US Navy veteran got unexpected help while jailed in Iran
Washington, Sep 10: Michael White had only recently arrived in a grim Iranian jail when a curious fellow prisoner, an English-speaking Iranian, approached him in the courtyard for a conversation.
The American did not reveal much at first, but it was the beginning of an unlikely friendship between White, a Navy veteran imprisoned on spying charges he says were unfounded, and Mahdi Vatankhah, a young Iranian political activist whose positions on social issues had drawn his government’s ire.
As the men connected behind bars over a shared interest in politics and human rights, they developed a bond that proved vital for both.
Vatankhah, while in custody and after his release, helped White by providing White’s mother with crucial, firsthand accounts about her son’s status in prison and by passing along letters White had written while he was locked up. Once freed, White did not forget.
He pushed successfully this year for Vatankhah’s admission to the United States, allowing the men to be reunited last spring inside a Los Angeles airport, something neither could have envisioned when they first met in prison years earlier.
“He risked his life to get the information out for me when I was in the prison in Iran. He really, really did,” White said in an interview alongside Vatankhah. “I told him I would do everything I could in my power to get him here because I felt, one, that would be for his safety in his own life. And I also felt he could get a great contributing member of society here.”
This year, White received permission for Vatankhah to live temporarily in the US under a government program known as humanitarian parole, which allows people in for urgent humanitarian reasons or if there is a significant public benefit.
Vatankhah told AP he had dreamed about coming to the US ever since he could remember. When he landed, “It was like the best moment of my life. My whole life changed.”
White, 50, a Southern California native who spent 13 years in the Navy, was arrested in Iran in 2018 after traveling to the country to pursue a romantic relationship with a woman he met online. He was jailed on various charges, including espionage accusations that he calls bogus, as well as allegations of insulting Iran’s supreme leader. (AP)
Operation to extract American researcher from one of the world’s deepest caves advances to 700m
Taseli plateau (Turkey), Sep 10: Rescue teams on Sunday in Turkey successfully carried an American researcher up from the depth of a cave at 1040 metres to the 700-metre mark where he will rest at a base camp before they continue the taxing journey to the surface.
An experienced caver, Mark Dickey, 40, started vomiting on September 2 because of stomach bleeding while on an expedition with a handful of others in the Morca cave in southern Turkey’s Taurus Mountains, one of the deepest in the world, according to experts.
A rescue operation began on Saturday afternoon with doctors, paramedics and experienced cavers from across Europe rushing to help. They set up small medical base camps at various levels along the shaft, providing Dickey an opportunity to rest during the slow and arduous extrication.
“Mark was delivered to the campsite at -700 metres as of 03:24 local time (GMT+3). At this stage, he will set out again after resting and having the necessary treatments,” the Speleological Federation of Turkey wrote on its official account on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Turkish authorities said there are 190 personnel from eight countries taking part in the operation, 153 of them search and rescue experts.
The most challenging part of the rescue operation is widening the narrow cave passages to allow stretcher lines to pass through at low depths, Yusuf Ogrenecek of the speleological federation previously said.
The extraction is expected to take up to 10 days depending on his condition. (AP)