Other NI News In Brief

Witches Take Buses

Hallowe'en in Belfast will see the 2009 'Metro Monster Mash' taking place this coming Saturday (31 October). Belfast City Council has arranged a variety of activities throughout the day, at St George's Market and the City Hall, culminating in the main celebrations at Clarendon Dock. To ensure that all the little elves and pixies as well as banshees, ghouls, vampires, witches, zombies, warlocks and their familiars can make their way to and from the evening spooktacle, sponsors Translink Metro will be operating their free 'ghost bus' shuttle service – complete with special onboard fancy dress competitions, with fangtastic prizes for the creepiest costumes. Buses will leave Chichester Street for Clarendon Dock, dropping off in Corporation Square, every 15 minutes between 6pm and 8pm. Return shuttle buses will operate from Corporation Square to City Hall between 8.30pm and 9.30pm.

'Ropewalk' Project Begins

Work has begun on a new purpose built £1.8m community centre in Coleraine, known locally as the Ropewalk. The council owned facility has been in operation for over 18 years, and is set to move to a new premises funded partly by the Department for Social Development. The council said it had undertaken an extensive consultation exercise with user groups and local residents to identify the facilities that should be included within the new centre. The local council will fund 50% of construction costs with the matching funding of 50% secured through the DSD's Neighbourhood Renewal Partnership.

Underage Cigs Fine

A Belfast retailer has been fined for selling cigarette lighter refills to persons under the legal age. Jim McLaughlin and Richard McLaughlin, proprietors of Wyse Byse, Cregagh Road, were fined £400 and ordered to pay costs of £138 at Belfast Magistrates Court. The prosecution was brought by Belfast City Council following a test purchase exercise at the shop on April 16. They said it is illegal to sell cigarette lighter refill canisters containing butane or a substance with butane as a constituent part to anyone under the age of 18.

Bomb Targets

IRA terrorists behind a two-year bombing campaign in the 1970s compiled lists of hundreds of possible targets - including MPs, soldiers and Buckingham Palace - newly released files have revealed. Police found a huge number of names and addresses when they raided a north London flat used as an IRA bomb factory after the Balcombe Street siege of December 1975. A list of the potential targets was prepared for then-Prime Minister Harold Wilson.

Hot & Bothered On Climate

The National Beef Association (NBA) is appalled at the simplicity of well publicised, pre-Copenhagen conference analysis, which concentrates on methane reduction in the livestock sector and ignores much wider problems caused by the rapidly expanding global economy, and the daily encouragement given to consumers to raise the tempo of their every day demands. "If the challenges raised by climate change are to be conquered citizens of the UK, Europe, and the developing world too, will have to address much more than meat eating and make, hugely uncomfortable decisions on the consumption of other, everyday products, they currently take for granted," explained NBA Director, Kim Haywood.

(BMcC/KMcA)