The river of death says the front page of the Independent this morning

For the people living alongside the Payapon river – a branch of the mighty Irrawaddy – the slow-moving waters have always been a sustainer of life. The river has provided irrigation for their crops, as well as clean, sweet water for washing and bathing, and the fish from which so many of them make their livelihoods.
Now the same river is delivering the dead. The corpses of hundreds of people swept away and killed by the surging tidal wave of Cyclone Nargis are now being washed back.

The Guardian also leads with Burma saying

The UN reacted furiously last night to Burma's military government confiscating food aid intended for more than a million victims of last week's cyclone. Two planeloads were impounded by the junta, prompting a temporary suspension in deliveries. UN flights were resumed last night, in the hope that negotiations would lead to a resolution.

The Sun says that

HUNDREDS of starving children orphaned by the Burma cyclone are trudging to a town they hope will save them — only to find help heartbreakingly out of reach.
Desperately-needed supplies remain BLOCKED by the country’s paranoid military regime while life-saving aid teams still wait in fury for permission to enter.

I stopped counting the corpes reports the Times

We saw the first one a few minutes downriver, no more than five hundred yards from the quayside and the busy town centre of the river port of Pyapon. He was caught in the crook of a toppled tree, floating in the water on his back with his arms spreadeagled - the naked, decaying remains of a drowned man.
There was another corpse a few yards down, and then another, and then three more close together. Number six was recognisably that of a woman, with a green undergarment still clinging to her; number seventeen was a young girl. Close by was a dead buffalo, and what I mistakenly took to be a coconut or a drowned animal. “Khalaylay,” said the boatman, correcting me. A baby.

It leads with an exclusive

The truth about Tony and Gordon – by Cherie Blair

Tony Blair is advising Gordon Brown during his current turmoil and has told him how he can win the next general election, Cherie Blair reveals in The Times today.
She says that Mr Blair would have stood down before the 2005 election if only Mr Brown had been prepared to implement her husband’s public service reforms.

Meanwhile the Independent reports

Crewe voters set to derail Labour's fightback

That Labour supporters are in such open revolt in Crewe – a bastion of party loyalty since the Second World War – can only mean one thing: Mr Brown is in deep trouble.

says the paper

The Telegraph reports that

Royal Mail cuts may end Saturday post

The proposal to reduce deliveries to five days a week will also see fewer first class letters arrive the day after they are sent.
The recommendations, to be submitted in the next 10 days as part of a review into the future of the postal sector, are included in a radical plan by the regulator Postcomm to shore up finances at the Royal Mail.

Pressure intensifies to cut 'excessive' school tests reports the Guardian

The schools secretary, Ed Balls, will next week face new pressure to scale back Labour's school testing regime with the publication of a parliamentary report arguing that children are now being tested "excessively", the Guardian has learned.
The children, schools and families select committee, led by Labour MP Barry Sheerman, will argue that national tests have now gone too far.

The Mail reveals on its front page

BBC kept £100,000 of Children In Need cash for itself

Staff knowingly withheld money that should have gone to causes including Children in Need and Comic Relief.
In another hammer blow to TV's reputation, the corporation has been ordered by its own ruling body, the BBC Trust, to apologise for the scandal on air.

The Independent adds that

In a separate case, an editorial failing on Eurovision: Making Your Mind Up 2007, the BBC show which chose the pop group Scooch as the UK's entry for last year's Eurovision Song Contest, led to large numbers of the public calling when voting was closed, and being charged about £6,000

18 HOURS IN POLICE CELL – FOR DROPPING AN APPLE CORE is the front page of the Express which reports

Plumber Keith Hirst, 54, who has a heart condition, was locked up after he refused to accept a £50 on-the-spot fine from a police community support officer.
“The way I was treated you would have thought I had robbed a bank,” he said. And MPs joined in condemnation of the police action, describing it as “totally over the top”.

Many of the papers report that

Police hunt girl gang who poured liquid through letterbox of London blast house

A gang of girls may have used the internet to make a bomb that killed a man and destroyed three homes in their feud with another teenager.
Former classmates of Charlotte Anderson, 17, are being sought by police after a blast destroyed her flat, an apartment above and two neighbouring cottages in Harrow, northwest London.
Miss Anderson suffered serious blast injuries and Emad Qureshi, 26, her neighbour, was killed in the explosion at 9.30pm on Wednesday

. says the Times

The Sun reports that

TWO teenagers who murdered a schoolboy were named and shamed yesterday as his mum pleaded with gangs to lay down their weapons. Blood-thirsty Brandon Richmond, then 13, and Tirrell Davis, 15, were in a gang which chased Kodjo Yenga, 16, shouting: "Kill him, kill him".
As they were caged for 15 years for murder a statement read in court from Kodjo’s mum Ladjua Lesele told them: "No matter how many times you washed your hands, his blood will stay on you for as long as you live."

The Mail meanwhile reports

A senior policeman called on parents to "take some responsibility" for their children yesterday after ten teenagers were sentenced for the killings of two boys.
Paul Erhahon, 14, was stabbed by five youths, some as young as 13, "to earn their spurs" as part of a gang initiation.

Mortgage repossessions increase by 17pc says the Telegraph

There were 27,530 mortgage repossession orders made during the first quarter of this year, up 17 per cent from the same period last year.
Repossession orders are the final step taken by a bank or building society before seizing a property from an owner who has not paid their mortgage.
It is expected that the figure will rise throughout the year as the full force of the credit crisis hits home owners.

The Mail report that there are

Questions for police as it is revealed siege barrister was gunned down with at least FIVE bullets

Police were yesterday facing questions over whether they were too heavy-handed in dealing with barrister Mark Saunders after it emerged he died from at least five bullet wounds.
Mr Saunders, 32, was shot with rounds from two kinds of gun in the brain, heart, liver, and lower body, according to a pathologist's report.

The Guardian adds

Mark Saunders was shot dead by police when they feared that he would kill or seriously injure an officer or member of the public if he was not stopped, the Guardian has learned.

The Mirror continues to lead with the Fritzl story

Dungeon dad Josef Fritzl could be convicted of murdering his own baby on the evidence of the son he held captive for all his 18 years.
Stefan Fritzl witnessed the birth 12 years ago of a twin, Michael, who died after only three days in Fritzl's damp dungeon. The 73-year-old brute, who fathered seven children with daughter Elisabeth, burned the tiny body in a furnace.

News from abroad and the Guardian reports from Lebanon where

Hizbullah success in west Beirut replaces impasse with uncertainty

Lebanon's western-backed government was reeling yesterday after Hizbullah guerrillas seized control of Muslim west Beirut in a significant victory for the Iran-supported Shia movement.
Security sources said at least 11 people had been killed and 30 wounded in three days of battles between pro-government forces and fighters loyal to Hizbullah, in the worst internal clashes since the end of the 15-year civil war in 1990.
The Hizbullah takeover - described by some as a coup and others as a "show of force" - broke months of political deadlock that reflects Lebanon's deep internal divisions and the ambitions of neighbours such as Syria and Israel, as well as Iran, Saudi Arabia and the US. But, as an uneasy calm returned to Beirut yesterday, it was unclear what the change would mean.

Russia puts on a Soviet show of might reports the Telegraph

Dmitry Medvedev, Russia's new president, delivered a coded rebuke to the West yesterday as Russia paraded its nuclear missiles through Red Square in a show of force not seen since Soviet times.Thousands of Russians thronged the centre of Moscow to wallow in nostalgia for their superpower past as tanks rumbled through the streets

As Clinton campaign flounders, hopes of Democratic 'dream ticket' resurface reports the Independent

The rumour has resurfaced – perhaps inevitably, but this time stronger than ever: could the long and bitter battle for the Democratic nomination end in what many see as the perfect answer – Barack Obama united with the all-but-vanquished Hillary Clinton on a "dream ticket" for the White House?

Back to the Uk and the Telegraph reports on

Ramsay's war on out-of-season produce

The Michelin-starred chef said legislation should be brought in to force chefs to use home-grown, locally-sourced produce, instead of relying on food flown in from all over the world.
But Ramsay was accused of hypocrisy after it emerged that more than 15 unseasonal ingredients – including blackberries, parsnips and fennel – are currently being served at his own restaurants and would fall foul of a fine

Gordon also makes the news in the Mirror

Gordon Ramsay has called Delia Smith's latest recipe book an insult to cooking.
He blasted her for basing How to Cheat at Cooking on ready-made ingredients.
Ramsay said: "I expect students struggling on £15 a week to survive eating from a can. But the nation's all-time icon reducing us down to using frozen, canned food. It's an insult.

Finally as we look forward to a warm weekend the Independent reports that

After the first sun of the year comes the first smog

Just when the country was beginning to enjoy some warm weather, experts warned that the sun has arrived with a sting in its tail – the first smog of summer.
The air pollution is likely to affect England, Scotland and Wales over the weekend, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) warned yesterday. High ozone levels, which occur when sunlight interacts with nitrogen oxides and other pollutants, are set to persist until at least the beginning of next week, when Northern Ireland could also be hit.