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Former US diplomat Bill Richardson said Sunday that he was "optimistic" about efforts to negotiate a "two for two" prisoner swap with Russia that would free US basketball star Brittney Griner and another American.
Richardson, a former ambassador to the UN, has negotiated the release of several Americans held in other countries. Reports last month said he was expected to travel to Russia for talks over Griner, who on Thursday was sentenced to nine years in prison on a drug charge.
While insisting Sunday that he is only a "catalyst" in any negotiations, Richardson's mention of a "two-for-two" swap including Griner suggested inside knowledge.
"My view is, I'm optimistic," he told ABC's "This Week."
"I think she's going to be freed, I think she has the right strategy of contrition, there's going to be a prisoner swap -- though I think it will be two for two, involving Paul Whelan."
Whelan is a former US Marine who was convicted of espionage in June 2020 and sentenced to 16 years in prison. He has insisted on his innocence.
His case and Griner's have been enmeshed in the deep US-Russia tensions since Russian troops invaded Ukraine in February.
But recent comments from both sides -- including from US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov -- have suggested signs of movement, and US President Joe Biden has faced repeated calls to arrange a deal.
Reports suggested that Russian arms trafficker Viktor Bout, known as the "Merchant of Death," might be freed in exchange for Griner and Whelan. The Kremlin has long sought his release.
But Richardson's mention of a "two for two" swap raises questions about who the second Russian in the equation might be.
And some Americans have asked why Marc Fogel, a US citizen serving a 14-year sentence in Russia on marijuana charges -- which he said he had for medicinal purposes -- has not been mentioned.
Griner was sentenced Thursday to nine years in a Russian penal colony and ordered to pay a fine of one million rubles ($16,590) for smuggling narcotics.
She was arrested at a Moscow airport for possessing vape cartridges with a small amount of cannabis oil.
The 31-year-old, who was in Russia to play for the professional Yekaterinburg team during her off-season from the Phoenix Mercury, said the substance was prescribed by a US doctor to relieve pain.
The two-time Olympic gold medalist and Women's NBA champion pleaded guilty but said she did not intend to break the law.
Richardson is a prominent Democrat, having served in the US Congress, as governor of New Mexico, and both as UN envoy and energy secretary in the Bill Clinton administration.
Since then, he has worked as a discreet go-between in several sensitive hostage talks with foreign countries, including North Korea. In November 2021 he helped secure the release of US journalist Danny Fenster from a prison in Myanmar.
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London's under-fire police force strip-searched more than 600 children over a two-year period, most of them black boys, according to new data released Monday.
England's commissioner for children, Rachel de Souza, said she was "deeply shocked" by the figures after obtaining them from the Metropolitan police.
De Souza's request came after Britain's biggest police force was forced to apologize in March over the case of "Child Q", which has sparked an investigation for gross misconduct into four officers.
The 15-year-old black schoolgirl was strip-searched by female officers in 2020 after being wrongly suspected of carrying cannabis, despite them being aware she was menstruating.
She was searched without an "appropriate adult" present, and neither was an adult in attendance in 23 percent of the cases unearthed by de Souza.
In total, 650 minors aged 10-17 were strip-searched by Met officers between 2018 and 2020, she found.
More than 95 percent were boys, and 58 percent of the 650 were described by the officer as being black.
De Souza said she was "extremely concerned" at the ethnic imbalance, and said Child Q may be part of a bigger "systemic problem around child protection" in the Met.
The figures had gone up sharply year after year, she said, and showed that a significant number of children "are being subjected to this intrusive and traumatizing practice each year".
The London force has been rocked in recent years by a succession of incidents involving officers, including last year, when a diplomatic protection squad member was jailed for the kidnap, rape and murder of Sarah Everard.
A crisis of public confidence in the police saw Cressida Dick resign as Met commissioner in February.
In response to de Souza's findings, the Met said it had already instituted changes "to ensure children subject to intrusive searches are dealt with appropriately and respectfully".
Some children may themselves be a "vulnerable victim of exploitation" by gangsters and drug criminals, it conceded.
London mayor Sadiq Khan redoubled his criticism of the Met after slamming the force over the Child Q case and other incidents.
It was "deeply concerning" that so many body searches were happening without an adult present, a spokesman for Khan said.
"And there remain serious wider issues with regard to disproportionality and the use of stop and search on young black boys," the spokesman said.
© 2022 AFP
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Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador called Sunday for intensified efforts to save 10 workers trapped in a flooded coal mine, during a visit to see firsthand the rescue operation.
Relatives of the missing were becoming increasingly desperate four days after the mine flooded in the northern state of Coahuila, fearing time is running out to bring them out alive.
Nearly 400 soldiers and other personnel, including six military scuba divers, have joined the rescue effort, but so far it has been too dangerous to enter the mine, authorities said.
“We have to do everything we are doing and more” to find the missing miners, Lopez Obrador told reporters during his visit to the site in Agujita.
“I want it to be as soon as possible,” he added.
The focus has been on pumping out water from the mine to make it safe enough to descend into the shafts, which are 60 meters (200 feet) deep.
“There is progress. Water levels continue to drop. Much larger volumes continue to be extracted,” said Coahuila Governor Miguel Angel Riquelme.
Rescuers were ready to enter the mine “as soon as the levels drop,” he added.
Five workers managed to escape from the crudely constructed mine in the initial aftermath of the disaster, but since then, no survivors have been found.
Authorities said the miners had been carrying out excavation work when they hit an adjoining area full of water.
Round-the-clock efforts
Lopez Obrador had previously declared Saturday “a decisive day” for the operation.
But by the end of the day, the water inside the mine had receded only about 9.5 meters from the initial 34 meters, authorities told relatives.
Liliana Torres, the niece of one of the missing workers, said that she had witnessed the relentlessness of rescuers who “do not stop all day,” but added that the families were increasingly “desperate.”
Some families joined a mass near their improvised camp in the community of Agujita to pray for the safe return of their loved ones.
Water seen flowing from the mine through drainage channels had earlier lifted the hopes of relatives praying that the miners are alive inside a pocket of air.
“We’re still hoping that they’re in a higher part (of the mine), although there’s too much water... but we trust in God,” Elva Hernandez, mother-in-law of one of the trapped workers, told AFP.
The Coahuila State prosecutor’s office said it had interviewed the five workers who managed to escape from the mine.
“Apparently they were expelled by a torrent of water,” Coahuila attorney general Gerardo Marquez told the press.
He added that his office had requested information from the landowner and mine concession holder, but declined to name them.
Experts detected a leak coming from nearby mines and were trying to find its exact location so they can stop water from flowing into the area where the workers are trapped, Coahuila’s labor secretary, Nazira Zogbi, said on Saturday.
A French company has provided equipment to assist in the task, she said, without naming the firm.
Coahuila, Mexico’s main coal-producing region, has seen a series of fatal mining accidents over the years.
Last year, seven miners died when they were trapped in the region.
The worst accident was an explosion that claimed 65 lives at the Pasta de Conchos mine in 2006.
Only two bodies were retrieved after that tragedy.
(AFP)
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