Religious leaders to visit quake site, meet pope ahead of G-8 summit

TOKYO, June 7 Kyodo - Religious leaders from around the world will gather in Italy on June 16-17 to visit quake-hit L'Aquila ahead of an annual G-8 summit in July, according to the Japanese Committee of the World Conference of Religions for Peace.

The religious leaders will travel to L'Aquila on the morning of June 16 to
offer prayers for the victims of the magnitude 6.3 earthquake in April that
left some 260 people dead in L'Aquila and its vicinity in central Italy.
They are also expected to meet Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican during their
two-day parley in Rome, the WCRP's Japan chapter said.
The meeting at the Italian Foreign Ministry will follow similar meetings of
world religious leaders prior to the annual G-8 summits in Russia in 2006,
Germany in 2007 and Japan in 2008. The G-8 groups Britain, Canada, France,
Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States.
A projected Japanese delegation will report the outcome of the last religious
leaders' meeting in Sapporo to the upcoming meeting, a member of the Japan
Committee said.
This year's G-8 summit will be held July 8-10.
==Kyodo