■ United Kingdom
Alleged arms dealer nabbed
A former Iranian ambas-sador to Jordan has been arrested in Durham, England, on behalf of US authorities, accused of plotting to sell military equipment from the US to Iran, police said. Officers from London's Metropolitan Police arrested Nosratollah Tajik at his home on Oct. 26, a spokesman said. The details came to light in a front-page article of the Mail on Sunday newspaper which claimed that Tajik was caught in a "sting" operation by undercover US agents. The paper claimed the officials from the Depart-ment of Homeland Security "set up" Tajik by posing as arms dealers wanting to sell night-vision goggles to Iran in breach of US export controls.
■ Poland
Polls test Kaczynski support
Polling stations opened yesterday for local elections which are seen as a key test of support for the 14-month-old conservative government of identical twins Lech and Jaroslaw Kaczynski. The polls were scheduled to close at 8pm. Some 47,000 council seats are up for grabs, as well as 2,500 mayorships from village level through to the high-profile job at Warsaw city hall. Lech, who is president, and his identical twin brother Jaroslaw, the prime minister, helped sweep a corruption-tainted left-wing government from power in parliamentary elections in September last year.
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