Three people were shot last night as sectarian rioting erupted around the nationalist enclave of Short Strand in east Belfast last night.

One youth is being held by police after violence flared in the flashpoint Whitewell area of north Belfast.

Loyalists last night threw two bombs at a community theatre staging a children's play as part of a community festival in the Ardoyne area of north Belfast.

A loyalist terror group seen as a cover for the Ulster Defence Association tonight admitted raking a north Belfast community centre with gunfire.