JERUSALEM -- Saudi Arabia has invited an Israeli rabbi to an interfaith conference in Spain, potentially the first step in wider contacts between the kingdom and Israel, the rabbi told The Associated Press on Thursday.

But he warned that it might be no more than a Saudi attempt to improve its image and that of Islam in the face of criticism over the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the U.S. and other instances of Islamic extremism.

TOKYO -- The Group of Eight nations, holding their annual summit in Japan starting Monday, have always been a club for the world's biggest and brightest economies. Now a growing chorus is saying it's time the clubhouse doors swing open to some newcomers.

Outsider China has eclipsed more than half the club's members in economic size and the gross domestic product in Brazil is larger than Russia's.

"When do they move from the G-8 to the G-13?" asked Lael Brainard of the Brookings Institution, a Washington-based think tank.

"None of these problems can be solved without the participation of countries like China, India, Mexico, Brazil and South Africa."

Indeed, the G-8's grip on the world economy isn't what it used to be.

The U.S., Japan, Germany, Britain, France, Italy, Canada and Russia accounted for 58 percent of the world economy at current prices in 2007, International Monetary Fund figures show -- down from 65 percent in 1997.

As the G-8 members have moved well past their glorious high-growth periods in the decades after World War II, other nations have jumped to the fore as economies to be reckoned with.

ROME -- Italian authorities have started fingerprinting tens of thousands of Gypsies living in nomad camps across the country -- adults and children alike -- brushing aside accusations of racism by human rights advocates and international organizations.

Interior Minister Roberto Maroni told parliament this week the move was needed to fight crime and identify illegal immigrants for expulsion, but also to improve the lives of those legally living in the makeshift, often unsanitary camps.

"We intend to make a census to see who lives in Gypsy camps, who has a right to stay and to live in humane conditions. Those who don't have a right to stay will be repatriated," he said.

More than 700 encampments have been built, mainly around Rome, Milan and Naples, populated almost entirely by Gypsies, also known as Roma.

The measure by Premier Silvio Berlusconi's conservative government, part of the government's crackdown on street crime, has provoked a storm of protests at home and abroad. Officials have spoken recently of a "Roma emergency" in Italy's big cities, blaming them for rising crime.

BAGHDAD -- In a move to separate mosque and state, the Iraqi government said Thursday that Islamic houses of worship should be off limits for campaigning in provincial elections scheduled for the fall.

Government spokesman Ali Dabagh also said that photos of anyone but the candidates would be banned from campaign advertising.

The government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki issued the recommendations in the hope of preventing a repeat of the exploitation of the country's revered religious figures in the 2005 elections.

Shiite political slates plastered their campaign literature with images of Ali al-Sistani, a grand ayatollah and Iraq's most influential imam, and some mosques promoted candidates by sending out cars with loudspeakers.

Dabagh announced several other recommendations Thursday, including the use of an open slate that would allow voters to pick individual candidates, rather than vote for entire slates as was done in 2005.

To deflect concerns that the measure would reduce the likelihood of women being elected, Dabagh said there should be at least one woman in the first three spots on each slate.

The open slate was proposed as an improvement over the system used in 2005, but it also has critics who say it will be so confusing the votes can't be counted properly.