What the papers say

Journalist Barbara McCann reviews the morning newspapers on Thursday

The local and Dublin-based papers and many of the nationals report the first outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease for 20 years in grave tones on their front pages.

Events moved with astonishing speed, says The Daily Mail as Britain was effectively put in quarantine.

"Yet another crisis," says The Guardian which talks of "another hammer blow to Britain's depressed farming industry".

According to The Irish Times the focus is on the Virginia area of Cavan.

Animals were delivered on a lorry which transported livestock to the British abattoir where foot-and-mouth disease has been confirmed.

Thousands of farmers face ruin, says The Mirror while according to The Daily Telegraph the Agriculture Minister, Nick Brown, looked "shaken" as he admitted the outbreak would cost Britain a great deal of money.

The News Letter's editorial asks "Who, these days, would be a farmer?"

The paper reports that Gardai are now patrolling the southern side of the border after the Dublin government imposed a complete ban on the import of animal and dairy products from the UK.

A story in The News Letter's inside pages with an exclusive tag, warns of fears of another feud on the Shankill Road sparked by a row over drugs between rival UVF factions.

Weeks after the truce there, the paper claims, some members of the local organisation have turned on each other.

The Irish Times, Irish Independent and Irish News all carry colour photographs on their front pages of Ireland's new Cardinal Desmond Connell after his elevation by the Pope in Rome yesterday.

The Daily Mirror asks whether there is a future for the special relationship between Britain and the United States, as Tony Blair prepares to meet President Bush.

It says the meeting on Friday will be the biggest diplomatic test of Blair's premiership.

The paper believes the two most high-profile leaders of the free world are like chalk and cheese.

The middle-market tabloids find common cause in their editorial columns, criticising the lord chancellor for his refusal to apologise for the letter he sent to lawyers asking for donations to Labour Party funds.

The Express notes that Lord Irvine conceded that a change in the rules might be necessary to ban similar incidents in the future.

But, the paper says, the mistake remains with the behaviour of the man filling the post, not flaws in the position itself.

The Mail notes that Lord Irvine says he broke no rules.

That, the paper says, is because nobody dreamed it would be necessary to write rules telling a lord chancellor not to solicit money from lawyers who depend on his patronage.

Finally several papers tell how five louts picked on a 14-year-old girl in an underpass - not realising she was on her way home from tae kwon do classes.

Heidi Rogan, from Thornaby in Cleveland, hit back when one swung a punch, then she delivered a jump kick to the groin of another yob blocking her path.

The group, who had been laughing and swearing, fled the scene.

It was two days before Heidi told her parents, because she was scared they might stop her going to the classes.

They say that is now the last thing they would want to do.