Decommissioning: how should loyalists react?

Still the call in some parts of Northern Ireland

The Irish government expects Britain to review security arrangements in Northern Ireland if the IRA begins to disarm. David Trimble says loyalist paramilitary groups must respond positively, but is that likely?

So has Gerry Adams's important call to the IRA to disarm helped to bring a safe harbour for the peace process at least a few inches closer? It was the most direct initiative by any Sinn Fein leader, even if provoked by the imminent collapse of the Northern Ireland Assembly because of the withdrawal of Ulster Unionist ministers.

So what has been the response from the loyalist community? Tension in parts of Belfast remains high, and rioting has become a nightly ritual. Indeed the violence has at times been so extreme, that the Secretary of State at one point declared the ceasefire of some loyalist groups to be over.

Billy Hutchinson, an MLA and member of the Progressive Unionist arty, tells us that yesterday's statement has only fulfilled the IRA's legal obligations under the Good Friday Agreement, and that they would have to wait and see what the IRA do next.

The deaths of two American postmen from suspected anthrax has greatly increased the sense of siege that is gripping the United States. Hawks in the Pentagon are using the threat to bolster their demands to extend the war to Iraq, where Saddam Hussein is known to have experimented with anthrax for germ warfare. Our correspondent Caroline Hawley spoke to Iraq's deputy prime minister Tariq Aziz, who told her that Iraq abandoned its anthrax programme years ago.

But former head of the CIA, James Woolsey, tells the programme that as far as he was concerned, Mr. Aziz was "a famous liar."

And after Railtrack, another public-private partnership looks to be in trouble - the National Air Traffic Control Service. One of the most outspoken critics of the part privatisation of NATS, Labour MP Martin Salter, tells the programme that it gives him no satisfaction to see his dire warnings apparently coming true, and that it is time for the government to go back to the drawing board.

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