Sources said the meeting in Paris had been gutted of potential controversy to help get international diplomacy back on track after the Iraq war set three of the G8 -- France, Germany and Russia -- against their partners Britain and the United States.

A draft final communique, due to be released on Sunday, would stand by the outcome of the 2002 Earth Summit in Johannesburg, which made ringing but fudge-filled commitments on hauling poor countries out of poverty, poor sanitation and lack of access to clean water.

But references to the UN's Kyoto Protocol on climate change -- the issue that triggered a huge row two years ago between the European Union (EU) and the United States -- have been bleached out.

And efforts by Germany for the meeting to push for tighter regulations on oil-tanker safety and liability, after two decrepit single-hulled tankers foundered on France's Atlantic coast in just three years, were nixed by Japan, the sources said.

Green activists met the ministers or their stand-ins on Friday and anti-globalisation protestors were to stage a "counter forum" on Saturday in the French provincial town of Angers.

France is current chair of the G8 and is keen to repair ties with the United States that were frayed by the war.

Earlier this week, sources close to the meeting said both the US and French delegations would include diplomats who could hold informal bilateral talks on the future of Iraq.

French Ecology Minister Roselyne Bachelot said in a press briefing on Friday, "Iraq is not the agenda of this meeting, but it may of course be brought up in informal meetings."

She added, without comment, that the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) had "notified" the ministers of its new report on Iraq's environment crisis.

The report, released in Geneva on Thursday, said pollution, sewage-tainted water and mounting piles of rubbish and medical waste were posing growing health problems for the Iraqi public.

And it also challenged the United States to identify sites where depleted uranium shells had been fired and to advise civilians on avoiding exposure to those munitions.

Russia was challenged by the environment group Greenpeace at Friday's meeting to set a date for ratifying the Kyoto Protocol.

Approval by the Russian parliament would turn the global warming pact into an international treaty under its complex ratification rules.

However, the Russian representative at the meeting, junior minister Irina Ossokina, did not deviate from Russian President Vladimir Putin's position.

"She reaffirmed (Russia's) commitment to ratifying Kotyo (but) without giving a specific deadline," Bachelot said.

The G8 comprises Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States, plus the European Commission.

The meeting had initially been scheduled to take place in Angers but was shifted to Paris for security reasons, a decision made at the height of the war.

ri-mpf-mo/jfs

SPACE.WIRE