Trump: Made money
in deal with Gaddafi
AP
JERSEY CITY
Donald Trump says he made "a lot of money" in a deal years ago with Moammar Gaddafi, despite suggesting at the time he had no idea the former Libyan dictator was involved in renting his suburban New York estate.
"Don't forget, I'm the only one. I made a lot of money with Gaddafi, if you remember," Trump said in an interview with CBS' 'Face the Nation' that aired Sunday. "He came to the country, and he had to make a deal with me because he needed a place to stay."
"He paid me a fortune. Never got to stay there," Trump said. "And it became sort of a big joke."
The presumptive Republican nominee was talking about a bizarre incident in 2009, when Gaddafi was in desperate search of a place to pitch his Bedouin-style tent during a visit to New York for a meeting of the UN General Assembly.
After trying and failing to secure space in Manhattan's Central Park, on the Upper East Side and in Englewood, New Jersey, the Libyan government turned to Trump's 213-acre Seven Springs estate in suburban Bedford, New York.
Gaddafi never stayed at the property, but it was nevertheless a spectacle. Reporters flocked to the town to watch construction crews erect a white-topped tent that was lined with a tapestry of camels and palm trees and outfitted with leather couches and coffee tables.
At one point the tent was torn down after the Town of Bedford threatened to sue Trump personally - and was then re-erected, to the town's chagrin.
At the time, Trump distanced himself from the matter, hinting that he'd been tricked into renting his land. Representatives of Gaddafi - loathed in the US due to his ties to terrorism - had falsified the identity of their client in other instances to make renting property easier.
Before the tent was re-pitched, Trump said he had "no idea" that Gaddafi might be involved in the deal to rent a section of the estate, a town official said. Bedford Town Supervisor Lee Roberts told The Associated Press at the time that Trump told her that, as far as he knew, his arrangement was with partners in the United Arab Emirates.
"We have business partners and associates all over the world. The property was leased on a short-term basis to Middle Eastern partners who may or may not have a relationship to Mr Gaddafi. We are looking into the matter now," Trump organization spokeswoman Rhona Graff said in a statement at the time.
But Trump had changed his tune two years later, when he boasted of having "screwed" the Libyan leader on the deal.
"I dealt with Gaddafi. Excuse me. I rented him a piece of land. He paid me more for one night than the land was worth for the whole year or for two years. And then I didn't let him use the land. That's what we should be doing," Trump said in a 2011 interview with Fox News.
He reiterated the claim on CNN that same year. Trump said he had leased Gaddafi "a piece of land for his tent. He paid me more than I get in a whole year. And then, eh, he wasn't able to use the piece of land. ... So I got in one night, more money than I would have gotten all year for this piece of land up in Westchester. And then didn't let him use it? That's called being intelligent," Trump said.
Trump campaign spokeswoman Hope Hicks did not respond to questions Sunday about whether Trump was in fact aware at the time that he was dealing with Gaddafi and how much he made from the deal.
Bedford Town Attorney Joel Sachs, who dealt with Trump directly on the issue, said that Trump insisted to town officials that he didn't know about the Gadhafi connection and that officials suspected he was lying.
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Clinton on verge of winning
Democratic nomination
LOS ANGELES: Hillary Clinton was poised to clinch the Democratic party nomination that will make her the first ever woman presidential nominee of a major party in the US after she convincingly defeated her rival Bernie Sanders in two primaries ahead of a crucial one in California.
The former secretary of state posted strong wins over Sanders in the island territory of Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands. Clinton will have enough delegates by tomorrow when a multi-state primary vote will take place in six states including California, her close aide said.
“We think we're going to come out of Tuesday night with the delegates we need for her to be the first woman nominee on a major party ticket in the United States. So, we're looking forward to that,” John Podesta, chairman of the Hillary Clinton Campaign, told Fox News.
Clinton now has 2,354 delegates - 28 short of the 2,382 she needs to bag the Democratic party's nomination.
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Rocket-propelled grenade shells and shrapnel triggered by the explosions destroyed a hospital and hundreds of nearby homes, creating panic among thousands of people who rushed for cover. A soldier was killed and more than 40 people were injured. Around 25000 people affected in the incident
.....
Thousands flee as blasts hit Lanka armoury
PTI
COLOMBO
A major fire at one of Sri Lanka's largest ammunition depots triggered a series of explosions, killing one soldier and injuring over 40, forcing thousands to flee as debris fell into populated areas destroying hundreds of homes in the worst such incident in the country's history.
The military ammunition dump at Salawa area in Avissawella, 30 kms east of Colombo, caught fire at around 5 pm (local time) Sunday, setting off huge explosions that went on through the night.
Rocket-propelled grenade shells and shrapnel triggered by the explosions destroyed a hospital and hundreds of nearby homes, creating panic among thousands of people who rushed for cover, officials said.
“A soldier has been killed and the military has entered the premises,” military spokesman Brigadier Jayanath Jayaweera said, adding that soldiers have doused the fire.
He said the army will appoint a court of inquiry to probe the incident in which more than 40 people were also injured.
Firefighters had to struggle for more than 12 hours to douse the blaze at the Salawa military complex.
Thousands of people living close to the site were asked to vacate their homes and move to schools, temples and other places for cover as intermittent blasts were still erupting.
Disaster officials said over 25,000 people were affected by the explosions.
At least 600 of them are housed in temples and schools, disaster management centre official Pradeep Kodippili said.
An aerial shot of the army complex from a nearby hilltop showed only a water tower remained relatively intact. All the buildings were either fully destroyed or had their roofs blown out in the explosion.
The incident is termed as the worst ammunition depot fire in Sri Lanka's history. The armoury is one of the largest ammunition storage of the Sri Lankan Army.
The cause behind the incident was not immediately known.
Residents said loud explosions were heard with raging fire within the complex which houses weapons ranging from T56 rifles to mortar bombs.
All residents within a five kms radius of the complex were evacuated last night to prevent people from inhaling fumes emanating from the fire.
Residents said the fire could be seen even Tuesday morning, more than 12 hours after the first explosions were heard.
President Maithripala Sirisena has ordered police's Crime Investigation Department to probe the incident.
Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe visited the area and pledged compensation for damages suffered to property.
“We will rebuild houses partially and fully damaged (by the explosions),” Wickremesinghe said.
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‘Terror attack’ kills 5
Jordan intel agents
AFP
AMMAN
Five Jordanian intelligence agents were killed in a "terrorist attack" on their office in a Palestinian refugee camp north of the capital Amman on Monday, the government said.
Jordan is a leading member of the US-led coalition fighting the Islamic State (ISIS) group in neighbouring Iraq and Syria and has been the target of jihadist attacks in the past.
"The intelligence agency office in the Baqaa camp was the target of a cowardly attack shortly before 7 am on Monday that left five agents dead," government spokesman Mohammed Momani said. Momani said security forces were investigating who was responsible for the "terrorist attack" on the first day of the Muslim holy month of Ramzan.
A security source told AFP that preliminary findings suggested the attack was carried out by a lone gunman who opened fire with an automatic weapon before escaping. The source said it was unclear whether the gunman was a camp resident or an outsider.
Jordan has seen spillover from the conflicts in Iraq and Syria in the past. In December 2005, suicide attacks on three Amman hotels claimed by ISIS's predecessor al-Qaida in Iraq killed 60 people and wounded dozens.
The Baqaa camp, where Monday's attack took place, is 20 kilometres from the centre of Amman and the largest of the kingdom's 10 official Palestinian refugee camps. It hosts around 100,000 of Jordan's 2 million Palestinian refugees, most of whom fled from the West Bank and Gaza Strip after Israel's capture of the territory's during the Six-Day War of 1967.
Baqaa suffers from chronic poverty and high unemployment. It was the home of Mahmud Abdelal, an Islamist extremist who blew himself up in Syria in October 2012.
In 2010, three Jordanian Islamist extremists were sentenced to prison terms of between three years and life for plotting to kill intelligence officers in the camp, a court official said at the time. According to sources close to Islamists, almost 4,000 Jordanians have joined jihadist groups in Iraq and Syria, where an estimated 420 have been killed since 2011.
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US Navy slaps drinking ban on 18,600 sailors in Japan
REUTERS
TOKYO
The US Navy slapped a drinking ban on sailors stationed in Japan on Monday and halted off base liberty after police arrested a US sailor on the southern island of Okinawa on suspicion of drunk driving following a car crash that injured two people.
“For decades we have enjoyed a strong relationship with the people of Japan. It is imperative that each sailor understand how our actions affect that relationship and the US Japan alliance as a whole,” Rear Admiral Matthew Carter, commander of US naval forces in Japan said in a press release on Monday.
The United States has 18,600 sailors stationed in Japan.
The latest incident came as the US military observes a 30-day mourning period at bases on Okinawa after an American civilian working for the US military there was arrested on suspicion of dumping the body of a 20-year-old Japanese woman.
Renewed anger among residents in Okinawa at the US military presence threatens a plan to relocate the US Marines’ Futenma air base to a less populous part of Okinawa, which was agreed in 1995 after the rape of a Japanese schoolgirl by US military personnel sparked huge anti-base demonstrations.
Okinawa’s governor and many residents want the marines off the island.
All US Navy sailors in Japan will be kept on base and banned from drinking until “all personnel understand the impact of responsible behavior on the US-Japan alliance,” the press release said. “Sailors living off base will be allowed to travel to and from base and conduct only “essential activities.”
The restrictions do not apply to family members and civilian US contractors, which brings the total number of people to 35,000, but they are being encouraged to observe the rules “in a spirit of solidarity,” a spokesman for the US Navy said.
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Not desperate
for talks with
India: Pak
PTI
ISLAMABAD
Pakistan is not desperate to resume peace talks with India, a top official has said.
There was no restlessness on the Pakistani side for a dialogue, Sartaj Aziz, the adviser on Foreign Affairs to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, was quoted as saying in a news report on Monday.
But he quickly added on Sunday that if South Asia had to see peace, there had to be "coordination first."
Aziz also said that India never opened a window of opportunity for dialogue and goodwill with Pakistan.
The Dawn newspaper quoted him as saying that all the developments in this regard were sabotaged when the talks between the countries were postponed after the terror attack on the IAF base in Pathankot in January.
"It is a very strange thing to say as it was decided here on December 9, that the dialogue will resume but then the Pathankot incident occurred and everything vanished into thin air," Aziz said.
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Zuckerberg's
accounts
hacked
AGENCIES
NEW DELHI
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg had his Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest accounts briefly hacked over the weekend, according to various reports.
A hacker group called OurMine reportedly took over the billionaire's Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest account on Sunday according to screengrabs of Tweets since removed from Zuckerberg's accounts, which are rarely used by the Facebook mogul.
Tech news magazine Engadget took a screengrab of the Tweet in which OurMine said: "Hey @finkd (Mark Zuckerberg's Twitter handle) we got access to your Twitter & Instagram & Pinterest, we are just testing your security, please dm (direct message) us."
The group, whose principal Twitter account has since been suspended, then messaged him to say that it had found his password on a LinkedIn database of user details that was leaked online last month. "You were in Linkedin Database with the password 'dadada'!" gloated the hacker on Zuckerberg's Twitter page.
It is believed that the security of Zuckerberg's Facebook and Instagram accounts were not compromised, however.
Since OurMine's main Twitter account has been suspended, the original tweet is not publicly available, but other Twitter users, including a US-based social media reporter for CNBC, picked up on the hack.
The group said in a secondary Twitter account, @OurMineTeam43, that it was just trying to alert Zuckerberg to the security flaw.
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Paris evacuates
1,850 migrants
from city camp
AFP
PARIS
French authorities on Monday evacuated 1,850 migrants from a tent camp which had sprung up in a Paris park, where conditions had nosedived after one of the wettest Mays on record.
The Paris regional government said the operation was the biggest carried out in the capital where makeshift camps have mushroomed in recent months as France struggles to accommodate asylum seekers.
The migrants were taken by bus to about 60 different reception centres in the Paris region, in what was the 23rd such evacuation of the past year.
Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo told Europe 1 radio there had been 1,300 people counted at the camp on Sunday - mostly Afghans, Sudanese and Eritreans - but that numbers had surged as word spread they would be rehoused.
The camp had already been evacuated a month ago.
"I never thought I would spend my first nights in Paris on the street," said Ali, a 28-year-old English teacher from Somalia, keen to take a shower, eat and have a good night`s sleep once he arrived at the reception centre.
"Really, it was horrible, people were sick, toilets were overflowing," he said.
Last week, Hidalgo said she wanted to create a refugee camp in Paris to provide proper accommodation for asylum seekers and ease the pressure on overflowing housing centres.
