Thursday's papers

A major rescue operation was under way after a devastating earthquake struck the Indonesian island of Sumatra, leaving hundreds and possibly thousands of people buried in rubble and a major city cut off from the outside world

is the lead in the Guardian this morning as the latest natural disaster dominates many of the front pages

The day the earth shook is the Independent's headline reporting how

Two massive seismic jolts – similarly deadly, but as yet unrelated – brought chaos and destruction to a vast swath of the Pacific Rim yesterday,

The Telegraph leads with the story that Doctors allowed a young woman to kill herself because she had signed a “living will” that meant they could have been prosecuted if they intervened to save her life.

Kerrie Wooltorton, 26, who was suffering depression over her inability to have a child, drank poison at home and called an ambulance. However, she remained conscious and handed doctors a letter saying she wanted medical staff only to make her comfortable and not to try to save her life.

Drinking in streets and parks will be banned in a fightback against 'Binge Britain'.says the Mail

Town halls are drafting new laws to introduce the first blanket bans on public drinking applying to entire towns.
The move comes after Labour finally admitted that the 24-hour drinking it introduced - which the Mail campaigned against - was 'not working'

The Sun continues with its new political backing reporting that

LABOUR'S high command chumps got the hump with The Sun yesterday when we ditched them after 12 years.
Angry Gordon Brown led the moaning with a grumpy performance on TV.

Meanwhile there is much discussion on the move.

The Sun's decision to turn against Labour was the reward for years of shrewd politicking and social networking by the Tory leader and his team.says the Independent

The Guardian describes how

Relations between Rupert Murdoch's News International and the government disintegrated today during 24 hours of recriminations over the move by its flagship paper, the Sun, to switch allegiance to the Conservatives.

The Times reports that Labour plans to halve Britain’s deficit with spending cuts and asset sales worth £75 billion without resorting to further tax rises

Senior ministers are demanding that the pay of judges, top civil servants and NHS managers be frozen within weeks as the cuts package begins to bite. The remaining five million public sector workers can expect only minimal rises, union leaders have been warned privately. They had told the Prime Minister that protecting existing jobs was their chief priority.

The first authoritative study of the war over South Ossetia has concluded that Georgia started the conflict with Russia with an attack that was in violation of international law.says the Independent but it adds

the exhaustive 1,000 page analysis published yesterday by the EU also concluded that Russia was responsible for a long history of provocation in the region and reacted disproportionately.

According to the Times

France and Germany are planning a new treaty of friendship and an array of other joint schemes that could push Britain to the sidelines in Europe

SCIENTISTS have discovered how to reverse the “biological clock” by making human muscles younger and stronger is the lead in the Express.

The breakthrough, revealed last night, means they may be able to create a drug that rejuvenates old muscles and prevents young muscles from ageing

After complaints about American dominance of the internet and growing disquiet in some parts of the world, Washington has said it will relinquish some control over the way the network is run and allow foreign governments more of a say in the future of the system.reports the Guardian

Finally many of the papers report that Tate Modern gallery has withdrawn a controversial photograph of Brooke Shields following a visit by police,

The provocative picture by New York artist Richard Prince shows Shields standing naked in a bathtub, with a heavily made-up face and oiled torso. Children's campaigners had condemned the Tate for including the picture in their latest exhibition, describing it as a "magnet" for paedophiles.

says the Telegraph