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Family goes missing after mansion fire

LONDON - A family of three are missing after a fire tore through their Shropshire country mansion in a suspected arson attack, police said yesterday.

Detectives hope CCTV footage will offer some clues to the blaze which left much of the property near Oswestry destroyed. The owners, Christopher Foster, his wife Jillian and their teenage daughter Kirstie remain unaccounted for. The owner was reportedly managing director of a company responsible for insulation on oil rigs.

- (Reuters)

Three die in Mexico firefight

MEXICO CITY - Suspected drug hitmen attacked a group of sleeping soldiers with grenades in central Mexico, sparking a battle that killed three gunmen, a state attorney general's office said.

Around 15 drug gang members in vehicles surprised the soldiers camped out in the central state of Guanajuato on Tuesday night, firing with automatic weapons. "Two soldiers were injured in the clash in a firefight that lasted several minutes," a spokesman said. - (Reuters)

Offer of shelter for Palestinian

HEBRON, West Bank - A charity in the West Bank offered shelter yesterday to a mentally disabled Palestinian woman whose father made her live for almost 20 years in a room under his house.

Police found Nawal al-Masalmeh and her brother Bassam, who suffers similar disabilities, in an unlit cellar on Tuesday during a raid aimed at suspected arms and drug dealers in Beit Awa near the city of Hebron. - (Reuters)

Dalai Lama cancels trips

NEW DELHI - Exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama is exhausted and has cancelled foreign trips to rest and undergo medical tests, his aide said yesterday.

He returned to Dharamsala, the north Indian town where he lives, on Sunday after a two-week visit to France, mainly to give lectures on Buddhism, but during which he criticised Chinese policies in Tibet. - (Reuters)

This article appears in the print edition of the Irish Times