LONDON (Reuters) - Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg set out his policy requirements for backing either the Labour party or the Conservatives if neither wins an outright majority in the looming election.

ATHENS (Reuters) - Police clashed with stone-throwing youths in Athens Thursday as tens of thousands protested draconian cutbacks aimed at pulling Greece out of a debt crisis shaking the euro zone.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Preliminary results from Iraq's national election began to trickle in on Thursday, showing Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki ahead in the country's largely Shi'ite south.

SANTIAGO, Chile (Reuters) - Two strong aftershocks within minutes of each other hit the Chilean capital Santiago on Thursday, according to Reuters witnesses, just ahead of the swearing-in of President-elect Sebastian Pinera.

LONDON (Reuters) - A proposed 400 km per hour high-speed rail link joining London and other major cities would cost 30 billion pounds to build over a decade after 2017, Transport Secretary Andrew Adonis said.

GAZA (Reuters) - A British journalist was freed by the Hamas Islamist rulers of the Gaza Strip on Thursday, nearly four weeks after his arrest on suspicion of spying for Israel, Palestinian and British officials said.

KIEV (Reuters) - Ukraine's new prime minister Mykola Azarov, declaring state coffers were empty, promised on Thursday to meet all obligations to the International Monetary Fund and push through a realistic 2010 budget.

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - A Swedish man accused of organising the theft of the "Work sets you free" sign from the former Nazi death camp of Auschwitz will be extradited to Poland, a Swedish district court said Thursday.

LONDON (Reuters) - Dozens of firefighters battled a fire at a restaurant and offices in London early Thursday which sent smoke billowing across the city centre.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Mexican tycoon Carlos Slim is the world's richest person, knocking Microsoft founder Bill Gates into second spot, as the wealth of the world's billionaires grew by 50 percent over the last year, Forbes magazine said on Wednesday.