Israeli President Shimon Peres flies to Vienna on Sunday for talks with the International Atomic Energy Agency head, the pan-European security watchdog OSCE and Austrian leaders, his office said.

Peres and Yukiya Amano, director general of the IAEA, the U.N. nuclear watchdog, will discuss its "role as the professional body leading the effort to put the brakes on Iran's nuclear program," his office said in a statement Thursday.

The only surviving Gurkha to win the Victoria Cross, Britain's highest military decoration, went to parliament on Wednesday to address lawmakers on the fearsome Nepalese soldiers' welfare.

Captain Rambahadur Limbu, 74, who was awarded the VC for storming an enemy position during the Indonesian Confrontation in 1965, spoke to the Gurkha Welfare Inquiry into the soldiers' outstanding grievances.

The current Turkish block on Twitter is the latest in a series of actions against social networks, which often happen when a government's grip on power is under threat. Here are some other examples.

EGYPT (January 2011): Setting a historic precedent, Egyptian authorities blocked Internet access on January 28, 2011, to undermine opponents to the regime of president Hosni Mubarak who had used Facebook and Twitter to organize rallies.

Israel's spy agency Mossad has concluded eight Iranian Jews who had tried to emigrate to Israel in the 1990s were murdered en route, the prime minister's office said on Friday.

The announcement came as Iran marked the Persian New Year, and as Israel chided Western powers for negotiating with the Jewish state's arch-foe Tehran.

Iran is still sticking to a partial nuclear freeze agreed in a November interim deal with world powers, the U.N. atomic watchdog said in a new monthly update seen by Agence France Presse on Thursday.

The International Atomic Energy Agency said that two months into the six-month halt, Iran was still not enriching uranium to medium fissile purities, as agreed in November.

U.S. President Barack Obama Thursday called on the "entire" government in Tehran to seize on nuclear talks with world powers to end Iran's economic isolation.

Obama made a direct effort to build political support among Iranians in favor of the nuclear diplomacy led by the government of President Hassan Rouhani in an annual video message marking Nowruz, new year celebrations.

An overwhelming majority of U.S. lawmakers Tuesday demanded President Barack Obama hold the line on Iran, as a permanent agreement regarding the Islamic republic's contested nuclear program is under negotiation in Vienna.

In bipartisan letters, House and Senate members sent wish lists to the president specifying what they wanted to see in any final deal, namely that Iran never gain ability to build a nuclear bomb.

The head of the Iranian judiciary's High Council of Human Rights said Tuesday he hoped that two reformist opposition leaders will be freed from more than three years of house arrest, media reported.

Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, both candidates in the disputed 2009 presidential election won by incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, have been held incommunicado since February 2011.

The head of the CIA's Iran operations has been suspended after employees complained about his "abusive" management style, The Los Angeles Times reported Monday, citing unnamed officials.

Jonathan Bank, a career officer with the spy agency, had been placed on administrative leave after an internal probe found he had created a hostile work environment, according to the Times.

Iran's foreign minister said Monday that Tehran is "ready to help any logical attempts" to end the Syrian conflict, during a visit by U.N.-Arab League envoy to Syria Lakhdar Brahimi.

Brahimi was in Tehran for the second day of talks with Iranian officials about ending the conflict in Syria, a key regional ally of Iran.