BUENOS AIRES, Argentina -- Argentina on Friday authorized officials to reveal state secrets if called to testify in human rights trials, a move intended to speed up prosecution of atrocities committed during the country's 1976-1983 military dictatorship...

President Nestor Kirchner's decree lifts the ban on former and current military, police and government officials from revealing state secrets in certain court cases...

Encouraged by Kirchner, who took office in 2003, prosecutors and judges have reactivated hundreds of cases dating to the country's "dirty war" against leftists.