Ten Northern Irish police officers were injured on Sunday, three of them hospitalized, when violence flared ahead of a republican parade close to central Belfast, police said.

Pro-British protestors attempted to disrupt the planned march and police were pelted with bricks, stones and golf balls, according to the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI).

The largest Titanic visitor attraction in the world opened in the ship's Belfast birthplace on Saturday, some 100 years after the doomed liner was built in the same yards.

Almost 100,000 tickets for Titanic Belfast, a striking aluminum-clad building which tells the famous ship's story through special effects, interactive screens and a ride, have been sold ahead of the opening.

Eighteen people, including a baby, were killed Thursday when a minibus taxi collided head-on with a truck, causing both vehicles to burst into flames, a local safety official said.

The taxi was traveling to Johannesburg from neighboring Mozambique when it veered out of its lane and slammed into the truck near the eastern South African town of Belfast, Mpumalanga public safety spokesman Joseph Mabuza told the Sapa news agency.

Pop superstar Rihanna was thrown off a farmer's land in Northern Ireland after he objected to the singer stripping down to a bikini while filming a new video.

The popular performer was recording a video on Monday for her new single "We Found Love" in a muddy barley field in the town of Bangor, east of Belfast.

A second night of rioting broke out in Northern Ireland at the height of the Protestant marching season, with police officers attacked and numerous people arrested, police said Wednesday.

Petrol bombs, bricks, bottles and fireworks were thrown at officers and cars were set alight in the Ardoyne area of north Belfast, and riot police responded by firing baton rounds and water cannons.

Serious rioting erupted in Belfast injuring 22 officers, police said, as tension mounted before Tuesday's culmination of Northern Ireland's main Protestant marching season.

Police used water cannon and fired 51 plastic bullets to try to disperse around 200 Catholic rioters in the Broadway area of mainly Catholic west Belfast late Monday.

Masked men fired shots and hurled petrol bombs during sectarian clashes between Protestants and Catholics in Belfast, leaving two people suffering from gunshot wounds, Northern Ireland police said Tuesday.

The violence erupted after suspected Protestant gangs who support British rule in the province attacked homes overnight in Short Strand, a Catholic enclave in Protestant east Belfast, local officials said.