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Beijing  - Many Western politicians have accused China of trade protectionism in recent months, sometimes with reason and sometimes apparently seeking a convenient economic scapegoat.

Yet most Chinese economists see double standards in the West's finger-pointing.

President Hu Jintao was expected to reiterate China's opposition to protectionism and again champion developing nations when he attends next week's dialogue between the Group of Eight (G8) and emerging economies.

Brussels  - The Group of Eight (G8) traces its origin to 1975, when then French president Valery Giscard d'Estaing invited heads of state and government from Britain, West Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States to a summit in Rambouillet to discuss the consequences of the 1973 oil crisis and the subsequent recession.

Canada joined the Group of Six (G6) a year later, making it the Group of Seven (G7), while the current G8 format took shape in 1997, when then US president Bill Clinton invited his Russian counterpart Boris Yeltsin to Denver.

London, July 2 : Stephen Hawking says he is `flattered' by a Cambridge University poll voting "A Brief History of Time" as the publication most likely to have the same impact as Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species for future generations.

The online poll was run by the University in preparation for its eagerly-awaited Darwin Anniversary Festival, from July 5-10.

Some of the world's foremost thinkers, writers and scientists will gather in Cambridge next week for the Festival marking 200 years since the great naturalist's birth.

Washington  - US President Barack Obama has been squabbling with Western European leaders over how to handle issues such as the global economic crisis and climate change, and those differences appeared to hang over the upcoming G8 summit in Italy.

Berlin  - The Group of Eight (G8), the world's most powerful economies, are hoping to agree next week on a plan to forge a new global financial order, despite signs of tensions between G8 members on regulating markets in the wake of the world economic crisis.

Faced with a dramatic contraction in their national economies this year, the G8 leaders are likely to sign off on a set of new far-reaching regulatory measures drawn up in April at a summit in London of the Group of 20 (G20) leading industrial and emerging nations.

"How to prevent an economic crisis occurring in the future is likely to be a major item on the G8 agenda," said Rainer Guntermann, senior European economist with the investment house Dresdner Kleinwort.