Heavy rains in north-eastern Peru caused landslides that killed at least 25 people, the area chief said today. Another 25 people are missing and at least 50 are injured.

Distraught parents and grandparents of children killed in the Beslan school massacre last year blocked a busy route in southern Russia for a second day today in a call for the regional president to step down.

Commandos stormed a school today in southern Russia and battled separatist rebels holding hundreds of hostages as crying children, some naked and covered in blood, fled the building through explosions and gunfire.

Russia’s school siege ended in a chaotic bloodbath today with more than 150 hostages and some of their captors killed when special forces stormed the building in an unplanned onslaught.