Papers' pictures tell tales of suffering

Harrowing pictures of children in the West Bank and Angola say more than words in Friday's papers.

The Daily Mirror chooses to focus on the horrors of life in the West Bank with a picture of a Palestinian baby dressed as a suicide bomber.

The paper asks "Has it come to this?" and says the "horrifying" picture was apparently found at a militant's home in the West Bank and appears to be genuine.

The child is shown wearing a belt of fake explosives and two bandoliers of pretend bullets.

The Mirror says this is a "bleak new symbol of despair in the turmoil of the Middle East".

'Peanut' aid

A photograph of another child dominates the front page of the Guardian.

This time, it is a small Angolan child crying for food which is used to illustrate a report about the G8 countries' rescue plan for Africa.

The paper says aid agencies "rounded furiously" on the world's richest countries, dismissing the plan as "inadequate".

Oxfam described the proposals as "peanuts, and recycled peanuts at that", but the paper quotes a British official as saying it's "absurd" to describe a summit that delivered an extra $6bn for Africa as peanuts.

Driver 'devastated'

A girl who had "everything to live for" is how the Glasgow-based Herald describes Katherine Fish, the 15-year-old pupil from Largs Academy in Ayrshire, who was killed in a bus crash in France.

The Scottish Daily Record tells how the school's headmaster, George Maxwell, had to break the news of the crash to Katherine's parents.

He describes the teenager as "a lovely girl".

The Scotsman reports that the bus driver, Mark Chisholm, is under police guard in hospital, where he is being treated for head injuries.

Mr Chisholm's father, who works for the Scotsman, tells the paper that his son "sounded devastated" when he spoke to him on the phone.

Pill plan

According to the Independent, a key government adviser has told Tony Blair that plans to create a network of "prestige foundation hospitals" could split the NHS in two, if they are introduced too quickly.

The warning has come from the former CBI Director-General Adair Turner whom the paper describes as one of the prime minister's "blue skies thinkers", one of the Forward Strategy Unit formed by Mr Blair to come up with "innovative thinking" to transform modern Britain.

Both the Daily Mail and the Daily Express report there has been fierce criticism of government plans to hand out free contraceptives in schools to children as young as 11.

The Mail says family campaigners have branded the idea as "a betrayal of our children's innocence".

Russian hope

Britain's latest Wimbledon prospect is put under the spotlight by the Daily Telegraph.

Eighteen-year-old Elena Baltacha progressed to the third round of the women's singles on Thursday and, although born in Russia, speaks with "a Scottish accent from her schooldays north of the border".

The Times reports it is "a tale laced with irony" that the daughter of a former Dynamo Kiev footballer should become the first British woman into the third round for four years.

O'Leary's shoes

It is less than 24 hours since David O'Leary was sacked as manager of Leeds United and the papers are already speculating about his successor.

The Sun confidently claims it will be the current Celtic boss, Martin O'Neill, claiming the Leeds chairman Peter Ridsdale met officials of the Glasgow club on Wednesday night to finalise the deal.

The Mail though declares that "Mick's the man". In its view, the Republic of Ireland manager Mick McCarthy is the front-runner for the job.

The paper believes that McCarthy would be a "popular choice" among Leeds fans who it says were "shocked at O'Leary's fate".