What the papers say

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

Top of the agenda in the Belfast Telegraph is an interview with the Chief Constable, Sir Hugh Orde. He tells the paper that dissident republicans are trying to recruit young people, with the primary aim of killing police officers.

He says the dissident groups are in their death throes, and that makes them more dangerous in the immediate future.

The Irish News describes the dissidents as "gangsters" and says the police are entitled to expect full co-operation from the community as they go about their dangerous and difficult duties.

The News Letter, meanwhile, comments that the latest drop in recorded crime is no reason for complacency. It's also concerned that budgets are being squeezed as never before, and smaller police stations in rural areas are coming under threat.

The front of the paper is dominated by a full-page picture of flooding under a railway bridge near Moira. Misery Goes On, says the headline.

Flooding also makes the headlines in Dublin. The Irish Times reports how the fire brigade in Dublin responded to 200 calls from people trapped by rising water, and a 102 year-old woman in Donegal was stranded after the road outside her home was washed away.

But the paper's biggest headline focuses on events in Georgia, and says hopes of a rapid end to the six-day war may be premature. The Independent in London says Russia has crushed its unruly neighbour, humbled the US and Europe and demonstrated once again that it's a force to be feared.

But back to the Independent in Dublin. It reports that 5,000 students in the Republic failed the maths section of their Leaving Certificate, setting alarm bells going about education standards. The paper comments that Ireland can ill afford to continue the way it's going.

Prince Charles claims the main headline in the Daily Telegraph with a warning about genetically modified crops. In an interview with the paper, the prince says multi-national firms are conducting an experiment with nature that's gone seriously wrong, and they risk causing the world's worst environmental disaster.

He claims that small farmers will be the victims of giant corporations which will take over the production of food.

The paper says the comments put him on a collision course with the international scientific community and with Downing Street, which has allowed 54 trials of GM crops in Britain.

It says he'll be braced for the biggest outpouring of criticism since he made a previous attack on genetic engineering 10 years ago.

Finally, several papers report on the changing fashion in names that's seen some of the most popular almost disappearing from Britain's birth certificates. As the Daily Mail reports, there were more than a thousand Gertrudes born a century ago, but by 2005 that had dropped to zero.

There were only two Ednas born in 2005, and the same number of Normans. But Alfred has survived, mainly because parents have adapted it to the rather more trendy Alfie.