A "vicious thug" who terrorised staff at a Dingle aquarium was taken miles offshore and thrown overboard. The thug, according to the Kerryman, was a rare 3 ft shark which showed "no respect" for the hands that fed it.

The paper reports that fishermen had brought the six-gill shark to the Mara Beo aquarium as a possible exhibit. But, within hours of its arrival, it had created havoc.

A local Department of Marine official, Mr Kevin Flannery, told the paper the shark was a danger to aquarium staff and other fish.

"It was an absolutely vicious fish with serrated teeth like a saw. It could have bitten the hands of someone trying to feed it in the tank. It was a vicious thug of a thing, so we had to let it go," he said.

Two rare new arrivals have made history for an Irish couple living in Manchester, according to the Nationalist.

The paper reports that a Co Galway woman has given birth to the first British-born Siamese twins to survive a separation operation.

The girls who are around four months old, were born to Joan Varley from Tuam, Co Galway, and Paul McDonnell, a 37-year-old labourer originally from Hacketstown, Co Carlow.

Aoife and Niamh - who shared a liver and a pericardal sack which protects the heart and major blood vessels - were successfully separated in a seven-hour operation. The doctors split the liver, which is capable of regenerating itself, and created an artificial pericardial sac for one of the twins.

The couple told the paper they intend to return to Ireland to live with their daughters in about a year.

A Tipperary-born businessman has been named Inventor of the Year in California's Silicon Valley, according to the Tipperary Star.

Mr John Ryan won the competition with an invention which helps prevent the counterfeiting of video cassettes.

His California-based Macrovision company has developed a device which ensures that illegally copied video cassettes will be of poor quality. The invention is used by companies such as Disney, Paramount and Fox.

AROUND a third of teenagers in four midland counties have had sex by the age of 18, according to a survey by the Midland Health Board reported in the Midland Tribune. About a quarter of those who said they have had sex claimed to have had three or more partners.

The sexual behaviour survey of 1,654 students in 12 post-primary schools in counties Offaly, Laois, Longford and Westmeath, found that three-quarters had lost their virginity between the ages of 15 and 17.

While 73 per cent of the pupils felt that sex education should be part of the school curriculum, the report says "it must be borne in mind that improved knowledge alone does not necessarily improve behaviour".

Many of the papers report on Telecom Eireann's shortlist of four towns from 51 entries to become the country's Information Age Town. The finalists towns which are hoping to be "wired up" later this year are Killarney, Castlebar, Ennis and Kilkenny.

The Kerryman reports that Killarney could gain massively from increased employment if it is selected to become a multi-million pound test bed for a range of new technologies.

The Nationalist, however, reports that Carlow has been "snubbed again" because it was eliminated from the competition. The Offaly In- dependent quotes the president of Tullamore's Chamber of Commerce as saying "a lot of good" has come from the town's efforts for the competition.

In the Donegal Democrat too, the president of the Letterkenny Chamber of Commerce stressed the experience had been a positive one. The Connaught Telegraph has already started cheerleading for Castlebar to win the award. It has a page one comment and lead story under a headline: Castlebar can do it!

In another page one story, The Connaught Telegraph reports on demands for the removal and safe disposal of toxic waste which it says is buried at the Asahi spinning plant in Killala, Co Mayo, which is closing.

On an inside page, the paper publishes an aerial photograph of the plant which highlights an area which it claims is part of a several acre site where waste fibre is buried.

Local councillor, Mr Brian Golden, who was a senior worker for Asahi for many years, told the paper there could be thousands of tonnes of the buried fibre which is contaminated with nitric acid. Mr Golden said the waste should be dug up and disposed elsewhere.

The paper reports that experts from the Environmental Protection Agency are in Killala to oversee the winding down of the facility and talks are underway to determine the best way to get rid of the waste fibre.

In a comment piece, the paper states that Asahi has had an excellent environmental record over the past 20 years. "But now, as the clock ticks beyond the eleventh hour for one of Mayo's biggest industries, there should be no short-cuts, no false economies," it says.

A Cork county councillor has claimed that the fire station in Fermoy is in such a poor condition that it is unlikely to pass an inspection by a fire officer.

The Corkman reports that Cllr Carey Joyce called at a recent county council meeting for urgent funding for a new fire station in the town.