Trump’s envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker resigns
Reuters
U.S. President Donald Trump’s special representative for Ukraine, Kurt Volker, resigned on Friday, sources familiar with the situation said.
A whistleblower complaint from within the intelligence community, released publicly on Thursday, described Volker as trying to “contain the damage” from efforts by Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani to press Ukraine to investigate Democrats.
Russia tells US not to release Trump-Putin transcripts
AFP, United Nations
Russia on Friday urged the United States not to publish Donald Trump’s conversations with Vladimir Putin after a growing scandal led the White House to release a transcript from a call with Ukraine’s leader.
“As for transcripts of phone conversations, my mother when bringing me up said that reading other people’s letters is inappropriate,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told reporters at the United Nations.
UN peacekeeping copter crashes in C. Africa, 3 dead
AFP, Bangui
Three Senegalese crew were killed and a fourth was injured when a combat helicopter used by United Nations peacekeepers in the Central African Republic crashed in the west of the country, the UN force said on Friday.
“It is with immense sorrow that I have learned of the crash of a Senegalese combat helicopter as it was landing at Bouar, leading to three deaths and one injured,” the head of the MINUSCA mission, Mankeur Ndiaye, said on Twitter.
Syria FM greets Arab League Chief at UN
AFP, United Nations
The head of the Arab League exchanged a warm handshake Friday at the United Nations with the foreign minister of Syria, which has been suspended from the body since 2011.
The exchange between Ahmed Aboul Gheit, the secretary general of the Arab League, and Foreign Minister Walid Muallem appeared to be brief and impromptu during the annual UN General Assembly.In a video posted on Twitter by a journalist for Abu Dhabi newspaper The National, Aboul Gheit walks in a hallway at the UN headquarters and sees Muallem, who turns around.
