GLENEAGLES (Scotland), July 7 (RIA Novosti) - The first session of the G8 summit has begun today in the Gleneagles Hotel near Edinburgh, Scotland. The morning session, which is being attended by the leaders of the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, Canada, Russia, the United States, France and Japan, is devoted to the world economy and climate change.
The leaders of the five biggest developing nations - India, China, Mexico, Brazil and South Africa will join the proceedings after lunch.
The secretary-general of the United Nations, and the heads of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the World Trade Organization, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund will also attend the meetings in the afternoon.
Foreign policy discussions will continue after lunch and also after dinner.
Sir Michael Jay, the official representative of the British prime minister to the G8 told journalists immediately prior to the summit that Britain was hoping to achieve a consensus decision on climate change, even though he admitted differences on the problem remained among the G8 leaders. He said the discussion would not be easy.
James Wolfensohn, a former World Bank chairman and the current special envoy of the Middle East peace process quartet (Russia, the EU, UN and U.S.) will inform the G8 leaders about the situation in the region during the foreign policy session after dinner.
British premier Tony Blair said on Saturday that a certain "specific initiative" on the Middle East would be discussed at the meeting in Scotland. Sir Michael said that the G8 leaders would themselves select issues they would discuss, so other international problems were likely to be raised.
Sir Michael also said that nuclear non-proliferation and efforts to combat terrorism had been important issues at previous G8 summits, and said they would be raised on Thursday.
The official said that Iran, Iraq and North Korea would also probably be on the agenda.
