G8 leaders under pressure on Zimbabwe and climate change

The world’s top industrialised nations face pressing financial and environmental troubles at their annual summit tomorrow, confronted with demands they reinvigorate the stumbling world economy, push ahead languishing climate change talks, and make good on pledges to battle poverty and hunger.

Leaders from the Group of Eight – the US, Japan, Germany, Britain, France, Canada, Italy and Russia – began gathering in the northern Japanese resort village of Toyako today for three days of meetings among themselves and with heads of African nations and rapidly developing countries such as China.