Neither is India, the world's largest democracy and one of its fastest-growing economies. Nor is South Korea, Brazil, Mexico or Spain, each with a larger economy than G-8 member Russia's. In fact, Spain recently inched past member Canada as the world's No. 8 economy, according to a World Bank tabulation.

Often officials from developing nations are invited as observers to the summit but have no formal roles. Among those invited to this year's gathering is Chinese President
Hu Jintao.

Critics view the annual economic summit as a Cold War relic that needs to be reconstituted. It was formed in the 1970s, but economic dynamics are far different three decades later. The astonishing growth of some Asian nations and parts of Latin America have altered the math.

Yet expanding or changing the membership is not on this year's agenda, nor is it likely to be on next year's. Few officials from member nations seem eager to talk about the subject.

White House aides insist the president is more focused on substantive issues.

Igor Shuvalov, Russian President Vladimir Putin's top summit adviser, acknowledges that Russia lags behind the other seven members in terms of current economic output. But stay tuned, he says.

"We believe the importance of Russia in our global world will change. We have very talented people and well-educated labor. We have oil and gas," said Shuvalov in a telephone interview with U.S. reporters. "We will develop very quickly as one of the major G-8 countries."

Even now, Russia is economically "stronger than some G-8 members," Shuvalov asserted without offering backup data. "I don't want to name those countries," he said.

What is now known as the G-8 was formed in 1975 as the Group of Major Industrialized Democracies. At the time, it consisted of the United States, Japan, Britain, France and Germany - undisputedly the world's five biggest economic powers at the time. Italy was added in 1976, Canada in 1977 and Russia in 1998.

The group holds annual summits. Economic themes are supposed to prevail, but often are overshadowed by events of the day and global politics.

Last year's summit in Scotland was jolted by multiple terrorist bomb blasts on London's transit system. This year's session probably will dwell on North Korea's recent barrage of missile tests and the nuclear aspirations it shares with Iran.

Robert Hormats, vice chairman of Goldman Sachs International and an expert on economic summitry, advocates expanding the G-8 to include other modern economic powers, especially China.

"When this group was formed in the 1970s, the members were the main influences on the globe. Now you've got a lot of other countries that have a lot more influence than they did 30 years ago and who are not in the process," said Hormats, who helped Presidents Carter, Ford and Reagan prepare for economic summits.

China's membership could help the G-8 this year deal with North Korea, Hormats said. He noted that last year, the summit partners called on the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries to produce more oil, yet neither Saudi Arabia nor any other OPEC member are participants.

This year's summit is in Putin's hometown, St. Petersburg. It is Russia's first time to hold the rotating G-8 presidency, a controversy itself given Putin's moves to restrict political and economic freedoms.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., Rep. Tom Lantos, D-Calif., and former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright have said Russia should be excluded. A London-based think tank, the Foreign Policy Center, issued a report saying Putin's record makes a mockery of G-8's commitment to free markets and open societies.

But others want Russia to stay and for other nations to join, including nondemocracies that are big economies.

Johannes Linn and Colin Bradford, both former World Bank officials now with the Brookings Institution, have proposed expanding the group to 19 to 20 members.

They would add Australia, Argentina, Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Korea, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, South Africa and Turkey. They also would add the country of the rotating presidency of the European Union if it was not already a member.

"The problem in a sense for the G-8 is that it has set itself up as a quasi-steering group for the world, but it cannot effectively and cannot legitimately deal with many of the key issues," Linn said.

And it will only get worse. "Five years from now, I cannot possibly see how a G-8 would still be relevant," he said.

Gee whiz.

But will the G-8 transform itself anytime soon? "Probably not," he said.

Five years ago, most growth came through acquisitions, but now MLPS are more interested in building than buying, said Rob Pierce, a managing director at Lehman Brothers.

"Several MLPs have gotten larger and are better able to finance more organic development without sacrificing their ability to maintain and increase their distributions over time," Pierce said.

Master limited partnerships pay no corporate taxes and distribute nearly all of their profits to shareholders, including the corporations they were spun out from.

They have become more popular in recent years as energy companies have been moving their cash-rich pipelines into publicly traded MLPs.

For instance, Kinder Morgan Inc., whose managers are now trying to take the corporate entity private in a $13 billion deal, moved its pipeline assets to Kinder Morgan Energy Partners LP years ago.

More recently, Duke Energy and ConocoPhillips moved many natural gas liquid and natural gas assets into a joint venture DCP Midstream Partners LP that went public in December. Duke is also considering moving its natural gas pipeline assets into a separate MLP, it said last week.

Pipelines are sought after by MLPs because they have low operating costs and throw off large amounts of cash. And while they have benefited from an increase in demand for energy products, they have little of the risk associated with commodity price swings.

Global oil and gas deals, which includes pipeline-related acquisitions, rose nearly 30 percent to $111 billion during the first half of the year.

SCARCITY OF PIPELINES FOR SALE

But pipelines with for-sale signs on them are scarce because many are owned by companies that already have plans to sell whatever assets they have to their own MLPs, or by the major oil producers such as Exxon Mobil Corp. that believe the assets are strategic.

And those pipelines that have come onto the market are going through auction processes that push prices up.

"Whenever quality assets are out there for sale, you see almost all of the MLPs in this space looking at them," said Bill Finnegan, a partner at Vinsons & Elkins, a law firm in Houston.

Given the stiff competition, companies are building new pipelines, often with their rivals. For instance, last month Oneok Partners -- an MLP previously called Northern Border Partners -- said it would work with Boardwalk Pipeline Partners and Energy Transfer on a pipeline that connects Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Mississippi. And Kinder Morgan is one of three companies building a more than $4 billion pipeline across the Rockies.

"In MLPs, the companies that have control of their own destinies by building their own pipeline extensions ... are the ones that are being valued higher and given higher valuations," said Paul Murdock, a director in the global utility and chemical banking group at Deutsche Bank.

Many of the MLP deals that have occurred involved financial sponsors who are trying to build up their investments in this area, and are willing to pay price-to-cash flow ratios as high as 14 times earnings before interest tax and depreciation, compared with eight times a couple of years ago.

Stand-alone MLPs that do not have a link to a corporation that can move more assets into it or that are in a business that is not growing quickly enough, have been willing to pay the higher prices.

For instance, MLP Crosstex Energy LP bought privately held Chief Holdings LLC, which included natural gas gathering systems, for about $480 million in a deal that closed last week. That comes on the back of Crosstex's purchase of midstream assets last year from El Paso Corp. for about $500 million.

Among other top 10 pipeline deals this year, MLP Northern Border Partners bought Oneok's pipeline, storage and processing assets for $3 billion and has since changed its name to Oneok Partners.

Iraq resumed crude oil exports from the Turkish Mediterranean port last week after a suspension of almost a year. Since then, Baghdad has sold 8.6 million barrels of crude in its first three tenders, boosting overall exports for June to around 1.66 million barrels a day.

Iraq's May exports stood at around 1.5 million barrels per day.

Iraqi oil officials are upbeat about July exports, expecting them to reach 1.8 million barrels per day, the highest level since Baghdad resumed exports under U.S. occupation in 2003.

Iraq's State Oil Marketing Organization, SOMO, issued a fourth tender for 6 million barrels of Kirkuk crude on Friday. Bids are expected by July 13.

Iraq, a founding member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, sits atop the world's third-highest proven reserves. Its estimated 115 billion barrels are exceeded in OPEC only by Saudi Arabia and Iran.

"He gave me part of his body. He saved my life," Faraj, a diabetes sufferer whose kidneys were failing despite a three-times-a-week dialysis regime, told area television stations.

Baker has used Faraj, a native of Lebanon, as his driver on trips to Chicago for several years. Making small talk months ago, Baker learned of Faraj's poor health and struggle to find a kidney donor with a matching blood type.

"At that time, he tells me, 'What's your blood type?' I tell him O-positive," Faraj said. "He said, 'I'm 0-positive. I'll give you one.'"

Baker is out of the hospital and expected to fully recover within weeks.

"This was an opportunity to stop, slow down, take a look around and try to help someone," Baker told local television.