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Barack Obama to travel to Indonesia with family

US President Barack Obama and his family will retrace his childhood steps, travelling to Indonesia next month in a nostalgic return to the country where he lived with his late mother and Indonesian stepfather in the 1960s.

The trip, in the second half of March, has been greatly anticipated in the world's most populous Muslim-majority country since Mr Obama's inauguration, which was welcomed in Indonesia as the start of a new era in US diplomacy.

Dino Patti Djalal, a spokesman for Indonesia's President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, said the visit was a chance for Mr Obama to set relations on a more equal footing.

"We want relations between Indonesia and the United States not only to cover one issue. There used to be an imbalance, only democracy and human rights," he was quoted as saying by Antara state news agency.

He said Indonesia was eager to discuss trade, the economy, technology and heath, among other issues.

He also acknowledged that the visit would have a "sentimental" aspect for Obama, who went to primary school from 1967 to 1971 in the wealthy neighbourhood of Menteng, where a statue of the US president as a schoolboy was erected in December.

Mr Obama is also scheduled to visit Australia and US troops stationed in Guam during his trip.

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