Police used water cannons as four officers were injured during sectarian clashes between loyalists and republicans in east Belfast today.
Trouble flared after a city centre demonstration against the council's decision to limit the number of days the Union flag is flown from City Hall.
Water cannons were deployed and a non-lethal baton round fired by riot police as they separated opposing factions amid a hail of bricks and fireworks at the Albertbridge Road near the nationalist Short Strand.
Earlier, nearly 1,000 people gathered at Belfast City Hall to protest.
Senior politicians from Belfast, Dublin and London are to meet next week to discuss the protests after more than 40 days of road blocks and sporadic violence by loyalists have failed to produce a solution.
Stormont First Minister Peter Robinson and his deputy Martin McGuinness will join Northern Ireland Secretary Theresa Villiers and Ireland's Tanaiste (deputy leader) Eamonn Gilmore.
Mr Gilmore said: "This violence is being orchestrated and those behind it are known criminals, intent on creating chaos.
"This has nothing to do with real issues around flags and identity in a shared society, which are the subject of intensive political discussions at present."
The demonstrations against Belfast City Council's decision to hoist the union flag from the City Hall only on designated days like royal birthdays have brought many parts of Northern Ireland to a standstill.
More than 70 officers have been injured and over 100 arrests made during weeks of sporadic trouble, the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) said.
Businesses in Belfast's city centre have struggled to cope, with many reporting lost trade, and the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) warned some investors may think again.
A doctor was prevented from attending a terminally ill cancer patient because of loyalist road blocks in south Belfast, it was revealed.
The GP was travelling to a home call with the sick man when he was stopped twice by crowds of demonstrators who blocked the road. Police asked them to move but they refused, nationalist SDLP MLA Conall McDevitt said.
He said: "These are depraved acts which immediately dismiss any claim on a protest being peaceful."
The doctor had to wait until the blockade was lifted.
A unionist forum chaired by DUP leader Mr Robinson and UUP leader Mike Nesbitt met last week to discuss ways of empowering loyalist working class communities.
A second peace rally is to be held outside Belfast City Hall tomorrow.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article