Gloria Blog

US law enforcement on Thursday raided two New York properties belonging to Russian billionaire Viktor Vekselberg, a close ally of President Vladimir Putin and the target of sanctions, NBC News reported. Federal agents and local police officers were spotted carrying boxes after they left an apartment in Manhattan’s lavish Park Avenue and a house in the Hamptons, an upscale vacation destination near New York City, according to the report. Both properties are linked to Vekselberg, NBC said, citing US Treasury documents. Authorities are also searching a property on Miami’s Fisher Island believed to be linked to Vekselberg, NBC reported. Vekselberg is the head of the Renova Group, a Moscow-based conglomerate, and one of several wealthy Russians who have been targeted by sanctions following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. The sanctions have frozen Vekselberg’s US assets and banned American companies from doing business with him and his companies. He is also being investigated by the US Justice...

Former Australian foreign minister Bob Carr called Monday for his country to demand the United States drop its prosecution of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. Britain last week approved the Australian’s extradition to the United States, where he could face life in prison over publishing secret military files. Assange’s lawyers have vowed to appeal. The long-running legal saga began in 2010 after WikiLeaks published more than 500,000 classified US documents about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Assange has been held on remand at a top-security jail in southeast London since 2019 for jumping bail in a previous case accusing him of sexual assault in Sweden. That case was dropped but he was not released on grounds he was a flight risk in the US extradition case. In an op-ed for the Sydney Morning Herald, Carr argued that Assange’s prosecution stood in sharp contrast to the US pardoning former military intelligence officer Chelsea Manning, who had leaked the secret files to WikiLeaks. RE...

UK Home Secretary Priti Patel has signed an order to extradite Julian Assange to the US to face espionage charges. The Wikileaks founder has been at the centre of a protracted legal fight for more than a decade. Next week marks 10 years since he took refuge at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London to avoid being extradited to the United States. A Home Office spokesperson said: “Under the Extradition Act 2003, the Secretary of State must sign an extradition order if there are no grounds to prohibit the order being made. Extradition requests are only sent to the Home Secretary once a judge decides it can proceed after considering various aspects of the case. “On 17 June, following consideration by both the Magistrates Court and High Court, the extradition of Mr Julian Assange to the US was ordered. Mr Assange retains the normal 14-day right to appeal. “In this case, the UK courts have not found that it would be oppressive, unjust or an abuse of process to extradite Mr Assange. Read More : ht...