A loyalist paramilitary chief was under protection tonight after rival gunmen in Belfast murdered a teenager and left a man fighting for his life.

Feuding loyalist paramilitaries in Belfast were today blamed for shooting one man dead and critically wounding another.

Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams and Democratic Unionist Assembly member Diane Dodds were today under fire for failing to attend a debate with other west Belfast election candidates on paramilitaries.

President Mary McAleese was today making her first official visit to Belfast since apologising for controversial comments about anti-Catholicism in Northern Ireland.

Unionists have welcomed President Mary McAleese's decision to cancel a planned visit to the loyalist Shankill Road in Belfast this week.

Deric Henderson

President Mary McAleese was tonight urged to stay away from the loyalist Shankill area of Belfast later this month.

Unionist politicians have warned of potential violence at a contentious Orange Order parade in Belfast this weekend.

Democratic Unionist MP Nigel Dodds and Sinn Féin’s Gerry Kelly today became the first two Assembly members to be elected in Northern Ireland.

Sinn Féin will occupy either the First or Deputy First Minister’s post in the next power-sharing government at Stormont, Martin McGuinness claimed tonight.

The Ulster Unionists tonight announced changes to its team of candidates for the forthcoming Assembly election in Northern Ireland.

A MAN suffered head injuries yesterday after a car drove over him twice during a vicious assault in west Belfast. Sam Hodgkinson, 53, was walking his dog in the loyalist Shankill Road area when two men got out of a white saloon with a taxi sign on the roof and attacked him.

People across Northern Ireland are today commemorating those who lost their lives in the September 11 attacks on the United States.

Unionists are furious at the election of Sinn Fein's Alex Maskey as Mayor of Belfast and they turned their anger on the three members of the cross-community Alliance Party who supported him.

Sinn Fein’s Alex Maskey tonight became the first member of his party to be elected Lord Mayor of Belfast.

Sinn Fein has claimed that the British Government caved in to unionist pressure by appointing two unionists to the North’s Human Rights Commission.

American politicians have been urged to get tough with Sinn Fein over the IRA's links to terrorist organisations in Colombia and around the world.

Proposals aimed at unblocking the logjam in the peace process were today dismissed as ‘‘incomplete’’ without an IRA move on weapons.