Senior PSNI personnel have refused to confirm the sectarian nature of the murder of a Belfast teenager last week, despite a growing belief in the city that the sickening attack was the work of UVF members. Free article

Sadly, while the murder of Thomas Devlin in Belfast may have been the most serious, it is not the only incident in recent days in which the PSNI have failed to take decisive action in relation to sectarian intimidation and attacks. Free article

What is being increasingly referred to as a programme of "ethnic cleansing" perpetrated against the nationalist community of North Antrim has intensified with a nationalist couple vowing to leave their Ahoghill home after it was attacked with paint bombs on Monday night 15 August. Free article

The Ulster Volunteer Force has vowed to "fight to the kill" in a bid to wipe out the LVF in the ongoing feud between the two unionist paramilitary gangs. The threat was issued after the UVF shot dead Michael Green as he arrived for work at a furniture store in the UVF-dominated Sandy Row area of South Belfast around 8.15am on Monday, 15 August. Free article

The Rossport 5 have now spent 50 days in prison on foot of an injunction grounded in illegality. Shell never had the necessary consents to do work, since illegally started, which the injuncted men resisted. The Mayo men have not been in a position to make an application to the High Court to have the injunction struck out, on grounds of its illegality, because the judge holds them in contempt of court and they remain imprisoned as opposition to this scandalous travesty of justice continues to build across the country. Free article

That the 26-County state shows scant regard for national historical monuments cannot be a cause of surprise given its poor record going back as far as the desecration of Wood Quay, the site of an historically important Viking settlement. The current Fianna Fáil/PD Government in particular has pursued a reckless policy towards heritage and conservation with the ploughing of motorways through the Glen of the Downs, Carrickmines Castle and the internationally important Tara/Skryne Valley. Free article

The long-smouldering row about the guns used by the Parachute Regiment to kill 14 people in Derry on Bloody Sunday has re-ignited once again with new claims in the Sunday Times about the fate of the weapons. Free article