I believe that all of the issues that they have raised about the seriousness of the

I believe that all of the issues that they have raised about the seriousness of the talks have been fully answered now."Of the likely Unionist reaction, he said "their anxieties have been fully taken into account in the agreement we have reached".Don Macintyre, page 21. "It isn't just the UK and Irish governments talking to each other; all sorts of things have to take place," Mr Blair insisted after the Bruton meeting. "This has to be done in conjunction with other parties."The terms of the proposals should become clear tomorrow when the Prime Minister is due to make his first important Commons statement on Northern Ireland policy. His unwillingness to talk about the substance of his agreement yesterday was in part due to his concern not to pre-empt that appearance.There was a long period of friction between Dublin and the Conservative government because of John Major's insistence that decommissioning of arms by the IRA would have to occur in parallel with them being allowed to join the talks.During his visit to the US Mr Blair has been cajoled by both President Bill Clinton and the Vice-President, Al Gore, to find some way to move the peace process forward.Mr Bruton told Irish radio: "Sinn Fein and the IRA are one and the same organisations. A Downing Street official confirmed the leaders had agreed in principle on the "basis of how we might move forward" towards a settlement on the issue.While Mr Bruton told reporters the deal should permit "a rapid forward movement" in the talks, British officials were more circumspect. They insisted that any agreement would only be of value if it also proved acceptable to the other parties involved. Those would include Sinn Fein and the IRA itself, which have been seeking flexibility on decommissioning, as well as the Unionists who cling to a hardline approach.A clear note of caution was also struck by the Prime Minister himself yesterday.

He said flatly that neither republicans nor loyalists would decommission arms before talks, and that the best prospect lay in the possibility of decommissioning during the process of all-party talks.The endorsement of this position means that a key moment is about to arrive both in the existing talks process and in Tony Blair's efforts to bring about a fresh IRA cessation. This will constitute a key moment in that both Sinn Fein and the Ulster Unionist parties must either accept or reject the joint paper on what is seen as the most contentious issue of all. The two governments are believed to have developed a position based on last year's detailed report of the multi- party talks chairman, the former US Senator George Mitchell. His pledge, he insisted, was to ensure the "halving of the number of children in the world living in abject poverty by 2015". Police yesterday warned students in Northampton not to go out alone as they launched a hunt for the killer of a music student whose body was found dumped bushes in a park.

There are also more applicants in business and management studies, computer science and English.However, applications for teacher training are down by 11 per cent and fewer applications have been made in civil, electronic and mechanical engineering Judith Judd. Two British nurses accused of murdering a colleague in Saudi Arabia have been ordered by a Saudi court to seek "reconciliation" with the dead woman's family. The move was announced at a hearing during which the trial of Lucille McLaughan and Deborah Parry, was also adjourned until 7 July. They are accused of murdering the Australian nurse Yvonne Gilford, found dead last December at the King Fahd military complex in Dhahran, where all three worked They face possible execution if found guilty. Both plead innocence and claim false confessions were extracted under duress. Yesterday's hearing was a setback for the pair's defence lawyers, who had challenged whether Frank Gilford, brother of the dead nurse, had the right to insist on the death penalty Kate Watson-Smyth. Betty Shabazz, the widow of Malcolm X, has died from burns after a fire which was allegedly started by her 12-year-old grandson.

She suffered third-degree burns over 80 per cent of her body after the fire on 1June at her home in Yonkers, New York State. Mrs Shabazz, 61, underwent five operations to replace burned tissue with artificial skin. Her grandson, Malcolm Shabazz, named after Malcolm X, was arrested within hours of the fire which he is alleged to have started because he was unhappy at being sent to live with his mother, Qubilah Shabazz, in Texas. "The market in the UK is too competitive for us to do anything else," said a spokesman for Vodafone.. The Irish peace process entered a crucial phase last night with the announcement that the British and Irish governments will today put an agreed position on arms decommissioning before the Northern Ireland parties. "We're not as convinced as Oftel that grouping all the numbers under the 07 prefix will help people know what the charge for phoning will be," said one industry source.Charges for calling mobile phones can vary enormously.The technical cost of changing mobile phone numbers will almost all be borne by the networks, rather than the customers.

In 1995, following the "Phoneday" in which all fixed numbers were changed to start with 01, Oftel declared that 04- numbers would in future denote mobile phones. But then it reversed its decision.The regulator said yesterday that the reason for introducing the 07 prefix was that people wanted to know when they were calling a mobile phone, as the existing variety meant it was not always obvious from the number.But one network operator pointed out yesterday that this solution will not be perfect because besides mobile phones the 07 prefix will include "personal" numbers, which are guaranteed to reach any number, fixed or mobile, and pagers All could have different pricing regimes. Vodafone will begin allocating the first such numbers later this summer, after receiving an allocation from Oftel earlier this month.Presently, mobile phone numbers can begin with a number of prefixes, including 09, 08, 04 and 03. It would mean that all mobile phone numbers would start with the prefix 07, which would also be used for pagers. Portability would reduce the cost of changing between networks, because it cuts down on reprinting of stationery, for example.The proposal has been largely overlooked since its publication earlier this year, because it came at the same time as suggestions for new numbering systems for cities across the country. Oftel claims that the move is justified because industry figures show that "on average" users only keep a mobile phone for two and a half years. The four main networks have been quick to point out that the figure is misleading because many people have actually kept the same mobile phone for up to 12 years, and that the low average is caused by corporate clients who sign up for a few months to take advantage of cheap deals but then move on to other networks when those expire.Phone operators also say that the move will delay the introduction of "number portability" - by which somebody could retain the same phone number even though they change between networks.