Northern Ireland leaders hold crisis talks to halt rioting [1]

BELFAST (Reuters) - Northern Ireland's first and deputy first ministers held crisis talks with politicians and leaders of the pro-British Orange Order on Wednesday in a bid to stop the sectarian violence which has engulfed Belfast over the last three days.

Sixty-five police officers have been injured defending themselves from petrol bombs, fireworks, stones and bottles since riots first erupted on Sunday after a Catholic nationalist band marched in an area where Protestant groups were recently barred from doing so.