serve, allowing mr assange to return to australia, his home country. i mjoined by return to australia, his home country. i m joined by our north american correspondence. looks like this long running saga could be coming to conclusion. us more. we received conclusion. us more. we received the conclusion. us more. - received the breaking news in the last couple of hours and there are so many layers to the julian assange story. to recap what you said there, it looks like he will be a free man at some point this week, striking a plea deal with the us. he spent the last five years in a high security prison, belmarsh prison, in the uk. remember, he has been long accused by the us of exposing sensitive secrets about the war in iraq and afghanistan through the wikileaks website, the whistleblowing website. and they claim it put american operatives in danger. and almost all the charges he faced, by the way, 18 charges, were under the 1917 espionage act. but he, now, this plea deal
talks in washington, i spoke to our north america correspondent peter bowes. these are very wide ranging discussions. mr galante is on a several day visit to the united states meeting his us counterpart in about 2k hours time. in the last few hours, focusing on his meeting with antony blinken. this issue of trying to avoid further escalation has certainly been uppermost in their discussions. and really avoiding escalation on two fronts, escalation of the war in gaza between israel and hamas, but also concern about the skirmishes that we have seen on the northern border with lebanon with his brother over the last few days. and there is very real concern that those skirmishes could turn into something more serious and escalate into a wider middle east conflict. we understand that antony blinken has been putting some pressure on mr gallant to seek some sort of diplomatic resolution to that situation on the northern border to see the return home of lebanese families. so concerns