Foreign Policy: As in previous years, G-8 leaders will examine important foreign policy and security policy issues. This year's problems include unrest in the Gaza Strip, rockets fired at Israel, developments in Lebanon and Iran's nuclear program.

Globalization: Chancellor Angela Merkel says she's pushing to shape the globalizing economy as a liberal and open economic order. The challenge is to create fair "rules of the game" in capital markets and world trade, and to establish social as well as environmental standards.

Africa: The G-8 wants to develop a "qualitatively different approach" to African aid. The idea is to give aid to those nations that show a willingness to make reforms and take responsibility. Key themes include good governance, a better investment climate, peace and security, as well as the struggle against HIV and AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. Another challenge for the West is to meet earlier development aid commitments.

Climate Protection: The G-8 summit will provide a timely forum for negotiating a replacement for the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012. To fight global warming the world will need full agreement on reducing greenhouse-gas emissions. One goal is to bring down harmful emissions by 50 percent before 2050. A concrete agreement is looking unlikely, however.

Newly Industrializing Countries: The G-8 summit is supposed to help burgeoning national economies like those in China, India, Brazil, Mexico and South Africa. The plan is to initiate a "Heiligendamm Process." The idea of expanding the G-8 to include China, or of making it a group of 13 countries, has been rejected -- by Chancellor Merkel, among others.

World Economy: The G-8 leaders also want to curb risks inherent in the global economic boom. They want to address global imbalances like the enormous US trade deficit, the strong increase in Asian monetary reserves, especially in China (which currently holds $1,200 billion) and trade surpluses in Japan, China and parts of Europe, as well as in oil-exporting countries.

Hedge Funds: Germany has called for greater transparency in hedge-fund management, which is now largely unsupervised. The highly speculative funds -- of which there are about 9,000, operated mainly from the United States and Britain -- hold an estimated €1,400 billion ($1,883 billion). Merkel, however, was unsuccessful in forging a hedge-fund agreement prior to the summit.

Product Piracy: To protect intellectual property, the G-8 wants to develop strategies against film and software and other product piracy with help from newly industrializing countries. The goal is to curb demand for counterfeit products. The German economy alone suffers annual losses on the scale of €25 billion ($34 billion) due to product piracy. The global figure is about €120 billion ($161 billion).

Protectionism: Countries are raising barriers to foreign investment in strategically important areas, but G-8 leaders want to open markets for foreign investors. They will work against a new wave of "investment protectionism" directed against foreign investors.