Nationalists living in South and East Belfast have been urged to be vigilant after a number of people in the area received death threats, accompanied by UVF propaganda. Dates were marked on the handwritten notes with the message `some important dates for your calender', and the warning, `we have begun military activity again, be on red alert'. Free article

Last week's collapse of the trial of six prisoners, five of them Irish, charged with breaking out of Whitemoor Prison in September 1994, has fuelled rather than ended speculation about what really happened. Free article

Communities at Poleglass and Twinbrook have claimed a victory in the first leg to defeat the plague of joyriding in their areas. Free article

Legislation on syringe attacks will have little impact on offenders who wield syringes as weapons but may make matters worse for health providers trying to curb the spread of infectious diseases. The concern has emerged following the announcement last week by Minister for Justice Nora Owen that a Bill will be published in the coming weeks creating a new and explicit offence for syringe threats or attacks, with a five year sentence for convicted offenders. Free article

Sinn Fein councillor James McCarry has accused the headmaster of St Bridget's Primary school in Ballycastle, County Antrim of barring his son Fionntan (aged 11) from the school quiz team after he (McCarry) refused to let him take part in an RUC-organised `Top of the Form' quiz. Free article

Parishioners leaving mass at St Patrick's Church, Dungiven in County Derry on Saturday evening, 25 January were threatened by members of the RUC's divisional mobile support unit (DMSU). The incident happened when massgoers confronted an RUC squad assaulting three men who were arrested after an arms find in the town. Free article

Terence Rafferty and Harry McCavana Free article