Skip to main content
Work with the NEU
World in brief: January 8, 2025
This image released December 27, 2024 by Chora Media shows Cecilia Sala, an Italian journalist who was detained on December 19 as she was reporting in Iran, Italy's foreign ministry said [Chora Media via AP]

ITALY: A journalist detained in Iran for three weeks was freed today and is heading home, Italian officials announced.

A plane carrying Cecilia Sala took off from Tehran after “intensive work on diplomatic and intelligence channels,” Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s office said.

Sala, a 29-year-old reporter for the Il Foglio daily, was detained in Tehran on December 19, three days after she arrived on a journalist visa. She was accused of violating the laws of the Islamic Republic, the official IRNA news agency said.

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
Similar stories
Iranian missiles in a temporary exhibition in front of the Azadi (Freedom) monument in Tehran, Iran, July 29, 2026
Middle East / 29 July 2026
29 July 2026
Iran
Book Review / 24 July 2026
24 July 2026

BRENT CUTLER searches a new history of contemporary Iran for an understanding of the Islamic Republic, finding both interesting detail and glaring omissions

US President Donald Trump and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni shake hands as they pose for a photo at the Sharm El Sheikh Peace Summit in Egypt, October 13, 2025
Eyes Wright / 16 July 2026
16 July 2026

NICK WRIGHT continues his series analysing the trends in European politics