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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.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House on Monday said it hoped for progress on a sweeping housing rescue plan by the end of this week, but reiterated a veto threat over a provision that Congress looks likely to include in the bill.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Congress should explicitly declare a state of armed conflict with al Qaeda to make clear the United States can detain suspected members as long as the war on terrorism lasts, U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey said on Monday.

GUANTANAMO BAY U.S. NAVAL BASE, Cuba (Reuters) - Osama bin Laden's driver went on trial at Guantanamo on Monday in the first U.S. war crimes trial since World War Two, nearly seven years after the September 11 attacks prompted U.S. President George W. Bush to declare war on terrorism.

KABUL (Reuters) - Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has called for more U.S. troops to be sent to Afghanistan, but many in the war-torn country doubt whether more soldiers will help stem the rising tide of violence.

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.

WARSAW (Reuters) - Poland and the United States made some progress on Monday in their efforts to forge a deal on stationing part of an anti-missile defense shield on Polish soil, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said.

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.

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.

GENEVA (Reuters) - The United States pressed big developing countries to make concessions as ministers began a week of meetings at the World Trade Organization on Monday, urgently seeking a breakthrough for a global trade deal.

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.