Madrid  - A court in the northern Spanish city of Santander said Thursday it would seek the extradition of suspected swindler Jose Perez Diaz who has been arrested in Mexico after being on the run for 18 years.

Perez Diaz, known as Pepe el del Popular, 57, was one of Spain's most wanted fugitives, with media referring to him as an "early Madoff" - after confessed US financial fraudster Robert Madoff.

Washington  - An F-22A fighter jet crashed in California while on a test flight on Wednesday, the US Air Force confirmed. The status of the pilot was unclear.

Lieutenant Colonel Karen Platt, an Air Force spokeswoman, said the crash took place about 55 kilometres northwest of Edwards Air Force Base, which lies in the desert north of Los Angeles.

The F-22 Raptor is one of the most sophisticated fighter jets in the world and comes with a hefty pricetag. The crash was the first for this model since it went into full production, Platt said.

Washington  - An F-22 f

Islamabad  - A suspected US missile strike on a militant hideout in Pakistan's troubled north-western tribal region near Afghanistan killed at least six people Wednesday, a security official said.

The attack took place in the Makeen area in the South Waziristan tribal district, a known hotbed of al-Qaeda and Taliban militants.

"According to the information we are receiving from the locals, the missile strike destroyed a vehicle carrying some militants," said a local intelligence official who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Dhaka  - Accused war criminals from Bangladesh's 1971 war of independence from Pakistan are to be prosecuted under existing domestic law, a senior minister said Wednesday.

Those accused of collaborating with Pakistani troops in the atrocities of 38 years ago would be tried under the International Crimes Tribunals Act, passed two years after the liberation war, Shafiq Ahmed, the minister for law, justice and parliamentary affairs, told reporters at his office.

Munich  - A German court on Wednesday partially lifted a ban on a British publisher giving out reprints of old Nazi newspapers.

The restriction was imposed by the state of Bavaria, which argued it had copyright over the newspapers.

The district court in Munich ruled that Peter McGee's popular history series Zeitungszeugen could include reprints dating to the end of 1938 but not later.

Earlier this year, police confiscated thousands of copies of Zeitungszeugen that contained republished facsimiles of Nazi-era papers.