BUCHAREST (AP) – A Romanian Orthodox bishop was an informant of the communist-era Securitate secret police, ordered to infiltrate groups of Eastern Rite Catholics, a council studying Securitate archives said yesterday. Andrei Andrecut, bishop for Alba in northwest Romania, was recruited in the 1980s and pressured into signing a written pledge to be an informant under the code name “Ionica.” The Securitate particularly wanted him to spy on members of the banned Eastern Rite Catholic Church, the state council for studying the Securitate archives said. Andrecut denied having harmed anyone.

ANTWERP (AP) –The retrial of a far-left Turkish militant charged with terrorism started in a Belgian court yesterday, even though she is on the run. Fehriye Erdal and nine other alleged members of the DHKP-C, an outlawed leftist group that aims to topple the Turkish government, are accused of membership in a terrorist organization, and possession of weapons and false papers. An appeals court ordered a retrial after it found the first trial was not fairly conducted for technical reasons. Erdal and six of the nine others were found guilty by a court last year, however Erdal escaped police custody a day before her sentence was read out in court, and remains at large. Erdal is also wanted in Turkey for allegedly murdering an industrialist.

Iran resumed its natural gas exports to Turkey yesterday after it was forced to cut supplies due to an explosion on the pipeline on the weekend, the Anatolia news agency reported. Officials from the Turkish Energy Ministry told the agency the pipeline linking the northwest Iranian town of Tabriz with Ankara had been repaired, allowing the pumping of gas. Iran was forced to stop exports after the pipeline was partly damaged by an explosion near the town of Dogubayazit, in Agri province, some 17 kilometers (10 miles) from the Iranian border. (AFP)

Bulgarian veterinary authorities confirmed yesterday new outbreaks of Newcastle disease in poultry in the northwest of the country, where cases of the disease were reported in late August, the state BTA news agency said. The illness, which can cause respiratory problems, swelling and, in extreme cases, death in birds, and conjunctivitis or flu-like symptoms in humans, had spread from the village of Kravoder to small backyard farms in the region. (AFP)