What the papers say

Journalist Mike Philpott reviews Monday's morning papers.

Many of the papers detect hints of IRA decommissioning in the actions of senior members of Sinn Fein.

The Times is one of several to report that Gerry Adams has given the strongest indication so far that a breakthrough might be imminent.

The paper talks of a frantic weekend of negotiations involving London, Dublin and Washington.

The Irish Times takes its reassurance from the fact that Martin McGuinness is travelling to the US to brief Irish-American opinion.

The paper says the move is part of an attempt by Sinn Fein to ensure that everyone fully understands what it calls "the seismic significance" of decommissioning if and when it happens.

If the almost nightly confrontations don't end, there is every likelihood that lives will be lost

The Irish News

The News Letter quotes a source close to the IRA as saying that weapons will be put beyond use, but it might not happen in time to prevent the Stormont executive from being suspended.

The Irish News quotes Gerry Adams as saying that any such action would be taken because the IRA wanted to save the peace process.

Both Belfast papers devote their biggest headlines to the weekend violence in north Belfast, in which one man was shot and injured and two girls were hurt by a blast bomb.

The Irish News describes it as a terrible situation and comments that if the almost nightly confrontations don't end, there's every likelihood that lives will be lost.

The paper says it is time the politicians made politics work. If that doesn't happen, it says, then north Belfast won't just resemble a war zone, it will continue to be a war zone, with all the casualties and damage that are usually found in such places.

Beautiful game

The News Letter devotes its leader column to more cheerful issues, commenting that Ireland's thrilling victory over England in Saturday's rugby international provided us with some relief from the atmosphere of anxiety that pervades the world.

The beauty of rugby, it believes, is that it overrides all issues of territorial and ethnic division.

It allows us to see others as fellow human beings, it says, and sport in general can act as a powerful civilising influence on individual and collective relationships.

The papers in Dublin and London are dominated by events in Afghanistan.

The Irish Independent reports under its main headline that the CIA has been given a licence to kill Osama Bin Laden.

The paper says the new presidential order means that capturing the world's most wanted man - if he is tracked down - is not an option.