Today he rebukes the Paisleyites telling them: Being part of a wrecking process is nothing to be proud of

Today he rebukes the Paisleyites, telling them: “Being part of a wrecking process is nothing to be proud of. It is bordering on the disgraceful.”Martin McGuinness has come a long way in his journey to Room 21 in Stormont.. The British explorer David Hempleman-Adams claimed victory yesterday in his attempt to become the first person to fly to the North Pole by balloon, despite falling short of his target by 13 miles. The British explorer David Hempleman-Adams claimed victory yesterday in his attempt to become the first person to fly to the North Pole by balloon, despite falling short of his target by 13 miles.
The adventurer, who spent more than 90 hours in an open wicker basket below his 100ft craft, reached deep into the polar ring before winds prevented him flying directly over the shifting pole. Flight managers at the control centre for Britannic Challenger in Wythall, Worcestershire, were jubilant.Clive Bailey, logistics director, said: “We are emphatic that we have achieved what we set out to do – reaching the North Pole by balloon for the first time in history.”Given the height, distance and drifting nature of the ice over the pole, there is a 60-mile margin of error We got within 12.9 miles, so there can be no doubt.

David and the team are absolutely ecstatic.”The adventure, which began on Sunday with lift-off after a two-month wait at the project’s base camp in Spitzberg in the Norwegian Arctic, was completed at 3pm UK time. But as the champagne corks were popped and jubilant messages were sent to Mr Hempleman-Adams by satellite phone, the managers said the project had nearly finished in disaster.The adventurer, who had slept for just five hours over four days, woke to find himself dangling out of his 6ft by 4ft basket thousands of feet up early yesterday after he started walking in his sleep.Mr Bailey said: “It must have been a moment of complete terror. Fortunately, David’s safety equipment includes a harness attached to the basket, which stopped him getting out altogether.”Mr Hempleman-Adams, 44, a millionaire from Wiltshire with three children, who has already trekked to the four poles and climbed the highest mountains of all seven continents, faces a long journey back.The winds that blew his 90,000-cubic metre balloon from the centre of the pole were last night pushing him back in the direction he came from, across 1,000 miles of sea and pack ice.Flight co-ordinators hope favourable weather systems will push the Britannic Challenger towards Russia in time for a heroic return to terra firma during the weekend.Mr Bailey said: “David is getting some hard-earned and much-needed sleep. We think we can get him back in three days to a point where he can be picked up. Hopefully he can relax and enjoy the trip.”The exhausted Briton has his eyes on another goal “I’m looking forward to a cup of tea,” he said.. A bomb attack on Hammersmith Bridge in London early yesterday morning was last night feared by police to be the opening salvo in a new terror campaign by Irish republicans on mainland Britain. A bomb attack on Hammersmith Bridge in London early yesterday morning was last night feared by police to be the opening salvo in a new terror campaign by Irish republicans on mainland Britain.
Deputy Assistant Commissioner Alan Fry, head of the Metropolitan Police’s anti-terrorist branch, said: “I can only anticipate that there might be further attacks I must ask people to be vigilant.

Additional policing will be on the streets of London, there will be high visibility policing.”Between one and two kilograms of high explosives, possibly Semtex, is believed to have been used in the device which exploded at around 4.30am after being placed on the underside of the bridge, which has already been targeted twice by republican terrorists.The device caused structural damage to the bridge and major disruption in west London but no one was injured. Windows were blown out of nearby homes and local residents – who described the blast as “the most colossal bang” – called for urgent security measures to prevent further attacks on the bridge.Four years ago, the IRA planted the most-powerful Semtex bomb ever seen on the mainland at almost exactly the same spot, but it failed to go off.Last night Scotland Yard’s anti-terrorist branch confirmed that they were investigating whether the attack was the work of an Irish republican splinter group. A senior source said they would be “dusting off old files” looking at previous terrorist suspects and would be consulting with the security agencies, including MI5, as the attack follows warnings from the security services that there was a “concrete” risk of a bombing campaign on the mainland.Dean Ward, 32, a builder of Carshalton, south London, was working near the bridge when yesterday’s bomb exploded. “We heard this thud which sounded like an enormous skip being dropped,” he said.Speaking at the scene, Mr Fry said police had no prior warning of the bombing and no group had claimed responsibility for the attack. Asked if there was a possible link with Irish terrorists he said: “I am not going to speculate but clearly they would be a line of inquiry.”Mr Fry said: “I ask for sensible vigilance by the London public who are well used to being in this situation. What has been shown in the past is that the community defeat this kind of crime.”The Ulster Unionist Party’s deputy leader, John Taylor, said that dissident republicans trying to destabilise the peace process could have been responsible. “If it’s terrorist-linked I would expect it to be the breakaway groups within the republican movement, something like the Real IRA or the Continuity IRA,” he said.

“Clearly, their objective now is to upset the Provisional IRA programme of putting arms out of use.”The blast came just hours before one of Sinn Fein’s most influential figures, Gerry Kelly, North Belfast member of the Ulster Assembly, was due to arrive in London for talks. It also follows a series of attacks in Northern Ireland this year attributed to the Real IRA, the group which bombed Omagh in August 1998 killing 29 people, and the Continuity IRA.John Randall, 80, a former army captain, who lives with his wife and son in a flat overlooking the river, said the bridge was an “easy target”. “The tow path goes under the bridge and there’s a wide open space that invites people to put things. We need to look very carefully to see if that particular area can be cordoned off otherwise it will always be an easy target,” he said.Mr Randall said the force of yesterday’s blast had blown out the windows in his apartment, endangering his son who was recovering from a kidney transplant and was connected to a dialysis machine.The blast caused traffic chaos which included 13-mile tailbacks on the M4. A bomb threat made later to Kent police later yesterday morning led to the closure for 35 minutes of the Dartford tunnel, east of London, but no device was found.Hammersmith Bridge, which is 113 years old, only reopened last December after being shut for almost three years for repairs It was first the target for an IRA attack in 1939..

The Drugs Tsar urged heroin addicts yesterday to smoke rather than inject the drug as a precaution against a mystery infection that has contaminated batches of the drug and killed 20 users in Scotland and Ireland. The Drugs Tsar urged heroin addicts yesterday to smoke rather than inject the drug as a precaution against a mystery infection that has contaminated batches of the drug and killed 20 users in Scotland and Ireland.
The Government’s anti-drugs co-ordinator, Keith Hellawell, said the illness was restricted to drug users who inject “At the moment, when you are in a crisis .. receive medical advice. Smoke it rather than inject it,” he said.Doctors attempting to trace the source of the illness admitted they faced a race against time to prevent the outbreak spreading to users in other parts of the country.A specialist team, including a senior American epidemiologist, has been told to work around the clock to track down the mystery bug as the death toll mounted in the worstaffected areas, Glasgow and Dublin. Last night health authorities confirmed they were linking two deaths in Aberdeen and a number of cases of severe illness among addicts in Wicklow and Kildare in the Irish Republic to the outbreak.Medical experts are concerned at the ability of the bacterium to spread rapidly through the body via large abscesses before attacking the vital organs, in particular the heart, causing death.Dr Laurence Gruer, public health consultant for the Greater Glasgow Health Board, said: “The infection is resistant to antibiotics and produces a toxin which quickly leaches into the blood and attacks the heart, liver and kidneys. Once that happens, it’s curtains.”There is a good chance of the bacteria spreading to addicts anywhere on the routes where this batch originated, from Glasgow and Dublin to elsewhere in Scotland and Ireland. The risk of further cases cannot be ruled out.”Health officials in Britain have warned other European countries to look out for further tainted consignments of brown heroin originating from the Indian sub-continent.The death toll from the infected drugs continued to rise as the authorities in Dublin confirmed they were investigating 16 deaths linked to the bug.