As the crisis in the Middle East deepened with rapidly escalating conflict between Israel and Lebanon, the Group of 8 (G8) leaders of the wealthiest nations gathered in St Petersburg for their annual summit between July 15 and 17 Topping Russian President Vladimir Putin's list of priorities is redoubling efforts to secure worldwide energy supplies, including technology development, use of renewable energy sources, and protection of the environment. Russia's gas and oil reserves give Putin a key position as a major energy supplier. Second on Putin's list is pandemic control via the creation of a global system to monitor diseases, with broader exchange of research information. Third in the priority list is education, with the aims of improving the quality and effectiveness of national education systems and professional training.Last year's G8 focus in Gleneagles on Africa and the Make Poverty History campaign, which was designed to raise awareness of poverty in Africa and its associated preventable burden of disease, has taken a back seat in St Petersburg. Compliance with commitments made at Gleneagles is in general good for debt relief for some of the world's poorest countries, but poor for funding of the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. In fact, the G8 leaders have so far collectively fulfilled only about one-third of the promises they made on HIV/AIDS, falling way short of targets on funding and on access to treatment. Moreover, trade talks have stalled with little hope that a deal will be reached that really favours the poorest nations, aid and development assistance targets are nowhere near being met, and other key initiatives to fight poverty, such as channelling aid to education, are grossly underfunded.
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