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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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Estonian police said Wednesday they found the body of the former head of Danske Bank in Estonia who was at the center of a 200 billion-euro ($220 billion) money laundering scandal and had disappeared two days ago.Police said Aivar Rehe, 56, went missing Monday, fueling speculation it might be related to the 2007-2015 money laundering scheme that had engulfed the Danish bank.The executive was found Wednesday after a search involving dogs, drones and volunteers near his home in the capital, Tallinn.Police had said earlier that no third parties were suspected in Rehe’s disappearance and suggested the possibility of a suicide. According to Estonian media, Rehe’s body was found in his house’s back yard and everything at the scene pointed toward death by suicide.Rehe, who was head of Danske Bank in Estonia from 2006 to 2015, said in an interview with the Estonian newspaper Postimees in March that he feels responsible but also believes Danske Bank’s anti-money laundering mechanisms at that time were adequate.Rehe wasn’t considered a suspect in the case. Prosecutor Marek Vahing of the Estonian state prosecutors’ office in charge of investigating the case in Tallinn told the Estonian public broadcaster ERR on Tuesday that Rehe was last questioned about a year ago, and said his disappearance wouldn’t affect the ongoing probe.In 2018, ten former employees at Danske Bank’s Estonia branch were briefly detained and are currently being investigated in connection with the massive money laundering scandal – one of the largest of its kind ever in which dirty money mainly from Russia and former Soviet republics was channeled through its client accounts.The ten Estonian employees are mainly Danske Bank client managers suspected of knowingly assisting large-scale money laundering that involved Azerbaijan and Georgia, two former Soviet republics.The scandal has had far-reaching consequences for the Estonian financial sector, which has become dominated by Nordic banks, and led to major criminal probes in Denmark, France and the United States along with Estonia.
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British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is fighting for his political survival following a ruling from Britain’s Supreme Court Tuesday that his decision to suspend Parliament was unlawful. The ruling means British lawmakers will return to Parliament Wednesday, as calls grow for Johnson’s resignation. Britain is still due to leave the European Union Oct. 31, although as Henry Ridgwell reports from London, that process has now been thrown into further doubt.
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British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is fighting for his political survival following a ruling from Britain’s Supreme Court Tuesday that his decision to suspend Parliament earlier this month was unlawful. The ruling means British lawmakers will return to Parliament Wednesday, as calls grow for Johnson’s resignation. Britain is still due to leave the European Union Oct. 31, although that so-called  Brexit process has now been thrown into further doubt.The 11 Supreme Court judges ruled unanimously against Johnson, a decision they described as “a judgment on the boundaries of government power.” WATCH: Calls for Johnson’s exit
British PM Johnson Faces Fight For Political Survival video player.
President Donald Trump meets with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson at the United Nations General Assembly, Tuesday, Sept. 24, 2019, in New York.“The results will start to show in November. But it looks to me like he is making great progress,” Trump told reporters in New York.Johnson is due back in London on Wednesday. So are British lawmakers who will return to Parliament Wednesday morning, ready to resume battle with the government. Opposition party leaders have called for Johnson to step down.“There’s been some suggestion Johnson should resign. He has lied to the queen, and could there be a greater offense of the prime minister than that? I don’t think he will resign. He doesn’t strike me as the resigning type. So, I think we are talking about a vote of no confidence, and I would be surprised if there wasn’t one in the coming weeks,” said David Henig, an analyst at the European Center for International Political Economy.Such a vote of no confidence could force a general election, something that Johnson’s Conservatives also want. “The Conservatives are ahead in the polls. If they run a good campaign, there’s no reason why they couldn’t strengthen their position. And potentially many of the MPs on their own side who have caused problems in the last few years wouldn’t be around in the new Parliament,” said Henig.Further court battles may lie ahead. Johnson says he will refuse to ask the EU for a Brexit extension, despite legislation mandating him to do so if they can’t agree to a deal. However, any backsliding on Brexit would likely see the Conservatives lose votes to Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party.
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Spain’s Supreme Court has ruled that the government can exhume the remains of former dictator Francisco Franco, rejecting the objections of the Franco family.The remains will be moved from the Valley of the Fallen mausoleum that was built by the military dictator outside Madrid to a more modest cemetery where his wife is buried.Franco ruled Spain from the end of the Spanish Civil War in 1939 until his death in 1975.Critics have said Franco’s tomb in the Valley of the Fallen only glorifies the dictator and his brutal regime.The ruling was a victory for the caretaker government of Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s Socialist Party, which had made the exhumation one of its main campaign promises.In a tweet, Sanchez called the ruling a “great victory for Spanish democracy” and said it would help “to repair the suffering of the victims of Franco.”Bilateral meeting with the President of Egypt, @AlsisiOfficial, with whom I talked about the jihadist movements still running in Libya and the Sahel and its deep roots. We have also adressed the libyan conflict and the african union, as well as its relation with EU.#UNGApic.twitter.com/4MiHGtkvLp— Pedro Sánchez (@sanchezcastejon) September 24, 2019Sanchez’s deputy, Carmen Calvo, said the exhumation would take place “as soon as possible.”  However, Franco’s family has said it plans to appeal to the country’s Constitutional Court.
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The New York Times says it turned to the Irish government to rescue a reporter threatened with arrest in Egypt two years ago out of concern that the Trump administration wouldn’t help.Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger revealed the incident during a speech at Brown University and in an op-ed published Tuesday. Sulzberger said the paper was warned by a U.S. government official that Egypt planned to seize reporter Declan Walsh.The official said the Trump administration intended to let the arrest be carried out. The official worried about being punished for even warning the Times about it.The paper turned to Ireland, where Walsh is a citizen, and one of that country’s diplomats helped the reporter get out of Egypt. 
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A masterpiece attributed to 13th century Italian painter Cimabue has been discovered in a French woman’s kitchen —and it’s expected to sell for millions of euros at an upcoming auction.Titled “Christ Mocked,” the small wood painting depicts Christ surrounded by a crowd. Experts think it to be part of a larger diptych Cimabue painted around 1280, said Stephane Pinta, an art specialist with the Turquin gallery in Paris.“It’s a major discovery for the history of art,” Pinta said of the newly discovered work measuring about 10 inches by 8 inches (24 centimeters by 20 centimeters). Other experts agreed.Until recently, the painting hung on a wall between the kitchen and the dining room of a home in Compiègne. The woman considered it an icon of little importance until an auctioneer spotted the painting while going through her house and suggested bringing it to art experts, Pinta said.Cimabue, who taught Italian master Giotto, is widely considered the forefather of the Italian Renaissance. He broke from the Byzantine style popular in the Middle Ages and incorporated elements of movement and perspective that came to characterize Western painting.After examining the French kitchen find, Turquin gallery specialists concluded with “certitude” it bore hallmarks of Cimabue’s work, Pinta said.They noted clear similarities with the two panels of Cimabue’s diptych, one displayed at the Frick Collection in New York and the other at the National Gallery in London.Likenesses in the facial expressions and buildings the artist painted and the techniques used to convey light and distance specifically pointed to the small piece having been created by Cimabue’s hand.Pinta said all those characteristics animate the newly discovered piece.“What’s moving in this painting is the motion that we see in Christ,” Pinta said.Alexis Ashot, an independent art consultant for British auction house Christie’s, said the discovery in France sent ripples of excitement in other parts of the art world.“It’s wonderful to be reminded that there are paintings of such major importance that are still out there and still to be discovered,” he said.The painting will be the first Cimabue masterpiece to be auctioned when it is put up for sale at the Acteon auction house north of Paris on Oct. 27, according to Pinta. Turquin experts think a major art museum will buy it for a price of between 4 million and 6 million euros.Ashot said he thinks the painting could fetch even more.“I could easily see that if word gets out there that this painting is available for sale, then the price could be much higher than they are estimating,” he said.
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