What the papers say

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

Tony Blair's handshake with Colonel Gadaffi was always going to be a major picture story - and so it turns out on Friday morning's front pages.

The Mail describes the image of a British prime minister bringing a "former pariah" in from the cold as "stomach churning".

It refers to the Libyan leader as "a mass murderer" and wonders if recent progress on the diplomatic front really merited Thursday's high-profile events.

The Mirror calls in an expert on body language, who says Colonel Gadaffi "is calling the shots and Mr Blair was on the back foot".

Business is business and Mr Blair is serving Britain's financial interests superbly by getting in before the Americans or anyone else News Letter

So the prime minister's motives are the main talking point.

In the Irish News, an Ian Knox cartoon of the meeting has the letter L in the word "Libya" replaced with pound sterling signs.

The News Letter says the reasons for the trip could not have been more blatantly obvious.

'Unprincipled world'

Its Morning View column raises the issue of oil deals and defence contracts.

Business is business, says the paper, and Mr Blair is "serving Britain's financial interests superbly by getting in before the Americans or anyone else".

It believes the options, in what it calls the "unprincipled world of power politics", are often between two evils, and the prime minister can claim to have chosen the lesser on this occasion.

A loyalist car bomb found abandoned near Belfast city centre last week may have been destined for the St Patrick's Day carnival The Irish News

The Independent sees another reason for the meeting.

It believes Mr Blair was justified in his approach to a repentant sinner - but his real aim was to show that the invasion of Iraq had brought dividends.

The Sun has a series of pictures of other leaders who - as it puts it - "shook hands with the devil".

They include Reagan and Gorbachev in 1986; De Klerk and Mandela in 1993; and Rabin and Arafat, also in 1993.

'Overcharged'

Back in Belfast, the News Letter leads with a report on the suspension of a prison officer over allegations that he was having an affair with an inmate who was jailed for killing her husband.

The paper says "it is the third scandal in Maghaberry Prison in the past week".

Joy Fahy is claiming breach of contract and false imprisonment, after claims that her passport was confiscated during a visit with the couple to Canada Irish Independent

The Irish News reports under its main headline that a loyalist car bomb found abandoned near Belfast city centre last week may have been destined for the St Patrick's Day carnival.

The paper says the construction of the bomb was similar to a UVF device that was left at the Auld Lammas Fair in Ballycastle, County Antrim, three years ago.

In its leader column, the paper tackles the Northern Ireland banks, after a survey which found that customers were being overcharged.

It is difficult to see how local banks can justify their charges, it says, especially when their sister organisations across the water are charging less.

The papers in Dublin have front page reports on a case taken by a former nanny against the lead singer of the Cranberries, Dolores O'Riordan, and her husband.

The Irish Independent says Joy Fahy is claiming breach of contract and false imprisonment, after an allegation that her passport was confiscated during a visit with the couple to Canada.

Finally, the Mail reports that British attempts to put a human into space were not blessed with good omens on Thursday.

The man who hopes to do it took his prototype rocket into the centre of London to show it off.

But the lorry carrying it ended up stuck in a traffic jam.

And when it reached its destination, the lifting mechanism to point it skywards would not work.

But as the paper says, that was easily fixed by a space technician with a can of oil.