Unionists put off crucial meeting

The biggest mainly-Protestant party in Northern Ireland, the Ulster Unionists, has postponed for a week a decision on returning to the province's power-sharing institutions.

These have been suspended since February, principally over the handing-in of weapons by paramilitary groups.

Earlier this month, the IRA offered to allow inspection of some of its arms dumps.

The Ulster Unionists are divided on whether to accept the offer; but their leader, David Trimble, has now said he will recommend to his council a return to power-sharing with the republican and nationalist parties, a move welcomed by the IRA's political wing, Sinn Fein. The British and Irish governments had hoped for a return to a power-sharing executive in Belfast next Monday.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service