News
Julian Assange Is Released From Prison After A US Plea Deal
The negotiations will be finalized in a US court in the North Mariana Islands on June 26.
Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder and former editor-in-chief, has been released from prison in the UK after agreeing to plead guilty to violating the US Espionage Act.
The WikiLeaks account on X, formerly Twitter, revealed the news after Assange was granted bail by the High Court in London. It also tweeted a video appearing to show Assange at London’s Stansted airport boarding a plane.
The controversial figure is expected to appear in a US courtroom in the Northern Mariana Islands on June 26 to finalize his plea deal with the US Justice Department. Prosecutors have recommended a sentence of 62 months, but as Assange has already spent over five years in a UK prison, he won’t be incarcerated in the US and will instead return to Australia — his country of citizenship — straight after legal proceedings.
Assange was editor-in-chief of the WikiLeaks website when it published classified information about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, uncovered by whistleblower Chelsea Manning, a former Army intelligence officer. By 2010, Sweden had issued an arrest warrant for Assange over sexual assault allegations by two women.
Also Read: Top Free AI Chatbots Available In The Middle East
After a warrant was issued for his arrest, Julian Assange sought asylum at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. He lived there for seven years until being evicted for “discourteous and aggressive behavior,” at which point he was arrested by London’s Metropolitan Police on behalf of the US government.
In WikiLeaks’ announcement of Assange’s release, it stated that he had left Belmarsh maximum security prison “after having spent 1,901 days there”. The organization added that the “global campaign” by “press freedom campaigners, legislators, and leaders from across the political spectrum” allowed “a long period of negotiations with the US Department of Justice” that led to the successful plea deal.
News
Visa’s Return To Syria Starts With A Test And A Bank In Lebanon
Foreign visitors will be the first users to benefit, but whether Syria’s own banks and cardholders follow is still an open question.
Visa is returning to Syria. Its first live international card transaction in the country was a test rather than a launch, and the milestone event ran through a Lebanese bank.
The acquirer (the bank on the merchant’s side of a card payment) was Fransabank Lebanon, with Paymera as the other named partner. Nadim Moujaes, who heads a Fransabank Group subsidiary, describes the test as both the culmination of “longstanding efforts to link Syria back to international payment networks” and “the first step in a larger path”.
Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa makes the first electronic payment in Syria using a @Visa card at a store in Damascus, following the lifting of US sanctions on Syria. pic.twitter.com/lpAN7nQ6Fc
— Tech Magazine (@TechMGZN) August 27, 2026
“We are excited to have successfully tested live transactions today as we plan to enable international visitors to use their Visa cards while in Syria,” says Leila Serhan, Visa’s senior vice president and group country manager for the North Africa, Levant and Pakistan region. Although a significant first step, that plan doesn’t come with a hard date for when a visitor’s card will work normally.
Mohammed Safwat Raslan, governor of the Central Bank of Syria, says the test paves the way for international card acceptance in Syria and that maintaining strong compliance, risk management and operational controls will remain essential. Serhan likewise stresses that Visa has worked within applicable legal, regulatory and compliance requirements. For a test transaction, it seems there was a great deal of attention paid to the rules, with the entire operation being carefully managed.
Also Read: Lebanon’s 5G Era Begins With 150 Stations And A $1M Budget
The test is the latest step in a sequence that began in December 2025, when Visa announced a strategic roadmap to support Syria’s integration into the global digital economy. In February 2026 it hosted its first industry gathering of banks, ecosystem partners and policymakers in Damascus and, the same month, signed an agreement with Syria’s Ministry of Communications and Information Technology in San Francisco.
Michel Kattouah, Paymera’s CEO, called the test “the return of international card acceptance,” but while that’s positive news, there’s no word yet on when a Syrian bank will issue a Visa card to a Syrian customer.
Visa’s Return To Syria Starts With A Test And A Bank In Lebanon
RØDE’s New DS3 Studio Arm Is Built For Heavier Creator Setups
Dubai Turns AI On Its Own Civil Service To Measure Productivity
Former Rockstar Director Dismisses GTA 6 Leaks As “Nothing Burger”
Qatar Airways Flies The World’s First Starlink-Equipped 787-9
Spotify Will Now Tell You If Your Favorite Artist Isn’t Real
Instagram Redraws Its Wordmark And The Internet Reads “Instagzam”
Anghami’s New Elite Program Starts With A Three-Decade Catalog
Qatar Is Getting Its First EV Plant, Built To Cope With Gulf Heat
Dubai’s aradus Wants AI To Run The Back Office Of Physical Trade
-
News3 weeks agoInstagram Redraws Its Wordmark And The Internet Reads “Instagzam”
-
News3 weeks agoAnghami’s New Elite Program Starts With A Three-Decade Catalog
-
News3 weeks agoQatar Is Getting Its First EV Plant, Built To Cope With Gulf Heat
-
News3 weeks agoDubai’s aradus Wants AI To Run The Back Office Of Physical Trade