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British-registered companies have facilitated North Korean efforts to evade international sanctions, according to an investigation by the London-based Royal United Services Institute. The report reveals how British companies are being used to operate cargo ships smuggling coal out of North Korea. Henry Ridgwell has more from London.
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The Irishman set to take over as the European Union’s top trade official on Monday urged the United States not to launch an economically damaging tariff war with the bloc over subsidies to Airbus and Boeing.The World Trade Organization ruled in May that Europe illegally subsidized Airbus, hurting U.S. competitor Boeing. The WTO is set shortly to allow President Donald Trump to slap tariffs worth billions of euros on European products — including wine, cheese and olives — in response. The EU has brought a similar case at the WTO accusing the U.S. government of illegally subsidizing Boeing, and a ruling in its favor is expected, but is still months off.”I would ask the United States to negotiate with us rather than having a tit-for-tat trade war that only does damage to both economies,” Phil Hogan told EU lawmakers at a hearing assessing his suitability for the post of EU trade commissioner. If endorsed by the European Parliament, he would take office along with the rest of the new European Commission team in November.Hogan said “it doesn’t make sense” for the Trump administration to launch a tariff war “seeing that they’re going to have to deal with the issue if it goes badly wrong for them on Boeing.””Europe has to stand up for itself as well, in terms of the products that we will identify in return,” he added.Trans-Atlantic trade tensions soared after Trump imposed tariffs of 25 percent on steel imports and 10 percent on imported aluminum from the EU last year. He said the move was to protect U.S. national security interests, but the Europeans claim it is simply protectionism and breaks global trade rules.In response, the EU introduced “rebalancing” tariffs on about 2.8 billion euros ($3 billion) worth of U.S. steel, agricultural and other products. Trump has also threatened to slap duties on European automakers.FILE – European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker holds a news conference at the EU Commission headquarters ahead of an informal meeting of EU leaders, Brussels, Belgium, May 7, 2019.In an attempt to head off a tariff war, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker traveled to Washington to meet Trump, and a sketchy and very limited trade deal on industrial products emerged. But little progress has been made, and both sides accuse each other of dragging their feet.Questioned by the lawmakers over how he would handle trans-Atlantic trade ties, Hogan said that “unfortunately we have not seen much movement on that agenda,” but, he insisted, “we must not lose sight of the big picture” given the huge volume of U.S.-EU trade.Before Trump came to office, the Europeans had been trying for three years to conclude a more wide-ranging Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Pact with the United States. The pact was meant to lift trade barriers between the world’s biggest trading partners, spark sorely-needed economic growth and create new jobs.Hogan also urged Washington to work with the Europeans on reforming the WTO, particularly its appellate body.”We need the U.S. at the WTO,” Hogan said, but he added that “we have no indication whatsoever from the United States that they are willing to work with the European Union or any other partner in order to deal with the reform that’s necessary.” 
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France will host a conference with Sudan’s international creditors to help Khartoum address debt issues as soon as the United States removes the country from its state-sponsored terrorism list, French President Emmanuel Macron said Monday.In efforts to stabilize the country and to repair an economy battered by years of U.S. sanctions and government mismanagement during Omar al-Bashir’s 30-year rule, Sudanese transition government led by Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok is holding talks with Washington to see Sudan withdrawn from the list.”As soon as the Americans make their decision, we will be able to restructure the debt together,” Macron said at a joint press conference with Hamdok in Paris.”I have decided that France will host an international conference with private and public international creditors,” he added.Macron provided no timeframe.”The precise timing of the conference will depend on the timing upon which sanctions are to be lifted,” Macron said.On the sidelines of a United Nations General Assembly last week, Hamdok expressed hope Sudan would reach an agreement with the United States “very soon.”Sudan has been unable to tap the International Monetary Fund and World Bank for support because the United States still lists the country as a state sponsor of terrorism.A senior U.S. official said in August that Washington would test the commitment of Sudan’s new transitional government to human rights, freedom of speech and humanitarian access before it agrees to remove the country from a list of state sponsors of terrorism.Macron said France had also planned for Hamdok to have a meeting in Paris on Sunday with one of Darfur’s rebel leaders, Abdel Wahid el-Nur.
 
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Italy’s coalition parties said on Monday they were in favor of reducing the minimum voting age to 16, in a move which analysts said would increase the electorate by about 1 million people.Italy would be the second EU country after Austria to lower the minimum age to participate in national elections below 18, according to the U.S. CIA’s “World Factbook.”Former Prime Minister Enrico Letta triggered the debate on Monday when he called for the voting age to be immediately lowered after young people flooded the streets of cities around the world to demand political action to counter climate change.”It is a way to tell those young people … that we take them seriously,” Letta, an academic and member of the co-ruling Democratic Party (PD), told daily newspaper la Repubblica.Currently Italians have to be 18 to elect representatives to the lower house of parliament and be 25 to vote in elections for the upper house, the Senate.His call was supported by PD chief Nicola Zingaretti and Luigi Di Maio, the leader of the other governing party, the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement.”Young people should be respected, listened to and put at the center of politics,” Di Maio wrote on Facebook.Several EU countries, including Germany and Scotland, allow 16-year-olds to vote in local elections, but Italy would be the first large European state to allow it in parliamentary elections.In Hungary, people can vote from age 16 if they are married, otherwise they have to wait until 18.Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, a technocrat close to 5-Star, welcomed the proposal and said it was now up to parliament to table a bill on the reform.”We still haven’t started discussing it in the government but we could do,” he said in an interview on Facebook.Lorenzo Pregliasco, head of polling and political analysis firm YouTrend, said 16- and 17-year-olds would make up some 2% of the electorate, or just over 1 million out of 50 million eligible voters.
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Dozens of journalists on Monday marched in Bosnia’s capital of Sarajevo after thugs forced a radio station to remove a story from its website.Protesters gathered outside the offices of soccer club Sarajevo and then walked through the city center, demanding better protection and tougher penalties for attacks on the press.Police detained two people over Friday’s incident when assailants who said they were soccer fans of the club threatened the staff of the radiosarajevo.ba news portal until they removed the news that a Sarajevo fan was convicted in Belarus of cocaine possession.The media outlet said the editor was kept in a “de facto hostage situation,” his family was also threatened and he was forced to “physically remove the text from the system.”The suspects are facing legal proceedings but have been allowed to remain out of prison, according to Bosnian media.”It is very hard to be a journalist in Bosnia and it’s getting harder and harder,” said Faruk Vele, one of the editors of the radiosarajevo.ba website. “We wish to say: State, protect us!”The Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, Dunja Mijatovic, praised Bosnia authorities for their “prompt reaction” following the incident.”It is important to give a clear signal that attacks against journalists are always attacks against democracy and will not be tolerated,” Mijatovic said Monday.   The soccer club has condemned the invasion. 
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Public pressure, including from famous faces in the Russian entertainment industry, has led to the release of a young actor in what observers say is a victory by civil society against state repression.  As Ricardo Marquina and Olga Pavlova report from Moscow, Russian authorities have, after massive street protests, overturned a three-and-a-half-year prison sentence for an actor accused, without substantial evidence, of assaulting a police officer. Steve Redisch narrates their story.
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Unseasonably cold and wet September weather didn’t deter thousands of protesters packing a central Moscow square on Sunday to voice their opposition to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Jamie Dettmer reports from the Russian capital.
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Pope Francis has met privately with an American Jesuit who has been attacked by conservative U.S. Catholics for reaching out to gays.The Vatican listed the audience with the Rev. James Martin among the pope’s activities Monday, in a clear sign that Francis wanted it publicized. The implicit message was a vote of confidence in Martin’s ministry.
 
Martin, author of “Building a Bridge,” a book about how the Catholic Church should reach out more to the LGBT community, has had several talks canceled in the United States because of pressure from conservative groups who oppose his advocacy.
 
In a tweet Monday, Martin said that during the 30-minute audience, he shared with Francis “the joys and hopes, and the griefs and anxieties, of LGBT Catholics and LGBT people worldwide.”  
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An expert monitoring a fast-moving glacier on the Italian side of the Mont Blanc massif says a small section has picked up speed and could break off in the coming days. 
Fabrizio Troilo, a glaciologist with the Safe Mountain Foundation, said Monday that the piece — measuring some 27,000 cubic meters (953,390 cubic feet) — is moving at 60 centimeters (23.6 inches) a day.
 
That is about twice as fast as a massive 250,000-cubic-meter (8,827,683-cubic feet) chunk that also risks breaking off from the Planpincieux glacier.
 
Troilo said the smaller piece “could collapse in the next days or week,” but that such collapses are annual events and would have no impact on the rest of the valley.
 
Experts say the increased melting rate has been linked to climate change.  
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High winds swept across parts of central Europe on Monday, leaving two people dead, disrupting transport and causing power outages for thousands of households.
 
Slovak police said a 14-year-old girl was killed by a fallen tree in Nitra, east of Bratislava, and an unspecified number of her fellow students were injured, one of them seriously.
 
In eastern Germany, police said a 41-year-old driver was killed when a tree fell on his car near the town of Wittenberg.
 
In the Czech Republic, some 30,000 households were without electricity, while fallen trees disrupted roads and train travel.
 
Long-distance lines from Berlin to Hamburg and Hannover, and to Stralsund in the country’s northeastern corner, were among those closed on Monday morning and then reopened. In southern Germany, a fallen tree forced the closure of the Nuremberg-Augsburg line.
 
Near Wolfsburg, between Hannover and Berlin, a high-speed train ran into a tree that had fallen on the tracks. The driver was slightly injured.
 
Strong winds were expected in northern and eastern Germany through Monday afternoon. Berlin’s two zoos were closed for the day because of a risk of falling branches, and animals brought indoors.
 
Near Dortmund in western Germany, the fire service used a boat and makeshift walkways to rescue sheep from a field flooded by heavy rain. News agency dpa reported that the field was submerged under as much as 2 meters (6.5 feet) of water, and that some animals died in the flooding. Around 200 were rescued.  
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Former French President Jacques Chirac was given full military honors on Monday as past and current world leaders gathered in Paris to attend his final service.On a mild, sunny morning, French President Emmanuel Macron cut a solemn figure as he presided over the ceremony near the site of Napoleon’s tomb in the courtyard of Les Invalides. A military band played the national anthem, “La Marseillaise,” before Macron inspected the troops. Chirac’s casket, covered with a Tricolor flag, was then carried to the center of the courtyard.
 
Macron, who did not speak, will also attend a memorial service at the Church of Saint-Sulpice in downtown Paris alongside dozens of French politicians and foreign officials, including Russian President Vladimir Putin, former U.S. President Bill Clinton, former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroder and Jordan’s King Abdallah II.
 
A private funeral will take place later at the Montparnasse cemetery.
 
A private family church service for Chirac was celebrated prior to the military tribute and a minute of silence was being held in schools and public buildings across the country Monday on France’s national day of mourning for its former leader.FILE – France’s President Jacques Chirac waves as he leaves a French citizenship naturalization ceremony in Tours, central France, June 29, 2006.A mainstay of French politics over four decades, Chirac served as Paris mayor, a lawmaker, prime minister and France’s president from 1995 to 2007. The last French head of state to complete two terms in office, Chirac died Thursday at age 86.
 
Known for championing the nation’s sense of its own grandeur, Chirac is being remembered fondly despite political failures and a 2011 corruption conviction from actions during his nearly two decades as mayor of Paris. As president from 1995-2007, he was a consummate global diplomat but failed to reform the French economy or defuse tensions between police and minority youths that exploded into riots across France in 2005.
 
Once nicknamed “Super Liar,” his popularity soared after he left office. Thousands of mourners paid him tribute Sunday at Les Invalides, where his body lay in state on the eve of the memorial service. Mourners also gathered early outside the Church of Saint-Sulpice ahead of Chirac’s final service.
 
“He was a great man who had an absolute fantastic class in all circumstances,” said one member of the public, Nadine Prevost. “He knew how to speak to everyone with a simplicity and a grandeur and that’s what made for the richness of his contact.”      
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