The toll of days of firefights between police and opposition supporters was marked in Jamaica by streets stained with blood, the hulks of burned-out vehicles, and the heat-bloated body of an elderly man, who had been shot in the back.

One of David Trimble’s fiercest Good Friday Agreement opponents was today among the first MPs to be elected in Northern Ireland.

Northern Ireland Secretary John Reid was under fire tonight from the Ulster Unionists after he criticised their ban on Sinn Fein ministers attending meetings of cross-border bodies.

A device has exploded outside the offices of the nationalist SDLP in north Belfast.