Police have fired baton rounds and deployed water cannon on rioters as violence linked to the Union Flag row flared in east Belfast again.

Senior members of the paramilitary Ulster Volunteer Force are orchestrating loyalist street violence that has seen police come under attack in Belfast on four successive nights, the North's Chief Constable has said.

A nationalist assembly member in the North has received a death threat.

Ulster Bank has paid more than £18m (€14m) to almost 300,000 customers in the North hit by IT problems over the summer.

A 26-year-old man is to appear in court today charged with the murder of an 18-year-old girl in the North and the attempted murder of her sister.

Doctor-turned-politician Alasdair McDonnell pledged to cure the ailing SDLP as he was elected its new leader.

Members of the SDLP will today select a new leader for the second time in less than two years.

Four candidates are in the running for the leadership of the SDLP.

The leader of the nationalist SDLP is to step down, she confirmed tonight.

SDLP leader Margaret Ritchie could face a second challenger after South Belfast MP Alasdair McDonnell said he is being urged to step forward.

Margaret Ritchie is to be challenged for the leadership of the SDLP, it was confirmed today.

Election canvassers for the SDLP were targeted by a petrol bomb attack overnight, the party has said.

A police station guard in the North had a miraculous escape today after a car bomb partially exploded as he drove to work through a busy residential area.

A civilian police worker escaped injury today when a suspect booby trap bomb fell off his car in the North.

A man stabbed to death in Co Derry last night has been named.

The SDLP has called on a DUP Assemblyman to withdraw disparaging comments he made about a planned Papal visit to the North.

Devolution has made little difference to how parts of the North’s government are run, a new book from the University of Ulster has claimed.

The North's government departments have spent more than £100m (€109m) on consultancy fees in the past five years, according to figures obtained by the SDLP.

The SDLP today announced a wide-ranging reshuffle of its Assembly team.

The SDLP is asking the British Attorney General to review what it says were overly lenient sentences passed on two loyalists who used the police database to gather information on people in Tyrone and south Antrim.

Compensation claims against the Roads Service across the North are on the rise because rural roads are "going to pot", it was claimed today.

The Orange Order today called for an end to tit-for-tat attacks in the North after two GAA clubs were targeted by arsonists.

The North's Assembly sessions are in danger of being cut back if the crisis facing the Executive is not tackled, it was warned today.

A minister in the North minister has banned officials in the Republic from sitting on committees advising his department, it was confirmed today.

An SDLP working group looking at the future of the party is exploring all political options, its leader Mark Durkan insisted today.

Two computer discs containing names and addresses of 7,685 Northern Ireland motorists have been lost, a letter from the UK's Department of the Environment confirmed.

The only private sector proposal on the table for a controversial visitors centre at the Giant’s Causeway still has a number of issues which need to be addressed, Stormont Environment Minister Arlene Foster said today.

The Government was urged today to simplify the process of securing compensation in Northern Ireland for Orange halls targeted in arson and other attacks.

Tough targets for carbon emissions in the North should be attached to funding for bonfires and other community festivals, it was claimed today.

A Sinn Féin Assembly member tonight became the second member of its Stormont team to step down after only serving one term.

A RADICAL reorganisation of the way the North is governed will reduce the number of public bodies across local government, health and social services and education from 67 to 20.

The youth wings of Labour and SDLP meet in Belfast today to discuss a new Ireland free of sectarian division.

Plans to take the UK to the European courts over the Dublin Monaghan bombings will not strain Anglo-Irish relations, Irish Foreign Affairs Minister Dermot Ahern insisted today.

Patsy McGlone has been selected as the SDLP candidate for Mid Ulster in the forthcoming general election.

Bomb disposal experts in the North are examining a suspect device found in Maghera, Co Derry this morning.

Union chiefs tonight vowed to fight any move by Gordon Brown to axe a quarter of administrative jobs in Northern Ireland’s civil service.

Community policing representatives in Northern Ireland are under a new threat from loyalist terrorists, it was revealed today.

A bomb attack which damaged a van in Co Derry was not connected to the loyalist feud, police said today.

A row has blown up in the North after it was discovered that laws banning mentally disabled people from voting refer to them as "idiots and lunatics".

People with Down’s syndrome are being refused the right to register to vote in Northern Ireland despite having voted in the past, it was claimed today.

The Democratic Unionist Party has criticised the North’s Human Rights Commission for recommending that the Irish language be given official status.

A booby-trapped bomb planted at an army base in Northern Ireland would have killed anyone who touched it, police said today.

With all 108 seats filled in the Northern Ireland Assembly the party shares are:

Two men were being questioned in Northern Ireland today about the murder of a young man.