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Stephen Harper is putting his stamp on the G8 summit he will host later this month by extending invitations to a group of world leaders from outside the group, including three from the Americas.

It has become tradition for the G8 to invite others leaders for "outreach" sessions, especially from Africa, but Mr. Harper used a host's influence to match his foreign-policy priority in the Americas.

For the first time, three nations in this hemisphere will be brought into the G8 session. All are Harper friends: Jamaica's Prime Minister Bruce Golding, Haitian President René Préval, and Colombia's controversial outgoing president, Alvaro Uribe, who will get a G8 swan song.

In all, 10 countries will be invited to a special G8-summit "outreach session" on June 25: the three from the Americas plus Algeria, Egypt, Ethiopia, Malawi, Nigeria, Senegal and South Africa.

The summit's host can't dictate the outcomes, but has influence over the agenda and power over the invite list. Mr. Harper made sure they match his themes: an initiative on maternal health, accountability for aid, aiding poorer nations with security problems and the Americas.

The three from the Americas have been invited primarily for talks over a pledge of G8 help to poorer nations to deal with security threats such as terrorism and organized crime, with experts, training and funds - including help to patrol waters in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Mr. Harper could have invited the leaders of other poor nations with security crises, such as Yemen. Instead, he picked three close allies in the Americas beset by crime and insecurity, including Mr. Uribe, with whom he inked a free-trade deal despite sharp criticisms of Colombia's human-rights record.

"These countries were invited because they've worked hard to combat security challenges and promote the fundamental underpinnings of democratic governance including the rule of law and human rights," said Mr. Harper's spokesman, Dimitri Soudas.

The African participants are no surprise: since 2002, when the G8 endorsed what was supposed to be a grand initiative, the New Partnership for African Development, or NEPAD, the continent has sent leaders to G8 summits. Ethiopia is chair of the NEPAD, and Malawi is chair of the African Union; the others are mandated by African nations to talk to the G8.

Mr. Harper's push for a major G8 initiative on maternal health will be a focal point for those leaders, who will see if G8 nations - three of whom failed to meet a 2005 pledge to double aid - will commit the billions needed to reduce high death rates of children and mothers in childbirth.

Credibility on aid issues is now key to the survival of the G8, increasingly an anachronistic club of rich countries, as the broader G20 summit has taken over the mandate for economic files. The next G20 hosts, South Korea, want the larger group to take over development aid issues.

But the expanded invite list might be a throwback now that there is a G20, too. The U.S., fatigued by so many summits, and their expanding lists of participants, is slated to host the G8 in 2012 - and might take the opportunity to kill off the smaller summit that always seems to grow.

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