Nearly three decades after defecting to the West, former Romanian Foreign Intelligence deputy commander Ion Mihai Pacepa appeared on a Romanian TV news programme last week and confirmed that the late communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu’s regime plotted to kill expatriates working at Radio Free Europe (RFE).

Iranian and International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) teams of experts started the next round of talks to resolve the remaining issues between the two sides.

United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki Moon in a phone conversation with Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki called for Tehran’s assistance to resolve the hostage-taking crisis in Afghanistan.