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US Charges Three in Iran-Backed Effort to Assassinate Journalist

US Attorney General Merrick Garland announces charges against three members of an Eastern European criminal organization with ties to Iran's government with conspiring to assassinate a journalist and activist who is a US citizen, during a news conference at the Justice Department in Washington, US, January 27, 2023. (Reuters)
US Attorney General Merrick Garland announces charges against three members of an Eastern European criminal organization with ties to Iran's government with conspiring to assassinate a journalist and activist who is a US citizen, during a news conference at the Justice Department in Washington, US, January 27, 2023. (Reuters)
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US Charges Three in Iran-Backed Effort to Assassinate Journalist

US Attorney General Merrick Garland announces charges against three members of an Eastern European criminal organization with ties to Iran's government with conspiring to assassinate a journalist and activist who is a US citizen, during a news conference at the Justice Department in Washington, US, January 27, 2023. (Reuters)
US Attorney General Merrick Garland announces charges against three members of an Eastern European criminal organization with ties to Iran's government with conspiring to assassinate a journalist and activist who is a US citizen, during a news conference at the Justice Department in Washington, US, January 27, 2023. (Reuters)

US prosecutors have charged three members of an Eastern European criminal organization which has ties to Iran's government with conspiring to assassinate a journalist and activist who is a US citizen, Attorney General Merrick Garland said on Friday.

Rafat Amirov, Polad Omarov and Khalid Mehdiyev were charged with murder-for-hire and money laundering for their role in the thwarted Tehran-backed plot, the Department of Justice said in a statement.

"The victim publicized (the) Iranian government's human rights abuses, discriminatory treatment of women, suppression of democratic participation and expression and use of arbitrary imprisonment, torture and execution," Garland said.

Garland did not name the alleged victim, but Mehdiyev was arrested last year in New York for having a rifle outside the Brooklyn home of journalist Masih Alinejad, a longtime critic of Iran's head-covering laws who has promoted videos of women violating those laws on social media.

Mehdiyev pleaded not guilty to one count of possessing a firearm with an obliterated serial number. He is being held at Brooklyn's Metropolitan Detention Center pending trial.

Iran's mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

US prosecutors last year charged four Iranians alleged to be intelligence operatives for Tehran with plotting to kidnap a New York-based journalist and activist. While the target of the plot was not named, Reuters confirmed she was Alinejad.

Amirov was arrested on Thursday and will have a pretrial hearing in federal court in Manhattan later on Friday. Omarov was arrested in the Czech Republic earlier this month, and the United States is seeking his extradition.

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World

UK PM's Communications Director Quits

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer delivers a speech at Horntye Park Sports Complex in St Leonards, Britain, February 05, 2026. Peter Nicholls/Pool via REUTERS
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer delivers a speech at Horntye Park Sports Complex in St Leonards, Britain, February 05, 2026. Peter Nicholls/Pool via REUTERS
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UK PM's Communications Director Quits

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer delivers a speech at Horntye Park Sports Complex in St Leonards, Britain, February 05, 2026. Peter Nicholls/Pool via REUTERS
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer delivers a speech at Horntye Park Sports Complex in St Leonards, Britain, February 05, 2026. Peter Nicholls/Pool via REUTERS

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer's director of communications Tim Allan resigned on Monday, a day after Starmer's top aide Morgan McSweeney quit over his role in backing Peter Mandelson over his known links to Jeffrey Epstein.

The loss of two senior aides ⁠in quick succession comes as Starmer tries to draw a line under the crisis in his government resulting from his appointment of Mandelson as ambassador to the ⁠US.

"I have decided to stand down to allow a new No10 team to be built. I wish the PM and his team every success," Allan said in a statement on Monday.

Allan served as an adviser to Tony Blair from ⁠1992 to 1998 and went on to found and lead one of the country’s foremost public affairs consultancies in 2001. In September 2025, he was appointed executive director of communications at Downing Street.

World

Road Accident in Nigeria Kills at Least 30 People

FILE PHOTO: A police vehicle of Operation Fushin Kada (Anger of Crocodile) is parked on Yakowa Road, as schools across northern Nigeria reopen nearly two months after closing due to security concerns, following the mass abductions of school children, in Kaduna, Nigeria, January 12, 2026. REUTERS/Nuhu Gwamna/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: A police vehicle of Operation Fushin Kada (Anger of Crocodile) is parked on Yakowa Road, as schools across northern Nigeria reopen nearly two months after closing due to security concerns, following the mass abductions of school children, in Kaduna, Nigeria, January 12, 2026. REUTERS/Nuhu Gwamna/File Photo
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Road Accident in Nigeria Kills at Least 30 People

FILE PHOTO: A police vehicle of Operation Fushin Kada (Anger of Crocodile) is parked on Yakowa Road, as schools across northern Nigeria reopen nearly two months after closing due to security concerns, following the mass abductions of school children, in Kaduna, Nigeria, January 12, 2026. REUTERS/Nuhu Gwamna/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: A police vehicle of Operation Fushin Kada (Anger of Crocodile) is parked on Yakowa Road, as schools across northern Nigeria reopen nearly two months after closing due to security concerns, following the mass abductions of school children, in Kaduna, Nigeria, January 12, 2026. REUTERS/Nuhu Gwamna/File Photo

At least 30 people have been killed and an unspecified number of people injured in a road accident in northwest Nigeria, authorities said.

The accident occurred Sunday in Kwanar Barde in the Gezawa area of Kano state and was caused by “reckless driving” by the driver of a truck-trailer, Gov. Abba Yusuf said in a statement. He did not specify what other vehicles were involved.

Yusuf described the accident as “heartbreaking and a great loss” to the affected families and the state. He did not provide more details of the accident, said The Associated Press.

Africa’s most populous country recorded 5,421 deaths in 9,570 road accidents in 2024, according to data by the country’s Federal Road Safety Corps.

Experts say a combination of factors including a network of bad roads, lax enforcement of traffic laws and indiscipline by some drivers produce the grim statistics.

In December, boxing heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua was in a deadly car crash that injured him and killed Sina Ghami and Latif “Latz” Ayodele, two of his friends, in southwest Nigeria.

Adeniyi Mobolaji Kayode, Joshua’s driver, was charged with dangerous and reckless driving and his trial is scheduled to begin later this month.

Africa has the highest road fatality rate in the world despite having only about 3% of the world’s vehicles, mainly due to weak enforcement of road laws, poor infrastructure and widespread use of unsafe transport. 

World

US Vice President Vance Heads to Armenia, Azerbaijan to Push Peace, Trade

US Vice President JD Vance speaks during the Critical Minerals Ministerial at the State Department in Washington, DC, US, February 4, 2026. (Reuters)
US Vice President JD Vance speaks during the Critical Minerals Ministerial at the State Department in Washington, DC, US, February 4, 2026. (Reuters)
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US Vice President Vance Heads to Armenia, Azerbaijan to Push Peace, Trade

US Vice President JD Vance speaks during the Critical Minerals Ministerial at the State Department in Washington, DC, US, February 4, 2026. (Reuters)
US Vice President JD Vance speaks during the Critical Minerals Ministerial at the State Department in Washington, DC, US, February 4, 2026. (Reuters)

US Vice President JD Vance will visit Armenia and Azerbaijan this week to push a Washington-brokered peace agreement that could transform energy and trade routes in the strategic South Caucasus region.

His two-day trip to Armenia, which begins later on Monday, comes just six months after the Armenian and Azerbaijani leaders signed an agreement at the White House seen as the first step towards peace after nearly 40 years of war.

Vance, the first US vice president to visit Armenia, is seeking to advance the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP), a proposed 43-kilometre (27-mile) corridor that would run across southern Armenia and give Azerbaijan a direct route to its exclave ‌of Nakhchivan ‌and in turn to Türkiye, Baku's close ally.

"Vance's visit should ‌serve ⁠to reaffirm the ‌US's commitment to seeing the Trump Route through," said Joshua Kucera, a senior South Caucasus analyst at Crisis Group.

"In a region like the Caucasus, even a small amount of attention from the US can make a significant impact."

The Armenian government said on Monday that Vance would hold talks with Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and that both men would then make statements, without elaborating.

Vance will then visit Azerbaijan on Wednesday and Thursday, the White House has said.

Under the agreement signed last year, ⁠a private US firm, the TRIPP Development Company, has been granted exclusive rights to develop the proposed corridor, with Yerevan ‌retaining full sovereignty over its borders, customs, taxation and security.

The ‍route would better connect Asia to Europe ‍while - crucially for Washington - bypassing Russia and Iran at a time when Western countries are ‍keen on diversifying energy and trade routes away from Russia due to its war in Ukraine.

Russia has traditionally viewed the South Caucasus as part of its sphere of influence but has seen its clout there diminish as it is distracted by the war in Ukraine.

Securing US access to supplies of critical minerals is also likely to be a key focus of Vance's visit.

TRIPP could prove a key transit corridor for the vast mineral wealth of ⁠Central Asia - including uranium, copper, gold and rare earths - to Western markets.

CLOSED BORDERS, BITTER RIVALS

In Soviet times the South Caucasus was criss-crossed by railways and oil pipelines until a series of wars beginning in the 1980s disrupted energy routes and shuttered the border between Armenia and Türkiye, Azerbaijan's key regional ally.

Armenia and Azerbaijan were locked in bitter conflict for nearly four decades, primarily over the mountainous region of Nagorno-Karabakh, an internationally recognized part of Azerbaijan that broke away from Baku's control as the Soviet Union fell apart in 1991.

Azerbaijan and Armenia fought two wars over Karabakh before Baku finally took it back in 2023. Karabakh's entire ethnic Armenian population of around 100,000 people fled to Armenia. The two neighbors have made progress in recent months on normalizing relations, including restarting ‌some energy shipments.

But major hurdles remain to full and lasting peace, including a demand by Azerbaijan that Armenia change its constitution to remove what Baku says contains implicit claims on Azerbaijani territory.