A leader of Japan's Yakuza crime syndicate who tried to sell Iran weapons-grade plutonium has pleaded guilty to charges of trafficking narcotics, weapons and nuclear material.

The leader of a Japanese crime syndicate who was charged by U.S. authorities with trafficking nuclear materials from Myanmar pleaded guilty on Wednesday, the U.S. Justice Department said in a statement.

A Japanese Yakuza leader pleaded guilty in New York federal court to conspiring to traffic nuclear materials from Burma to other countries, prosecutors said. The Yakuza member Takeshi Ebisawa also pleaded guilty to international narcotics trafficking and weapons charges,

For weeks, Iranian officials have downplayed the fall of their ally in Syria. But an important general has offered a remarkably candid view of the blow to Iran, and its military’s prospects.

We were defeated and defeated very badly, we took a very big blow, and it’s been very difficult,” Esbati noted.

Italian journalist Cecilia Sala has arrived back in the country’s capital after being freed from an Iranian prison where she had spent weeks in detention.

An Italian journalist detained in Iran for three weeks has been freed and has returned home, after her fate had become intertwined with that of an Iranian engineer arrested in Italy and wanted by the United States.