Northern News

• Portadown District Orange Lodge has indicated that it is willing to enter talks with Garvaghy Road residents to discuss the Lodge's wish to again march down the largely nationalist road after their Drumcree church service each July. A message to this effect was sent to the Parades Commission with the proviso that the talks have an independent chairman. For the Residents Association Breandán Mac Cionnaith said some indication of a change of heart had been passed on by the commission but he had heard nothing official and there been no contact from the Orange Order.
• A Strabane family had started to wake their son last Sunday when they were told that he was still alive. Christopher McGonigle (35) was working on a supply ship to oil rigs in the North Sea when he went missing and it was presumed he had fallen overboard. In the early hours of last Saturday, while on night duty, he went for his break but failed to return. The ship was subjected to a number of searches and a full-scale air-sea rescue mission launched. This continued throughout Saturday and Sunday by which time it appeared that the missing man had drowned. That night, however, a crewmember, working out in the ship's gym, heard a noise. A further search resulted in Mr McGonigle being found in a virtually inaccessible roof space. Unconfirmed reports say that he had a broken leg, a back injury and was suffering from hypothermia. He also had a supply of food. No explanation has been put forward as to how he sustained his injuries but Scottish police say "there was no criminal aspect to the incident". Mr McGonigle was airlifted to a hospital in Aberdeen.
• David Morrison (52), from the New Lodge area of Belfast, was given a nine-year jail sentence and banned from driving for life after he pleaded guilty to a number of motoring offences, including causing death and grievous bodily injury by dangerous driving. Morrison failed to stop after he knocked down and killed Anne-Marie Dineen (38) in Andersonstown in February. The dead woman's friend, Veronica Armstrong, was badly injured in the incident and clung to the speeding car as Morrison served from side to side to shake her off.
• Michael Stone, the loyalist killer who is now accused of attempting to murder Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness, has come up with a novel explanation for his armed attack on Stormont last month. In an open letter to Northern Secretary Peter Hain he apologies to all those who felt threatened by his artistic endeavours. He describes his attempt to enter the Stormont building as "performance art" inspired by the likes of Pablo Picasso and Éamonn McCann.
• Sinn Féin made news with the decision of Mitchel McLaughlin to abandon his Foyle constituency in favour of South Antrim in the Assembly elections planned for March 7. Without any representation in South Antrim currently, the Sinn Féin strategy is to target Alliance leader David Ford's seat; Martin Meehan came very close to winning this in the last Assembly elections. Other unusual activity was also taking place. Two Sinn Féin candidates were deselected although this has to be confirmed by the party leadership. Davy Hyland and Pat O'Rawe, who are currently MLAs for Newry-Armagh, were told by their local organisation that they will not be sitting this time round. The Irish Times predicts that Ms O'Rawe will be reinstated by HQ but that Mr Hyland will be left out in the cold because of his misgivings about the party's possible support for the PSNI.
• At the High Court in Belfast, bail was refused to David McCartan (35) and his wife Geraldine (34) who are accused of murdering Mr McCartan's mother. A prosecution lawyer claimed that the couple killed Annie McCartan (75) because she would not vacate her Warrenpoint house so the site could be used to develop apartments. The value of the proposed development was put at £2.4m.
• It was reported on Friday that Sinn Féin and the DUP had, over a number of days, been in intensive negotiations with the British Government, in an attempt to agree a timetable for devolving responsibility for justice and policing to the proposed new power-sharing executive. Senior Sinn Féin officials spent Friday reviewing progress and were expected to decide on whether to call a meeting of the party's Ard Comhairle over the weekend, but the review went on into Saturday. Such a meeting will decide if the time is right to convene an ardfheis to seek grass roots approval for a change in party policy, which would see it supporting the PSNI.
• Rhonda Paisley has withdrawn her application for assistance from the Equal Opportunities Commission after receiving an apology from the Democratic Unionist Party. The daughter of DUP leader Rev. Ian Paisley had alleged that she was not considered for the advertised position of policy officer as a result of sex discrimination.
• Property developer Armoy Homes has unveiled plans for a state-of-the-art greyhound track and a 31-bedroom hotel at Stranocum, near Ballymoney, Co. Antrim. The company already owns a popular bar and restaurant on the site chosen for the £12m development.
• Seán Hoey (37), who is charged with carrying out the 1998 Omagh bombing, has failed in his attempt to have the charges against him dropped. In Belfast Crown Court on Thursday Justice Weir ruled that the state of the evidence does not warrant the dropping of the charges.
• James McGuigan (30) and his daughter Lorna (8), from Belfast, were killed in a road accident in Co. Antrim on Friday. In the single vehicle accident the car left the road and crashed into a tree near Crumlin at around 9:00am. Two other daughters, aged four and five, were critically injured.
• Matthew Dagens (15), from Crossgar, Co. Down, died that night at around 9:30pm when he was struck by a car while crossing the Ballydugan Road in Downpatrick.

Northern News

• It was widely reported on Monday that dissident republicans have been planning to kill Gerry Adams and that the increased security provided for the Sinn Féin leader had forced the abandonment of at least one attempt on his life. For some republicans Mr Adams is now considered a traitor for his willingness to talk to the British and participate in a power-sharing assembly at Stormont. The fact that he may soon lead a party which acknowledges the legitimacy of, and supports, the PSNI is a step too far for many.
• Two boys aged 13 have appeared in Belfast juvenile court accused of rape, attempted rape and making threats to kill. The two allegedly attacked a young woman as she walked through Woodvale Park on Monday. The boys were also charged with stealing £40 from the woman at knifepoint and with causing her grievous bodily harm.
• The North's police ombudsman, Nuala O'Loan, has found no evidence to support the allegation that the British intelligence services, in their anxiety to protect an informer, could have prevented the shooting of Stephen Restorick, the last British soldier to be killed by the IRA. During her investigation Ms O'Loan established that the car used by the killers had been under surveillance although documentation relating to the surveillance operation had disappeared. Lance Bombardier Restorick (23) was shot dead by an IRA sniper, while on checkpoint duty at Bessbrook in sough Armagh.
• Robbers have been targeting pensioners in their homes with alarming regularity. Wednesday's newspapers reported on five such incidents which took place in Co. Antrim over a five-hour period on Monday. Thieves terrorised elderly people in their homes in Ballinderry, Glengormley and Crumlin. The PSNI believe the incidents may be linked to similar incidents in Belfast and Co. Down during the previous week.
• The High Court in Belfast reversed an earlier decision and ruled that a prisoner on hunger strike need not be force-fed. The change came after a psychiatrist told the court that Belfast man Oswald Brown has no identifiable psychiatric condition and is capable of making rational decisions. Brown, who been on hunger strike for 58 days, was jailed for six years in 2001 after he was convicted of rape. He has always maintained his innocence.
• David McCartan (35) and his wife Geraldine (34), of Warrenpoint, Co. Down, on Friday appeared before Newry Magistrates Court charged with the murder of Mr McCartan's mother. Both have pleaded not guilty. Annie McCartan (75) was found dead in her Warrenpoint home in June of this year. She had been beaten and stabbed.
• On Tuesday a woman was killed in a road accident on the Glenshane Pass, Co. Derry, close to the Castledawson roundabout.
• Claire Wakeland (23) and Lisa McFerran (25), near neighbours from Rasharkin, Co. Antrim, were killed in a road accident near Portrush in the early hours of Saturday. The two women had alighted from a car on Ballybogey Road and were talking to the driver when the vehicle was struck by two other cars. Ms McFerran was the mother of two daughters, aged three and seven. Her brother was the partner of Ms Wakeland, who was brought up in England but had relatives in the area.
• A fund has been set up to raise the £200k needed to erect a life-size bronze sculpture of footballer George Best in his native Belfast. The fund patron is footballer David Healy and expressions of interest from sculptors are to be sought in the New Year.
• On Wednesday Gerry Adams led a Sinn Féin delegation at a meeting with PSNI Chief Constable Sir Hugh Orde and other senior officers. The two men have met before but that was in London and this was considered groundbreaking as it took place at Stormont.
• Senior UUP politician Dermot Nesbitt (59) has announced that he is bowing out of politics. The MLA for South Down will not contest the next Assembly elections.
• Abandoning politics with almost immediate effect is the SDLP's Patricia Lewsley. She is currently MLA for Lagan Valley and a member of Lisburn council but has just been appointed Commissioner for Children and Young People.
• If we do have Assembly elections in March the Alliance candidate in South Belfast will be Anna Lo, the head of the Chinese Welfare Association.
• Since 2000 some 1,300 British soldiers have been found guilty of crimes in the North. Lady Hermon, UUP member for North Down, has called for a breakdown of the figures to reveal the kinds of crimes committed.
• Well-known Redemptorist priest Fr Bob McGoran (70), who was attached to the Clonard Monastery in Belfast, has died in hospital after a short illness.