Unionists have reacted furiously to the decision to close an army watchtower in south Armagh.

THE IRA must provide photographic evidence that it has destroyed its arsenal of weapons, unionist leaders insisted last night.

Unionists have called on President Mary McAleese to postpone a planned visit to the loyalist Shankill area of Belfast later this month following her controversial comments on sectarian hatred.

The Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors have demanded an explanation from the Government over claims that that the IRA killers of garda Jerry McCabe were to be released from prison under the aborted peace deal that was supposed to restart the peace process last October.

ULSTER Unionist leader David Trimble was last night facing a fresh crisis as his Democratic Unionist rivals planned a recruitment drive aimed at starting an exodus from his party.

The IRA was expected to confirm a significant disarmament act today, part of a series of choreographed moves to boost the Northern Ireland peace process.

The creation of a united Ireland is an inevitable consequence of the Northern Ireland peace process, it was claimed today.

Unionists who participate in round table talks at Stormont are helping put the IRA back into devolved government, Democratic Unionist deputy leader Peter Robinson claimed tonight.

Unionist politicians and the Police Federation have hit back at the deputy chairman of the North’s policing board after he accused the police of not doing enough to tackle loyalist violence.

The British and Irish Governments need to be honest about paramilitary violence in Northern Ireland if they are to have credibility, the leader of the nationalist SDLP claimed today.

Unionists in the North have expressed fears of a new paramilitary murder campaign after republicans were blamed for killing a man in south Co Down last night.

The Irish and British Governments were poised today to release a "take-it-or-leave-it" package of proposals to prevent the collapse of the Good Friday Agreement.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Taoiseach Bertie Ahern were today preparing for a fresh push to prevent the collapse of the Good Friday Agreement.

Senior Ulster Unionists have refused to go public on private admissions that the IRA’s decision to allow arms dumps to be examined was a powerful development, Sinn Fein’s chief negotiator Martin McGuinness claimed today.

Unionists have reacted with anger to the decision by the European Court of Human Rights to award stg£10,000 to the families of IRA men shot dead by the RUC and British soldiers.

Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble was warned tonight that his sanctions against Sinn Fein were undermining attempts to resolve the issue of paramilitary disarmament.