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The search for six people still missing after a deadly landslide in Indonesia has been called off, officials said today, bringing the presumed death toll to 18. An avalanche of mud and rock cascaded down a steep slope in central Java last week, burying victims as they worked their rice fields. Hundreds of rescuers, including members of the army, police and local community, have spent the past seven days digging through the debris to find victims buried in the deadly slide. Twelve people are confirmed to have died while another…

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said today that rebels in Syria’s Eastern Ghouta were responsible for ensuring that a “humanitarian pause” in the area delivers relief for devastated civilians. “Russia together with the Syrian government have already announced the establishment of humanitarian corridors in Eastern Ghouta,” Lavrov told the UN Human Rights Council. “Now, it is the turn for the militants and their sponsors to act, militants entrenched there who still continue shelling Damascus, blocking aid deliveries and the evacuation of those wishing to leave,” he added. Tuesday was the…

Protesters including senior military veterans pushed down a gate to Taiwan’s parliament building today and clashed with police as they tried to storm in over pension cutbacks. One former colonel was in a critical condition in hospital after attempting to climb a wall and falling. The protests were sparked by government plans to reform the military pension system, part of a wider pension cutbacks programme which triggered mass protests last year. Legislators passed a pension reform bill last June, cutting civil servants’ generous pension packages as the government warned it…