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Iranian Nobel Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi on Thursday said she was permanently barred from leaving Iran, in a birthday message to her teenage twins who she has not seen for over a decade.Mohammadi, 53, had been in prison for over three years until her release in December last year for a limited period on medical leave.Her legal team has warned she could be re-arrested and sent back to jail at any time, and she is not able to leave the country.”I applied for a passport so I could come to you,” she said in a message to her twin children, Kiana and Ali Rahmani, marking their 19th birthday.But “the Islamic republic has issued and enforced two types of travel bans, including a ‘permanent travel ban’,” she said.Kiana and Ali live in Paris with their father and her husband Taghi Rahmani, also a prominent Iranian activist who endured long spells in jail.Mohammadi won the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of her two-decade fight for human rights in the Islamic republic and strongly backed the 2022-2023 protests sparked by the death in custody of Iranian Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini.The Iranian authorities “stamp the word ‘permanent’ on our documents, while they themselves live each day in fear of the fall that will inevitably come at the hands of the people of Iran”, she said in the message.It was not immediately clear when and under what circumstances the bans were issued.Her two children received the Nobel prize in Oslo on her behalf in 2023, and she has now not seen for them 11 years.Mohammadi, who was last arrested in November 2021, has spent much of the past decade behind bars.She has remained defiant outside jail, refusing, in video conference appearances at international events, to wear the headscarf that is obligatory for all women in the Islamic republic.Mohammadi has also regularly predicted the downfall of the clerical system that has ruled Iran since the 1979 Islamic revolution.

Lando Norris insisted Thursday he was feeling calm and composed ahead of the Qatar Grand Prix where he could win his first drivers’ world championship title.Unperturbed by the double disqualification of himself and McLaren team-mate and title rival Oscar Piastri in Las Vegas last weekend, the 26-year-old Briton told reporters he was completely at ease ahead of this weekend’s showdown. “I feel as relaxed now as I was before when I was 35 points behind and I feel the same when I’m 24 points ahead,” Norris said. “For now, that’s my strength. It feels the same to me now as before Mexico when I wasn’t leading and in Austin.”Norris, who needs only to out-score Piastri and defending four-time champion Max Verstappen of Red Bull by two points to win the title this weekend, made light of the pressures of expectation and the Dutchman’s fightback. “We’ve treated him as a threat the whole year even when he was a few more points behind,” he said of Verstappen, who was 104 points behind in the title race at the end of August, but is now level with Piastri — 24 behind Norris.”We treat him as a threat because we know what he’s capable of, we know what Red Bull is capable of — so therefore nothing changes now because he’s still the threat he’s always been through the whole year.”Norris conceded that his disqualification in Las Vegas had hurt, but said he and the team had dealt with it and moved on.”We all felt let down by the result and we were all disappointed, but actually I found it was quite easy to move on and have a few days off -– and then come into this weekend,” he explained.Piastri appeared to be equally calm, but made it very clear that as things stood he had no intention of abandoning his own bid for glory in favour of helping his McLaren team-mate. “We’ve had a very brief discussion on it and the answer is no,” the Australian said. “I’m still equal on points with Max and I’ve got a decent shot of still winning it if things go my way. So, yeah, that’s how we’ll play it.”McLaren team chief Andrea Stella explained that the disqualification of both cars, for excessive wear of the skid blocks, was a result of an unexpected level of “porpoising… exacerbated by the conditions” in Nevada. “We knew we were having a lot more issues than we ever expected during the race,” Norris said. “Maybe it would have hurt more if we won the race, but we didn’t so it doesn’t change anything… There’s no point being too sad about it.”I’m excited to go again this weekend. It doesn’t change anything. I want to try and win here in Qatar and to win in Abu Dhabi. It sucks, but that’s life sometimes.”

Pope Leo XIV began a four-day visit to Turkey on Thursday, urging Ankara to embrace its role as a mediator in a world gripped by conflict after talks with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.”Mr President, may Turkey be a source of stability and rapprochement between peoples, in service of a just and lasting peace,” he said in the capital as he began the first overseas trip of his papacy.”Today more than ever, we need people who will promote dialogue and practice it, with firm will and patient resolve,” said Leo, in a nod to Turkey’s growing role in conflict-resolution efforts in Gaza, Ukraine and beyond. Elected in May as the leader of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics, the 70-year-old pontiff landed in Ankara shortly after 12:20 pm (0920 GMT) on a trip that will also take him to Istanbul and the ancient city of Iznik before heading to Lebanon on Sunday. “I have very much been looking forward to this trip because of what it means for all Christians, but it is also a great message to the whole world,” he told reporters on board his plane, describing it as a “historic moment”. A tight cordon of security meant the papal convoy swept through nearly empty streets en route to the vast mausoleum dedicated to the founder of modern Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, where Leo paid his respects. He then headed to the sprawling presidential complex for talks with Erdogan, who is seen as a key player for peace efforts in a region fraught with conflict. “This land is inextricably linked to the origins of Christianity, and today it beckons the children of Abraham and all humanity to a fraternity that recognises and appreciates differences,” he said. Hailing Turkey’s “special role” as a bridge between East and West, Asia and Europe, he described it as a “crossroads of sensibilities” that was richer for its “internal diversity”.”Uniformity would be an impoverishment. Indeed, a society is alive if it has a plurality,” he said in a country that counts some 100,000 Christians among a population of 86 million, mostly Sunni Muslims. “Christians desire to contribute positively to the unity of your country. They are — and they feel — part of Turkish identity.”- ‘A source of enrichment’ -Ahead of Leo’s speech, which was in his native English, a choir dressed in embroidered robes accompanied by traditional Turkish instruments sang a host of spiritual songs in English and Turkish. Giving the first address, Erdogan insisted Turkey was a country that “would not allow even a single one of our people to be subjected to discrimination”. “We do not consider cultural, religious, and ethnic differences a source of division, but rather a source of enrichment,” he said. He also hailed Leo’s stance on “the Palestinian cause” and called for “justice” for the Palestinian people.”As the human family, our greatest debt to the Palestinian people is justice. The way to repay this debt is to implement the two-state solution as soon as possible.”Friday’s calendar will take on a more religious aspect with the celebration in Iznik of the 1,700th anniversary of the First Council of Nicaea, a gathering of bishops in the year 325 that resulted in a statement of faith still central to Christianity.Invited by the Patriarch of Constantinople, Bartholomew I, leader of the world’s Orthodox Christians, Leo will join an ecumenical prayer service on the shores of Lake Iznik.The pope’s trip comes as the Orthodox world appears more fragmented than ever, with the war in Ukraine accelerating the split between the Moscow and Constantinople patriarchates.The pope is the fifth pontiff to visit Turkey, after Paul VI in 1967, John Paul II in 1979, Benedict XVI in 2006 and Francis in 2014.On Sunday, Leo will head to religiously diverse Lebanon, a nation that has been crushed by a devastating economic and political crisis since 2019 and which has been the target of repeated bombings by Israel in recent days, despite a ceasefire.burs-hmw/rh