Reuters

TANAH DATAR (Reuters) - Flash floods and mud slides in Indonesia's West Sumatra province killed at least 37 people this weekend while the search for 17 missing people is still ongoing, authorities said on Monday.

Torrential rain on Saturday evening caused flash floods, landslides, and cold lava flow, which is a mixture of volcanic ash, rock debris and water that flows like mud, in three districts in West Sumatra province, Abdul Malik, the chief of... (continue reading...)

By Rishika Sadam and Jatindra Dash

HYDERABAD/BHUBANESWAR, India (Reuters) - India voted on Monday in the fourth phase of a seven-week long general election, as campaign rhetoric became more strident over economic disparities and religious divisions.

The world's most populous nation began voting on April 19 in a seven-phase election in which nearly one billion people are eligible to vote, with ballots set to be counted on June 4.

(Reuters) - Australia's Iress Ltd over the weekend detected and contained an unauthorized access of the firm's space on a third-party platform which is used to manage its pre-production software code, the financial software firm said on Monday.

Iress said it does not store client information on the third-party platform - GitHub - and that there was no evidence that client data had been compromised.

Iress, which operates across Asia,... (continue reading...)

By Makiko Yamazaki and Yoshifumi Takemoto

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan is seeing conditions fall in place for the central bank to normalise monetary policy, ruling party heavyweight Katsunobu Kato told Reuters, underscoring growing political support for further interest rate hikes.

But Kato said the Bank of Japan (BOJ) must keep a close eye on economic conditions and coordinate carefully with the government in working out when to raise rates.

By Wayne Cole

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Asian share markets made a cautious start on Monday in a week where inflation figures could make or break hopes for earlier U.S. rate cuts, while Chinese activity data will test optimism about a sustained recovery in the world's No. 2 economy.

Beijing has already reported a welcome pickup in inflation to an annual 0.3% in April, helping to soothe worries about a slide into prolonged deflation. Forecasts... (continue reading...)