Russia agrees to free Evan Gershkovich and Paul Whelan in multi-country prisoner swap
(NEW YORK) — Russia and the United States have agreed to swap prisoners in an extraordinary multipart deal, according to senior Biden administration official.
The swap will allow the two wrongfully detained American citizens held by Moscow, Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan, to return home.
Gershkovich, 32, was arrested by Russian authorities in March 2023 for espionage, a charge he and U.S. officials flatly deny, with President Joe Biden saying Gershkovich was targeted for being a journalist and an American.
After an unusually hasty trial that played out behind closed doors, Gershkovich was found guilty and sentenced to 16 years in a high-security penal colony.
Whelan, who holds U.S., British, Irish and Canadian citizenship, was arrested in December 2018 while traveling on an American passport in Russia and also accused of espionage.
Both the Biden and Trump administrations denied the allegation against Whelan. He was convicted on the charges in June 2020 and sentenced to 16 years in prison, ultimately serving five.
(LONDON) — A dam collapse in Sudan has left at least 30 people dead and at least 20 villages destroyed, the United Nations has said, following heavy rains in a region already devastated by civil war.
The U.N.’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs posted a statement to its website on Monday evening noting that the Arbaat Dam — some 24 miles northwest of the city of Port Sudan on the Red Sea coast — “suffered extensive damage due to heavy rains” on Saturday.
“Preliminary reports indicate the breach caused extensive damage in 20 villages downstream from the dam,” the statement read. “Our humanitarian partners and local authorities are assessing the affected areas and will have additional clarity on the extent of the damage in the coming days.”
The U.N. cited a government delegation as reporting 70 villages around the dam were affected by the flood, with 20 destroyed. Of the 65,000 people living to the west of the facility, the homes of around 50,000 have either been destroyed or damaged, the U.N. situation report said.
“The affected people are in urgent need of water, food, and shelter assistance,” it added.
The real death toll is “likely much higher” than the current 30 people, the statement read, with reports indicating that “scores of people” are missing.
The Arbaat Dam is the primary source of freshwater for Port Sudan and its 483,000 residents.
“The reported damage is expected to have a substantial impact on water supplies to Port Sudan, worsening the humanitarian situation,” the U.N. said.
The port city has served as a haven for government troops — the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) — since 2023, when fighting erupted between the SAF and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary group and left the capital of Khartoum contested.
Port Sudan has also been a center for internally displaced people fleeing the fighting between the SAF and RSF.
“I extend my condolences to those that have lost loved ones or been displaced due to the recent collapse of Aarbat Dam,” U.S. Special Envoy for Sudan Tom Perriello posed on X.
“With the fragility of so much vital civilian infrastructure, we reiterate calls on the Rapid Support Forces and the Sudanese Armed Forces to provide protections for the restoration of security, health care, and infrastructure,” he added.
(JAKARTA, Indonesia) — Pope Francis on Monday embarked on his 45th and most ambitious trip of his papacy, both in terms of distance and duration.
It’s a 12-day, four-country, two-continent odyssey; with stops in Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Timor-Leste and Singapore.
This is not his first journey to the region: Early in his pontificate, he made four long-distance trips to South Korea, Sri Lanka, the Philippines and Japan. In more recent years he has also visited Bangladesh, Myanmar, Thailand and, last year, Mongolia.
The historic voyage comes amid recent concerns regarding his health. The Pope suffers from mobility issues and has been repeatedly hospitalized with respiratory illnesses.
As he often does, on Monday he boarded the Papal plane in a wheelchair, using a lift. He later used a cane to walk down the aisle to greet reporters, but appeared to be in good spirits. Francis turns 88 in just three months; this marks the first time he’s left Italy in almost a year.
In Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim-majority country, the Pope’s message will focus on interreligious dialogue and cultural plurality, according to the Vatican. Francis will deliver remarks at Jakarta’s famed Istiqlal Mosque, alongside Indonesia’s Grand Imam.
Later the Pope will visit the “Tunnel of Fraternity” linking the mosque to a nearby Catholic church. The underground lane was recently built as a symbol of religious harmony.
On the eve of this departure, Pope Francis appealed for “concrete commitment” to tackle climate change. Francis will also travel to more remote parts of the country to meet with missionaries. According to Vatican spokesperson Matteo Bruni, some of the trip’s other themes include social and technological development, as we well as the environment and the need to combat climate change.
In Papua New Guinea, one of the world’s poorest countries, Pope Francis will stop in Port Moresby, one of the most dangerous cities in the world.
The Pope will then head to Timor-Leste, Asia’s newest country, where he’ll be confronted with the aftermath of another clergy sex abuse scandal. The Pope’s first visit to the country comes just two years after the Vatican sanctioned independence hero Bishop Carlos Ximenes for having sexually abused young boys.
Many in the deeply Catholic country have brushed aside the allegations, choosing instead to continue celebrating the Nobel Peace Prize winner as a figure who saved lives during the country’s bloody struggle for Independence. It’s unclear if Francis will address the issue or meet with some of the victims, as he has in the past in other countries.
And in Singapore, the pope will again focus on how different religions can live in harmony.
“Pope Francis will especially meet young people engaged in interreligious dialogue, entrusting them with the future of this path, so that they may become protagonists of a more fraternal and peaceful world,” Cardinal Piero Parolin told Vatican Media.
His trip to Singapore is also widely seen as an attempt to improve ties with China, a constant diplomatic push by the Vatican over recent years, in the hope of improving circumstances for Catholics in China. The pope has previously said it is his dream to visit the country. Three-quarters of the city state’s population of Singapore are ethnically Chinese, and Mandarin is one of four official languages.
(LONDON) — A “suspicious person” was shot dead by Munich police near the Israeli consulate in what authorities said they believe was a planned terrorist attack.
The incident occurred in the Karolinenplatz area of the southern German city on Thursday morning.
Munich’s police force said in a statement on social media that officers deployed to the scene encountered an armed 18-year-old suspect and engaged him in a shootout.
“The suspect was fatally injured,” police said. “There are still no indications of further suspects or other injured persons.”
The 18-year-old suspect was an Austrian citizen living in Austria who did not have a permanent residence in Germany, Munich police said. He was carrying an “older carbine with attached bayonet” when shot, officials said. The suspect parked a car near the crime scene, police said.
“At present, it is assumed that the attack was a terrorist attack, also with reference to the Consulate General of the State of Israel, with one focus of the ongoing investigation being the suspect’s motivation for the crime,” the Munich police said in a statement translated by The Associated Press.
Police added they are still investigating the suspect’s alleged motive.
The area was cordoned off with a helicopter in the air above the scene, the force said. Police later issued an “all clear” statement assuring people in the area that “there is no longer any danger to the population.”
The shooting occurred next to the city’s Nazi Documentation Center, police said. Authorities urged residents to “avoid this area as much as possible” as the investigation continued, and warned of road closures and disruption to nearby public transit routes.
The Nazi Documentation Center is one of the city’s most popular museums, located midway between the famous Karolinenplatz and Königsplatz squares just northwest of the medieval old town. It is less than 500 feet from the Israeli consulate.
The Israeli Foreign Ministry confirmed there had been a “shooting incident” close to the consulate, noting the facility was closed on Thursday coinciding with the anniversary of the deadly terror attack at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich.
“No one from the consulate staff was injured in the incident,” the ministry’s spokesperson said. “The shooter was neutralized by the German security forces and the incident is under their care.”
ABC News’ Joe Simonetti, Victoria Beaule and Dana Savir contributed to this report.