Northern Ireland secretary John Reid has until Saturday night to find a compromise between Sinn Fein and David Trimble's Ulster Unionists on decommissioning, police reform and demilitarisation, or again suspend the assembly (either indefinitely or for six weeks) or call fresh elections.
The first minister has called for an emergency debate on the issue in the Northern Ireland assembly on Friday.
"I have been assured by the assembly that these were rogue actions and are being fully investigated".
As soon as the assembly was made aware of the incident, the flags were removed".
As talks resumed at Stormont to revive the assembly, under the chairmanship of the Northern Ireland secretary, Paul Murphy, and junior Irish foreign minister Tom Kitt, Sinn Féin's Martin McGuinness urged the hardline DUP to strike a deal as quickly as possible.
Sajid Javid, the culture secretary, was heckled at the pre-election Citizens UK assembly on Monday, where he took the prime minister's place at the podium in front of thousands of community activists.
A special motion condemning the riots and supporting those on the sharp end of seven days of disorder was backed across the Stormont assembly floor.
The coalition of disability groups are pushing the Georgia state assembly to change the law to bring it in line with the other 49 states by lowering the burden of proof to "preponderance of the evidence".
The SDLP had 24 seats to Sinn Féin's 18 in the last assembly.
Alliance party leader and Northern Ireland's justice minister, David Ford had demanded a recall of the Stormont assembly where he wants answers from mainstream unionist politicians about the violence.
In these circumstances, there are some in Sinn Féin who argue that now, or at least in early 2010, the party should bring down the power-sharing executive and force assembly elections.
