The threat from dissident republicans who attacked the MI5 headquarters in Northern Ireland is "severe", the police chief constable said.

Matt Baggott said he was saddened after a car bomb claimed by the Real IRA exploded in Holywood, Co Down - minutes after security powers were transferred from London to Belfast.

A taxi driver was taken hostage in north Belfast and held for two hours before being forced to drive the device to Palace Barracks near where MI5 is based.

Most of the damage was confined to the perimeter of the base and there were no serious injuries.

Security personnel were evacuating the area when the device exploded and some of the 30 to 40 fleeing residents dived for cover to avoid shrapnel.

Mr Baggott said: "The threat is very severe and there are a significant minority of people who want to take us back to the past in the very worst sense that could bring."

One elderly man was slightly injured in the attack after he was walking nearby when the device exploded.

The Real IRA has been linked to a string of attacks against security forces and last year shot dead two soldiers at Massereene Army base in Co Antrim.

The devolution move was agreed in the Hillsborough Castle Agreement brokered in February between the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) and Sinn Fein.

But while the development will bring a raft of new powers into the hands of Stormont politicians, responsibility for national security and related intelligence-gathering is not to be transferred.

Top Russian judge Eduard Chuvashov 'assassinated in revenge attack'

A senior Russian judge who presided over the high-profile trial of a gang of racist killers was assassinated in Moscow today.
Eduard Chuvashov was shot in the stairwell of his central Moscow home as he was leaving for work. Police said that they suspected that he had been killed by ultranationalists in a revenge attack for his work at Moscow City Court.
Mr Chuvashov, 47, was hit three times in a contract-style killing and died at the scene from gunshot wounds to the head and chest, the Investigations Committee of the Russian Prosecutor-General’s Office said in a statement.
The judge dealt with the trials of members of extremist organisations and had jailed nine members of a Russian fascist group, the White Wolves, in February for the murders of migrant workers from Central Asia.

Fightin' five in The Kettle Black bar brawl say bust cops and firefighters, too

Five men charged with roughing up a cop, a firefighter and a Port Authority police officer in a wild Brooklyn bar brawl are furious cops have not also arrested the off-duty service members.

The accused men - including Dan Golden, 23, nephew of Brooklyn state Sen. Marty Golden - claim they were tossed out of The Kettle Black in Bay Ridge early Saturday and then chased down by the off-duty officers.

"The feeling of all five of them is why are they the ones who are in trouble since they didn't even start the fight to begin with? They were defending themselves," said attorney Arthur Aidala, who is representing Golden and John DeCarlo, 22.

Police officials rejected Aidala's argument, stressing that the only people who were assaulted were off-duty cop Paul Aparo, Firefighter Rosario Cicero and Port Authority Officer Ryan McCarthy.

McCarthy, 27, has a busted jaw. Cicero, 30, suffered a cut to his arm that severed an artery and required surgery, his dad said from their Bensonhurst home.

"He tried to break up a fight and they beat the s--t out of him," said Cicero's father, who did not give his name.

Poland returns to work in shock and sorrow

Poland was wrestling today with a problem that has not confronted a society since the end of the Second World War: how to keep a state functioning when a large segment of the governing class has been killed at a stroke.

Moving slowly, still under shock, Poles returned to work after the weekend air crash that killed not only President Lech Kaczynski, but also dozens of top officials, ministers, the heads of the Armed Forces and the governor of the central bank, Slawomir Skrzypek.

While ordinary Poles went to their offices mainly to share their grief, the Government had to move more quickly.

The first priority was to reassure the markets that Poland was not going to abandon policies that have seen it weather the recession well, keeping the zloty, the Polish currency, strong and stable.

Acting President Bronislaw Komorowski said that his first move would be to nominate a replacement for Mr Skrzypek.

“It is absolutely necessary for this problem to be resolved quickly,” he told the news channel TVN 24. “Quick decisions are needed because only the governor can convene the Monetary Policy Council meeting.”

The decision is at the heart of the governing crisis that has descended on Poland since the death of the President. The head of state occupies a largely symbolic role — but he nominates many leaders of state institutions, including the central bank governor, and is influential in military appointments and the shaping of foreign policy. So if a president dies alongside institutional heads how do you start replacing them? How do you run the country?

Mr Komorowski, as Speaker of Parliament, has taken over as acting President until elections in June. He will then be a candidate for head of state. Technically, he has all the powers that President Kaczynski had, but Poles are asking whether he can legitimately make appointments now. It could smack of electioneering and of party politics.