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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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U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said at the annual meeting of the General Assembly the world is losing the battle against climate change but that there is still time to reverse the effects of the global phenomenon.”We are seeing unprecedented temperatures, unrelenting storms and undeniable science,” Guterres said. “The world is starting to move — not fast enough but in the right direction  — away from fossil fuels and towards the opportunities of the green economy.”Guterres said solutions to what he now calls a “climate crisis” were discussed at the U.N.’s Climate Action Summit on Monday. He noted the need for world leaders to “scale up” the solutions to “keep temperature rise to 1.5 degrees and reach carbon neutrality by 2050.”Guterres has called for the phasing out of fossil fuels and an end to construction of new coal power plants. He has also said it is time to end subsidies to the fossil fuel industry and shift taxes from salaries to carbon – taxing pollution, not people.Guterres was the first in a series of world leaders involved in some of the most high profile geopolitical issues to speak on the first day of the U.N. General Assembly in New York.After opening remarks from Guterres, those gathered for the annual meeting will hear from a group that includes U.S. President Donald Trump, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Korean President Moon Jae-in and French President Emmanuel Macron.​ Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg speaks with other child petitioners from 12 countries who presented a landmark complaint to protest the lack of government action on the climate crisis during a press conference in New York, Sept. 23, 2019The addresses come a day after Swedish teen activist Greta Thunberg scolded world leaders at a U.N. summit calling for climate action, saying people are suffering and dying from the effects of global warming and that all the leaders have are empty words.”We are in [the] beginning of a mass extinction and all you can talk about is money,” said Thunberg, who ignited a youth movement with her Friday school strikes for climate action.She said the science has been clear for 30 years, and still they are not doing enough.”You are failing us! But the young people are starting to understand your betrayal,” Thunberg said in a voice filled with emotion. “The eyes of all future generations are upon you. And if you choose to fail us, I say we will never forgive you.”The 16-year-old warned the more than 60 presidents and prime ministers gathered in the General Assembly hall for the summit that the youth would not let them “get away with this.” She said they draw the line here and now and “change is coming,” whether they like it or not. “Is it common sense to build ever more coal plants that are choking our future?” the secretary-general asked. “Is it common sense to reward pollution that kills millions with dirty air and makes it dangerous for people in cities around the world to sometimes even venture out of their homes?”India, which has one of the world’s highest levels of air pollution, said it would increase its renewable energy capacity to 175 gigawatts by 2022. Prime Minister Narendra Modi highlighted his country’s expansion into solar energy.Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel addresses the Climate Action Summit in the United Nations General Assembly, at U.N. headquarters, Sept. 23, 2019.German Chancellor Angela Merkel, in a rare U.N. appearance, pledged that her country would reduce its carbon emissions by 2030 by 55% compared to its 1990 emissions. She said Germany would be carbon neutral by 2050.”In 2030 we want to get two-thirds of our energy from renewables,” Merkel said. “In 2022, we will phase out the last of our nuclear power plants, and at latest, in 2038, we will phase out coal.”Trump, who announced his administration’s intention to withdraw from the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement soon after taking office, was not scheduled to attend or speak at Monday’s summit. Trump, however, made a brief appearance and was seen sitting at the U.S. delegation’s table before attending an event on religious persecution.The U.N. released a report ahead of the summit compiled by the World Meteorological Organization showing there has been an acceleration in carbon pollution, sea-level rise, warming global temperatures, and shrinking ice sheets.
 
It warns that the average global temperature for the period of 2015 through the end of 2019 is on pace to be the “warmest of any equivalent period on record” at 1.1 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
 
The 2015 Paris Climate Agreement, which has been ratified by 186 nations, calls for actions to prevent global temperatures from surpassing 2 degrees, and ideally remain within 1.5 degrees by cutting greenhouse gas emissions.  One of the world’s biggest emitters – the United States – announced under President Trump that it would leave the pact. The U.S. decision has not stopped climate action at the state, local and private sector levels.
 
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Britain’s Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s decision to suspend parliament for five weeks was unlawful and is “void and of no effect.”The court said in explaining the unanimous decision that Johnson’s prevented parliament from carrying out its role of “holding the government to account.”It highlighted the special nature of the timing of the suspension, which was to last for five of the eight weeks that remained before the deadline for Britain to exit the European Union.”This prolonged suspension of Parliamentary democracy took place in quite exceptional circumstances: the fundamental change which was due to take place in the Constitution of the United Kingdom on 31st October,” the court said.  “Parliament, and in particular the House of Commons as the elected representatives of the people, has a right to a voice in how that change comes about.  The effect upon the fundamentals of our democracy was extreme.”Parliament was due to be out until mid-October under the suspension, but the court ruling Tuesday said leaders can “take immediate steps” to return “as soon as possible.”FILE – European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, left, shakes hands with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson prior to a meeting at a restaurant in Luxembourg, Sept. 16, 2019.Johnson has pledged to carry out Brexit whether or not Britain has an agreement in place on the terms of its divorce from the EU.Shortly before he suspended parliament, Britain’s Queen Elizabeth gave her approval to legislation seeking to block Johnson from going through with the split if there is no agreement.Johnson came to power after former Prime Minister Theresa May failed three times to get the House of Commons to approve the deal she negotiated with the EU.  European leaders have shown no sign of wanting to open those negotiations again.
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U.S. President Donald Trump told his staff to withhold about $400 million in aid to Ukraine days before a phone call with the country’s leader that is at the center of a debate between Congress and the White House over a whistleblower complaint.Reports late Wednesday from the Associated Press, Washington Post and New York Times all cited multiple senior administration officials saying Trump froze the funding, and that the order was communicated to the State Department and Pentagon with the explanation that he was looking into whether the money needed to be spent.Earlier Wednesday, the leaders of three House of Representatives committees demanded Secretary of State Mike Pompeo turn over all documents related to the call Trump made to Ukranian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.  The Democratic chairmen of the House Foreign Affairs, Intelligence, and Oversight committees — Elliot Engel, Adam Schiff, and Elijah Cummings — set a Thursday deadline, the same day the intelligence committee is set to hear testimony from acting director national intelligence Joseph Maguire about the whistleblower complaint linked to the call.Trump is said to have pushed for an investigation into leading Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, who served for years on the board of a Ukrainian gas company.The three House members said in their letter the State Department has admitted that a senior Pompeo staffer directly helped set up meetings between Trump’s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, and Ukrainian officials days after the call.”By withholding these documents and refusing to engage with the committees, the Trump Administration is obstructing Congress’ oversight duty under the Constitution to protect our nation’s democratic process,” they wrote.Sen. Chris Murphy told reporters Monday that he met several weeks ago with Zelenskiy, and that the Ukranian administration worried the aid cutoff “was a consequence for their unwillingness, at the time, to investigate the Bidens.”Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy speaks to newly elected Ukrainian parliament deputies during parliament session in Kyiv, Aug. 29, 2019.”They were unwilling to conduct this investigation because there was no merit to it,” Murphy said.Also Monday, a group of first-term Democratic members of the House of Representatives with backgrounds in national security wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post saying if the allegations of Trump’s actions are true, the lawmakers believe they “represent an impeachable offense.””The president of the United States may have used his position to pressure a foreign country into investigating a political opponent, and he sought to use U.S. taxpayer dollars as leverage to do it,” they wrote.  “He allegedly sought to use the very security assistance dollars appropriated by Congress to create stability in the world, to help root out corruption and to protect our national security interests, for his own personal gain.”The group includes Reps. Gil Cisneros, Jason Crow, Chrissy Houlahan, Elaine Luria, Mikie Sherrill, Elissa Slotkin and Abigail Spanberger.Trump on Monday dismissed the Democratic drumbeat for impeachment, saying he does not take such threats “at all seriously.” He insisted his call with Zelenskiy was a “very nice call,” congratulating him on becoming Ukrainian president.Trump said he could very easily release a transcript of the call, and the press would be disappointed. But he refused to commit to doing so, saying it would be a bad precedent.The controversy began last week when reports emerged that an unidentified whistleblower in the national intelligence community became alarmed about a series of actions inside the Trump administration. They include what is now known to be Trump’s telephone call with Zelenskiy. This person contacted the intelligence inspector general, who called the complaint “serious” and “urgent.” Maguire has refused to turn over the inspector’s report to Congress, which the law requires him to do.As vice president under Barack Obama, Joe Biden went to Ukraine in 2016 and threatened to withhold billions of dollars in U.S. loan guarantees unless the government cracked down on corruption. Biden also demanded that Ukraine’s chief prosecutor Viktor Shokin be fired. Shokin had previously investigated the gas company on which Hunter Biden served on the board. But the probe had been inactive for a year before Joe Biden’s visit. Hunter Biden has said he was not the target of any investigation and no evidence of any wrongdoing by the Bidens has surfaced. An angry Biden said “there is truly no bottom to President Trump’s willingness to abuse his power and abase our country.”
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China is the world’s largest exporter of consumer goods but is increasingly branching into other areas. Beijing has recently sent a contingent of policemen to Serbia to help local forces in three Serbian cities. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports this is just one example of expanding cooperation between China and Serbia.
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Mediterranean resort town Cannes, France’s fourth-biggest cruise ship port, will ban the most polluting cruise ships from next year in a bid to boost air quality in the city.The ban will target ships that do not respect a 0.1% cap on sulphur in their fuel and could stop some passengers from disembarking in the city famous for its film festival.”It’s not about being against cruise ships. It’s about being against pollution,” Cannes Mayor David Lisnard told Reuters Television in an interview.FILE – Pedestrians stroll along the beachfront walkway as a cruise liner and luxury boats are moored in the Bay of Cannes, May 14, 2004.Under the European Union’s clean air policy, the cap is already enforced in Baltic, North Sea and Channel ports and it may be extended to the Mediterranean.Cruise ships run on fuel oil which contains about 2,000 times more sulphur oxide than ordinary diesel, according to German pollution analyst Axel Friedrich.”We will no longer accept cruise ship passengers coming from polluting cruise ships,” Lisnard said.The exponential growth of the cruise ship industry is often criticized by residents of tourist towns but it is also increasingly considered a threat to the environment.Three months ago, Italy’s main conservation group said Venice should be put on the United Nations’ list of endangered cities and cruise ships should be banned from its fragile lagoon to prevent an ecological disaster.According to figures from the Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA), the industry’s main trade association, 30 million passengers are expected to cruise on almost 300 ships this year, up from 17.8 million 10 years ago.In July, Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings, which represents 40 percent of Cannes’ maritime traffic, signed a Cruise Charter agreement with the city of Cannes, promising to make its ships more environmentally friendly.
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U.S. President Donald Trump told Poland’s president he expected to announce Polish entry into the U.S. visa waiver program in coming weeks as the two held talks on defense, security, energy and other issues, the White House said on Monday.Speaking as he began a meeting with Andrzej Duda, Trump also confirmed his plans to move an unspecified number of U.S. troops to Poland from elsewhere in Europe and said the Polish government had agreed to pay for building facilities for them.In June, Trump pledged to Duda that he would deploy 1,000 U.S. troops to Poland, a step sought by Warsaw to deter potential aggression from Russia. Duda has previously said he is considering naming the planned U.S. installation “Fort Trump.”Poland has long sought access to the State Department’s Visa Waiver Program under which most citizens of participating countries can travel to the United States for tourism or business for up to 90 days without obtaining a U.S. visa.”President Trump informed President Duda that he expects to announce Poland’s entry into the Visa Waiver Program in the coming weeks,” the White House said in a brief statement about the talks on the sidelines of the annual U.N. General Assembly.Trump, who canceled a trip to Poland for Labor Day weekend to deal with Hurricane Dorian, said he would reschedule it “fairly soon.”
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Russia’s Interior Ministry says a former Kremlin official, whom media reports have called a CIA informant, has been officially declared missing.The ministry said on Monday that it had added Oleg Smolenkov, born in 1969, to its list of missing people and that it has launched a search to locate him.Earlier this month, U.S. media reports from Reuters, CNN, The New York Times, and The Washington Post said a CIA informant in the Russian government had been extracted and brought to the United States in 2017.Some of the reports said the unidentified Russian had provided intelligence from inside President Vladimir Putin’s Kremlin about alleged Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.The CIA, the State Department, and the White House have said the reports were inaccurate.Public records from the Russian government administration in 2008 and 2010 show a person named Oleg Smolenkov employed in the administration of Putin, who served as prime minister between 2008 and 2012. In 2010, Smolenkov was promoted to a relatively high civil-service ranking, under an order signed by then-President Dmitry Medvedev.Smolenkov was listed earlier as working as a second secretary at the Russian Embassy in Washington, D.C., according to a personnel listing from the time. The ambassador at that time was Yury Ushakov, who later returned to Moscow and became a deputy chief of staff for Putin and then a foreign-policy adviser.The Russian newspaper Vedomosti reported that Smolenkov was the chief adviser to Ushakov in the Kremlin, and a New York Times reporter on September 11 posted a photo on Twitter of a phone listing for Ushakov’s team indicating that Smolenkov indeed held that post.The Russian government confirmed Smolenkov’s employment, but Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on September 10 that “he was fired several years ago.”According to the Russian media reports, Smolenkov disappeared with his wife, Antonina, and three children while on holiday in the Adriatic country of Montenegro in June 2017.
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Interior ministers from five European countries reached a preliminary agreement on how to distribute migrants picked up in the central Mediterranean. The agreement was reached Monday during a meeting in Malta and is scheduled to be discussed by all European Union members next month.EU Migration and Home Affairs Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos said good progress was made in Malta towards a predictable and structural set of arrangements to deal with migrants rescued in the Mediterranean.He said the ministers worked to find practical solutions to respond together, in a spirit of solidarity, to the migratory challenges.“We all agree that the current ad hoc approach consisting of the commission coordinating solidarity efforts each time a vessel with migrants is at sea is simply not sustainable,” said Avramopoulos.Malta’s Interior Minister Michael Farrugia, who hosted the meeting, which also included Germany, France, Italy and Finland, said an agreement was reached on the disembarkation of migrants following search and rescue operations. He said a paper was ready to be presented to the other EU members.”There is an agreement of a common paper that will be presented to the Council of Ministers of home affairs on October 8,” Farrugia said.Under the preliminary agreement, vessels which rescue people at sea will be given a safe harbor to disembark passengers without delay, avoiding additional hardships to migrants.  The agreement also calls for the swift relocation of asylum-seekers, on a voluntary basis, to other member states.Avramopoulos said the migrant crisis is a responsibility for all of the EU which must be addressed collectively.He added that the European Commission would continue to provide active support to member states struggling with the burden of migration, adding that this support would be operational, financial and political.“I remain convinced that the structural and permanent solution embedded in the common European asylum system remains necessary and is the only viable solution in the medium term,” said Avramopoulos.Italy and Malta have in recent months closed their ports to NGO vessels that rescued migrants but those policies are likely to change with the new agreements now being discussed.Thousands of migrants from Africa and the Middle East continue their efforts to reach European shores, sometimes on very unsafe vessels. Both Italy and Malta have long accused other EU nations of dragging their feet on the migration burden they face on a daily basis.
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U.S. President Donald Trump has dismissed any talk about impeachment by some Democrats over reports that he tried to pressure Ukraine’s president to investigate leading Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden.Trump told reporters as he arrived at the United Nations that he is not taking such threats “at all seriously.”  He also again said he discussed what he called  “corruption” concerning Biden and his son with Ukrainian President President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.”We had a perfect phone call with the president of Ukraine. Everybody knows it. It’s just a Democrat witch hunt. Here we go again. They failed with Russia, they failed with recession, they failed with everything,” Trump said Monday.   “It’s very important to talk about corruption. If you don’t talk about corruption, why would you give money to a country that you think is corrupt?…It’s very important that on occasion you speak to somebody about corruption.”FILE – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy speaks to newly elected Ukrainian parliament deputies during parliament session in Kyiv, Aug. 29, 2019.A Wall Street Journal report says Trump urged Zelenskiy eight times to investigate Biden and his son Hunter, and whether a Ukrainian gas company tried to win favors by hiring Hunter while Joe Biden was U.S. vice president. The reports say Trump was looking to get Zelenskiy to collaborate with Trump’s lawyer, Rudolph Giuliani, to investigate the Bidens.The newest controversy surrounding Trump began last week when reports emerged that an unidentified whistleblower in the national intelligence community became alarmed about a series of actions inside the Trump administration. They include what is now known to be Trump’s telephone call with Zelenskiy.Trump critics, including a number of Democratic lawmakers, say if Trump urged Zelenskiy to investigate Biden to discredit the former vice president, that would be a direct appeal to a foreign government to interfere in a presidential election — a potentially impeachable offense. Democrats also want to know if Trump promised Zelenskiy anything in return for an investigation.Ukrainian Foreign Minister Vadym Prystaiko denies Trump pressured Zelenskiy, saying Ukraine would not take sides in U.S. politics.Amid calls to release the transcript of phone calls with the Ukrainian leader, Trump has said White House will “make a determination” whether to release it.Trump had frozen $250 million in military aid to Ukraine. Congress voted to release those funds last month.FILE – Democratic presidential candidate and former Vice President Joe Biden puts on a Beau Biden Foundation hat while speaking at the Polk County Democrats Steak Fry, in Des Moines, Iowa, Sept. 21, 2019.An angry Biden said “there is truly no bottom to President Trump’s willingness to abuse his power and abase our country.” Referring to next year’s election, Trump knows “I’ll beat him like a drum,” Biden said.”I’m not looking to hurt him with respect to his son. Joe’s got enough problems,” Trump said Sunday without specifying what those problems are.As vice president under Barack Obama, Joe Biden went to Ukraine in 2016 and threatened to withhold billions of dollars in U.S. loan guarantees unless the government cracked down on corruption. Biden also demanded that Ukraine’s chief prosecutor Viktor Shokin be fired.Shokin had previously investigated the gas company on which Hunter Biden served on the board. But the probe had been inactive for a year before Joe Biden’s visit. Hunter Biden has said he was not the target of any investigation and no evidence of any wrongdoing by the Bidens has surfaced. 
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