London  - Northern Ireland's First Minister on Sunday put off a planned trip to the United States after the first lethal terrorist attack in the province in 12 years left two soldiers dead and four injured.

The two soldiers were shot dead outside army barracks in County Antrim north of Belfast on Saturday night, with another four seriously injured.

No group had initially claimed the attack but it is being blamed on dissident republicans.

The attack is the first lethal terror attack against the British military in Northern Ireland since the signing of the peace agreement in 1998.

London  - A centre to commemorate the Titanic in the city where the famous luxury liner was built almost 100 years ago was given the go-ahead by Belfast city council in Northern Ireland Tuesday.

The council pledged 10 million pounds (15 million dollars) towards the 100 million-pound signature project on the derelict shipyard of Harland and Wolff where the Titanic was built.

The five-storey centre is scheduled to become a tourist attraction in time for the 100th anniversary of the ship's sinking, in April, 2012.

It is hoped that the centre will bring up to 400,000 visitors to Belfast each year, and compete with major European sights such as the Eiffel Tower in Paris.

Dublin - With Ireland's Prime Minister Brian Cowen expected to tell a summit in Brussels later Thursday that he will hold a second referendum on the European Union's Lisbon Treaty by October 2009, Ireland's naysayers are regrouping for the second battle of Lisbon.

"We are seeking legal guarantees on the concerns that the Irish people have," Foreign Minister Micheal Martin said Thursday in an attempt to reassure a sceptical electorate.

London  - The British government Tuesday hailed as "historic" an agreement struck by the political leaders in Northern Ireland to end five months of political stalemate in the province and to move ahead with the completion of the peace process.

Northern Ireland's First Minister Peter Robinson, who also leads the Protestant Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), and his deputy, Martin McGuinness of the Catholic Irish nationalist party Sinn Fein, said regular meetings of the executive, or cabinet, would resume on Thursday.

The executive has not met since June as a result of disagreement over the transfer of policing and justice powers to the executive and the Northern Ireland Assembly, or regional parliament, from the British government in London.

Belfast - The 40th anniversary of a civil rights demonstration that changed the course of Irish history is being remembered at a conference in the Northern Irish city of Londonderry on Saturday, attended by Irish President Mary McAleese and Nobel Peace Laureate John Hume.

London - The British government will re-examine all the intelligence information available to the authorities in the immediate run-up to the worst single terrorist atrocity in Northern Ireland, the Omagh bombing of 1998.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown ordering the review Wednesday following claims in a BBC television documentary that British intelligence had tapped the mobile phones of the attackers minutes before the massive bomb exploded, killing 29 people, including a woman pregnant with twins.

The attack, on August 15, 1998, was the worst single atrocity in Northern Ireland's 30 years of terrorism and civil unrest.