New moves towards finding political solutions to the bitter sectional strife in Northern Ireland are expected from the meeting on Monday (6 September) between Britain's Prime Minister Edward Heath and Jack Lynch, the Prime Minister of the Irish Republic. The session is intended to be the first of a series of meetings, at which Ireland's problems will be discussed.

At the weekend, more violence in Northern Ireland. In Belfast, at least 16 explosions and several shooting incidents took place on Saturday night and Sunday morning. Londonderry was also the scene of explosions.

A 12-hour lull in the violence in Belfast ended Sunday afternoon (5 September), when a bomb destroyed a block of offices in the city centre.

The number of violent deaths in Northern Ireland has risen to 99, since the troubles began in August of 1969. The death toll for this year alone is 66, including 19 soldiers and two policemen.

SYNOPSIS: In Belfast, on Sunday, a terrorist bomb turned a car into an unrecognisable heap of scrap metal. It was, said the army, a deliberate and cold-blooded attempt to kill a soldier, with a total disregard of others who might be in the area.

The soldier was guarding a police station, and windows of that building were all shattered. Two people had parked the car beneath the sentry box and started to stroll away hand in hand. The sentry called them back and asked them to move the car on. The request probably saved his life. He suffered no more than the loss of his beret.. torn to shreds by the blast that was so powerful in the confined alley, that windows were broken a hundred yards away. Several people were slightly injured.

In Londonderry, five firemen are in hospital, after an explosion in a blazing buildings. The fire is believed to have been started by youths. The cause of the explosion is not known. An army spokesman said it might have been gelignite or a gas cylinder. the firs-fighting has hampered by gangs of stone-throwing youths.