Gwyn Morgan, Director, Manning Centre for Building Democracy
It's only been six months since Japan hosted the G8 leaders' summit in Hokkaido Toyako, but the issues discussed then stand in sharp contrast to those of today. Topping the Hokkaido agenda was the economic impact of skyrocketing oil prices and the resulting transfer of economic power from the West to East, along with the dangerous supply dependency on countries such as bellicose Iran, Hugo Chavez-led Venezuela and geopolitically ambitious Russia. Food prices were escalating at the time and the devastating prospect of food shortages loomed for the world's poorest people. On another front, enormous U.S. fiscal and trade deficits were battering confidence in the world's benchmark currency.
