Israel is expected to broaden the powers of an internal inquiry into the botched raid on a Gaza-bound flotilla in May in the wake of a barrage of claims that its investigation lacks any credibility. Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister, appeared to cave in to domestic pressure after the committee was mocked in the Israeli media as a whitewash designed to defend the assault on 31 May that resulted in the death of nine Turkish nationals. A photograph of one 93-year-old panellist in his pyjamas looking at documents drew particular derision.

There can be no doubt that the formidable Peter and Iris Robinson double act is finished in political terms.

"If I'm appointed Justice Secretary in the next Conservative administration I will end Jack Straw's serial selective and cynical trailing of government policy in the media," the shadow Justice Secretary Dominic Grieve pledged yesterday... in a speech selectively trailed by his personal spin doctor the night before it was delivered.

From the school you attend to the team you support – in Belfast, life is still divided along sectarian lines. But not for everyone... On the city's gay scene, Anna Leach discovers how pride is overcoming prejudice

The unionists and maverick MPs who swung the vote on 42-day terror detention Labour's way

Rocky Road to peace

Bertie Ahern was untouched by the sort of scandal that has traditionally dogged Irish politics. But his mysterious financial affairs caught up with him when his secretary was forced into the spotlight. By David McKittrick

1. A trip to Ireland to face a bogey side can bring 15 unusual minutes of fame

It was the best of years, the very best of years. It was a time of frustration and disillusionment, of long, tedious and apparently fruitless talks; and then suddenly it was a time of breakthrough and success, and a new dawn.

TERRORISTS MUST disarm as Northern Ireland enters the age of "grown-up politics", Peter Mandelson said yesterday.

`The conventional wisdom is that she doesn't have much of a role because Number 10 drives policy'

Politics in Belfast comes speedily of age as the first full day of business opens with pounds 9,000 pay rises all round agreed

IN THE last two years in Northern Ireland, the pessimists and their apparently unassailable arguments have repeatedly been proved wrong. Each time that another political first is achieved, the doomsayers who insisted that it was all impossible quickly pick themselves off the floor and predict unspeakable woe just around the corner. These past months, full of scepticism and anger, will, however, be seen in retrospect as an almost comfortable consolidation of the peace process.

FORMER NORTHERN Ireland secretaries, ministers and MPs queued up last night to hail the peace settlement for the province as an "historic" and "enormous leap forward".