International

JUST IN: Wikileaks founder freed after five years in prison

Published

2 years ago

June 25, 2024

247 Views

After a years-long legal saga, Wikileaks says that founder, Julian Assange has left the UK after reaching a deal with US authorities that will see him plead guilty to criminal charges and go free.

Mr Assange, 52, was charged with conspiracy to obtain and disclose national defence information.

For years, the US has argued that the Wikileaks files – which disclosed information about the Iraq and Afghanistan wars – endangered lives.

He spent the last five years in a British prison, from where he was fighting extradition to the US.

Mr Assange also faced separate charges of rape and sexual assault in Sweden, which he denied.

He spent seven years hiding in Ecuador’s London embassy, claiming the Swedish case would lead him to be sent to the US.

Swedish authorities dropped the case in 2019 and said that too much time had passed since the original complaint, but UK authorities later took him into custody. He was tried for not surrendering to the courts to be extradited to Sweden.

According to CBS, the BBC’s US partner, Mr Assange will spend no time in US custody and will receive credit for the time spent incarcerated in the UK.

Assange will return to Australia, according to a letter from the justice department.

On X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, Wikileaks said that Mr Assange left Belmarsh prison on Monday after 1,901 days in a small cell.

He was then “released at Stansted airport during the afternoon, where he boarded a plane and departed the UK” to return to Australia, the statement added.

Video shared online by Wikileaks appear to show Mr Assange, dressed in jeans and a blue shirt, being driven to Stansted before boarding an aircraft.

His wife, Stella Assange, tweeted thanks to his supporters “who have all mobilised for years and years to make this come true”.

She later told the BBC’s Today programme that the days running up to the US deal had been “touch-and-go” and “non-stop”, and that she was feeling “a whirlwind of emotions”.

The deal – which will see him plead guilty to one charge of the Espionage Act – is expected to be finalised in a court in the Northern Mariana Islands on Wednesday, 26 June.

The remote Pacific islands, a US commonwealth, are much closer to Australia than US federal courts in Hawaii or the continental US.

Stella said she was very limited in what she could say about the deal ahead of her husband’s court appearance. “I don’t want to jeopardise anything”, she said.

“The important thing here is that the deal involved time served – that if he signed it, he would be able to walk free. He will be a free man once it has been signed off by a judge.”

She said the priority for her husband is to “get healthy again”, be in touch with nature, and for the family to have “time and privacy”.

Stella also confirmed that the couple’s two children are in Australia with her, but she has not yet told them that he is to be freed, only that they were going to visit family and that there was “a big surprise” waiting for them.

“We’ve been very careful because obviously no one can stop a five and a seven-year-old from, you know, shouting it from the rooftops at any given moment,” she said.

Agence France Press quoted a spokesperson for Australia’s government as saying that the case had “dragged on for too long”.

His attorney, Richard Miller, declined to comment when contacted by CBS. The BBC has also contacted his US-based lawyer.

Mr Assangee and his lawyers had long claimed that the case against him was politically motivated.

In April, US President Joe Biden said that he was considering a request from Australia to drop the presecution against Assange.

In a victory the following month, the UK High Court ruled that Mr Assange could bring a new appeal against extradition to the US, allowing him to challenge US assurances over how his prospective trial would be conducted and whether his right to free speech would be infringed.

After the ruling, Stella told reporters and supporters that the Biden administration “should distance itself from this shameful prosecution”.

Reuters Supporters of Julian Assange holding placards outside the High COurt in London — Supporters of Julian Assange gather outside the High Court on the day of an extradition hearing for the Wikileaks founder in May.

US prosecutors had originally wanted to try the Wikileaks founder on 18 counts – mostly under the Espionage Act – over the release of confidential US military records and diplomatic messages related to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Wikileaks, which Mr Assange founded in 2006, claims to have published over 10 million documents in what the US government later described as “one of the largest compromises of classified information in the history of the United States”.

In 2010, the website published a video from a US military helicopter which showed more than a dozen Iraqi civilians, including two Reuters news reporters, being killed in Baghdad.

One of Mr Assange’s most well-known collaborators, US Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning, was sentenced to 35 years in prison before then-president Barack Obama commuted her sentence in 2017.

Even amid long-running legal battles, Mr Assange has rarely been seen in public and for years has reportedly suffered from poor health, including a small stroke in prison in 2021.

Courtesy: BBC

Related Topics:Featured Founder Julian Assange

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International

US storm leaves 850,000 without power, forces 10,000 flight cancellations

More than 10,200 U.S. flights scheduled for Sunday were canceled, according to flight tracking website FlightAware. Over 4,000 flights were canceled on Saturday.

Published

4 days ago

January 25, 2026

OhiBaba

35 Views

More than 850,000 customers in the U.S. as far west as New Mexico were without electricity and over 10,000 flights were canceled on Sunday during a monster winter storm that paralyzed eastern and southern states with heavy snow and ice.

Reuters reports that as snow, freezing rain and dangerously frigid temperatures swept into the eastern two-thirds of the nation on Sunday, the number of power outages continued to rise.

As of 10:47 a.m. EST (1547 GMT) on Sunday, more than 850,000 U.S. customers were without electricity, according to PowerOutage.us, with at least 290,000 in Tennessee and over 100,000 each in Mississippi, Texas and Louisiana.

Other states affected included Kentucky, Georgia, Virginia and Alabama.

More than 10,200 U.S. flights scheduled for Sunday were canceled, according to flight tracking website FlightAware. Over 4,000 flights were canceled on Saturday.

Washington, D.C.’s Ronald Reagan National Airport said airlines had canceled all flights at the airport on Sunday.Delta Air Lines (DAL.N), opens new tabon Sunday said that it intended to operate on a reduced schedule “subject to real-time frozen precipitation and afternoon storm conditions.”

International

News Analysis: Is Trump’s Board of Peace Replacing United Nations?

A leaked document says the Board of Peace’s charter will enter into force once three states formally agree to be bound by it, with member states given renewable three-year terms and permanent seats available to those contributing $1bn (£740m)

Published

6 days ago

January 23, 2026

OCHEFA

56 Views

By OCHEFA, with agency reports

The UN was formed on October 24, 1945, after World War II, with 51 founding members.

Currently, there are 193 member countries in the United Nations (UN), representing nearly every sovereign state in the world.

Its main goals are to:- Maintain international peace and security- Promote human rights- Deliver humanitarian aid- Support sustainable development- Uphold international law .

However, 80 years after, US President Donald Trump launched on January 22, 2026, in Davos, Switzerland’ what he called “Trump’s Board of Peace ” – an international organisation aimed at resolving global conflicts.

The board’s primary goal is to promote peace, stability, and governance in areas affected by conflict, with an initial focus on the Gaza Strip.

Memberships:

Around 35 countries have joined, including Israel, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Argentina, with permanent seats available for $1 billion.

Leadership:

Donald Trump serves as chairman, with powers to veto decisions and remove members.-

Executive Board: Includes Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Steve Witkoff, Tony Blair, and Jared Kushner.

Concerns: Critics worry about Trump’s indefinite chairmanship, potential UN competition, and lack of Western allies’ participation.

The board’s formation is part of Trump’s Gaza peace plan, endorsed by the UN Security Council.

The charter declared the body as an international organisation mandated to carry out peace-building functions under international law, with Trump serving as chairman – and separately as the US representative – and holding authority to appoint executive board members and create or dissolve subsidiary bodies.

BBC reported that on Wednesday evening of January 22, Trump said that Vladimir Putin had also agreed to join – but the Russian president said his country was still studying the invitation.

The board was originally thought to be aimed at helping end the two-year war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza and oversee reconstruction.

But its proposed charter does not mention the Palestinian territory and appears to be designed to supplant functions of the UN.

However, Saudi Arabia said that the group of Muslim-majority countries – Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Egypt, Jordan, Indonesia, Pakistan and Qatar – endorsed the aim of consolidating a permanent ceasefire in Gaza, supporting reconstruction and advancing what they described as a “just and lasting peace”.

At the World Economic Forum in Switzerland, Trump told reporters that Putin had accepted his invitation to join. “He was invited, he’s accepted. Many people have accepted,” Trump said.

Putin responded quickly, saying the invitation was under consideration, Reuters reported. He said Russia was prepared to provide $1bn from frozen Russian assets and that he viewed the board as primarily relevant to the Middle East.It is not clear how many countries have been invited to join Trump’s new body – Canada and the UK are among them, but have not yet publicly responded.

The UAE, Bahrain, Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Morocco and Vietnam have already signed up.

On Wednesday the Vatican also confirmed Pope Leo has received an invitation.

Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, the Vatican’s Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, said the Pope would need time to consider whether to take part.

However Slovenia’s Prime Minister Robert Golob said he had declined the invitation because the body “dangerously interferes with the broader international order”.

The charter declared the body as an international organisation mandated to carry out peace-building functions under international law, with Trump serving as chairman – and separately as the US representative – and holding authority to appoint executive board members and create or dissolve subsidiary bodies.

Last Friday, the White House named seven members of the founding Executive Board, including US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and former UK prime minister Tony Blair.

International

TikTok establishes joint venture to end US ban threat

The new structure responds to a law passed under US President Donald Trump’s predecessor Joe Biden that forced Chinese-owned ByteDance to sell TikTok’s US operations or face a ban in its biggest market.

Published

6 days ago

January 23, 2026

OCHEFA

53 Views

TikTok has announced it has established a majority American-owned joint venture to operate its US business, allowing the company to avoid a ban over its Chinese ownership.

The video-sharing app is a global digital entertainment powerhouse but its mass appeal and links to China have raised concerns over privacy and national security.

The TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC will serve more than 200 million users and 7.5 million businesses while implementing strict safeguards for data protection and content moderation, the company said.

AFP reported that the new structure responds to a law passed under US President Donald Trump’s predecessor Joe Biden that forced Chinese-owned ByteDance to sell TikTok’s US operations or face a ban in its biggest market.

Trump welcomed and claimed credit for the deal, but also thanked Chinese President Xi Jinping for approving it.

“I am so happy to have helped in saving TikTok!” Trump said in a post on Truth Social late Thursday.

“It will now be owned by a group of Great American Patriots and Investors, the Biggest in the World, and will be an important Voice.”

“I would also like to thank President Xi, of China, for working with us and, ultimately, approving the Deal,” he added.