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Iran-US prisoner swap ongoing after $6bn transfer
Iran has released five American prisoners, moving them to Tehran’s airport for a flight to the Qatari capital, Doha, as part of a prisoner exchange with the United States.
Four of the five were moved to house arrest last month as part of the deal. The fifth prisoner had been moved to house arrest earlier.
Monday’s developments signal that the prisoner exchange clinched last month has gone through. The agreement also includes a release of frozen Iranian funds.
The Agreement:
The United States and Iran will each free five prisoners under an agreement that also involves the transfer of $6bn of frozen Iranian assets from South Korea.
The deal first made public on August 10, will remove a major irritant between Washington and Tehran although the rivals remain deeply at odds over a range of other issues.
Iran and the US have a history of prisoner swaps dating back to the 1979 US embassy takeover and hostage crisis following the Iranian Revolution.
There has been no indication the prisoner deal will spur movement on restoring the 2015 Iran nuclear accord, which saw Tehran scale back its nuclear programme in exchange for a lifting of international sanctions against its economy. The US withdrew from that agreement in 2018.
The prisoners :
Five Iranian prisoners are expected to be released by the US as part of the deal:
Kaveh Afrasiabi, a political scientist and US resident who was charged with being an unregistered agent for the Iranian government.
Mehrdad Moein Ansari, a 40-year-old Iranian resident of the United Arab Emirates and Germany who was convicted of violating sanctions on Iran.
Amin Hassanzadeh, a permanent US resident accused four years ago of stealing secrets to send to Iran.
Reza Sarhangpour Kafrani, a 46-year-old who is also a Canadian national charged with illegally exporting laboratory equipment to Iran.
Kambiz Attar Kashani, a 44-year-old dual national convicted of conspiring to illegally export technologies and goods to Iran.
Only two of the Iranian prisoners will return to Iran, a Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman said. “One of them, as he has family in another country, will be moved to join them in that third country, and apparently two of our citizens imprisoned in the US have said they wish to remain there due to their history of staying there,” Kanani said.
The identities of three of the American prisoners, all of whom were arrested on charges of espionage and collaborating with a foreign government, are known. They are:
Siamak Namazi, a 51-year-old businessman held in Evin Prison since 2015, making him the longest-serving American prisoner in Iran.
Emad Sharghi, a 59-year-old businessman arrested in 2018.
Morad Tahbaz, a 67-year-old environmentalist who also holds British citizenship and was arrested in 2018.
The identities of the other two prisoners have remained secret, but Western media have reported that one is a woman.
(Aljazeera)
The main rival to Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been formally arrested and charged with corruption.
Ekrem Imamoglu, the mayor of Istanbul, is expected to be selected as the opposition Republican People’s Party’s (CHP) 2028 presidential nominee in a ballot on Sunday.
He has denied the allegations and said they are politically motivated. “I will never bow,” he wrote on X before he was remanded in custody.
His detention sparked some of Turkey’s largest protests in more than a decade. Erdogan has condemned the demonstrations and accused the CHP of trying to “disturb the peace and polarise our people”.
Imamoglu was one of more than 100 people, including other politicians, journalists and businessmen, detained as part of an investigation on Wednesday, triggering four consecutive nights of demonstrations.
On Sunday, he was formally arrested and charged with “establishing and managing a criminal organisation, taking bribes, extortion, unlawfully recording personal data and rigging a tender”. He was remanded in custody pending trial. AFP and local media reported he had been taken to a prison in Silivri.
In social media posts, Imamoglu criticised his arrest as a “black stain on our democracy”, and said judicial procedure was not being followed. He urged people across the country to join protests and to take part in Sunday’s vote.
Imamoglu is the only person running in the CHP’s presidential candidate selection.
The arrest does not prevent Imamoglu’s candidacy and election as president, but if he is convicted of any of the charges against him, he will not be able to run.
The party’s chairman said nearly 15 million people had cast a ballot in the vote, which was extended for three hours due to heavy turnout. The party said some 1.6m votes came from its members. The rest were cast by non-members at separate ballot boxes for those who wished to show solidarity with Imamoglu. [The BBC cannot independently verify these figures.]
Imamoglu’s arrest sparked a fifth night of protests. Crowds had gathered near Istanbul’s city hall by early evening, and could be seen waving Turkish flags and chanting in front of a row of riot police.
As night began to fall, officers were seen firing water cannons at some protesters.
The jailed politician is seen as one of the most formidable rivals of Erdogan, who has held office in Turkey for 22 years as both prime minister and president.
However, due to term limits, Erdogan cannot run for office again in 2028 unless he changes the constitution.
Opposition figures say the arrests are politically motivated.
But the Ministry of Justice has criticised those connecting Erdogan to the arrests, and insist on its judicial independence.
In a message shared on X through his lawyers late on Sunday, Imamoglu said he sent his greetings to those protesting and that voters had showed Turkey had had “enough” of Erdogan.
Also that evening, X’s Global Government Affairs department said it objected to “multiple court orders” from Turkey’s communications regulator to block over 700 accounts on the platform, including those of Turkish political figures and journalists.
It said the move was “not only lawful, it hinders millions of Turkish users from news and political discourse in their country”.
Imamoglu has meanwhile been suspended from his post as Instanbul’s mayor, Turkey’s interior ministry said in a statement.
Prosecutors also want to charge Imamoglu with “aiding an armed terrorist organisation”, but the Turkish court said it was not currently necessary.
The CHP had a de facto alliance with the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM) in connection with last year’s local elections.
DEM has been accused of being affiliated with the PKK – or Kurdistan Workers’ Party – which it denies.
The PKK declared a ceasefire early this month, after waging an insurgency against Turkey for more than 40 years. It is proscribed as a terrorist group in Turkey, the EU, UK and US.
Meanwhile, Istanbul University announced on Tuesday it was revoking Imamoglu’s degree due to alleged irregularities.
If upheld, this would put his ability to run as president into doubt, since the Turkish constitution says presidents must have completed higher education to hold office.
Imamoglu’s lawyers said they would appeal the decision to revoke his degree to the Constitutional Court and the European Court of Human Rights.
The Supreme Election Council will decide whether Imamoglu is qualified to be a candidate.
[BBC]
Chennai Super King’s bowling acquisitions during the off-season paid immediate dividends as their four new bowlers took nine wickets between them to restrict Mumbai Indians to 155 for 9, a total that they ultimately chased down with ease but not without a hiccup against debutant left-arm wristspinner Vignesh Purthur, who is yet to represent his state side in senior cricket.
However, it was the other left-arm wristspinner, younger than Puthur but a veteran by comparison, who made the telling impact. Noor Ahmad registered his best IPL figures and the best figures for a CSK spinner against MI, 4 for 18, to capitalise on the inroads made b Khaleel Ahmed whose CSK debut was not too shabby either: wickets of the openers and analysis of 4-0-29-3.
CSK captain Ruturaj Gaikwad made the chase look like a walk in the park with 53 off 26, bringing the requirement down to a run a ball in the ninth over, but this is when they started losing wickets to Puthur, struggling to impart power into his slow wristspin. Three of them holed out in the deep, but Rachin Ravindra anchored the chase with 65 off 45 to see them home.
Khaleel is a dichotomous IPL bowler. He is worse than the average fast bowler during afternoon games, and better than the average fast bowler in night games. The only explanation for it is that there is a small window for movement with the new ball under lights, and he is a different beast when the ball moves. It showed in how he denied the openers a big hit with the little bit of movement that was available. The eventual dismissals looked soft – Rohit Sharma caught at forward square leg and Ryan Rickleton bowled off an inside edge – but they were the results of the pressure created by Khaleel himself.
To make it better for CSK, their returning homeboy R Ashwin took a wicket in his first over. There is not much mystery to the Ashwin who has returned to CSK after more than a decade, but his length was immaculate, making it a risk every time the batters wanted to attack him. He ended up with figures of 4-0-31-1, the wicket being that of Will Jacks inside the powerplay.
Down at 36 for 3 in 4.4 overs, MI needed something special from their two best batters, stand-in captain Suryakumar Yadav and Tilak Varma. The latter hit right back by taking two fours off Ashwin and then hitting two sixes off Ravindra Jadeja, against whom Suryakumar doesn’t enjoy a good match-up.
Noor then applied the handbrake with some elan. He was so difficult to pick even MS Dhoni was beaten by a mile when he turned one past Varma’s outside edge. That seed of doubt cast, he went back to what he does more often, turn the ball the other way at high speed. Suryakumar was beaten on the outside edge and stumped in a flash by Dhoni.
Debutant Robin Minz couldn’t get going and tried a desperate shot only to be caught at long-off. Tilak was beaten both in the air and off the pitch: caught on the crease, he had no time to adjust to the ball that turned back in and trapped him lbw. Noor came back at the death to bowl Naman Dhir around his legs.
Nathan Ellis took care of one of the former CSK players, Mitchell Santner, but the other, Deepak Chahar gave MI something to bowl at with a cameo of 28 off 15.
CSK made a surprise move of promoting Rahul Tripathi ahead of Gaikwad, but it didn’t last long as Chahar carried on from where he had left off with the bat, taking a wicket in his first over against CSK with a well-directed short ball.
Gaikwad, though, batted like a dream, taking down Trent Boult and both former colleagues, Chahar and Santner. S Raju, who is supposed to be a good death bowler, made an indifferent start with the new ball, and CSK ran away to 62 in the powerplay. The field spread, but Gaikwad kept going, hitting Jacks for a beautiful inside-out six against the turn, suggesting an easy pitch to bat on.
With just 82 needed off the last 13 overs, CSK would have wanted to register a big net-run-rate bonus, which is perhaps why they kept trying to hit Puthur’s slow left-arm wristspin for sixes. More than anything it was his slow pace and the slight slowness of then pitch that kept resulting in catches on the fence. Still, Gaikwad, Shivam Dube and Deepak Hooda is not a bad debut haul at all.
By now, it was almost like the home crowd was willing MI to take wickets so that they could get a glimpse of Dhoni with the bat. When Jacks bowled Sam Curran for 4 off 9, it drew a big cheer but the sight of Jadeja quelled the excitement.
The steepest the task got was 31 off the last four overs, but this is when MI gave CSK some pace to work with, and Jadeja immediately hit Boult for a four. Ravindra was the only batter to hit boundaries off Puthur: three sixes, all thanks to momentum generated by his use of feet to charge at the bowler. A run-out in the 19th over gave the Chepauk crowd what they wanted, they even got a six to seal the game, but off the bat of Ravindra as Dhoni stayed unbeaten on 0 off 2.
Brief scores:
Chennai Super Kings 158 for 6 in 19.1 overs (Rachin Ravindra 65*, Ruturaj Gaikwad 53, Ravindra Jadeja 17; Deepak Chahar 1-18, Will Jacks 1-32, Vignesh Puthur 3-32) beat Mumbai Indians 155 for 9 in 20 overs (Ryan Rickelton 13, Will Jacks 11, Suryakumar Yadav 29, Tilak Varma 31, Naman Dhir 17, Mitchell Santner 11, Deepak Chahar 28*; Noor Ahmad 4-18, Khaleel Ahmed 3-29, Nathan Ellis 1-28, Ravichandran Ashwin 1-31) by four wickets
[Cricinfo]
Pope Francis has arrived home at the Vatican after leaving the Gemelli University Hospital in Rome, shortly after making his first public appearance following a five-week hospitalisation for a life-threatening bout of pneumonia.
The 88-year-old, who was admitted on February 14 after a bout of bronchitis worsened, greeted his well-wishers on Sunday from a balcony of Gemelli hospital before his discharge.
Using a wheelchair, as he has for several years, the pope smiled, waved, and made a sign of a thumbs up at a group of well-wishers gathered outside below.
The pope, whose face looked swollen, appeared only for a few moments.
Pope Francis spoke briefly, with a feeble voice, to thank an elderly woman among the crowd below who had brought yellow flowers.
A car carrying the pope left the hospital shortly after noon and was accompanied through Rome by a convoy of police vehicles.
As he was being discharged, the Vatican released the pope’s Angelus prayer calling for an “immediate” end to Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip, and for the resumption of dialogue for the release of captives and a “definitive ceasefire”.
“I am saddened by the resumption of the intense Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip, with so many deaths and injuries,” Francis wrote.
“I ask that the weapons be silenced immediately and that the courage be found to resume dialogue so that all the hostages can be freed and a definitive ceasefire reached,” said Francis, who was set to return to the Vatican on Sunday.
“The humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip is once again very serious and requires the urgent commitment of the conflicting parties and the international community,” he added.
Pope Francis had only been seen by the public once before during his hospital stay, in a photo the Vatican released last week, showing the pontiff at prayer in a hospital chapel.
In the moments before the pontiff’s appearance on Sunday, the crowd of hundreds of well-wishers called out for the pope, chanting “Francis, Francis, Francis”.
On Saturday, one of the doctors treating him said the head of the Roman Catholic Church would be discharged from hospital on Sunday and would need two months of rest at the Vatican.
[Aljazeera]
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