Brittney Griner: Russia frees US basketball star in swap with arms dealer Bout

-
The US and Russia have exchanged jailed US basketball star Brittney Griner for notorious arms dealer Viktor Bout, held in an American prison for 12 years.
President Joe Biden said Griner was safe and on a plane home from the United Arab Emirates.
"I'm glad to say Brittney's in good spirits... she needs time and space to recover," he said at the White House.
Griner was arrested at a Moscow airport in February for possessing cannabis oil and last month sent to a penal colony.
The Biden administration proposed a prisoner exchange last July, aware Moscow had long sought Bout's release.
Russia's foreign ministry confirmed the swap and said it had taken place at Abu Dhabi airport. "The Russian citizen has been returned to his homeland," it said in a statement, although he was not yet thought to have arrived on Russian soil.
Russian news agencies said he was still being flown to Vnukovo airport near Moscow.
Speaking in the Oval Office, Griner's wife Cherelle praised the efforts of the Biden administration in securing her release: "I'm just standing here overwhelmed with emotions." The ordeal had been one of the darkest moments of her life, she added.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

We Don’t Know Quantities Of New Notes Printed – CBN

-
Image
Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria in charge of Financial Stability, Aisha Ahmad, has said she does not know the quantities of new notes the CBN printed and released for circulation. She said this while responding to questions by lawmakers when she appeared before the House of Representatives to brief the House on the apex bank’s cashless policy and cash withdrawal limits. The lawmakers had on Wednesday resolved that a deputy governor of the CBN should appear to brief the House today (Thursday) in the absence of the CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele, who is outside the country to attend to health issues. A lawmaker, Sada Soli, in the course of the grilling of the CBN deputy governor, raised concerns over the non-availability of the new notes, days after it was were released to the public and asked her to disclose the quantities of new notes printed. But responding to the question, the CBN deputy governor said she does not know the quantities of notes printed by the
Read more

We’ll help Nigeria fight insecurity – Spain envoy

-
Image
The government of Spain has pledged its commitment to help Nigeria tackle the rising state of insecurity across the country. This was made known when the Spanish Foreign Affairs Minister, Jose Manuel Albares, led a delegation to the Nigeria Minister of Foreign Affairs, Geoffrey Onyeama, in Abuja on Thursday. Albares noted that his first visit evolves around bilateral and economic cooperation, adding that the existing relationship between both countries will be improved upon. The Spanish minister commended the efforts so far by the Federal government in curbing insecurity, stating that it is ready to extend a helping hand to address the root causes of insecurity.He said “Nigeria is one of the great regional actors, the first economy of the continent and an absolute pillar to ECOWAS. My visit is to give a new impetus to the relationship that is already strong and restate the visit of President Muhammadu Buhari to Spain in which five Memorandum of Understandings were signed and three trea
Read more

Breaking:DSS Deploys Operatives To Arrest Godwin Emefiele On Sight - Peoples Gazette

-
Image
The State Security Service has started exercising a be-on-the-lookout for Governor Godwin Emefiele of the Central Bank of Nigeria, according to two officials familiar with the matter. Consequently, the domestic intelligence office has deployed several officers to monitor the CBN Headquarters, Mr Emefiele’s family residence in Lagos, and the Abuja home of businessman Christopher Emefiele, unrelated by blood, Peoples Gazette learnt this weekend.  An SSS officer familiar with the matter said the deployment came from an assistant director and could not immediately say whether or not Director-General Yusuf Bichi signed off on it.  “We have different teams of at least two each monitoring those places,” the officer said under anonymity to disclose cursory specifics of an ongoing operation. “We don’t know if they have more people deployed to even more places, but we did not see any signal from the DG’s office to suggest his involvement at this point”  The officers were still quietl
Read more