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An alliance of human right organizations says nine Sudanese people have filed a criminal complaint against French bank BNP Paribas for alleged complicity in crimes against humanity, torture, and genocide during the conflict in Sudan’s Darfur region.The International Federation for Human Rights said the complaint filed Thursday in Paris marks “the first attempt” to hold the bank responsible for its alleged role in giving Sudanese authorities access to international money markets from at least 2002 to 2008.
 
The Sudanese government, military and militias were accused of committing crimes against humanity in response to a rebellion that started in 2003.
 
Former President Omar al-Bashir is wanted by the International Criminal Court on war crimes and genocide charges linked to the Darfur conflict.  
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Prince Andrew and his former wife Sarah Ferguson have announced the engagement of their elder daughter, Princess Beatrice.They said Thursday that Beatrice is engaged to Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi, a real estate entrepreneur. The 31-year-old princess is a granddaughter of Queen Elizabeth II.
 
Buckingham Palace says the couple became engaged in Italy earlier this month. The wedding will take place in 2020.”We are both so excited to be embarking on this life adventure together and can’t wait to actually be married,” the couple said.Andrew and Sarah, who remain on good terms despite their 1996 divorce, said in a statement they are “thrilled” with the engagement.”We send them every good wish for a wonderful family future,” they said.They said they are “the lucky parents of a wonderful daughter who has found her love and companion in a completely devoted friend and loyal young man.”Their younger daughter, Princess Eugenie, married Jack Brooksbank last year.
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Jacques Chirac, a two-term French president who was the first leader to acknowledge France’s role in the Holocaust and defiantly opposed the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, died Thursday at age 86.
His son-in-law Frederic Salat-Baroux told The Associated Press that Chirac died “peacefully, among his loved ones.” He did not give a cause of death, though Chirac had had repeated health problems since leaving office in 2007.
 
Chirac was long the standard-bearer of France’s conservative right, and mayor of Paris for nearly two decades. He was nicknamed “Le Bulldozer” early in his career for his determination and ambition. As president from 1995-2007 he was a consummate global diplomat but failed to reform the economy or defuse tensions between police and minority youths that exploded into riots across France in 2005.
 
Yet Chirac showed courage and statesmanship during his presidency.
 
In what may have been his finest hour, France’s last leader with memories of World War II crushed the myth of his nation’s innocence in the persecution of Jews and their deportation during the Holocaust when he acknowledged France’s part.
 
 “Yes, the criminal folly of the occupiers was seconded by the French, by the French state,” he said on July 16, 1995. “France, the land of the Enlightenment and human rights … delivered those it protects to their executioners.”
 
With words less grand, the man who embraced European unity — once calling it an “art” — raged at the French ahead of their “no” vote in a 2005 referendum on the European constitution meant to fortify the EU.  “If you want to shoot yourself in the foot, do it, but after don’t complain,” he said. “It’s stupid, I’m telling you.” He was personally and politically humiliated by the defeat.
 
His popularity didn’t fully recover until after he left office in 2007, handing power to protege-turned-rival Nicolas Sarkozy.
 
Chirac ultimately became one of the French’s favorite political figures, often praised for his down-to-earth human touch rather than his political achievements.
 
In his 40 years in public life, Chirac was derided by critics as opportunistic and impulsive. But as president, he embodied the fierce independence so treasured in France: He championed the United Nations and multipolarism as a counterweight to U.S. global dominance, and defended agricultural subsidies over protests by the European Union.
 
Chirac was also remembered for another trait valued by the French: style.
 
Tall, dapper and charming, Chirac was a well-bred bon vivant who openly enjoyed the trappings of power: luxury trips abroad and life in a government-owned palace. His slicked-back hair and ski-slope nose were favorites of political cartoonists.
 
Yet he retained a common touch that worked wonders on the campaign trail, exuding warmth when kissing babies and enthusiasm when farmers — a key constituency — displayed their tractors. His preferences were for western movies and beer — and “tete de veau,” calf’s head.
 
After two failed attempts, Chirac won the presidency in 1995, ending 14 years of Socialist rule. But his government quickly fell out of favor and parliamentary elections in 1997 forced him to share power with Socialist Prime Minister Lionel Jospin.
 
The pendulum swung the other way during Chirac’s re-election bid in 2002, when far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen took a surprise second place behind Chirac in first-round voting. In a rare show of unity, the moderate right and the left united behind Chirac, and he crushed le Pen with 82 percent of the vote in the runoff.
 
 “By thwarting extremism, the French have just confirmed, reaffirmed with force, their attachment to a democratic tradition, liberty and engagement in Europe,” Chirac enthused at his second inauguration.
 
Later that year, an extreme right militant shot at Chirac — and missed — during a Bastille Day parade in 2002. Inspecting troops, the president was unaware of the drama.
 
While he had won a convincing mandate for his anti-crime, pro-Europe agenda at home, Chirac’s outspoken opposition to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 rocked relations with France’s top ally, and the clash weakened the Atlantic alliance.
 
Angry Americans poured Bordeaux wine into the gutter and restaurants renamed French fries “freedom fries” in retaliation.
 
The United States invaded anyway, yet Chirac gained international support from other war critics.
 
Troubles over Iraq aside, Chirac was often seen as the consummate diplomat. He cultivated ties with leaders across the Middle East and Africa. He was the first head of state to meet with U.S. President George W. Bush after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Chirac was greeted by adulating crowds on a 2003 trip to Algeria, where he once battled Algerians fighting for independence from France.
 
At home, myriad scandals dogged Chirac, including allegations of misuse of funds and kickbacks during his time as Paris mayor.
 
He was formally charged in 2007 after he left office as president, losing immunity from prosecution. In 2011, he was found guilty of misuse of public money, breach of trust and illegal conflict of interest and given a two-year suspended jail sentence.
 
He did not attend the trial. His lawyers explained he was suffering severe memory lapses, possibly related to a stroke. While still president in 2005, Chirac suffered a stroke that put him in the hospital for a week. He had a pacemaker inserted in 2008.
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An immense mass of black smoke is rising over Normandy as firefighters battle a blaze Thursday at a chemical plant, and authorities closed schools in 11 surrounding towns and asked residents to stay indoors.The fire poses a pollution risk for the nearby Seine River, the government’s top official for the region said Thursday, according to the French news service AFP.“We’re still fighting the blaze, with the risk that pollution could spill into the Seine if retention ponds overflow,” Pierre-Andre Durand told journalists.No injuries have been reported and French Interior Minister Christophe Castaner said on RTL radio “there is no element that could lead us to believe that the smoke is dangerous.”But authorities are taking precautionary measures and carrying out air quality tests as about 200 firefighters work to extinguish the fire.The administration for the Seine-Maritime region urged people to avoid non-essential travel in the area after the fire alarm rang at the Lubrizol plant in Rouen early Thursday. The Interior Ministry tweeted that schools and nurseries in the area have been closed, and residents in nursing homes are being confined.A policeman stands on a blocked road in Le Petit-Quevilly on September 26, 2019 as smoke billows from a Lubrizol factory classified Seveso high-threshold site on fire in Rouen. Residents of twelve towns including Rouen have been asked to stay at…Images showed bursts of orange flames and the sounds of repeated explosions from the plant overnight. The site was still spewing huge plumes of black smoke midmorning, with bursts of flames still visible as sirens sounded over and over.The cause of the fire is being investigated.The plant produces additives for lubricants and paint, and pledges on its website “to lead all activities in full security for people and goods while preserving the natural environment.” The company didn’t comment on the fire.It is among many industrial sites around Europe required to have additional security measures it handles dangerous substances.
 
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British car production increased by an annual 3.3% in August, the first rise in 15 months, helped by several factories having moved their summertime shutdowns to April in preparation for the original Brexit date, an industry body said Thursday.MW, Peugeot, Honda and Jaguar Land Rover all closed factories ranging from a few days to four weeks in April over concerns that Britain’s scheduled departure from the European Union in March could lead to disruption, including delays to the arrival of parts.The move led to a 44.5% decline in output in April, according to the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) and ended up being in vain as Brexit was eventually pushed back to the end of October.August saw a small bounce back with output rising 3.3% to 92,158 cars, helped by a 15.2% increase in domestic demand, data showed.“Today’s figures mask the underlying downward trend and strengthening global headwinds facing the sector, including international trade tensions, massive technological upheaval and, in the UK, political and economic uncertainty,” said SMMT Chief Executive Mike Hawes.“We now need parliament and government to redouble efforts to get a deal that maintains free and frictionless trade.”
 
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The woman who launched France’s #MeToo movement against sexual harassment has been ordered to pay damages to the man she accused of harassment.A Paris court on Wednesday ruled that journalist Sandra Muller must pay TV executive Eric Brion $22,000 for defaming him.In 2017, at the height of the global push against sexual harassment, Muller tweeted her accusation using the hashtag #balancetonporc, which roughly translates to “squeal on your pig.”Brion’s lawyers had argued that his inappropriate comments to Muller were an attempt at flirting during a party, not harassment and that he had apologized for them.The court on Wednesday also ordered Muller to delete her tweet and replace it with the statement of the court.Muller said the court’s decision sends a message to victims: “Be quiet.”  She said she will appeal the ruling.Muller’s lawyer said the decision also sends a message to men in France.  “If they only do it one time, it will be excused by the court,” Francis Szpiner said.Brion hailed the ruling on Twitter as a “victory of true justice.’’
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On Sept. 24, in Washington, Speaker Nancy Pelosi stepped up to a podium and announced that the U.S. House of Representatives would start formal impeachment procedures against President Donald Trump, accusing him of betraying his oath of office and national security by pressing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to investigate a political rival.Meanwhile, more than 8,000 kilometers to the east, Alina Kosse was sheltered inside her bullet-riddled cottage in the eastern Ukrainian town of Mariyinka, where government forces were engaged in a firefight with Russia-backed separatists.Mariyinka has been largely destroyed in the war that erupted in 2014, after Russia seized Crimea and fomented separatism following the ouster of a Moscow-friendly president in Kyiv, and most of its residents have fled. The front line runs through its center. There is no running water, electricity is spotty, and food is scarce.A White House-released rough transcript of President Donald Trump’s July 25, 2019 telephone conversation with Ukraine’s newly elected president Volodymyr Zelenskiy, released Sept. 25, 2019.So the last thing on Kosse’s mind — and on the minds of the few hundred people left in town, she said — was the political scandal gripping Washington, even if it centers around Ukraine and its new president.”People here aren’t talking about it at all,” she told RFE/RL by phone, adding that a soldier had been killed in action overnight. “You can’t spread this on bread. We are only interested in what can be put in our stomach. People are interested in cheap potatoes.”Even if Kosse had been watching any of the various Ukrainian news reports aired that night — assuming she could hear the presenter’s words over the din of automatic weapons fire and shelling she said was endless — she would not have seen that Democrats had taken the extraordinary step of launching a process that could unseat the U.S. president.While the impeachment debate has been plastered across the front pages of every newspaper and led every evening news program in the United States for days, in Ukraine there has been little coverage of it.Other challengesLead stories on major news sites on Sept. 24 included news about the new chief of the National Police, the Cabinet of Ministers sending to parliament a bill on land sales, and an e-ticket system for public transport in Kyiv.Ukrainians who spoke to RFE/RL for this story said that conversations around their dinner tables and workplace water coolers — or the equivalent — have continued to center mostly on everyday life and domestic issues.FILE – Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy attends a luncheon for world leaders at the 74th session of the United Nations General Assembly at U.N. headquarters in New York, Sept. 24, 2019.Their country faces huge challenges as it tries to implement reforms, jump-start the economy, and stave off what Zelenskiy, in remarks in a U.N. speech, called Russia’s war on Ukraine.Zelenskiy, who defeated former President Petro Poroshenko in an April runoff with 70 percent of the vote, has promised to tackle these issues head-on.Those who have followed the Ukraine-focused drama in Washington tend to come from the political elite, and their silence may have substantial motivation. Pressure from Trump and his allies to probe the actions of former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden and a Ukrainian company that had Biden’s son Hunter on its board have forced them to walk a political tightrope.Trump and his allies accuse Joe Biden, who is seeking the Democratic nomination to challenge the incumbent in 2020, of using his clout to help the company Burisma — which was paying Biden’s son Hunter, who was on its board of directors — avoid damage from a criminal investigation by pushing for the dismissal of Ukraine’s chief prosecutor, who was fired in March 2016.’I know the essence of it’Ukrainian officials and anti-corruption activists contend that the Burisma probe had long been dormant at the time and that the prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, had in fact been the biggest obstacle standing in the way of the investigation.”My first reaction was, ‘Well, OK,'” Anna Dotsenko, a Kyiv resident who works in television production, said about the scandal in Washington that Zelenskiy has been caught up in. The Ukrainian president was potentially thrust deeper into it on Sept. 25 when the White House released a memorandum of a phone call that Trump and Zelenskiy held two months earlier.FILE – President Donald Trump delivers remarks to the 74th session of the United Nations General Assembly, in New York, Sept. 24, 2019.Olha Ivanova, a charity worker in the capital, said she knows about the news but has not followed it closely.”I know the essence of it and I am curious [about] what will happen now,” she said. “It looks like a very American scandal, where we are just unfortunate victims due to the will of the U.S. establishment and mistakes or certain political interests of a few Ukrainian officials.”Kristina Berdynskykh, a reporter for Novoye Vremya, a Ukrainian news magazine, said “Ukrainian media don’t pay attention to this topic, since it is obvious that Zelenskiy is not the most important person in this story — Trump is.”Ukrainian readers, she added, “think that this is the internal business of the Americans.”Many agree. Halyna Odnoroh, a civic activist in the Azov Sea city of Mariupol, which sits 20 kilometers from the front line of the war and found itself at the center of a major geopolitical firefight last year, when Russian border guard and security service boats attacked Ukrainian Navy vessels near the Kerch Strait, said, “the problem is between Congress and the president.””We were drawn into this problem,” she added.Katya Gorchinskaya, a former CEO of the independent Hromadske TV news outlet, suggests that is the wrong way to look at it.”Almost nobody [in Ukraine] understands the geopolitical consequences and significance of Ukraine being dragged into American politics,” she said. “They don’t understand the short-term and long-term effects that could come from this.”But some say they do understand the stakes.Odnoroh said now that Ukraine has been thrust into the middle of a major political drama, “we need to try to get the most out of it.””Attention is always good,” she said. “The more [people in the West] talk about Ukraine, the greater the chance of people seeing how Russia is violating us.”Still, others would have preferred to stay out of the spotlight altogether.A Kyiv barista, so nervous about having his name published in the media that he asked for anonymity to speak openly to this reporter, wondered what would have happened “if Zelenskiy hadn’t picked up the phone.”
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After two days of intense negotiations, the Universal Postal Union has reached a compromise agreement on mailing rates that has averted a threatened walkout by the United States, which could have caused a major disruption to the global postal system. The United States declared victory in the UPU’s “Extraordinary Congress,” saying it got what it wanted. The head of the U.S. delegation, Peter Navarro, said member countries unanimously approved the adoption of a comprehensive set of reforms based on the U.S. proposal. 
 
Navarro, who is the director of trade and manufacturing policy at the White House, said the measure lets the United States immediately self-declare its postal rates, thereby covering the costs of bulky letters and small parcels sent from abroad. FILE – U.S. White House trade adviser Peter Navarro speaks during an interview at the White House in Washington, Sept. 11, 2019.Major savings seen
 
Navarro called this a big deal.  
 
“The U.S. got immediate self-declared rates that saves us a half a billion dollars,” he  said. “It eliminates market distortions.  It creates tens of thousands of jobs for America.  It also helps our friends and allies, and other nations — Norway, Finland, Brazil — who are getting hammered by this situation. It allows them in a multispeed option to get to that path.”  
 
UPU Secretary-General Bishar Hussein said the deal would not kick in until July 1, 2020, for the U.S., when the American self-declared rates will go into effect.  For other member states, he said, the new postal rate system will begin in January 2021. 
 
Once a country declares its rates, he said, the exporting country will have to factor in that cost.  This, he said, means that cost will be transferred to the person who is mailing that item. Global impact
 
“When you are in a country and you buy items overseas, the end customer will definitely have to get a higher price, because it is not the old price which is in force now,” Hussein said. “So, I have no doubt in my mind that it will have a financial impact, or rather an impact, on the customers globally.”  
 
Hussein said the negotiations were intense, tough and at times worrisome.  But in the end, he said, countries agreed on a compromise that maintains the UPU as a strong, well-functioning organization.  He said no country got everything it wanted.  But he noted that no country walked out. 
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As lawmakers from Britain’s main Labour opposition party crowded around televisions in the coastal town of Brighton, where they’re holding their annual conference, there was an audible collective intake of breath.The historic judgment Tuesday by Britain’s Supreme Court, in which all 11 judges deemed unlawful Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s five-week suspension of the country’s parliament, was something they had hoped for, but had not dared to expect.After the chief justice of the London-based court, Lady Hale, delivered the unanimous verdict declaring the suspension of parliament “unlawful, void and of no effect,” the lawmakers started hitting their cellphones, exchanging text messages and talking excitedly on them as they plotted the next steps in blocking Britain from leaving the European Union without a deal by the prime minister’s deadline of Oct. 31.  Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson leaves Downing Street in London, Britain, Sept. 25, 2019.”The prime minister needs to consider his position,” said senior Labour lawmaker Keir Starmer. “He needs to come to parliament straight away and make a statement so we can question him.”Labour’s leader Jeremy Corbyn has called for Johnson to resign, arguing he lied to the Queen to secure her assent for the suspension, known as a prorogation.Brexit has bent British politics out of all recognizable shape, shattering the delicate balance of power shared between Parliament, the courts and the Crown, as represented by the government, say analysts.The country’s storied parties are fracturing, new ones are emerging. Parliament has been pitched into an open confrontation with a pro-Brexit minority Conservative government, grabbing power from the executive to control the legislative agenda of the House of Commons.The country’s monarch has been dragged into the mire of partisan politics.Judges and politicsAnd in the political chaos thrown up by Brexit, the judges have entered deeper into the realm of politics than they have done before in modern times to try to get some order. Many of the conventions guiding British politics have been eroded — including whether a prime minister has the clear authority to secure a suspension of parliament without judicial oversight.Britain’s Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn speaks at the parliament in London, Britain, Sept. 25, 2019, in this screen grab taken from video.The court Tuesday found in favor of Johnson’s opponents, who argued the beleaguered prime minister exceeded his authority by suspending parliament to avoid scrutiny of his Brexit plans and to avoid being blocked by the House of Commons from taking Britain out of the EU without a deal with Brussels.But one of the biggest ironies, say analysts, has been the role reversal by the two main parties — Labour and the Conservatives — when it comes to the overriding sovereign importance of parliament and the rights of lawmakers.Britain’s Conservatives have traditionally been seen as solid defenders of parliamentary democracy; Labour all too often, especially its left wing, which now controls the party leadership, has frequently prioritized the rights of the people and the working class not only over a sitting government but over the House of Commons, the bedrock of Britain’s representative democracy.Corbyn and his deputies, as well as his tight-knit team of advisers, have at various times called for civil disobedience and extra-parliamentary direct action, notably during the 1984-85 miners’ strike, a major industrial action to try to prevent Margaret Thatcher from shuttering loss-making collieries. And during 1980s agitation over the basing of U.S. intermediate nuclear missiles in Britain at the height of the Cold War, they urged direct action.In the past the current Labour leadership, which this week in Brighton unveiled a package of proposals that would see the abolition of private schools and a huge expropriation of company stocks, has made no secret of its fear that parliament could impede a future Labour government bringing about a socialist transformation.British Labour MP John McDonnell speaks during the Labour party annual conference in Brighton, Britain, Sept. 23, 2019.Just eight years ago John McDonnell, Labour’s shadow chancellor of the exchequer, urged anti-austerity agitators at a “Unite the Resistance” rally that he wanted to see a situation where “no Tory MP can travel anywhere in the country or show their face in public without being challenged by direct action.” He added: “Any institution or any individual that attacks our [working] class, we will come for you with direct action.”Immediately after the 2017 general election, which the Conservatives won but with a much reduced parliamentary majority, McDonnell said “a million people should take to the streets to force Theresa May from power.” McDonnell and Corbyn have praised Venezuela’s socialist policies and have been vocal supporters of Nicolas Maduro and his predecessor Hugo Chavez. In a televised phone conversation in 2014, Corbyn congratulated Maduro on his election in a poll widely seen internationally as rigged.But on Tuesday, hours after the court ruling, Corbyn rushed on to the stage at his party’s conference, and condemned Johnson for being “part of an elite that disdains democracy.” He added: “The democracy that Boris Johnson describes as a rigmarole will not be stifled.”He said the country needed “a government that respects democracy, that respects the rule of law.”‘Constitutional coup’On the Conservative side of the political aisle, the talk is now of a “constitutional coup” by the judges and fury at what they see as a conspiracy by parliamentarians and the courts to thwart the “will of the people,” expressed in the 2016 Brexit referendum in which a slim majority of voters backed relinquishing EU membership.”The normal rules of political gravity have been suspended by the referendum,” opined the Daily Telegraph. The pro-Conservative newspaper dubbed Johnson the champion of the people against an establishment determined to stop Brexit.Anti-Brexit protesters hold flags outside the Houses of Parliament in London, Britain, Sept. 25, 2019.It is a view shared by pro-Brexit Tory MPs, who argue the plebiscite gave the government the authority to supersede parliament and that the court decision marks the most brazen encroachment into politics, a seminal arrogation by the judges of power.Senior governments accuse the Supreme Court of making a “serious mistake,” sounding more like Labour lawmakers in the 1980s when they fulminated against the courts for finding in favor of the Thatcher government’s legislative restrictions on the trade unions.The role reversal has many a commentator blinking.Writing Wednesday in The Times, columnist Daniel Finkelstein, a onetime adviser to former Conservative prime minister David Cameron, noted: “For a Conservative government to find its actions revoked and reversed by the highest court, for it to have to be reminded by judges of its constitutional and political duty, and for it to have given advice to the Queen which has been found unlawful, is a calamity.”He added, “The whole point of Conservative government is to provide an executive aware of its limitations and sensitive to the dangers of over-reaching them. Conservatives emphasize the value of unwritten conventions by treating those rules and traditions with the greatest respect. … Without these things, what is the point of Conservatives and what is the value of Conservatism?”Some moderate Conservatives and lawyers have urged hardline Brexiters to tone down their criticism of the judges and of parliament, arguing they should welcome Tuesday’s judgment as judicial independence and parliamentary sovereignty could also curb Jeremy Corbyn if he wins an election likely to be called soon. 
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Due to climate change, the world’s oceans are getting warmer, rising higher, losing oxygen and becoming more acidic at an ever-faster pace and melting even more ice and snow, a grim international science assessment concludes.But that’s nothing compared to what Wednesday’s special United Nations-affiliated oceans and ice report says is coming if global warming doesn’t slow down: three feet of sea rise by the end of the century, many fewer fish, weakening ocean currents, even less snow and ice, stronger and wetter hurricanes and nastier El Nino weather systems.“The oceans and the icy parts of the world are in big trouble and that means we’re all in big trouble too,” said one of the report’s lead authors, Michael Oppenheimer, professor of geosciences and international affairs at Princeton University. “The changes are accelerating.”Even if warming is limited to just another couple of tenths of a degree, the world’s warm water coral reefs will go extinct in some places and be dramatically different in others, the report said.“We are already seeing the demise of the warm water coral reefs,” Portner said. “That is one of the strongest warning signals that we have available.”The report gives projections based on different scenarios for emissions of heat-trapping carbon dioxide. One is a world that dramatically decreases carbon pollution — and the worst case is where little has been done. We are closer to the worst-case situation, scientists said.Outside scientists praised the work but were disturbed by it.“It is alarming to read such a thorough cataloging of all of the serious changes in the planet that we’re driving,” said Texas A&M University climate scientist Andrew Dessler, who wasn’t part of the report. “What’s particularly disturbing as a scientist is that virtually all of these changes were predicted years or decades ago.”The report’s authors emphasized that it doesn’t doom Earth to this gloomy outlook.“We indicate we have a choice. Whether we go into a grim future depends on the decisions that are being made,” Portner said. “We have a better future ahead of us once we make the right choice.”“These far-reaching consequences can only be brought under control by acute emissions reductions,” Portner said.
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President Donald Trump is meeting Wednesday in New York with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy amid reports the U.S. leader pushed his Ukrainian counterpart during a phone call to investigate Democratic presidential candidate and former Vice President Joe Biden over a high-paying job his son Hunter had with a Ukrainian gas company.The phone call between Trump and Zelenskiy is now at the center of an impeachment inquiry announced by Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.Trump has acknowledged the issue of the Bidens came up during a phone call Zelenskiy but insists there was no pressure put on the Ukrainian leader.President Trump confirmed he told his staff to withhold about $400 million in aid to Ukraine days before the phone call.  He has said he will release the transcript of the conversation.”You will see it was a very friendly and totally appropriate call. No pressure and, unlike Joe Biden and his son, NO quid pro quo! This is nothing more than a continuation of the Greatest and most Destructive Witch Hunt of all time!” Trump tweeted Tuesday.Ahead of his talks with Trump, Zelenskiy told VOA’s Ukrainian service “We just want the U.S. to always support Ukraine and Ukraine’s course in its fight against aggression and war.”Zelensky added “I think the meeting will be very warm.” 
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