What the papers say

Journalist Mike Philpott takes a look at what's making the headlines in Thursday morning's papers.

The faces of James Monaghan, Martin McCauley and Niall Connolly appear on quite a few of the news pages after they appeared in court in Colombia accused of training Marxist rebels.

They share the front page of the Irish News with a story taken from an interview with the Chief Constable, Hugh Orde, in which he says the IRA has carried out shootings and beatings in the knowledge that, with no elections in prospect, it can't damage Sinn Fein.

There are several pictures of areas of Belfast which were sealed off yesterday in a series of bomb hoaxes.

The News Letter says "the aim was to cause maximum disruption, but such a result takes neither brains nor courage".

It believes "this dirty little war" as it calls it, will continue while the political process remains log-jammed.

Care workers' register

And it concludes that leadership is required, not just from the government, but across the board.

The other issues locally are - from the front page of the News Letter - the fact that care workers in Northern Ireland will have to join an official register for the first time and - from the leader column of the Irish News - the long working hours of junior doctors.

The paper hopes that new contracts due to be introduced on Friday will ease the problem but it's disappointed that guidelines introduced 12 years ago were not adhered to.

The big story in Dublin is a planned shake-up in the operation of the police or, to put it in the words of the Irish Independent, "radical reforms aimed at freeing up more gardai to deal with crime".

The paper says it's too early to judge if it's going to work, but it believes the watchword must be efficiency.

The Irish Times says it will "redefine the relationship between police and government - but it must also redefine the relationship between the police and the public".

Big business comes under the spotlight in a couple of the cross-channel broadsheets.

The Guardian reports that boardroom pay has risen by an average of 23% while shares have dipped by about the same amount.

'Poor pollution record'

The paper says it has no difficulty with such pay rises, as long as the same percentage is applied to all staff.

The Independent points the finger at some of the biggest names in British industry for their poor record on pollution.

It reports that one of the worst offenders was given a fine that amounted to less than one thousandth of its annual profit.

The Times has a remarkable contrast on its front page between a landscape painted by Cezanne and the same area photographed on Wednesday.

Although the photograph is in colour, it looks black and white because of the devastation caused by the forest fires in the south of France.

The desolate scene is dominated by stumps of trees and grey ash.

The Express is one of a number of papers to report that a health authority in the north of England has bought a fleet of ambulances for £4m, but can't use them.

The vehicles are state of the art but can't negotiate speed humps because of wheelchair lifts at the back.

They are all being modified.

Finally, there are quite a few stories, pictures and cartoons relating to that record-breaking run by a Eurostar train during which it reached 208 miles an hour.

A cartoon in the Times shows a man standing at a ticket counter in Basingstoke.

The man behind the desk is saying: "The quickest way to Waterloo would be Eurostar via Paris."