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Iranian-American Journalist Jailed in Tehran Pleas for US Help

Iran's Evin Prison (File photo: Reuters)
Iran's Evin Prison (File photo: Reuters)
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Iranian-American Journalist Jailed in Tehran Pleas for US Help

Iran's Evin Prison (File photo: Reuters)
Iran's Evin Prison (File photo: Reuters)

An Iranian-American journalist sentenced to 10 years in a notorious Tehran prison called on Washington to provide medical help for him and other US detainees, CBS News reported Friday.

Reza Valizadeh, who holds both Iranian and US citizenship and worked for US-funded Persian-language Radio Farda, is in prison on charges of collaborating with a hostile government, according to his lawyer.

A voice message from the journalist obtained by CBS News comes amid a shaky truce as Tehran and Washington conduct slow-moving negotiations to resolve a war launched by President Donald Trump in February.

Valizadeh said in the two-minute recording that he and three other Americans held at Tehran's Evin prison were sick and being denied medical treatment.

"While the four of us are suffering from various diseases and are deprived from real medical services, the US government could have at least demanded real medical services for us in exchange for the release of Iranian sailors," he says.

"Even if treating our diseases is a big demand, it would have at least asked the Iranian authorities to reduce not all the physical pressure and mental torture against us in captivity, but at least some of it."

AFP was not able to verify the authenticity of the recording. CBS News said the recording was recent and had been made after Iranian authorities loosened wartime communication restrictions last week.

Valizadeh's lawyer Ryan Fayhee told CBS News that Valizadeh was suffering from persistent coughing, back pain and dental problems.

"He's survived an airstrike on the prison, he survived the prison itself," Fayhee said, referring to an Israeli strike which damaged parts of the facility in June last year.

The United States said in 2024 it was aware of Valizadeh's detention and called on Iran to free him.

Rights groups have denounced conditions in Iran's prisons, where detainees suffer from overcrowding and shortages of food, water, hygiene supplies, medicine and medical care.

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World

Farage Beats Count Binface to Win UK By-election

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage poses with a digital poster van reading 'Europe is at breaking point' after a press conference in central London, Britain, 03 August 2026. EPA/TOLGA AKMEN
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage poses with a digital poster van reading 'Europe is at breaking point' after a press conference in central London, Britain, 03 August 2026. EPA/TOLGA AKMEN
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Farage Beats Count Binface to Win UK By-election

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage poses with a digital poster van reading 'Europe is at breaking point' after a press conference in central London, Britain, 03 August 2026. EPA/TOLGA AKMEN
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage poses with a digital poster van reading 'Europe is at breaking point' after a press conference in central London, Britain, 03 August 2026. EPA/TOLGA AKMEN

British hard-right leader Nigel Farage has won a snap UK election he triggered in Clacton on Friday, comfortably beating satirical opponent Count Binface as was expected, according to results.

Farage, who did not attend the result announcement, received 22,239 votes, electoral officials said, while runner-up Count Binface exceeded expectations with 9,455 votes.

Farage had declared victory in front of a crowd of supporters earlier on Friday, while the vote count was still ongoing, said AFP.

Farage was largely expected to win in the constituency, where he was already an MP and where none of the country's main parties were running.

Farage and Binface both beat a long list of joke candidates, independents and members of fringe political parties.

Candidates on stage at the Clacton Leisure Center, where the count was held, were seen cheering for each other as the results were announced, with many receiving fewer than 100 votes.

Voter turnout in Thursday's election was 44 percent, lower than the 59 percent turnout recorded at the 2024 general election, but not unusual for a by-election.

The result was called just after 6 am (0500 GMT), with officials warning earlier in the night that the vote count would take longer than usual because of the long ballot papers.

World

Drone Attacks Spark Fire at Russian Energy Export Port of Ust-Luga

FILE PHOTO: Thick plumes of smoke with flames rise from an oil refinery following a Ukrainian drone attack, in the course of Russia-Ukraine conflict, in Moscow, Russia, June 18, 2026, in this picture obtained from social media. SOCIAL MEDIA/via REUTERS
FILE PHOTO: Thick plumes of smoke with flames rise from an oil refinery following a Ukrainian drone attack, in the course of Russia-Ukraine conflict, in Moscow, Russia, June 18, 2026, in this picture obtained from social media. SOCIAL MEDIA/via REUTERS
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Drone Attacks Spark Fire at Russian Energy Export Port of Ust-Luga

FILE PHOTO: Thick plumes of smoke with flames rise from an oil refinery following a Ukrainian drone attack, in the course of Russia-Ukraine conflict, in Moscow, Russia, June 18, 2026, in this picture obtained from social media. SOCIAL MEDIA/via REUTERS
FILE PHOTO: Thick plumes of smoke with flames rise from an oil refinery following a Ukrainian drone attack, in the course of Russia-Ukraine conflict, in Moscow, Russia, June 18, 2026, in this picture obtained from social media. SOCIAL MEDIA/via REUTERS

Firefighters were battling flames on Friday at Russia's Baltic Sea port Ust-Luga, a major energy exports hub, after a fire sparked by a drone attack, regional governor Aleksander Drozdenko said on messaging app Telegram.

More than fifty drones were downed in the Leningrad region, he added, as the region around ‌Ust-Luga, a center ‌for exports of oil and ‌oil ⁠products, kept up ⁠efforts to repel the attack, Reuters said.

The scale of damage was not immediately clear in the attack, which continues Ukraine's tactics of hitting Russian oil processing and export facilities and grain shipping ⁠routes, in an effort to deny ‌revenue to ‌Moscow and force it to end the ‌war.

On Friday, fighter jets shot down ‌a drone that entered the airspace of Latvia, the armed forces of the NATO and European Union member said, while Finland ‌temporarily restricted parts of the Baltic Sea, as a precaution against ⁠drone ⁠attacks.

Ukraine has struck, sometimes repeatedly, more than a dozen major refineries in Russia, one of the world's largest oil producers, causing a widespread domestic fuel crisis.

The Russian capital of Moscow, home to another big oil processing plant, downed overnight more than a dozen drones heading towards it, Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said on Telegram on Friday.

World

Hegseth: US Plans Attacks on Land Against Drug Cartels in Latin America

US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth arrives to observe a US-sponsored multinational military exercise in Panama City, Thursday, Aug. 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth arrives to observe a US-sponsored multinational military exercise in Panama City, Thursday, Aug. 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
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Hegseth: US Plans Attacks on Land Against Drug Cartels in Latin America

US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth arrives to observe a US-sponsored multinational military exercise in Panama City, Thursday, Aug. 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth arrives to observe a US-sponsored multinational military exercise in Panama City, Thursday, Aug. 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)

The United States is planning land attacks against drug traffickers in Latin America, expanding an airstrike campaign against presumed drug-running boats in international waters, US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said in Panama.

Last September President Donald Trump's administration launched a bombing campaign against alleged drug boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific, leaving at least 215 people dead. The campaign has been criticized as amounting to extra-judicial killings.

Plans for anti-drug operations on land are on the agenda of an alliance of 19 countries led by Trump that could expand to wherever drug gangs operate, Hegseth told journalists.

According to AFP, he said the United States hopes to deploy forces alongside its allies with "operational capability like you saw with the strikes on the drug boats" in the Caribbean and Pacific.

It will be the "same effect on land, and so we're working with Ecuador, we're working with Colombia, we're working with partners to bring the fight to the DTO's on land," Hegseth said Wednesday night in an unidentified location in the Panamanian jungle, referring to drug trafficking organizations.

He traveled to Panama for annual joint military exercises carried out by over 20 countries.

"Anywhere you traffic drugs or you threaten the American people or our partners, you are a target just like ISIS or Al Qaeda," Hegseth said, wearing an olive-green shirt while surrounded by soldiers.

The Americans Counter Cartel Coalition brings together countries with right-wing governments, including Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Honduras, and Peru.

Hegseth said cartels should be "on notice."

Mexico, with a left-leaning government, is not part of the alliance even though it is home to powerful drug cartels.

Hegseth defended the attacks against alleged drug boats, which legal experts and human rights organizations have warned could constitute extrajudicial executions.

"We're going to close with and destroy these networks with every capability of the American government," he warned.