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Blinken Calls on Iran to Release Detained American

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken at Panama Airport on April 20, 2022. (Reuters)
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken at Panama Airport on April 20, 2022. (Reuters)
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Blinken Calls on Iran to Release Detained American

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken at Panama Airport on April 20, 2022. (Reuters)
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken at Panama Airport on April 20, 2022. (Reuters)

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken urged Iran on Saturday to release an American citizen he said has been held for years as a “political pawn.”

Emad Sharghi was sentenced to 10 years in prison on spying charges, Iranian media reported in January 2021, saying he was detained trying to flee the country.

“For four years, the Sharghi family has waited anxiously for the Iranian government to release Emad. Like too many other families, their loved one has been treated as a political pawn. We call on Iran to stop this inhumane practice and release Emad,” Blinken tweeted.

Robert Malley, the US special envoy for Iran, also called on Iran on Saturday to release Sharghi, stressing that he was arrested exactly four years ago.

“He was cleared of all charges, but then convicted in absentia, rearrested, and has now spent over 500 days in Evin Prison,” Malley wrote on Twitter.

“Emad, the Namazis, and Morad Tahbaz must all be allowed to come home now.”

Republican Senator Marco Rubio also called on Friday for Sharghi to be “immediately released and safely reunited with his family.”

In January 2021, Iranian media reported his arrest, describing him as the deputy head for international affairs at an Iranian venture capital company called Sarava.

The website of the Young Journalists Club news agency said Sharghi had been caught “trying to illegally flee the country from the western border.”

Sharghi had been sentenced to 10 years in prison on charges of espionage and gathering military information and was out on bail ahead of an appeal when he tried to hide, the agency added.

Washington’s call to release the dual national comes in light of mounting risks threatening diplomatic efforts to restore the nuclear deal with Iran.

In 2015, Washington and five other world powers (France, Britain, Germany, Russia and China) inked a landmark agreement with Tehran to rein in Iran’s nuclear activities in exchange for sanctions relief.

Under the presidency of Donald Trump, the United States quit the deal in 2018 and reinstated economic sanctions against Tehran, which in response shrugged off restrictions imposed on its nuclear efforts.

Months of negotiations in the Austrian capital Vienna aim to return Washington to the deal, including through the lifting of sanctions, and to ensure Tehran’s full compliance with its commitments.

Negotiators say they are close to a conclusion, but have yet to finalize all points.

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Typhoon Gaemi Weakens to Tropical Storm as It Moves Inland Carrying Rain toward Central China

In this photo released by the Taiwan Ministry of National Defense, Taiwanese soldiers clear debris in the aftermath of Typhoon Gaemi in Kaohsiung county in southwestern Taiwan, Friday, July 26, 2024. (Taiwan Ministry of National Defense via AP)
In this photo released by the Taiwan Ministry of National Defense, Taiwanese soldiers clear debris in the aftermath of Typhoon Gaemi in Kaohsiung county in southwestern Taiwan, Friday, July 26, 2024. (Taiwan Ministry of National Defense via AP)
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Typhoon Gaemi Weakens to Tropical Storm as It Moves Inland Carrying Rain toward Central China

In this photo released by the Taiwan Ministry of National Defense, Taiwanese soldiers clear debris in the aftermath of Typhoon Gaemi in Kaohsiung county in southwestern Taiwan, Friday, July 26, 2024. (Taiwan Ministry of National Defense via AP)
In this photo released by the Taiwan Ministry of National Defense, Taiwanese soldiers clear debris in the aftermath of Typhoon Gaemi in Kaohsiung county in southwestern Taiwan, Friday, July 26, 2024. (Taiwan Ministry of National Defense via AP)

Tropical storm Gaemi brought rain to central China on Saturday as it moved inland after making landfall at typhoon strength on the country's east coast Thursday night.

The storm felled trees, flooded streets and damaged crops in China but there were no reports of casualties or major damage. Eight people died in Taiwan, which Gaemi crossed at typhoon strength before heading over open waters to China.

The worst loss of life, however, was in a country that Gaemi earlier passed by but didn't strike directly: the Philippines. A steadily climbing death toll has reached 34, authorities there said Friday. The typhoon exacerbated seasonal monsoon rains in the Southeast Asian country, causing landslides and severe flooding that stranded people on rooftops as waters rose around them.

China Gaemi weakened to a tropical storm since coming ashore Thursday evening in coastal Fujian province, but it is still expected to bring heavy rains in the coming days as it moves northwest to Jiangxi, Hubei and Henan provinces.

About 85 hectares (210 acres) of crops were damaged in Fujian province and economic losses were estimated at 11.5 million yuan ($1.6 million), according to Chinese media reports. More than 290,000 people were relocated because of the storm.

Elsewhere in China, several days of heavy rains this week in Gansu province left one dead and three missing in the country's northwest, the official Xinhua News Agency said.

Taiwan Residents and business owners swept out mud and mopped up water Friday after serious flooding that sent cars and scooters floating down streets in parts of southern and central Taiwan. Some towns remained inundated with waist-deep water.

Eight people died, several of them struck by falling trees and one by a landslide hitting their house. More than 850 people were injured and one person was missing, the emergency operations center said.

Visiting hard-hit Kaohsiung in the south Friday, President Lai Ching-te commended the city's efforts to improve flood control since a 2009 typhoon that brought a similar amount of rain and killed 681 people, Taiwan's Central News Agency reported.

Lai announced that cash payments of $20,000 New Taiwan Dollars ($610) would be given to households in severely flooded areas.

A cargo ship sank off the coast near Kaohsiung Harbor during the typhoon, and the captain's body was later pulled from the water, the Central News Agency said. A handful of other ships were beached by the storm.

Philippines At least 34 people died in the Philippines, mostly because of flooding and landslides triggered by days of monsoon rains that intensified when the typhoon — called Carina in the Philippines — passed by the archipelago’s east coast.

The victims included 11 people in the Manila metro area, where widespread flooding trapped people on the roofs and upper floors of their houses, police said. Some drowned or were electrocuted in their flooded communities.

Earlier in the week, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. ordered authorities to speed up efforts in delivering food and other aid to isolated rural villages, saying people may not have eaten for days.

The bodies of a pregnant woman and three children were dug out Wednesday after a landslide buried a shanty in the rural mountainside town of Agoncillo in Batangas province.