IRA ‘ready to give up arms and disband’
The Rev Ian Paisley has been told by Downing Street to expect a statement from the IRA promising to disband as an active paramilitary group and to destroy the rest of its terrorist arsenal by Christmas.
As pressure mounted on Mr Paisley’s Democratic Unionist Party after its refusal at Leeds Castle in Kent to endorse a deal to share power, officials said yesterday that they expected the Provisionals to make a statement within days.
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Paul Murphy, the Northern Ireland Secretary, will return to Stormont tomorrow to chair fresh talks after 34 hours of negotiations ended on Saturday without agreement. Tony Blair insists that the basic outline of a deal has been reached.
Wider role for police auxiliaries
Community safety officers (CSOs) are to be allowed to operate in plain clothes and carry out a range of jobs done by police under plans being drawn up by the Home Office (Stewart Tendler writes).
Two years after the first officers, known as auxiliary police, began to patrol the streets of London to increase visible policing, a reform team in the Home Office is proposing their deployment for a range of plain-clothes duties, including checking firearms licences, serving summonses and helping to put together files on cases.
One police leader said: “The use of plain-clothes CSOs would certainly ruffle quite a few feathers. It would be a controversial move.”
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Murder charge
Daniel Julian Gonzalez, 24, of Woking, Surrey, will appear in Highbury Corner Magistrates’ Court today charged with the murders of Derek Robinson, a renowned paediatrician, and his wife, Jean. They were found in their home in Highgate, North London, on Friday.
House price fall
Property prices remained static in September, after more warnings of house price falls by the Bank of England. After reporting a 2 per cent fall in asking prices last month, the latest study from Rightmove, the property website, says that the average house price is £192,316.
Car-free towns
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The Transport Studies Unit, based at University College London, has concluded after a ten-year study that motorists should be forced out of their cars with mass pedestrianisation of town centres, hefty tolls, greater congestion charging and a fuel price rise.
Brown bereaved
Elizabeth Brown, 86, the mother of the Chancellor, has died at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary after being admitted nine days ago. Gordon Brown missed the TUC conference at Brighton last Tuesday, where he was due to speak, to be at her bedside.
All at sea
Two drunken men who drifted for 48 hours through English and French shipping lanes in the Channel after running out of fuel in a stranger’s yacht have been rescued. The men, aged 24 and 29, of Whitstable, Kent, boarded the yacht after an evening in a pub.
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New rules
The public and media are to be barred from reading details of embarrassing claims brought by employees over sexual or racial discrimination or harassment. New rules mean that claims settled before they reach a tribunal will often never reach the public domain.
Personal service
Medicines could in future be “personalised”, according to a patient’s genetic make-up, the Royal Society says. This is because most drugs do not work for everybody. It is to study whether pharmacogenetics can be achieved in 5, 10 or 25 years from now.
Canoe rescue
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Two canoeists sparked a helicopter rescue in fierce seas after one capsized. Stuart Gray, 34, was thrown into the Firth of Forth. His friend, Alister Low, 34, failed to get Mr Gray back into his boat, while trying to keep his own afloat. He raised the alarm for the rescue.