http://www.indexonline.org/indexindex/20020813_romania.shtml Romania: Mystery of a missing journalist. A newspaper in western Romania has appealed for international help find a reporter who went missing two months ago. Investigative journalist Iosif Costinas, 62, was last seen by a neighbor near a market in his hometown of Timisoara on June 10, said Laurian Ieremeiov, deputy editor of the daily Timisoara on August 12. Thr Romanian rights group Freeex,org, citing Associated Press, reported that police had launched an extensive search in the rivers and woods near the city, and an adviser to President Ion Iliescu has pledged to support local authorities resolve the case, Ieremeiov said. So far these efforts have been unsuccessful. On Sunday, the newspaper sent messages to Reporters Without Borders and to Amnesty International, asking for public support in trying to find the reporter. Costinas has publishes articles about sensitive subjects, such as the unsolved killings during the December 1989 anti-communist revolt and the continued presence in high positions of Securitate communist secret police officers. He was just completing a book about the shady business underworld in the city located near the Yugoslav and Hungarian borders. "We believe it very probable that his disappearance is connected to what he wrote and his actions as a member of civil groups trying to find out the truth of the revolution," Ieremeiov told AP. Freeex.org campaign & report.