. In addition, the summit discussed the crisis in Zimbabwe. In the opinion of the G8, sanctions against that country will become possible if appropriate decisions are made by the UN Security Council. Grave concern was voiced about the humanitarian situation in the country. The G8 leaders urged the Zimbabwean authorities to allow an immediate resumption of humanitarian operations and to grant full non-discriminatory access to humanitarian aid efforts to end the suffering of the most vulnerable people in the country. The summit suggested the appointment of a special representative of the UN Secretary General to prepare a report on the political and humanitarian situation and the situation concerning human rights and security in Zimbabwe.

With respect to the Near East, the G8 promised to provide assistance to the Palestinians and to protect their rights and to fully support the talks on a peace agreement between the Israelis and Palestinians.

In short, there were, obviously, no major "breakthroughs" at the summit in Japan. All the decisions reached by the G8 leaders were anticipated anyway and there have already been similar political statements. However, observers say that the main events at these forums happen during bilateral meetings. After all, G8 summits provide excellent opportunities for face-to-face meetings. In particular, the US and Russian presidents, George Bush and Dmitriy Medvedev, took such an opportunity on the very first day of the summit: this was the first official meeting between the newly elected Russian leader and the US president. After the meeting, Bush called the Russian president a "smart guy who understood the issues very well." For his part, Medvedev noted that the presidential term of his colleague George is not over yet, so they will continue their discussion.

In the meantime, the meeting attracted everyone's attention for one specific reason. During the summit, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice visited Warsaw and Prague as part of her European tour. In Prague, Rice signed, with her opposite number Karel Schwarzenberg, an agreement on deployment in the Czech Republic of the radar which will be part of the US missile defence system. The radar is to be deployed at the Brdy military range, 90 kilometres southwest of Prague. In addition, the United States intends to install 10 antimissile missiles in Poland. The Polish-US talks on the missile defence system are almost complete, although agreement has not been reached yet.

The White House is certain that elements of the US missile defence in Europe will provide a reliable shield against any potential threat from rogue countries Iran and North Korea. However, Russia, which does not want to see the interceptor missiles or radar near its borders, thinks differently. Moscow argues that the US plans pose a threat to its national security. The Kremlin was angered even more by the fact that, due to delays in reaching agreement with Poland, the United States began to consider Lithuania as an alternative. It was precisely these objections which the new Russian president politely conveyed to George Bush in Japan. Dmitriy Medvedev also said that the signing of the agreement between the United States and the Czech Republic and the developments taking place in this field "do not suit Russia." "The situation is very upsetting for us," the Russian president noted, adding that "issues of European security should be decided by the Europeans themselves." Medvedev promised enigmatically that Russia will consider reciprocal steps.

The next meeting of the leaders of the eight industrialized nations will take place in 2009, in Italy.  One interesting trend is noteworthy here.

The G8 is increasingly less often viewed as an international government of sorts and it increasingly frequently resorts to offering cooperation and advice to other countries. Sometimes this is so evident that it becomes hardly justifiable to call the summit an assembly of the eight. Time will tell whether this attests to a crisis in the G8 format or, on the contrary, proves that the G8 will prosper.