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JAKARTA (Reuters) - Some things in the central Jakarta district of Matraman have barely changed since the late 1960s, when United States President Barack Obama lived and played there.

CANBERRA (Reuters) - Australia urged China on Thursday to allow its diplomats full access to the trial of four Rio Tinto staff charged with commercial spying in a case that could hurt political and economic ties.

JAKARTA (Reuters) - Indonesia has won praise for cracking down on Islamist militants behind a string of deadly attacks and at the core of the fight have been the heavily armed black-clad officers of its anti-terrorism unit -- Detachment 88.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrived in Russia on Thursday hoping to clear obstacles to a new treaty cutting arsenals of nuclear weapons and to win Moscow's backing for tougher sanctions against Iran.

ALMATY (Reuters) - The death toll from last week's flood that destroyed a village near the Kazakh financial hub Almaty has risen to 40, the emergencies ministry said on Thursday.

DUSHANBE (Reuters) - An avalanche killed eight people on a mountain road in the Central Asian state of Tajikistan, the emergencies committee said Thursday.

SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea has executed a ruling party official blamed for a botched currency reform, in a desperate attempt to quell public unrest and stem negative impact on Pyongyang's power succession, a news report said on Thursday.

SPIN BOLDAK, Afghanistan (Reuters) - One of the most important trade routes in Asia was closed last week while a boyish-looking man everyone calls "the general" showed around the commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan.

ABUJA (Reuters) - Nigeria's Acting President Goodluck Jonathan dissolved the cabinet on Wednesday in a bid to consolidate his authority at the helm of Africa's most populous nation a month after he assumed executive powers.

SANAA (Reuters) - Yemeni Shi'ite rebels freed at least 170 government soldiers and tribal fighters on Wednesday after Sanaa accused them of dragging their feet on implementing a truce deal to end a northern war, both sides said.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki reclaimed the lead on Wednesday over secularist challenger Iyad Allawi in results from a March 7 parliamentary election that has been dogged by fraud allegations.

BANGKOK (Reuters) - Red-shirted protesters emptied bottles of their blood outside the home of Thailand's prime minister on Wednesday in a symbolic sacrifice after the government rejected calls for elections.

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union has urged Georgia's government to avoid exacerbating regional tensions after a Georgian television station broadcast a fake news report about Russian forces heading for the capital Tbilisi.

KAMPALA (Reuters) - Ugandan security forces killed two people and wounded five on Wednesday after fire destroyed historic royal tombs, heightening tension between the government and the powerful Bugandan kingdom.

HAVANA (Reuters) - Cuban police grabbed members of the opposition group "Ladies in White" by their hair, dragged them into a bus and drove them away to break up a protest march on Wednesday.

MOGADISHU (Reuters) - Somali pirates said on Wednesday they had hijacked a boat carrying charcoal from the rebel-held south of the Horn of Africa nation to Dubai.

TUNIS (Reuters) - A top Libyan official on Wednesday welcomed as a "step forward" a call by Swiss officials for damages to be paid to a son of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi who was arrested in Geneva in 2008.

BYEI, Nigeria (Reuters) - Raiders armed with machetes killed at least 13 people in an attack on a village near the central Nigeria city of Jos Wednesday, close to where hundreds have died in sectarian violence this year.

ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkey's prime minister has threatened to expel thousands of illegal Armenian immigrants after U.S. and Swedish lawmakers passed votes branding World War One-era killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks as genocide.

HARARE (Reuters) - South African leader Jacob Zuma met Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai on Wednesday in an attempt to resolve a decade-long political crisis that helped drag Zimbabwe into economic ruin.