VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

Rescue teams searching for survivors from a landslide that tore though a campsite in Malaysia recovered the bodies of a woman and two children on Saturday, officials said, raising the death toll to 24.

The landslide in Batang Kali, a popular hilly area about 50 km (30 miles) north of Kuala Lumpur, flattened the unlicensed campsite early on Friday while people slept in their tents. Those killed included seven children.

Of the 94 people caught in the slide, 61 were safe and nine still missing, according to the Selangor state fire and rescue department.

State fire and rescue chief Norazam Khamis said chances of more survivors being found were slim, given the weight of mud pressing down on the site.

Search and rescue operations resumed for a second day earlier on Saturday, after a halt overnight due to heavy rains.

A total of 135 responders and seven rescue dogs resumed scouring through thick mud and downed trees around 8.30 a.m. (0030 GMT) with the assistance of excavators, Norazam told reporters.

An initial investigation showed an embankment of about 450,000 cubic metres of earth had collapsed. The earth fell from an estimated height of 30 metres (100 ft) and covered an area of about an acre (0.4 hectares).

Survivors are in stable condition and will also receive trauma counselling, said Health Minister Zaliha Mustafa.

Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said on Friday the government would provide 10,000 ringgit ($2,260) in aid to families of every person killed , while survivors would receive 1,000 ringgit per household.

Following the disaster, the Forestry Department in several states ordered the closure of campsites and hiking and off-road trails considered as high risk.

Landslides are common in Malaysia, but typically only after heavy rains. Flooding occurs often, with about 21,000 people displaced last year by torrential rain in seven states. (Reuters)

Philippine communist leader Jose Maria Sison died on Friday night at the age of 83 after a two-week confinement in a hospital in the Netherlands, his party said on Saturday.

Sison is the founder of the Philippine Communist Party, whose military wing - the New People's Army (NPA) - has been waging an armed rebellion in one of the world's longest-running insurgencies. The conflict between the NPA and the Philippine government has killed more than 40,000 people.

"The Filipino proletariat and toiling people grieve the death of their teacher and guiding light," the party said in a statement on its website.

The self-exiled communist leader has lived in Europe since the late 1980s, after his release from jail following the fall of dictator Ferdinand Marcos, whose namesake son was elected president in a May election this year.

Sison was put on a U.S. terrorist list in 2002, preventing him from travelling.

The party said Sison died peacefully at around 8:40 p.m. (1240 GMT) on Friday after being confined in the hospital in Utrecht. It did not give a reason for Sison's confinement.

"Even as we mourn, we vow (to) continue to give all our strength and determination to carry the revolution forward guided by the memory and teachings of the people's beloved Ka Joma," the party said.

Sison was also known as Joma. "Ka" means comrade.

President Marcos' predecessor, Rodrigo Duterte, had prioritised ending the conflict with the NPA when he took office in 2016, but he abandoned peace efforts, infuriated by repeated rebel attacks during the talks

At its peak, the NPA had 25,000 armed fighters, but now has about 2,000, the military has said.

Following Sison's death, the Department of National Defense (DND) called on the "remaining few believers ... (to) turn their backs on the violent and false ideology" of the Communist Party.

"The greatest stumbling block of peace for the Philippines is gone; let us now give peace a chance," the DND said in a statement. (Reuters)

Former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan announced on Saturday that his party would dissolve two provincial assemblies next week, earlier than scheduled, in an attempt to build pressure on the federal government to hold early general elections.

Khan has campaigned for snap polls since being ousted from power in a parliamentary vote in April, which has heightened political uncertainty in the South Asian nation even as it struggles to stave off financial default.

Khan's party controls two of the country's four provincial assemblies. The other two are controlled by his political opponents, who also control the federal government under Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and who have said they will not hold national and local polls before they are due in November 2023.

"Next Friday (Dec. 23), we will dissolve the Punjab and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa assemblies," Khan said while addressing a gathering of his supporters in the eastern city of Lahore.

Punjab, controlled by Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, is the country's most populous province and makes up nearly half of the country's population of 220 million.

The dissolutions could create a fresh constitutional crisis in the country.

Historically, polls for the federal and provincial governments are held at the same time in a general election every five years. If the two provincial assemblies are dissolved earlier, separate polls would have to be held for them within 90 days, which could throw up legal problems.

Khan, who was injured in an apparent assassination bid last month, said he was "sacrificing" his two provincial governments for the sake of the country's future.

He added that elections in the two provinces would mean holding polls in 66% of the country, and so the government might as well hold general elections. (Reuters)

Peruvian President Dina Boluarte, who has said she is leading a transitional government, urged the country's Congress to pass a proposal to bring forward general elections in a news conference from the presidential palace on Saturday.

Boluarte, formerly Peru's vice president, assumed the presidency earlier this month after leftist ex-President Pedro Castillo tried to illegally dissolve Congress and was arrested.

Since then, protests have broken out across the country, and at least 17 people have been killed. Another five have died of indirect consequences of the protests, according to authorities.

Boluarte on Saturday countered protesters asking for her to step down, saying "that does not solve the problem" and that she had done her part by sending the bill to Congress.

On Friday, Peru's Congress rejected the proposed constitutional reform to move elections forward to December 2023. Some members of Congress have called for the legislature to reconsider the proposal.

"I demand that the vote to bring elections up be reconsidered," Boluarte said, criticizing Congress members who had previously abstained from voting.

She also dismissed calls for a constitutional assembly, saying it was "not the time." Some leftist leaders have called for the assembly, which would redraft Peru's 1993 constitution, to boost the state's role in the economy.

Boluarte said there would be a reshuffling of her Cabinet in the coming days as well, following the resignation of the education minister and culture minister Friday.

"We will have a recomposition of the Cabinet, to be able to install knowledgeable ministers in each sector," she said.

The Cabinet departures Friday raise questions about the longevity of Boluarte's government, which has been rocked by political turbulence.

Protests since the arrest of former President Castillo, who is in pre-trial detention while facing charges of rebellion and conspiracy, have crippled Peru's transport system, shuttering airports and blocking highways.

On Wednesday, Boluarte's government announced a state of emergency, granting police special powers and limiting citizens' rights, including the right to assembly.

Protesters have also blockaded Peru's borders, leaving tourists stranded and strangling trade.

"We want the immediate closure of Congress; we want the resignation of Dina Boluarte," Rene Mendoza, a protester at the border with Bolivia, told Reuters. "Today the Peruvian people are in mourning... The whole of Peru is in a struggle." (Reuters)