Families sharing single meals. Appliances sold to pay utility bills. Businesses gutted. Four Iranians inside the country describe an economy in freefall.

Diplomatic efforts to contain the widening Middle East crisis entered a critical phase this week as US officials sought to keep alive negotiations with Iran amid mounting tensions. RFE/RL spoke with Dania Arayssi, program head and senior analyst at the New Lines Institute for Strategy and Policy.

Frederick Flott, who died in 2006, was a longtime State Department diplomat around the world, as well as a CIA agent who worked under diplomatic cover. For years, the KGB tried to recruit him. Did it succeed?