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Russia's Navalny Thanks 'Unknown Friends' for Saving His Life

Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny poses for a picture in Berlin
Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny poses for a picture in Berlin
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Russia's Navalny Thanks 'Unknown Friends' for Saving His Life

Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny poses for a picture in Berlin
Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny poses for a picture in Berlin

Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny said on Friday he owed his life to the pilots who made an emergency landing when he collapsed on a flight last month, and the paramedics he said had diagnosed poisoning and injected him with atropine.

Navalny thanked his "unknown good friends" in the latest of a series of Instagram posts charting his gradual recovery from the poisoning, which German, French and Swedish laboratories have established was carried out with a nerve agent. Russia denies poisoning him and says it has seen no evidence.

"As far as I understand ... the killers' plan was simple: I will feel bad 20 minutes after takeoff, after another 15 minutes I will pass out," said Navalny, who collapsed shortly after his flight took off from the Siberian city of Tomsk on Aug. 20.

"Medical assistance will be guaranteed to be unavailable, and in another hour I will continue my journey in a black plastic bag on the last row of seats, terrifying passengers going to the toilet," he added with characteristic black humor.

Though he has not been allowed to form a political party, Navalny has been a thorn in the side of President Vladimir Putin for the past decade, using YouTube and Instagram to publish stinging investigations of official corruption.

The 44-year-old thanked the pilots for diverting the plane to Omsk, despite a bomb warning that was phoned through to the airport there.

He also credited the airport medical officers and ambulance team who "did not say any lies about diabetes, etc., but immediately clearly said: 'this is toxic poisoning' and gave me a dose of atropine."

Contradictory accounts have emerged of when and where Navalny was given atropine, a drug used to treat nerve agent or pesticide poisonings. Medical experts have said it probably saved his life.

Sources had previously told Reuters that parademics gave him injections, but not of atropine, and that this was administered later when he was admitted to hospital in Omsk.

Navalny was discharged from a Berlin hospital earlier this week and has said he will undertake daily physiotherapy.

The latest Instagram post showed him hugging his wife Yulia and gazing straight into the camera with a neutral expression.

"Thank you, good unknown friends. You are good people," he said.

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World

UK PM's Top Aide Quits over Mandelson-Epstein Scandal

FILE PHOTO: British Prime Minister Keir Starmer talks with Britain's ambassador to the United States Peter Mandelson during a welcome reception at the ambassador's residence on February 26, 2025, in Washington, DC, US. Carl Court/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: British Prime Minister Keir Starmer talks with Britain's ambassador to the United States Peter Mandelson during a welcome reception at the ambassador's residence on February 26, 2025, in Washington, DC, US. Carl Court/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo
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UK PM's Top Aide Quits over Mandelson-Epstein Scandal

FILE PHOTO: British Prime Minister Keir Starmer talks with Britain's ambassador to the United States Peter Mandelson during a welcome reception at the ambassador's residence on February 26, 2025, in Washington, DC, US. Carl Court/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: British Prime Minister Keir Starmer talks with Britain's ambassador to the United States Peter Mandelson during a welcome reception at the ambassador's residence on February 26, 2025, in Washington, DC, US. Carl Court/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer's chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, quit on Sunday, saying he took responsibility for advising Starmer to name Peter Mandelson as ambassador to the US despite his known links to Jeffrey Epstein.

After new files revealed the depth of the Labour veteran's relationship with the late sex offender, Starmer is facing what is widely seen as the gravest crisis of his 18 months in power over his decision to send Mandelson to Washington in 2024, Reuters reported.

The loss of McSweeney, 48, a strategist who was instrumental in Starmer's rise to power, is the latest in a series of setbacks, less than two years after the Labour Party won one of the largest parliamentary majorities in modern British history.

With polls showing Starmer is hugely unpopular with voters after a series of embarrassing U-turns, some in his own party are openly questioning his judgment and his future, and it remains to be seen whether McSweeney's exit will be enough to silence critics.

The files released in the US on January 30 sparked a police investigation for misconduct in office over indications that Mandelson leaked market-sensitive information to Epstein when he was a government minister during the global financial crisis in 2009 and 2010.

In a statement, McSweeney said: "The decision to ⁠appoint Peter Mandelson was wrong. He has damaged our party, our country and trust in politics itself.
"When asked, I advised the Prime Minister to make that appointment and I take full responsibility for that advice."

The leader of the opposition Conservative Party, Kemi Badenoch, said the resignation was overdue and that "Keir Starmer has to take responsibility for his own terrible decisions".

Nigel Farage, head of the populist Reform UK party, which is leading in the polls, said he believed Starmer's time would soon be up.

Starmer has spent the last week defending McSweeney, a strategy that could prompt further questions about his own judgment. In a statement on Sunday, Starmer said it had been "an honor" working with him.

Many Labour members of parliament had blamed McSweeney for the appointment of Mandelson and the damage caused by the publication of the exchanges between Epstein ⁠and Mandelson. Others have said Starmer must go.

One Labour lawmaker, speaking on condition of anonymity, said McSweeney's resignation had come too late: "It buys the PM time, but it's still the end of days."

Starmer sacked Mandelson as ambassador in September over his links to Epstein.

The government agreed last week to release virtually all previously private communications between members of his government from the time when Mandelson was being appointed.

That release could come as early as this week, creating a new headache for Starmer just as he hopes to move on. If previously secret messages about how London planned to approach its relationship with Donald Trump are made public, it could damage Starmer's relationship with the US President.

McSweeney had held the role of chief of staff since October 2024, when he was handed the job following the resignation of Sue Gray after a row over pay and donations.

Starmer on Sunday appointed his deputy chiefs of staff, Jill Cuthbertson and Vidhya Alakeson, to serve as joint acting chiefs of staff.

World

Iran Sentences Nobel Laureate Narges Mohammadi to 7 More Years in Prison

(FILES) A handout photo provided by the Narges Mohammadi Foundation on October 2, 2023 shows an undated, unlocated photo of Iranian rights campaigner Narges Mohammadi. (Photo by Handout / NARGES MOHAMMADI FOUNDATION / AFP)
(FILES) A handout photo provided by the Narges Mohammadi Foundation on October 2, 2023 shows an undated, unlocated photo of Iranian rights campaigner Narges Mohammadi. (Photo by Handout / NARGES MOHAMMADI FOUNDATION / AFP)
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Iran Sentences Nobel Laureate Narges Mohammadi to 7 More Years in Prison

(FILES) A handout photo provided by the Narges Mohammadi Foundation on October 2, 2023 shows an undated, unlocated photo of Iranian rights campaigner Narges Mohammadi. (Photo by Handout / NARGES MOHAMMADI FOUNDATION / AFP)
(FILES) A handout photo provided by the Narges Mohammadi Foundation on October 2, 2023 shows an undated, unlocated photo of Iranian rights campaigner Narges Mohammadi. (Photo by Handout / NARGES MOHAMMADI FOUNDATION / AFP)

Iran sentenced Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi to over seven more years in prison after she began a hunger strike, supporters said Sunday.

Mohammadi’s supporters cited her lawyer, who spoke to Mohammadi.

The lawyer, Mostafa Nili, confirmed the sentence on X, saying it had been handed down Saturday by a Revolutionary Court in the city of Mashhad. Such courts typically issue verdicts with little or no opportunity for defendants to contest their charges.

“She has been sentenced to six years in prison for ‘gathering and collusion’ and one and a half years for propaganda and two-year travel ban,” he wrote, according to The Associated Press.

She received another two years of internal exile to the city of Khosf, some 740 kilometers (460 miles) southeast of Tehran, the capital, the lawyer added.

Supporters say Mohammadi has been on a hunger strike since Feb. 2. She had been arrested in December at a ceremony honoring Khosrow Alikordi, a 46-year-old Iranian lawyer and human rights advocate who had been based in Mashhad. Footage from the demonstration showed her shouting, demanding justice for Alikordi and others.

Supporters had warned for months before her December arrest that Mohammadi, 53, was at risk of being put back into prison after she received a furlough in December 2024 over medical concerns.

While that was to be only three weeks, Mohammadi’s time out of prison lengthened, possibly as activists and Western powers pushed Iran to keep her free. She remained out even during the 12-day war in June between Iran and Israel.

Mohammadi still kept up her activism with public protests and international media appearances, including even demonstrating at one point in front of Tehran’s notorious Evin prison, where she had been held.

Mohammadi had been serving 13 years and nine months on charges of collusion against state security and propaganda against Iran’s government.

She also had backed the nationwide protests sparked by the 2022 death of Mahsa Amini, which have seen women openly defy the government by not wearing the hijab.

Mohammadi suffered multiple heart attacks while imprisoned before undergoing emergency surgery in 2022, her supporters say. Her lawyer in late 2024 revealed doctors had found a bone lesion that they feared could be cancerous that later was removed.

“Considering her illnesses, it is expected that she will be temporarily released on bail so that she can receive treatment,” Nili wrote.

However, Iranian officials have been signaling a harder line against all dissent since the recent demonstrations. Speaking on Sunday, Iranian judiciary chief Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejei made comments suggesting harsh prison sentences awaited many.

“Look at some individuals who once were with the revolution and accompanied the revolution," he said. "Today, what they are saying, what they are writing, what statements they issue, they are unfortunate, they are forlorn (and) they will face damage.”

World

Nigeria's President to Make a Sate Visit to the UK in March

Nigeria’s President Bola Tinubu gives a joint statement with Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, at the Planalto presidential palace, in Brasilia, Brazil, Aug. 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres, File)
Nigeria’s President Bola Tinubu gives a joint statement with Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, at the Planalto presidential palace, in Brasilia, Brazil, Aug. 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres, File)
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Nigeria's President to Make a Sate Visit to the UK in March

Nigeria’s President Bola Tinubu gives a joint statement with Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, at the Planalto presidential palace, in Brasilia, Brazil, Aug. 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres, File)
Nigeria’s President Bola Tinubu gives a joint statement with Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, at the Planalto presidential palace, in Brasilia, Brazil, Aug. 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres, File)

Nigeria’s president is set to make a state visit to the UK in March, the first such trip by a Nigerian leader in almost four decades, Britain’s Buckingham Palace said Sunday.

Officials said President Bola Tinubu and first lady Oluremi Tinubu will travel to the UK on March 18 and 19, The AP news reported.

King Charles III and Queen Camilla will host them at Windsor Castle. Full details of the visit are expected at a later date.

Charles visited Nigeria, a Commonwealth country, four times from 1990 to 2018 before he became king. He previously received Tinubu at Buckingham Palace in September 2024.m

Previous state visits by a Nigerian leader took place in 1973, 1981 and 1989.

A state visit usually starts with an official reception hosted by the king and includes a carriage procession and a state banquet.

Last year Charles hosted state visits for world leaders including US President Donald Trump, French President Emmanuel Macron and German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier.