Yahoo News - No G-8 seat for China, other big economies
AP reports, "The G-8 summit that President Bush and seven other world leaders are attending next weekend in Russia is often billed as a gathering of the world's leading economic powers. It is not. Consider: China, now the world's fourth-largest economy and the nation with the most influence over renegade North Korea, is not a member." [ Rev 17:12-14]

Comment: Most Bible prophecy commentators view the ten kings of Rev 17 as a representation of the political power base of the first beast of Revelation and the consensus seems to be (based on Daniel) that this group arises from within the European Union as the latter day Roman Empire. However, I'm open to the possiblity that the ten could be a representation of some other political or economic alliance, and so I also pay attention to efforts to expand the G8 as well as the U.N. Security Council. I am the first to admit that I don't know how this prophecy will be fulfilled, only that after the fact we will be able to look back and find that it was fulfilled to the letter of prophetic scripture. Finally, note in your study of Rev 17 that the first beast does not have power (or kingship) in his own right but is given power by the ten and that this power is global in scope. This tells us that we are looking for a group that already has global power that they can then legitimately give to another.