Freed French hostages arrive home

Paris (CNN) -- Two French journalists held for 547 days in Afghanistan arrived home Thursday, stepping into the arms of relatives and friends after they landed at an airbase near Paris.

"This is the moment that we had dreamed about, imagined, fantasized about," said Herve Ghesquiere, one of the two journalists for France 3 Television.

Ghesquiere, co-worker Stephane Taponier and their interpreter Reza Din were captured on December 30, 2009.

The journalists said they had remained optimistic they would be freed throughout their ordeal.

They left Afghanistan on Wednesday evening aboard a French government plane, authorities said.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy thanked his Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai "for the management of this crisis and all those who participated in the liberation of the hostages."

The three were released Wednesday, and landed at an airbase near Paris a day later.

Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said France does not pay ransoms.

CNN affiliate France 2 asked Juppe whether he would reveal the information if a ransom had been paid.

"There are cases where the reason of state prevails over other considerations, and I think nothing should be done that would threaten the process of freeing other hostages," Juppe said.

Nine French hostages are being held in Africa and the Middle East, he said.

Taliban militants had threatened to kill the journalists if several demands were not met, including the release of a number of detainees held by France.

It was unclear whether the demands had been met, but French officials said their strategy in Afghanistan or elsewhere would not change.

CNN's Richard Greene and Alan Silverleib contributed to this report.

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Prominent Chinese dissident freed from jail (Reuters)

BEIJING, Jun (Reuters) – One of China's most prominent dissidents, Hu Jia, was reunited with his family early on Sunday after serving three-and-a-half-years in jail on subversion charges, but he needed rest and was not ready to speak in public, his wife said.

Hu, 37, was convicted in 2008 for "inciting subversion of state power" for criticizing human rights restrictions in China, and was seen by some supporters as a potential recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize before it went to another jailed Chinese dissident, Liu Xiaobo, last year.

"He is back home with his parents and me," his wife, Zeng Jinyan, told Reuters in a brief telephone interview.

"I don't know if he can speak later. At the moment, I want everything to be peaceful. I'm worried that doing interviews at this stage might cause problems. Please understand."

Hu's long-scheduled release followed this week's abrupt freeing from detention of the prominent artist and activist Ai Weiwei, and has come while Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao is visiting Europe on trips to Hungary, Britain and Germany.

Asked how Hu's health was, his mother, Feng Juan, said by telephone: "It's so so. He was in a very good mood. The first thing he did after coming home was to take a bath. Then he had a meal."

China's Communist Party has cracked down on dissent since February, responding to fears that uprisings across the Arab world could also inspire challenges to its one-party rule, especially ahead of a leadership succession late in 2012.

Many dissidents detained in that drive have been ordered by authorities to stay silent after their release. Hu's wife, Zeng, and other advocates have voiced concern that Chinese authorities might also impose restrictions on him amounting to house arrest after his formal release.

Zeng, a prominent activist in her own right, told Reuters in late May that she was worried by the trend of rights activists coming under informal house arrest after their release from formal detention or jail.

"If we are put under house arrest or disappear, I don't want our daughter to be with us when we endure life under house arrest," she said. "I have sent her to be with my relatives."

Zeng posted messages on Twitter, the micro-blogging site, describing harassment from authorities before Hu's release.

"A prohibition on contact with the media was a condition of Hu Jia's sentence, with the one year's deprivation of political rights on his release, and no doubt the authorities will remind him of that," said Phelim Kine, a researcher for Human Rights Watch, a New York-based advocacy group that has denounced the conviction of Hu and other Chinese dissidents.

"Given the current climate of oppression, he will be under extreme pressure to obey," Kine said by telephone.

ENERGETIC CAMPAIGNER

Hu and Zeng have live in an apartment complex in east Beijing called Bobo Freedom City. Many police officers and security guards patrolled the area on Sunday morning.

"A sleepless night and Hu Jia came home at 2:30. Peaceful. Very happy. Needs a period of time to recuperate," Zeng wrote in her latest Twitter entry in Chinese. Most Chinese people lack the know-how to read Twitter, which the government blocks with a censorship firewall.

Hu was detained in late 2007 and then tried and convicted in the following year on subversion charges that stemmed from criticism of the government he had made in Internet writings and interviews with foreign reporters.

China often uses the broad charge of "inciting subversion" to punish dissidents, and when Hu was convicted, state media said that he had bowed to the accusations against him.

Before he was jailed, Hu pursued an energetic career as an environmental protection campaigner, advocate for rural victims of AIDS, and vocal critic of China's restrictions on political dissent. Shaven-headed and wearing bookish spectacles, he was a familiar sight at activist gatherings in Beijing.

Hu is also a vegetarian and Buddhist who has criticized China's controls on that religion in Tibet and voiced sympathy for the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader reviled by Beijing.

Asked about Hu's future plans, Zeng said her husband studied law in prison and has no plans to move abroad.

"According to law, if you have any criminal record you cannot become a lawyer. But he is studying to gain more comprehensive knowledge," Zeng said in May.

"I think he has very clear and fixed ideas about the future, but we don't know what the conditions will be like (after he gets out) ... I think he will (focus) on rights defending."

(Additional reporting by Michael Martina and Benjamin Kang Lim; Editing by Sanjeev Miglani)

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China artist Ai Weiwei stays quiet after freed on bail (Reuters)

BEIJING (Reuters) – The dissident Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, whose detention in April ignited an international uproar, was released on bail Wednesday under conditions likely to keep the outspoken critic of Communist Party controls silent for now.

"I can't say anything more, because I'm on bail," Ai told reporters who had gathered outside his home after his release was reported by China's official Xinhua news agency.

His abrupt release came days before Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao heads to Europe, where Berlin and other capitals have been critical of Beijing's secretive detention of Ai and dozens of other rights advocates, lawyers and dissidents.

But the Chinese government cast its apparent backdown as a vindication of their controversial case. Xinhua said Ai was freed "because of his good attitude in confessing his crimes as well as a chronic disease he suffers from," citing the police.

A company that police said he controlled "was found to have evaded a huge amount of taxes and intentionally destroyed accounting documents, police said," according to Xinhua.

"The decision comes also in consideration of the fact that Ai has repeatedly said he is willing to pay the taxes he evaded," said the report.

Family members and supporters have said the outspoken 54-year-old artist was a victim of a crackdown on political dissent that intensified after overseas Chinese websites in February called for protests in China to emulate anti-authoritarian uprisings in the Arab world.

China's courts and police are firmly controlled by the ruling Communist Party, and it is unusual, but not unprecedented, for authorities to back away from a potential prosecution in a high-profile case like this.

"Without the wave of international support for Ai, and the popular expressions of dismay and disgust about the circumstances of his disappearance, it's highly unlikely the Chinese government would have released him," said Phelim Kine, a researcher with Human Rights Watch, a New York-based advocacy group.

The United States, Germany, Britain and other governments voiced concern about Ai's secretive detention without formal notification to his family. Chinese Premier Wen will visit Britain and Germany, as well as Hungary.

"I'm perfectly fine. My health is fine," Ai, notably thinner after his months in detention, said in brief comments to Britain's ITV news service. He thanked his supporters.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel's chief spokesman Steffen Seibert said she welcomed Ai's release. "Today's release on bail can only be a first step. Now the case against Ai WeiWei has to be cleared in a constitutional and transparent way," he added.

State Department spokesman Mark Toner also said Ai's release was welcome, adding: "But there's obviously more individuals who are being held, so we want to see the release of all these people."

RETURNED HOME, HEALTH OKAY

Ai (whose name is pronounced "Eye Way-way") was detained at Beijing airport on April 3, igniting an outcry about China's tightening grip on dissent, which has triggered the detention and arrest of dozens of rights activists and dissidents.

The bearded, burly contemporary artist was the most internationally well-known of those detained, and his family has repeatedly said that he was targeted by authorities for his outspoken criticism of censorship and Communist Party controls.

Amnesty International said Ai's release was an "important" but limited step, and urged Beijing to release other activists and dissidents held in the recent crackdown that has relied heavily on extra-judicial detentions.

"His release can be seen as a tokenistic move by the government to deflect mounting criticisms," said Catherine Baber, the Asia-Pacific deputy director for Amnesty, in emailed comments.

"It is vital that the international outcry over Ai Weiwei be extended to those activists still languishing in secret detention or charged with inciting subversion," she said.

In China, bail can be used to release suspects on condition that they do not break laws for a stipulated time, and that condition may discourage Ai from speaking out or resuming his campaigning against government targets.

"There are well-grounded concerns that the conditions for Ai Weiwei's release will be onerously restrictive," said Kine, the Human Rights Watch researcher.

The well-known British sculptor Anish Kapor said foreign artists should still not show their work in China for now.

"While I am thankful that he has been released, I do not think that artists should present their work in China until the situation has been resolved," he said in an emailed statement about Ai's release.

(Additional reporting by Paul Eckert in Washington; Writing by Sanjeev Miglani; Editing by Ron Popeski and Alistair Lyon)

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Kidnapped Bulgarians freed in Sudan

The three airmen were abducted in Darfur by armed men at a landing strip on January 13.Three men abducted on January 13 in Dafur have been freedThe captives were Bulgarian airmen working for the UN World Food ProgrammeThe World Food Programme regional director thanked the Sudanese government for its help

(CNN) -- Three Bulgarian airmen kidnapped in Sudan nearly five months ago have been freed, and appear to be in good health, the United Nations World Food Programme said in a news release Monday.

WFP Regional Director Amer Daoudi thanked the government of Sudan "for its tireless efforts in securing the release of the three men who... were working to help the most vulnerable people in Darfur," a region of Sudan blighted by civil war since 2003.

The WFP said it did not pay any ransom.

The three men were working for WFP's United Nations Humanitarian Air Service in Darfur when they were abducted by armed men at a landing strip on January 13.

The former captives will be flown to Khartoum, then back home to Bulgaria, the WFP said.

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Former IMF chief freed on bail

New York (CNN) -- The International Monetary Fund announced plans to select a new managing director after its former chief resigned and was confined to a New York apartment while awaiting a trial on sexual assault charges.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn was released on bail from a Rikers Island jail on Friday.

A private security guard will monitor Strauss-Kahn around the clock at his own expense during his stay at the Manhattan apartment, a source with knowledge of the bail agreement said.

Strauss-Kahn, who is accused of trying to rape a maid last week in his suite at the Sofitel hotel in New York, will stay with his wife, Anne Sinclair.

A two-bedroom apartment with nine-foot ceilings in the landmark 23-floor building with a doorman starts at $4,250 per month, according to a real estate website.

The rental application asks, "Do you or do any of your occupants have charges pending against you or against them for any criminal offense(s)?"

Strauss-Kahn does.

He faces two counts of criminal sexual act; two counts of sexual abuse; and one count each of attempt to commit rape, unlawful imprisonment and forcible touching.

In the charge of criminal sexual act in the first degree, Strauss-Kahn is accused of having "engaged in oral sexual conduct with an individual ... by forcible compulsion," an indictment states.

Supreme Court Judge Michael Obus ordered the release of the 62-year-old economist Friday over the objection of the prosecution, which said he is a flight risk.

While Strauss-Kahn is in the apartment, he will not be able to leave except for medical reasons, Obus said. Once he is in a longer-term location, the former banker must give six hours' notice before leaving.

Defense lawyer William Taylor alluded to Strauss-Kahn's reported failure to win approval to stay at another apartment in pleading Friday with members of the news media to grant his client privacy.

"The reason that he had to move is because members of the press attempted to invade his private residence and interfere with his family's privacy," Taylor said.

The conditions of Strauss-Kahn's release included he surrender his travel documents, submit to home detention, $1 million cash bail and $5 million bond. A document signed by bondsman Ira Judelson shows that the bond was secured by money from Sinclair.

Judelson would not divulge what Sinclair put up as collateral.

"I feel very comfortable with the bail package (and) the family is," Judelson told reporters. "I worked with them all last night on putting this together. They're good people."

On Friday, more details emerged about the alleged attack May 14 at the hotel.

A law enforcement source with knowledge of the case said a room service attendant entered the suite shortly before the 32-year-old Guinean maid arrived.

The room service attendant didn't think anyone was in the suite of rooms and used a pass key to let himself in to retrieve some room-service items, the source said. He told police he left the door ajar while inside, according to the source.

When the maid showed up at the door about noon, the room-service attendant told her to enter, then departed, the source said.

Once inside, the maid parked her cleaning cart in the doorway as dictated by hotel policy. A short time later, Strauss-Kahn emerged naked from a room and attacked her, the victim has alleged.

Prosecutors allege that Strauss-Kahn chased her through his suite, sexually assaulted her and tried to rape her.

A criminal complaint states Strauss-Kahn shut the door at one point during the alleged attack. The law enforcement source said the maid escaped about 1:30 p.m.

About an hour before his 4:40 p.m. flight was to take off from John F. Kennedy International Airport for Paris, Strauss-Kahn called the hotel to say he had left his cell phone. He asked security to look for it in his room and to have it delivered to the airport, the source said.

By then, police had been called to the hotel. Though hotel staff never found the phone, they followed police orders, telling Strauss-Kahn they had found it and would deliver it to him, the source said.

Port Authority police took over from there, walking a compliant Strauss-Kahn from his first-class seat to a squad car at the airport, the source said.

At the time, Strauss-Kahn was in the fourth year of a five-year term with the global financial institution and was paid $441,980 in 2010, according to the most recent annual report. He also got $79,000 and first-class travel for him and his family, while he was on company business.

On Friday, the IMF said that Strauss-Kahn will receive a $250,000 separation payment and a "modest annual pension" thereafter.

We don't disclose pension payments," IMF spokesman William Murray said. "But it is well below the separation payment figure."

The dean of the IMF executive board, Shakour Shaalan, announced Friday that the institution adopted a procedure to select its next managing director.

In a statement, Shaalan said the board will meet with final candidates in Washington "with the objective of completing the selection process by June 30, 2011."

Strauss-Kahn proclaimed innocence in a resignation letter to the IMF Executive Board late Wednesday.

"To all, I want to say that I deny with the greatest possible firmness all of the allegations that have been made against me," he said.

His next court appearance is set for June 6.

CNN's Susan Candiotti, Adam Reiss and Ross Levitt contributed to this report.

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Chinese lawyer freed, another missing

Teng Biao is freed after 70 days in custodySoon after his release, another lawyer is seized by unknown people "We've seen a serious backsliding in human rights," a top U.S. diplomat says

Beijing, China (CNN) -- Chinese authorities freed a prominent lawyer held for more than two months shortly after a U.S. official called for his release, a rights group said.

Teng Biao was released Friday after 70 days in custody, according to a U.S. Embassy spokesman.

China Human Rights Defenders also confirmed that he was no longer detained.

His release comes after two days of talks between the U.S. and China in Beijing.

"We've seen a serious backsliding in human rights," said Michael Posner, assistant U.S. secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labor.

During his meetings with Chinese officials, Posner highlighted the lawyer's case along with a host of other activists, artists and religious groups.

Posner said Thursday that relations between the United States and China could suffer as a result of the crackdown on activists following calls for a revolution in February.

However, celebration of his release was quickly muted when another lawyer was taken into custody soon after.

Li Fangping was seized by unidentified people while leaving an office building in Beijing and has been out of contact since then, according to China Human Rights Defenders.

Li has represented several high-profile individuals, including lawyer Chen Guangcheng, who remains under house arrest in Shangdong Province following his release from prison.

He also defended Zhao Lianhai, an outspoken food safety activist and parent of a child contaminated by melamine-tainted milk powder in 2008.

China Human Rights Defenders said Li told his wife by phone on Friday that "I may be gone for a period of time ... can't talk more."

Attempts to contact Li since then have gone unanswered.

"Releasing Dr. Teng is welcoming news, but China cannot continue to play this game of letting one go and taking another in if China wants to be seen as a responsible international partner," Bob Fu, founder of the nongovernmental organization China Aid, said in a statement.

Calls to Chinese officials for comment were not returned.

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Jury deliberates Barry Bonds' fate, while reluctant witness is freed

Barry Bonds is charged with lying under oath when he testified about his steroids use in 2003. STORY HIGHLIGHTSBonds' trainer is ordered freed two weeks after he refused to testifyThe jury was given the Bonds perjury case to decide Thursday afternoonThe baseball legend faces three perjury counts and an obstruction of justice chargeThe charges stem from a federal probe of athletes' steroid useRELATED TOPICSBarry BondsDrugs in SportsPerjury San Francisco (CNN) -- Barry Bonds' former trainer was freed Friday from the prison where he's been held since he refused to testify in the baseball legend's perjury trial two weeks ago.

With the jury now deliberating the perjury and obstruction of justice case against Bonds, U.S. District Judge Susan Illston ordered Gary Anderson to be released.

Illston found Anderson in contempt of court on the first day of trial testimony when his lawyer informed her that he would not take the stand to answer questions about Bonds' steroid use.

It was the third time Anderson chose jail time over testimony. He was sent to prison for several weeks twice before when he refused to appear before a federal grand jury investigating Bonds.

The absence of the trainer's testimony hampered the government's case against Bonds, who is charged with lying under oath when he testified about his steroids use in 2003 before the grand jury that was investigating an alleged sports doping scandal involving Anderson of the Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative.

Bonds, 46, allegedly lied about knowingly taking performance-enhancing drugs and about being injected by anyone but his doctors.

The jury of eight women and four men are deciding Bonds' fate in a San Francisco federal courthouse less than two miles from the ballpark where Bonds broke Hank Aaron's major league home run record in August 2007.

The three perjury counts and one count of obstruction of justice could each carry a 10-year prison sentence upon conviction. A fourth perjury charge was dropped by prosecutors Wednesday.

A prosecutor argued Thursday that Bonds lied because he knew the truth about his steroids use would "tinge his accomplishments" and hurt his career.

"His secret was so powerful that he couldn't admit it, wouldn't admit it," Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeff Nedrow said in his closing arguments.

Bonds' defense lawyer, during his closing arguments Thursday, asked jurors to acquit him because of a technical oversight by prosecutors -- an argument the government quickly rebutted.

The judge's instructions to the jury say Bonds can found be found guilty only if his lies could have affected the grand jury's decisions and that Bonds knew it, defense lawyer Allen Ruby said.

But none of the 25 prosecution witnesses presented evidence about what decisions the grand jury made or what they might have made, Ruby said. "Who told us about the grand jury at all?"

The Internal Revenue Service agent who started the federal investigation into the distribution of performance-enhancing drugs testified that Bonds' false testimony affected his work, but Agent Jeff Novitzky was not part of the grand jury, Ruby said.

"I know that this is a little technical," Ruby said. "I don't apologize for that. Every word of the law matters."

The judge also instructed jurors to rely only what they heard from witnesses in the trial and not use their prior knowledge of the grand jury process, he said. "The government is trusting you to do what you are forbidden to do, and fill in the gaps," Ruby said.

Prosecutor Matthew Parrella, in his rebuttal, said Novitzky's investigation and the grand jury probe were "one and the same."

The jury can also read the indictments the grand jury issued in 2004 and the grand jury transcript in which "the issues are fleshed out," Parrella said.

Ruby told jurors that Bonds acknowledged to the grand jury that he used the substances known as "the clear and the cream," but at the time of his testimony, even investigators didn't know what was in them.

Bonds told the grand jury he thought Anderson was giving him flaxseed oil, Ruby said.

Nedrow, in his closing, said it was "implausible" that Bonds would take drugs "and really not know what they were."

A urine sample given by Bonds in the summer of 2003, just months before his grand jury testimony, tested positive for anabolic steroids, he said. The defense argued there was another sample taken weeks earlier that tested negative for the drugs.

Defense lawyer Cristina Arguedas, in her part of closing arguments, accused prosecutors of ignoring crimes by witnesses in exchange for their testimony against Bonds. "They will forgive it if that person will say something bad about Barry Bonds," Arguedas said.

Bonds' former girlfriend, Kimberly Bell, testified for the prosecution that she witnessed physical and emotional changes in Bonds that the government argued were indications of steroids use.

Bell testified during the trial that she had committed perjury when she told the same grand jury in 2003 that she had not noticed Bonds' shrunken testicles.

Bell also admitted she had committed mortgage fraud by lying on a home loan application, Arguedas said.

During court testimony last month, Bonds' childhood friend Steve Hoskins, who worked for a decade as his assistant, said he tried to persuade Bonds to stop using anabolic steroids in 2000 and 2003.

Bonds' defense lawyer argued that Hoskins' cooperation with the government was motivated by bitterness over Bonds firing him and by a desire for protection from prosecution for allegedly stealing money from Bonds.

Prosecutors played an audio recording that Hoskins secretly made in the San Francisco Giants locker room of a conversation with Anderson about the hazards of steroid usage.

Bonds' defense attorney suggested that Hoskins made the recording only after Bonds dismissed him in March 2003. Hoskins acknowledged that he leaked the details of the recording to investigative reporter Lance Williams, who included it in his book about the scandal, "Game of Shadows."

While he never witnessed Bonds being injected with anabolic steroids, Hoskins said he saw Bonds and Anderson emerge from a bedroom with a syringe during spring training in 2000.

Bonds complained to him that year that steroid injections "were making his butt sore," Hoskins said.

In his 21-year major league career, Bonds also set the record for most home runs in a single season in 2001, when he hit 73. He did not officially retire after he was indicted, but he never played another game.

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Man accused of sex abuse to be freed

Outrage! UT Sex Offender Walks Free!STORY HIGHLIGHTSThe judge says he was following a Utah statuteJohnson has been diagnosed with a cognitive disorderHe faces numerous counts of sex offenses against childrenAlleged victim's mother says Johnson is faking a mental illness to avoid trial (CNN) -- A Utah judge has ordered a registered sex offender who faces nearly two dozen charges of child sex abuse released on the basis that he is mentally incompetent to stand trial.

At a hearing on Thursday, Fourth District Judge James Taylor, who previously ruled Lonnie Johnson incompetent to be tried on sex crime charges, said there were no legal grounds for holding him.

"We are at the end of the road...I can't do anything but have him released from the state hospital," Taylor said at Thursday's hearing.

Taylor said he was following a Utah statute requiring the release of anyone deemed incompetent to stand trial and who has not been convicted of a crime.

Johnson, 38, has been diagnosed with a cognitive disorder. Doctors who examined Johnson found his competency could not be restored. They also said he is not a danger to society and did not qualify for involuntary institutional commitment.

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Freed New York Times journalists reflect on captivity, risking lives

Journalists reflect on captors' crueltySTORY HIGHLIGHTSThe journalists believe their Libyan driver may have been killed by pro-Gadhafi forcesThey feel 'a huge responsibility' for the missing driverThe journalists have been reassessing how much risk is worth taking to get a storyThey say they realize how dehumanization of prisoners can lead to violence (CNN) -- The four New York Times staffers recently held captive for about a week by pro-Moammar Gadhafi troops made it out of Libya alive.

However, they're unsure if their driver, Mohammed, did. And the experience is forcing the seasoned war journalists to reconsider how they look at the world.

"We probably should have died those first 12 hours, given, you know, the intensity of the firefight and the positions we were in," Anthony Shadid told Anderson Cooper on CNN's "AC360."

But when Shadid and his colleagues Lynsey Addario, Stephen Farrell and Tyler Hicks emerged unscathed from the firefight, they fled right into the arms of their soon-to-be captors, who were manning a government checkpoint.

Mohammed got out of their vehicle at the checkpoint.

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