An earthquake survivor trapped in a collapsed hotel in western Indonesia sent a text message saying he and some others were alive, triggering a frantic rescue operation, but hopes faded today as sniffer dogs failed to detect life.

A suicide car bomb struck near the headquarters of a major Shiite political bloc today in Baghdad, killing at least five people and wounding seven, including an Iraqi soldier, police said.

Israel pressed ahead with its incursion into the southern Gaza Strip today as airstrikes killed five Palestinians, including a mother and her two children, and tanks rolled to the edge of Rafah, officials said.

Attorney General Meni Mazuz recommended today that one of Israel’s chief rabbis, Yona Metzger, resign for receiving improper gifts, according to the Justice Ministry.

Israel’s chief Sephardic rabbi said today he feels “true anguish” for an ultra-Orthodox teen who was abducted and beaten after striking up a relationship with the cleric’s daughter, but pinned the blame for the growing scandal on his wayward son.

A MOTHER cleared of murdering three of her babies last night said she was looking forward to “getting back to some sort of normality”.

From the moment Trupti Patel and her husband Jayant started planning a family, they always dreamed of having two children.

A 35-year-old UK mother accused of suffocating three of her own babies was cleared today of murder.

THE deaths of a mother’s three babies were probably caused by an adult suffocating them or restricting their breathing, a leading paediatrician told a court yesterday.

A MOTHER in Britain accused of suffocating three of her own babies did not appear particularly caring, a nurse told a court yesterday.

A MOTHER felt compelled to act against nature and instinct and suffocate three of her babies, a court heard yesterday.

FIVE Israelis have been arrested on suspicion of selling thousands of rounds of ammunition to Palestinian militants.

Israeli warplanes demolished a building in the West Bank, in retaliation for yesterday's suicide bombing in Jerusalem.