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JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's government survived three no-confidence motions in parliament on Monday in a vote boycotted by a key member of his ruling coalition.

KINSHASA (Reuters) - A 6-month-old peace deal in eastern Congo is "meaningless" because it has failed to protect civilians against murder and rape, a leading human rights group said on Monday.

KATHMANDU (Reuters) - Nepal's lawmakers picked the country's first president on Monday, rejecting a candidate backed by former Maoist rebels in a move that could plunge the Himalayan nation's nascent republic into more political turmoil.

ARANYAPRATHET, Thailand (Reuters) - Talks between Thailand and Cambodia failed on Monday to end a week-long military stand-off over an ancient temple on their border, which regional neighbors feared could turn violent.

COTONOU (Reuters) - The deposed separatist leader of the breakaway Comorian island of Anjouan arrived in the West African country of Benin at the weekend and said he wanted to stay as long as possible.

LISBON (Reuters) - Portugal's public prosecutor dropped the case on the disappearance of British girl Madeleine McCann in the absence of any evidence on Monday, and cleared her parents and another Briton of suspicion of involvement.

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - The Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) has begun negotiations for the creation of a human rights body, a senior Philippine official said on Monday, with hopes of concluding talks in Bangkok next July.

ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) - The African Union urged the U.N. Security Council on Monday to put on hold the International Criminal Court's move to indict Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir over war crimes in Darfur.

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Recovery from a cyclone that tore into Myanmar's Irrawaddy delta in May, leaving at least 138,000 dead or missing, will cost more than $1 billion, a report by the United Nations and Southeast Asian nations concluded.

TOKYO (Reuters) - An earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 6.1 jolted northern Japan on Monday at 1130 GMT (7:30 a.m. EDT), the Japan Meteorological Agency said.

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Lebanese President Michel Suleiman will visit Syria soon to discuss establishing diplomatic ties between the neighboring countries, the Syrian foreign minister said on Monday.

ABU DHABI (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice warned Iran on Monday that it faced more sanctions if it defied a two-week deadline to agree to curb its nuclear program.

HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai on Monday signed a deal laying down the framework for formal talks on forming a power sharing government to end a deep political crisis.

Ed Davies is deputy bureau chief Indonesia, where many live with smoldering volcanoes and frequent earthquakes. He joined Reuters in 1996 in Hong Kong and has also been based in Singapore and South Korea. In the following story, he describes spending a day with the sulfur miners of an East Java volcano.

CAIRO (Reuters) - Egypt detained 39 members of the opposition Muslim Brotherhood on Monday in the Nile Delta province of Kafr el-Sheikh, security sources and the Brotherhood website said.

KABUL (Reuters) - Two Turkish engineers kidnapped in western Afghanistan last week have been set free and are returning home, authorities said on Monday.

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India's parliament debated on a vote of confidence in Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's government on Monday that will decide the fate of a nuclear deal with the United States and could trigger a snap election.

NABLUS, West Bank (Reuters) - Israeli forces detained a Hamas woman lawmaker on Monday along with 14 managers of a West Bank business venture that Israel accuses of having links to the Islamist faction, Palestinian officials said.

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Southeast Asian ministers urged Cambodia and Thailand on Monday to show restraint over a military standoff on their border and took steps to create a regional human rights body.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama flew into Iraq on Monday, thrusting U.S. strategy in the country and troop levels to the centre-stage of the November election race.