Irish Peace Deadline Looms

STORMONT, Northern Ireland: Senator George Mitchell spent today talking to a roomful of people destined to be unhappy in each other's company, but increasingly convinced that they'd be even more unhappy if they left the room. Mitchell is detailing a proposed compromise between the demands of Northern Ireland's pro-British loyalists and pro-independence Republicans, which will form the basis of this week's final negotiations.

The former Maine senator was cautiously optimistic about achieving an agreement by the Thursday-night deadline: "All parties will disagree with something in the proposed deal, but they're under a lot of pressure to make a deal," says TIME London bureau chief Barry Hillenbrand. "So they'll be hoping to get concessions in the last rounds of talks to make it easier to sell their constituencies the parts that are hard to swallow." The real test, though, will be selling the compromise to communities that have been at war for three decades: Whatever agreement the politicians reach by Thursday will be put to the vote in a referendum late in May.