LONDON: British Home Secretary Jack Straw decided on Thursday that extradition proceedings should go ahead against former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, who is wanted in Spain on torture and conspiracy charges.

``I have decided to issue an authority to proceed in respect of his extradition,'' Straw, who is interior minister, said after the decision was announced by his office. The decision crushed Pinochet supporters' hopes that a recent dramatic reduction of Spain's case against the general by Britain's top court would convince Straw to lift the house arrest Pinochet has been under since last October and allow him to return to Chile.

Northern Ireland peace process fails to revive

BELFAST: An attempt by Britain and Ireland to rescue the Northern Ireland peace process failed on Wednesday as talks on the key issue of paramilitary disarmament degenerated into mutual recrimination. The ambitious plan by Dublin and London, which linked weaponshandovers to government seats, lay largely abandoned as talks failed to convince representatives of armed groups on both sides to support it. A spokesman for Prime Minister Tony Blair's office said the two premiers had done all they could for the moment. ``We are at the stage now where it's up to the parties to make some progress,'' he said.

First public appearance for new Niger leader

NIAMEY: The new military ruler of Niger, Major Daouda Mallam Wanke, made his first public appearance since the coup last week in which his predecessor was killed, the national television reported. Wanke was filmed visiting the national hospital in Niamey on Wednesday. Dressed in his combat fatigues and with a gun at his belt, Wanke was accompanied by a large escort of soldiers. A journalist at the hospital said he had gone to see the head of the former president's bodyguard squad, who was badly injured when Ibrahim Bare Mainassara was gunned down on Friday at a military base near Niamey. Major Ismael Tili Gach had tohave his leg amputated. Mainassara was killed by members of the presidential guard of which Wanke was in command. Wanke later said the killing was an ``accident'' a version contradicted by witnesses. According to a witness at the hospital, Wanke had ``joked'' with Tili, pulling His beard, as he was wont to do each time he went to the presidential palace when Mainassara was alive. The television did not show footage of this.