Sinn Fein's Martin McGuinness has described Monday's bomb attack in which customers at McNally's bar in Toomebridge were showered in glass ``as an attempt to kill and maim a large number of local nationalists''. Free article

It was a bitterly cold day for a march but that didn't deter the thousand people who turned out last Sunday to march to Cloughogue Checkpoint outside Newry. Among them were sixty shirt-sleeved pikemen and women from County Wexford. These hardy souls were applauded as they lined up behind a parade of tractors and a mock lookout post at the head of the march. Free article

Information which identifies those involved in the murder of Pat Finucane, the civil rights lawyer who was shot dead at his Belfast home in February 1989, is to be presented to the Dublin government by members of the dead man's family. Free article

In an unprecedented legal move the family of murdered Belfast teenager Peter McBride have lodged a legal challenge in Belfast High Court against the MOD decision to allow the two Scots Guardsmen Mark Wright and James Fisher convicted of Peter's murder to remain on active service with their regiment. Free article

Plastic bullets are to be retained for use in the Six Counties, British security minister Adam Ingram has said. Speaking in the British parliament Ingram's comment was part of an answer he gave when questioned about the use of the lethal weapon and his government's response to calls by the UN Committee Against Torture that the bullets be banned. Free article

Next week will be crucial for the peace process. On Monday the Assembly votes on the report to set up the Assembly departments and the All-Ireland bodies. Free article