The Impartial Reporter led with fears that the IRA has resumed weapons training along the Fermanagh border, actions described by The Irish Times last week as "a statement of intent".
The Reporter said gardai confirmed on Wednesday that they were "investigating reports of automatic gunfire heard in the remote area of the Sliabh Beagh mountains which straddle east Fermanagh, north Monaghan and south Tyrone". In an editorial it pleaded with the protagonists in the disarmanent crisis, "Don't give up on this. We all have too much to lose."
Attempting to encourage under standing from both sides of the argument, the Reporter commented that "to unionists, the fact that republicans in particular have not even begun to decommission means that they are still holding a threat. The silence of weapons, which is not even complete anyway, is seen as being as bad as keeping a sinister gun collectively to the unionist head. If they don't intend to use them, what do they want to hang on to them for? is the argument.
"To republicans, the significance is very different. Handing in the guns is not just tantamount to surrender, it is full surrender. It is not in their psyche to do that; guns will only be removed as part of a total demilitarisation. And this can only be done as time shows that politics is delivering the equality agenda."
The Northern Standard was less patient, speculating that the latest crisis in the peace process was an "artificially created problem" caused by "the politicians' involved playing games of self-preservation to keep the more difficult elements of their base support on side. Their performances would be funny if their implications weren't so serious.".
The Northern Standard's front page featured colour photographs of what appeared, at first glance, to be glasses of stout, whiskey and gin and tonic. In fact they were samples of domestic water taken from the Lough Egish supply last month.
The water comes from a £12 million "flagship" rural group water scheme at Kilkitt, which supplies an extensive area of Monaghan. One consumer claimed the dirty water destroyed a load in her washing machine.
People on pensions are facing a £20 levy when they apply for a refuse charge waiver from Kildare County Council. This unrefundable fee is expected to produce £100,000 income for the council, said the Kildare Nationalist.
Emmet Stagg, during a "blazing two-hour shouting match" with council chairman P.J. Sheridan, dubbed the charge "a penalty on the poorest of the poor".
Twice Sheridan adjourned the meeting, but Stagg and his Labour colleagues refused to comply with Sheridan's order to "sit down and behave yourself".
There was further controversy on Naas Urban District Council, where PD councillor Tommy Conway claimed that priority on the affordable housing scheme should be given to people "born and baptised" in Naas, the Kildare Nationalist stated.
On its front page the newspaper described how a man's forehead was stabbed and his ear bitten off by an intruder at his takeaway premises on Main Street, Castledermot.
"Ludicrous" was how Judge Mary Fahy described the non-availability of community service for offenders in Roscommon, the Roscommon Champion reported. This is due to a dispute between Roscommon County Council and the Probation Service over insurance cover for offenders serving their sentences through community service.
The Longford Leader commented on a sermon by Father Frank Murray of St Mel's Cathedral, who said Americans who had been living in Longford town for four or five months were leaving because they felt they could not really integrate into the local community. "They never seemed to be able to get involved with the local people, and the locals did not seem very interested in getting involved with the strangers," the Leader said.
"We Irish have always lived with the illusion that we were a friendly people, always extended the hand of friendship, good at mixing with strangers and glad to welcome everybody into our homes. Like many another cliches about Irish people these descriptions were never really true, or at least not to the extent that we all liked to delude ourselves they were."
The Ballymena Guardian reported on police raids across Northern Ireland in search of counterfeit Playstation disks. In 19 separate operations police confiscated suspected counterfeit software worth £600,000 sterling and arrested 16 people.
"The figure is representative of the certain loss of sales to local legitimate retailers," the newspaper commented.
The Mayo News revealed that an "elaborate scam" allowing under-age teenagers to acquire high-quality, forged ID cards is being investigated by gardai in Ballina.
Produced with "high-tech computer technology", the cards are identical to ones issued by gardai in Ballina in the 1990s. Gardai suspect second-level students with access to computers of being behind the forgeries.