THERE WAS widespread anger last night at the IRA announcement but little surprise among political parties in Ulster and Britain.

ATTEMPTS TO make progress on the arms decommissioning issue moved up a gear yesterday with the Irish Prime Minister, Bertie Ahern, travelling to Belfast for talks with the major political players.

A CATHOLIC RUC constable injured by a blast bomb during clashes with loyalists in Portadown died yesterday after spending four weeks on a life support machine in hospital. His death was widely condemned.

PAUL GASCOIGNE may be hailed in some quarters as a footballing genius, but public perception of his powers of rational thought are less than flattering according to a survey which rates the Middlesbrough and former England midfielder as Britain's least intelligent person.

"It is impossible to contemplate, to get in the mind of anyone who could do this ... We will not let these people wreck the future. "

THE PERSONALITIES

THE QUEEN was included in the Rev Ian Paisley's comprehensive list of targets at the opening news conference of the Belfast assembly elections campaign yesterday when he criticised her and described her as "very foolish''.

Voters turn out in record numbers

A STARK, stone, Orange Lodge on the top of a hill just outside Keady, a small town in Armagh. A gloriously warm evening with a big, pink sun hanging in the sky. A Loyalist gathering in this largely Republican area. Men, women, teenagers, toddlers, babies in prams, crowding the winding, country lanes. A drum and flute marching band. Smart red jackets. Glossy black boots. And the Rev Ian Paisley, up on the open-air platform, speaking mostly in capital letters, as he always does: "A lot of pressure was put on me to be here, there and everywhere tonight, and a lot of people said: `why are you going to keady?' I said, first, because i gave my word and, second, the outposts must be defended. If you don't cover your outposts, there is not much hope for the castle in the middle... and i say to you if there is one spark of traditional unionism in your soul then you will say no to this document... This is conspiracy! a conspiracy to destroy us! say no...!" Huge cheers. Huge claps.

Defender of loyalist `faith' rages against papist conspiracy. Kim Sengupta reports

PEARL SAGAR'S background is Protestant working class, she is essentially a Unionist, she is married to a British soldier who served in Northern Ireland, and until recently she was, she says, politically apathetic: "The first time I ever voted was for myself, and that was just two years ago."

THE NEW era of peace in Northern Ireland passed its first serious test yesterday when one of the most contentious days in the province's marching calendar passed without incident.

FOR David Trimble, the leader of the Ulster Unionists, yesterday's party executive endorsement was a crucial victory. But a tense, four-hour meeting provided ample signs of the test to which his leadership will be put in the coming months.

British and Irish governments in last minute search for final elements to seal historic peace agreement