Northern Ireland

Leaders from across the political spectrum vowed Sunday that the first fatal attack on British soldiers in Northern Ireland in 12 years would not derail the peace process put in motion by the historic 1998 accord between Catholic republicans and Protestant loyalists. The shooting Saturday night at the British army base in the county of Antrim left two soldiers dead and wounded four people, including two pizzeria workers who were making a delivery when the assailants struck.

If anything was symbolic of Northern Ireland as a more hopeful, more harmonious work-in-progress, it was the tiny province's new police force. With more Roman Catholics in its ranks than ever before, a force that was a Protestant bastion and viewed as a harsh instrument of British rule has embarked on a slow-but-steady transformation into one dedicated to protecting the entire community. Where officers once patrolled in armored vehicles, they now ride in squad cars and on motorcycles.

More than 100 Romanians in Northern Ireland were left scrounging for shelter Wednesday after being driven from their homes in a spate of racist violence that has shocked a region still nursing the wounds of decades of sectarian conflict. Officials and community leaders in Belfast, Northern Ireland's capital, roundly condemned the attacks, whose targets were ethnic Roma, or Gypsies, a minority group that has been subject to discrimination and mistreatment across Europe. No injuries were reported.

Two British military personnel were killed and four people were seriously wounded in a shooting at an army base in Northern Ireland, police said Saturday. "The two fatalities as I understand it are military personnel," a police spokeswoman said, adding that two of the wounded were also from the army. The shooting at the Massereene base near the town of Antrim followed reports that British special forces were back in the province gathering intelligence on dissident republicans.

The extremists who tried to sabotage peaceful coexistence in Northern Ireland by killing three British security personnel over the last week may have wound up strengthening it instead.

Lasting peace in Northern Ireland took another step forward Saturday when major Protestant paramilitary organizations announced that they had decommissioned some or all of their weapons, following a similar move years earlier by the opposing Irish Republican Army. The Ulster Defense Assn.

The Troubles, Northern Ireland's 30-year cycle of sectarian violence, seems to be catching up with the Holocaust for the sheer number and range of movies it has inspired. And, as with Holocaust-era films, just when you think there can't possibly be another cinematic twist on this devastating period, someone finds a new way in: Witness Oliver Hirschbiegel's "Five Minutes of Heaven," an intriguing, what-if take examining both sides of the Northern Irish conflict. Based on two real-life survivors of the Troubles, "Heaven" is divided into three distinct sections of varying success.

He won't be allowed to call himself Sir Ted, but U.S. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) has been awarded an honorary knighthood by Britain. Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced the honor during an address in Washington. Kennedy did not attend. Brown said Kennedy had helped bring peace to Northern Ireland, expand healthcare for Americans and improve access to education for children around the world.

Gunmen killed an officer in an attack on a Northern Ireland police patrol, authorities said, just 48 hours after Irish Republican Army dissidents claimed responsibility for shooting to death two British soldiers. The shootings fanned fears of a return to violence after years of fragile peace. The latest killing came even as British security chiefs appealed for public help to catch the soldiers' killers. "We are staring into the abyss," warned a moderate Catholic politician, Dolores Kelly, after police confirmed that the officer was fatally shot in the head while sitting in his patrol car in the religiously divided town of Craigavon.