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Some experts believe the deal signifies an easing of tensions between Tehran and Washington. Five American prisoners held in Iran flew out of Tehran on Monday officials said, as part of a deal that saw nearly $6 billion in Iranian assets unfrozen. Despite the deal, tensions are almost certain to remain high between the US and Iran, which are locked in various disputes, including over Tehran’s nuclear program. Iran says the program is peaceful, but it now enriches uranium closer than ever to weapons-grade levels. The planned exchange has unfolded amid a major American military buildup in the Persian Gulf,...

On Monday’s broadcast of “CNN News Central,” White House National Security Council Coordinator for Strategic Communications John Kirby responded to a question on whether the Iranian prisoner swap will make Iran more likely to take Americans hostage by stating that Iran has taken American hostages for a long time and “I can’t perfectly predict whether they’ll do it again or not.” Co-host Kate Bolduan asked, “Lingering question remains, is Iran more or less likely to wrongfully detain another American citizen, take them hostage because of this deal?”

Vlad the impaler: Putin may have had affair with ex-spy ChapmanBy ANDY SOLTIS Last Updated: 7:14 AM, April 24, 2012 Vladimir Putin may have had an affair with sexy former spy Anna Chapman — which might have knocked the Russian president’s wife of 29 years out of the spotlight, Kremlin watchers say. Putin, 59, is an ever-present figure in the Russian media but has been shown just twice with his 54-year-old wife, Lyudmila, in the last two years. Ex-Manhattanite Chapman, 30, who was booted to Moscow in a 2010 spy swap, soon emerged as a key player...

According to reports, the Biden administration is negotiating a migrant swap deal with Mexico that would exceed the United States’ immigration caps for 2023. The deal being negotiated will allow U.S. authorities to conduct “large-scale deportations” of non-Mexicans back across the border, but will also allow “hundreds of thousands” of Mexican migrants into the country. Authorities claim that immigrants under this deal will be allowed to enter the country legally, while severe consequences will be in place for those who “don’t follow the rules.” Officials say that the U.S. government has been turning back many non-Mexican immigrants back to Mexico...

On Friday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “The ReidOut,” Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) stated that Viktor Bout, the arms dealer who was serving time in prison for agreeing to supply weapons to U.S. agents posing as Colombian terrorists to kill Americans, freed by the Biden administration in the prisoner swap to secure the release of Brittney Griner from Russia, is “a nasty, bad” person, but “He has not killed Americans.” Although, Jackson Lee noted that Bout’s “weapons might have been used to kill Americans.”

Former President Donald Trump slammed President Joe Biden’s Brittney Griner prisoner swap as “stupid” and “unpatriotic embarrassment.” Issuing the statement on Truth Social, Trump said the swap was a bad deal because Biden traded an ex-WNBA basketball star for notorious Russian arms dealers Viktor Bout, “one of the biggest arms dealers anywhere in the world.” Trump said the trade was especially grievous because Griner has been “openly” hateful towards her own nation.

President Joe Biden pushed gun control for Americans on Wednesday and, on that same day, agreed to release a convicted arms dealer via a prisoner swap with Russia. Breitbart News reported early rumors that Biden might swap Russian gun-running supervillain Viktor Bout for U.S. citizen Brittney Griner. Bout is a flamboyant arms dealer in his mid-50s with Russian military training. He became a billionaire by raiding the armories of the collapsing Soviet Union in the early 90s and using old Soviet cargo planes to transport his black-market weapons to conflict zones around the world. His gun sales have included weapons...

MOSCOW, Russia — Houston native and WNBA star Brittney Griner has been freed as part of a prisoner exchange with Russia, according to the White House. Griner was exchanged for Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, labeled the “Merchant of Death.” This was a one-for-one swap. American and Michigan corporate security executive Paul Whelan was not part of the exchange. [Snip]

section class="post-body"> Wednesday, September 21, 2022, Ukrainian authorities announced they had secured the release of 215 prisoners of war, including the commanders of the Azov Battalion defenders of the Azovstal Iron and Steel Works in Mariupol. They entered captivity, based on a false promise by the Russian Army of rapid exchange when Mariupol finally surrendered (Mariupol Defenders Reject Russian Demand for Surrender Setting up the Largest Siege of a City Since WWII and Mariupol Surrenders to the Russian Army After Epic 82-Day Siege). In return, Ukraine released 55 Russians. The description of them is a little cagey, indicating that some...

An American contractor held hostage in Afghanistan for more than two years has been released in exchange for a convicted Taliban drug lord jailed in the United States, the White House said Monday, announcing a rare success in U.S.-Taliban talks since the militant group took power a little more than a year ago Mark Frerichs, a Navy veteran who had spent more than a decade in Afghanistan as a civilian contractor, was abducted in January 2020 and is believed to have been held since then by the Taliban-linked Haqqani network. He was traded for Bashir Noorzai, a Taliban associate convicted...

My solution is simple, and while we wait for the legislation to pass, we can act now: The rich should give their children to the poor, and the poor should give their children to the rich. Homeowners might swap children with their homeless neighbors. Now, I recognize that some naysayers, hopelessly attached to their privilege, will dismiss such a policy as ghastly, even totalitarian. But my proposal is quite modest, a fusion of traditional philosophy and today’s most common political obsessions.

We now know the name of the Chinese defector who has been working with the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) for a few months and what his position within the Chinese military and government was, among other details.Matthew Brazil and Jeff Stein at Spy Talk reported on the “rumor,” and gave the name and background of the rumored defector:Chinese-language anti-communist media and Twitter are abuzz this week with rumors that a vice minister of State Security, Dong Jingwei (董经纬) defected in mid-February, flying from Hong Kong to the United States with his daughter, Dong Yang.Dong is, or was, a longtime official...

Lots of whispers circulating in and around Washington D.C. regarding a Trump White House that is set to unleash an investigative push back against all those false accusors that have been peddling the dangerous and divisive Trump-Russia hoax for the last two years. Word is members of both the Clinton and Obama gang are bracing for impact. DEVELOPING…

WASHINGTON — When Aleksandr Zaporozhsky, one of four Russians delivered to the West in this week’s spy swap, joins his family in the United States, it will be only the latest unexpected twist in a classic story of espionage and deception. For several years in the 1990s, Mr. Zaporozhsky, a colonel in Russian intelligence who became deputy chief of the American Department, was secretly working for the C.I.A., one of the highest-ranking American moles in history, Russian prosecutors say. After surprising his colleagues by retiring suddenly in 1997, he moved with his wife and three children to the United States...

It turns out that so-called "prisoner swap" with Iran didn’t involve much of a swap. When given the chance, none of the Iranians freed from U.S. custody chose to return to Iran, according to U.S. officials familiar with the negotiations. As the United States and Iran secretly negotiated the terms of a deal that culminated with a "prisoner swap" this weekend, both parties agreed they would fly their prisoners to Geneva, Switzerland, for the exchange – a neutral country that for years has worked as a diplomatic mediator between the two adversaries. After an hours-long and nerve-wracking delay, a Swiss...

The Pentagon broke the law when it swapped five Taliban leaders for Bowe Bergdahl earlier this year, an independent government watchdog agency said on Thursday. ~snip~ The swap cost the White House $988,400, none of which was intended to pay for the prisoner trade. The costs covered Bergdahl’s pick up in Afghanistan and the transfer of five Taliban leaders from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba to Qatar, where they will stay for the remainder of the year.

Call it the Three Presidents Crew. In a historic game of naval musical chairs, sailors from San Diego’s aircraft carrier Ronald Reagan will serve on three different flattops over the next six months. The Navy is saving $41 million by doing a massive, complicated crew swap involving 9,000 sailors and the carriers George Washington and Theodore Roosevelt, in addition to the Reagan. At the end, the U.S. Navy will have a new face in Asia, and an American aircraft carrier will enter a mid-life nuclear overhaul that was at one time uncertain. Also, San Diego will have a new hull...

The United States is edging towards an historic agreement to swap crude oil with Mexico. The deal is important as it brings some relief to US producers struggling with a light oil glut at home and for Mexican national oil company, Pemex, which is hoping to mix the lighter crude coming out of US shale fields with its heavier blend. However, the arrangement is not just about the relationship between the US and Mexico. It’s also about broader North American energy integration. And critically, many experts see the deal as another crack in the US crude oil export ban. The...

There are a few potentially important details surrounding the timeline leading to Bowe Bergdahl’s release that might deserve some discussion. Truth Revolt supplies some details on the timeline: This week’s [the week of Bergdahl’s release] secret diplomacy was not the first time the U.S. government had engaged the Taliban in an effort to negotiate a prisoner swap for the release of Bergdahl. In 2011, State Department officials held a series of meetings with Taliban leaders in Doha. In Congress, there was bipartisan opposition to any release of Guantanamo prisoners. After the negotiations were made public in early 2012 by Sen....

Jordan has agreed to demands from ISIS that it release a female jihadist held since 2006, in a move that could free a Jordanian pilot captured in Syria last month and possibly a Japanese journalist who pleaded for his life in a video released by the terror group on Tuesday. Jordanian government spokesman Mohammed al-Momani said in a statement the nation was prepared to free Sajida al-Rishawi, who was convicted of taking part in a deadly hotel bombing, if the Jordanian pilot, Lt. Muath al-Kaseasbeh, is released unharmed. His comments were carried by Jordan's official Petra news agency. Although he...