Former Romanian prime minister Radu Vasile, who mediated a violent miners' protest in 1999 and hosted John Paul II during the first visit by a pope to a Christian Orthodox country, died Wednesday aged 70, his family announced. Vasile, a historian, poet and former member of the National Peasants' Party, headed the government between April 1998 and December 1999. President Traian Basescu paid tribute to the late leader, calling him "a good prime minister for Romania at an extremely difficult time".
"I am deeply saddened," he said.