What the papers say

Journalist Keith Baker takes a look at what is making the headlines in Monday's morning papers.

In all of the papers there are pictures and descriptions of the destruction in Kashmir and Pakistan.

Many of the journalists struggle to find words for the scale of the devastation.

But the News Letter comes up with one pointed image.

The paper says that 12,000 people were at Belfast's Windsor Park on Saturday.

"Just imagine," it says, "if every one of those people and their families were killed in a few seconds by the monstrous power of nature and the whole of Northern Ireland was flattened."

Appeal

"Help them," the paper urges. It says that "Northern Ireland's Mr Charity, Dean Houston McKelvey, is calling on the legendary generosity of the Ulster people to come through".

According to the Sun, emergency workers entering the devastated villages were met by the sound of children crying out from the rubble of their homes.

The Mail calls the scene "horror beyond belief".

The Times reports that in one town, the hospital was destroyed and the only remaining doctor worked on without rest, surrounded by piles of corpses.

The Irish Times describes how, in one area, bodies were left under strips of corrugated iron because relatives did not have sheets in which they could wrap them.

Elsewhere, the Irish News front page carries pictures of the six young people killed in a crash in Donegal at the weekend.

Road safety

The paper says ministers in the Republic of Ireland are being urged to draw up a separate road safety strategy for the county.

It notes that 18 people, most of them in their teens, have lost their lives in the Inishowen area in the past 18 months.

The Belfast Telegraph claims that a huge cache of AK47 bullets entered Northern Ireland after the IRA carried out its first act of decommissioning in 2001.

The paper says that the chief constable has briefed the Independent Monitoring Commission and the Policing Board about the sinister arsenal of 10,000 bullets.

Daily Ireland has a front-page picture of Irish protesters dressed as prisoners at Guantanamo Bay.

The paper reports that the Irish government is under pressure to check whether prisoners being taken to Guantanamo are being ferried via Shannon airport.

Some politicians are accusing the government of "selling Ireland's neutrality for US dollars".

The Irish Independent reports on a Muslim school in north Dublin which is being closely monitored by officials after an inspection found that too much time was spent teaching the Koran.

The education minister is said to be "deeply concerned" about how the state-funded school is being run.

The Mail gives us the news that new fathers are to be given the legal right to six months paternity leave in Labour's latest round of radical child-care reforms.

Smoking

Several papers are convinced that the government is going to ban smoking in all pubs and restaurants - those in England, anyway.

The Express believes licensed premises will still be allowed to create what it calls "smoking carriages".

Presumably, like those constructions which have sprung up all over the Republic of Ireland.

But the Sun calls it "a plan to herd drinkers into cancer cabins".

The Mail and the Daily Telegraph report on Prince William's latest venture.

He is going to get some work experience in London's City area with the banking giant HSBC.

Apparently, he is going to spend a month at the bank's headquarters, getting a general picture of how it works and, in particular, learning about charity management.

The Mail points out that he won't have to face the daily commuter grind... the bank is just across the road from his apartment in Clarence House.