Sydney  - Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is expected to visit Australia this week, officials in Canberra said Sunday.

Al-Maliki is due on Wednesday and expected to leave on Sunday.

"The success of Iraq's recent provincial elections in January 2009 is evidence of growing security and stability in the country," Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said in a statement. "Australia is strongly supportive of measures Iraq is taking to strengthen democracy and welcomes the recent free and fair elections, giving Iraqi citizens a voice in the future of their country."

Damascus  - US Acting Assistant Secretary for the Near East Jeffrey Feltman and another top US diplomat were to arrive later Saturday in Syria for what Feltman called a "long list" of concerns.

Feltman and Daniel Shapiro, senior director of the Middle East and North Africa Daniel Shapiro at the US National Security Council, were heading to Syria after leaving Beirut, where they held talks with senior Lebanese officials Friday.

Wellington  - Fiji's military strongman, Commodore Frank Bainimarama, defied Thursday an ultimatum from the British Commonwealth to hold elections this year and challenged the 53-member organization to suspend his country's membership immediately.

A group of ministers from Commonwealth countries meeting in London on Wednesday said Fiji would be suspended in September if Bainimarama, who has ruled the South Pacific nation since seizing power in a bloodless coup in December 2006, did not restore democracy.

Hamburg - The woman at the focus of a stand-off between Germany and Poland will not be nominated to the board of a new, taxpayer-funded museum, it was announced Wednesday.

Poland had protested at the nomination of Erika Steinbach, 65, national leader of a refugee group, to join a
13-member board to set up a Berlin museum depicting the ordeal of Germans expelled from eastern Europe after World War II.

The Federation of Expellees said it would not nominate Steinbach because it did not want to be accused of jeopardizing the museum project, which she initiated.

Jakarta  - An international Islamic economic conference ended Wednesday with calls for the reduction of trade barriers, development of alternative energy sources and stricter regulations in the global financial industry.

The three-day World Islamic Economic Forum in Jakarta, attended by 1,500 delegates from 38 countries, discussed ways to deal with the global financial crisis and food security, as well as exploring possibilities for non-carbon fuels.

Cha-am, Thailand  - The 14th Summit of the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) was kicked off Saturday with a call by host Thailand to make the grouping more people-centred, a goal enshrined by the newly-adopted ASEAN Charter.

"We need to make ASEAN more people-centred," Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said in his opening address to the South-East Asian leaders summit held this weekend in Cha-am, 130 kilometres south-west of Bangkok.