The Group of Eight summit starts Wednesday in the small Baltic resort town of Heiligendamm, Germany. The meeting of the world’s leading democratic industrialized nations is attended by the United States, Britain, Canada, France, Italy, Germany, Japan and Russia. But as the protester at right with the cardboard cutout of President Bush shows, just because it’s a diplomatic confab doesn’t mean it has to be dull:
1. This year’s host country, Germany, has taken controversial security steps, including “scent tracking” (samples shown at right), in which authorities have collected samples of suspected radicals’ sweat so that sniffer dogs can pick them out during protests.
2. The G-8 represents about 14 percent of the world’s population and 44 percent of its economic output. Both those numbers are on the decline. China’s economic expansion has prompted calls to redefine the G-8 to include the Beijing regime and other surging nations.
3. Russia is the summit’s stepchild. The G-7 became the G-8 when Russia joined about a decade ago, but it has a smaller economy than at least three non-members. At the summit in Halifax, Nova Scotia, in 1995, Russian President Boris Yeltsin put on such an odd performance that there was dueling speculation over whether he was drunk or affected by a blood transfusion. In recent years, President Vladimir Putin has cracked down on civil rights, prompting calls for Russia to be suspended from the G-8.
4. Each country appoints a top official to negotiate the G-8’s communique. The eight officials are called “sherpas,” a reference to the Tibetan guides who lead climbers to mountain summits. Their assistants are known as “sous sherpas,” from the French word “sous,” meaning “under.”
5. President Bill Clinton learned that the summit is conducted under a microscope when he made offhand comments at the Naples, Italy, gathering in 1994 that were interpreted to mean that the U.S. wouldn’t defend the value of the dollar. The currency took a plunge.
6. The conference is sometimes held in remote locations. At the 2002 meeting in Kananaskis in the Canadian Rockies, authorities put radio collars on six grizzly bears in the area so that the animals could be tracked during the proceedings.
7. In 2005, French President Jacques Chirac ridiculed the Scottish dish of haggis and said of the British: “We can’t trust people who have such bad food.” The remarks were made just before the G-8 in Gleneagles, Scotland. Chirac was the only G-8 leader not greeted by Scottish First Minister Jack McConnell upon arrival, but the Scots politely kept haggis off the menu at the opening banquet.
8. The London suicide bombings on July 7, 2005, overshadowed President Bush’s bike accident at the G-8 summit the day before. The bicycling Bush rode toward police, said, “Thanks, you guys, for coming,” and took a hand off the handlebars to wave. He lost control, slamming into a constable and skidding along the ground. Bush suffered abrasions; the constable was treated at a hospital. The cop received an apology from Bush, who was described in the Scottish police report as a “moving/falling object.”
9. At last year’s G-8 in St. Petersburg, Russia, Bush was caught by a live microphone using a curse word to refer to Hezbollah. Then a Russian TV camera captured him sneaking up behind German Chancellor Angela Merkel and giving her a quick massage of her neck and shoulders. The 5-second video, popular on YouTube, showed the chancellor hunching her shoulders, throwing her arms up and grimacing, but she appeared to smile as Bush walked away. White House spokesman Tony Snow said the president believes in “putting people at ease, so that you can have a candid conversation.”
10. Scottish crime writer Ian Rankin sets his 2006 novel “The Naming of the Dead” against the backdrop of the G-8 summit. His detective hero’s case — A politician’s mysterious plunge from Edinburgh Castle during a diplomatic dinner.
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The mjacob@tribune.com
Sources: The Globe and Mail, Scotland on Sunday, the Guardian and Tribune news services and staff reports.
