The U.S. State Department's annual report on illicit drug trade worldwide, issued Thursday, said Afghanistan's opium production hit a record high last year while there was backsliding on anti-drug efforts in Venezuela and Bolivia. Iran's counter-narcotics efforts were commended.

As the UN Security Council again begins to wrestle with how to answer Iran's refusal to stop uranium enrichment, Washington continues to reserve the right to take unilateral action. U.S. officials say no options are off the table.

The head of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency says Washington wants to base an antimissile radar in the Caucasus.

Senior U.S. and North Korean diplomats will meet in New York next week to discuss initial steps toward normalizing relations. The creation of the bilateral U.S.-North Korea working group is part of the six-party Korean nuclear agreement reached February 13 in Beijing. VOA's David Gollust reports from the State Department.

Ukraine's Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych says a planned U.S. missile defense system in the Czech Republic and Poland will hurt Ukraine's relations with those two countries.

The United States says it will not extradite to Italy 26 Americans, mostly CIA agents, indicted over the alleged abduction of a Muslim cleric.

Iraq has confirmed that the United States, Iran and Syria will participate in a conference on the country's security.

Human Rights Watch is asking U.S. President George W. Bush to disclose the fates of all terror suspects held since 2001, including at least 16 it believes have been locked up in secret CIA facilities.

The U.S. government has imposed financial sanctions on six more top Belarusian government officials in response to last year's flawed presidential election and opposition crackdown.

The new U.S. intelligence chief has not wasted any time letting the world know what he thinks about the state of affairs in Russia.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov says Moscow remains worried about the possibility of U.S. military action against Iran over its continued refusal to give up its controversial nuclear program. Moscow has long favored a negotiated settlement to the standoff as VOA's Lisa McAdams in Moscow reports.

A U.S. State Department spokesman says North Korea's chief nuclear negotiator Kim Kye Kwan and his U.S. counterpart, Christopher Hill, are expected to meet in New York later this week.