What the papers say

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

A picture capturing a Chinese gymnast in mid air sets the scene for the Olympics on the front page of the Irish Independent.

But the big story is what the Mail describes as the drug sensation surrounding Greece's golden boy of the track, Kostas Kenteris, who failed to show up for a routine test on Thursday.

The Daily Telegraph says the episode has plunged the Greek Olympic world into "deep gloom". The Guardian says he is fighting to save his career.

Demonstrating that the cartoonists can find humour in almost anything, Martyn Turner in the Irish Times shows a man in a supermarket stocking up on beer, wine and cigarettes.

He tells the assistant that he needs drugs to enhance his viewing performance.

Opening celebrations

The Mail's cartoon has a man in a vest holding the Olympic torch and quite clearly the worse for wear at a Greek taverna.

The owner of the restaurant is saying: "Okay Dimitri. They've just finished the stadium. I think you'd better go".

Away from the controversy, the Independent says the opening ceremony is likely to be the most spectacular in the history of the games.

The Daily Express reports that all those fears that everything would not be ready on time have been replaced by grins on the faces of the people of Athens, who always knew it would be all right in the end.

The Telegraph says the opening celebrations will include a dig at the critics. A man in builder's overalls will be seen driving the last nail into the stadium wall.

"We Want Justice", says the main headline in the News Letter, as the paper looks ahead to that meeting between Aileen Quinton, whose mother was killed in the Enniskillen bombing, and senior police officers.

The paper says that, after 17 years, there are still too many unanswered questions about what it describes as "one of the bleakest days of Northern Ireland's recent past".

It comments that the harrowing images of people scrambling among the rubble are etched into our collective memory.

But it wonders why Aileen Quinton should have to go chasing after answers.

Instead, she and the other families should have been appraised of developments and reassured that those who were murdered had not been forgotten, it says.

'Suffer in silence'

In recent years, says the paper, there has been plenty of time for someone to provide an update. Assuming, of course, that there is an active investigation under way.

The Irish News reports on its front page on the high level of domestic violence in west Belfast. It notes that it is twice as common in the west of the city as in the next worst area.

It comments, with some astonishment, that a woman will suffer an average of 35 assaults in her home before she decides to call the police.

And while 5,000 incidents have been reported in the first half of this year in Northern Ireland as a whole, it says, the police believe that is only the tip of the iceberg.

The paper says it is important that the victims of abuse shouldn't suffer in silence - and they should talk to someone, even if they don't want to call in the authorities.

After this week's stories about a locust plague in Africa, the Times has news of another insect invasion - this time in Melbourne, Australia.

Researchers have apparently found a column of ants 60 miles wide under the city. The paper says it is like something out of a science fiction movie, and it could get worse.

Scientists are checking Perth and Adelaide because of fears that colonies there could join up with the invaders in Melbourne.