Russia in the Spotlight : G8 Scorecard

The G8 Presidency in 2006 is a paradox, with Russia poised for integration and global leadership, but posing fundamental questions about its reliability and responsibility as a great power. The Russian-Ukrainian gas dispute over New Year was merely the wake-up call: President Vladimir Putin marked the beginning of his country's G8 presidency by cutting off natural gas supplies to much of Europe, brandishing Russia's vast energy reserves as his Soviet predecessors once flaunted nuclear rockets.It is therefore a timely moment for the Foreign Policy Centre to be launching the 'G8 Scorecard', with its innovative scoring system - a major instrument for providing transparent, comparable data annually to help monitor, co-ordinate and improve the policies of the leading industrial nations in the world.