The Romanian president's office says Central Intelligence Agency Director Leon Panetta met top officials to discuss terrorism, counterespionage and internet crime.

Panetta has had talks with President Traian Basescu, the head of the Romanian Intelligence Service and the Foreign Intelligence Service chief.

There was no word about Panetta's visit on Wednesday prior to the brief statement from Basescu's office. No further details were available.

Romania has been accused of allowing the CIA to set up a secret prison where suspected terrorists were interrogated and possibly tortured. The Romanian government has vehemently denied any complicity.

The Power Distance - Power distance describes the degree of equality between different people within a particular society or group. Also described Hofstede, as: “power distance is the extent to which people expect and are willing to accept that power is distributed unequally. Inequality of power is a basic fact of life. It cannot be 100% eliminated. It is impossible to have no power distance, because this means that everyone is exactly equal (skills, actions, genetics etc) unless you are on about a bunch of identical lumps of rocks. Inequality can take many forms – the differences of physical and mental characteristics, social status and prestige, wealth, political power, rights, privileges etc. All of these are somewhat independent of each other, and in fact the link between them is culturally dependant. Not to put too fine a point on it, Romania is obviously a country with a high power distance.

The economy of the European Union and of the euro zone reported a rise of 0.5% and 0.31% respectively in the first quarter of 2010, as compared to the same period last year, according to a preliminary overview published by Eurostat on Wednesday.