Wednesday, December 7, 2016
'No mandate for hard Brexit', Opposition argues
Shadow Brexit Secretary Sir Keir Starmer has told Parliament that there is "no mandate for a hard Brexit".
His words came during a debate in the House of Commons over the planning of the UK's departure from the European Union.
Mr Starmer said: "There is no mandate for a hard Brexit, there is no consensus for a hard Brexit.
"In the last few months I've travelled across the UK to hold meetings with a wide range of interested parties...on the question of the terms under which the UK should exit the EU.
"The overwhelming evidence is that they do not want a hard Brexit, there is not a consensus out there for a hard Brexit."
In reply, the Brexit Secretary David Davis said: "To be honest, I don't really know what hard Brexit means but the simple fact is the mandate was to leave the EU, fullstop."
The Government hopes it has seen off a Tory revolt and potential defeat by accepting a Labour motion calling on ministers to disclose their Brexit plan before starting the EU divorce process.
In exchange, Labour and Tory rebels will agree to the Prime Minister's timetable of triggering Article 50 in March next year.
Mr Starmer called for the Government to publish its Brexit plan well ahead of any vote, to allow amendments to be considered.
He also said that the plan must be detailed enough to "end the circus of uncertainty" on issues such as the single market and immigration, saying that this was "causing more damage to this process than anything else at the moment".
Mr Starmer faced questions from some Tory MPs, however, including from Eurosceptic Peter Bone who said there was already legislation in the House to trigger Article 50 before the end of March.
Tory defence committee chairman Julian Lewis said that if the opposition did not oppose the Government's amendment, it would be "completely unacceptable and totally inconsistent" if they were to try to delay Brexit next year.
Mr Davis said: "Many on the benches opposite pay lip service to respective the result of the referendum, whilst at the same time trying to find new ways to thwart and delay."
But Mr Starmer had insisted Labour was not trying to "frustrate the purpose or delay the timetable" but that their moves were instead aimed at the "accountability and scrutiny" of the Brexit process.
And Mr Davis had turned and appeared to look at a group of Remain-supporting MPs in his own party while using the phrase "thwart and delay".
He also said it was "inconceivable" that Parliament would not get a vote to approve the final Brexit deal.
Mr Starmer also said that the Government should not act "solely for the 52% (who voted to leave the EU)".
"The vote on 23 June was not a vote to write those who voted to remain out of their own history," he said.
"They have a right and an interest in these negotiations and they have a right to have a Government who gives weight to their interests as well as the interests of the 52%."
MPs will vote at about 7pm tonight on the amendment binding them to back the Government's Article 50 timetable.
They will then vote on the Labour motion calling on the Prime Minister to commit to publishing a Brexit plan before Article 50 is triggered.
The debate came as the Government was embroiled in day three of its Brexit battle in the Supreme Court.
President-elect Donald Trump Time Person of the Year
This is the 90th time we have named the person who had the greatest influence, for better or worse, on the events of the year. So which is it this year: Better or worse? The challenge for Donald Trump is how profoundly the country disagrees about the answer.
It’s hard to measure the scale of his disruption. This real estate baron and casino owner turned reality-TV star and provocateur—never a day spent in public office, never a debt owed to any interest besides his own—now surveys the smoking ruin of a vast political edifice that once housed parties, pundits, donors, pollsters, all those who did not see him coming or take him seriously. Out of this reckoning, Trump is poised to preside, for better or worse.
For those who believe this is all for the better, Trump’s victory represents a long-overdue rebuke to an entrenched and arrogant governing class; for those who see it as for the worse, the destruction extends to cherished norms of civility and discourse, a politics poisoned by vile streams of racism, sexism, nativism. To his believers, he delivers change—broad, deep, historic change, not modest measures doled out in Dixie cups; to his detractors, he inspires fear both for what he may do and what may be done in his name.
The revolution he stirred feels fully American, with its echoes of populists past, of Andrew Jackson and Huey Long and, at its most sinister, Joe McCarthy and Charles Coughlin. Trump’s assault on truth and logic, far from hurting him, made him stronger. His appeal—part hope, part snarl—dissolved party lines and dispatched the two reigning dynasties of U.S. politics. Yet his victory mirrors the ascent of nationalists across the world, from Britain to the Philippines, and taps forces far more powerful than one man’s message.
We can scarcely grasp what our generation has wrought by putting a supercomputer into all of our hands, all of the time. If you are reading this, whether on a page or a screen, there is a very good chance that you are caught up in a revolution that may have started with enticing gadgets but has now reshaped everything about how we live, love, work, play, shop, share—how our very hearts and minds encounter the world around us. Why would we have imagined that our national conversation would simply go on as before, same people, same promises, same patterns? Perhaps the President-elect will stop tweeting—but only because he will have found some other means to tell the story he wants to tell directly to the audience that wants to hear it.
It turned out to be a failing strategy when Hillary Clinton, who loves policy solutions and believes in them, tried to make this race a character test, a referendum on Trump. But it was certainly understandable. He presented so many challenges, so many choices about what America values. Her popular-vote victory, while legally irrelevant, affirmed the prospect of a female Commander in Chief. In fact, she crushed Trump among voters who cared most about experience and judgment and temperament, qualities that have typically mattered when choosing the leader of the free world. Even at his moment of victory, 6 in 10 voters had an unfavorable view of Trump and didn’t think he was qualified to be President.
But by almost 2 to 1, voters cared most about who could deliver change, and in that category he beat her by 69 points. This is his next test. The year 2016 was the year of his rise; 2017 will be the year of his rule, and like all newly elected leaders, he has a chance to fulfill promises and defy expectations.
His supporters and his critics will discover together how much of what he said he actually believes. In the days after the election, everything was negotiable: the wall became a fence, “Crooked Hillary” is “good people,” and maybe climate change is worth thinking about. Far from draining the swamp, he fed plums to some of its biggest gators. Were his followers alarmed? The critics were hardly reassured: nearly half of Americans expect race relations to worsen, and many women fear that his ascent comes directly at their expense. Trump prefers to talk about the alienated workers who flocked to his rallies and believed a billionaire could be their tribune—“I love them and they love me”—and avers that his every action will be on their behalf. But can he devise a New Deal for workers in the age of automation, renegotiate trade deals and reopen factories while simultaneously elevating many of the same people who profit from the trends he denounced?
For reminding America that demagoguery feeds on despair and that truth is only as powerful as the trust in those who speak it, for empowering a hidden electorate by mainstreaming its furies and live-streaming its fears, and for framing tomorrow’s political culture by demolishing yesterday’s, Donald Trump is TIME’s 2016 Person of the Year.
It’s hard to measure the scale of his disruption. This real estate baron and casino owner turned reality-TV star and provocateur—never a day spent in public office, never a debt owed to any interest besides his own—now surveys the smoking ruin of a vast political edifice that once housed parties, pundits, donors, pollsters, all those who did not see him coming or take him seriously. Out of this reckoning, Trump is poised to preside, for better or worse.
For those who believe this is all for the better, Trump’s victory represents a long-overdue rebuke to an entrenched and arrogant governing class; for those who see it as for the worse, the destruction extends to cherished norms of civility and discourse, a politics poisoned by vile streams of racism, sexism, nativism. To his believers, he delivers change—broad, deep, historic change, not modest measures doled out in Dixie cups; to his detractors, he inspires fear both for what he may do and what may be done in his name.
The revolution he stirred feels fully American, with its echoes of populists past, of Andrew Jackson and Huey Long and, at its most sinister, Joe McCarthy and Charles Coughlin. Trump’s assault on truth and logic, far from hurting him, made him stronger. His appeal—part hope, part snarl—dissolved party lines and dispatched the two reigning dynasties of U.S. politics. Yet his victory mirrors the ascent of nationalists across the world, from Britain to the Philippines, and taps forces far more powerful than one man’s message.
We can scarcely grasp what our generation has wrought by putting a supercomputer into all of our hands, all of the time. If you are reading this, whether on a page or a screen, there is a very good chance that you are caught up in a revolution that may have started with enticing gadgets but has now reshaped everything about how we live, love, work, play, shop, share—how our very hearts and minds encounter the world around us. Why would we have imagined that our national conversation would simply go on as before, same people, same promises, same patterns? Perhaps the President-elect will stop tweeting—but only because he will have found some other means to tell the story he wants to tell directly to the audience that wants to hear it.
It turned out to be a failing strategy when Hillary Clinton, who loves policy solutions and believes in them, tried to make this race a character test, a referendum on Trump. But it was certainly understandable. He presented so many challenges, so many choices about what America values. Her popular-vote victory, while legally irrelevant, affirmed the prospect of a female Commander in Chief. In fact, she crushed Trump among voters who cared most about experience and judgment and temperament, qualities that have typically mattered when choosing the leader of the free world. Even at his moment of victory, 6 in 10 voters had an unfavorable view of Trump and didn’t think he was qualified to be President.
But by almost 2 to 1, voters cared most about who could deliver change, and in that category he beat her by 69 points. This is his next test. The year 2016 was the year of his rise; 2017 will be the year of his rule, and like all newly elected leaders, he has a chance to fulfill promises and defy expectations.
His supporters and his critics will discover together how much of what he said he actually believes. In the days after the election, everything was negotiable: the wall became a fence, “Crooked Hillary” is “good people,” and maybe climate change is worth thinking about. Far from draining the swamp, he fed plums to some of its biggest gators. Were his followers alarmed? The critics were hardly reassured: nearly half of Americans expect race relations to worsen, and many women fear that his ascent comes directly at their expense. Trump prefers to talk about the alienated workers who flocked to his rallies and believed a billionaire could be their tribune—“I love them and they love me”—and avers that his every action will be on their behalf. But can he devise a New Deal for workers in the age of automation, renegotiate trade deals and reopen factories while simultaneously elevating many of the same people who profit from the trends he denounced?
For reminding America that demagoguery feeds on despair and that truth is only as powerful as the trust in those who speak it, for empowering a hidden electorate by mainstreaming its furies and live-streaming its fears, and for framing tomorrow’s political culture by demolishing yesterday’s, Donald Trump is TIME’s 2016 Person of the Year.
Rodrigo Duterte defends police accused of killing mayor
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte staunchly defended more than two dozen policemen accused by the government's main investigation agency of killing a jailed mayor linked to illegal drugs.
Duterte said on Wednesday he still believes the accounts of the policemen, who said Mayor Rolando Espinosa Sr and another inmate, Raul Yap, died in their cells when they shot it out with police during a November 5 raid in a jail in central Leyte province.
The president said he was willing to go to jail for his policemen.
After weeks of investigation, the National Bureau of Investigation said on Tuesday it determined the two inmates died in a police "rub-out" and not a shoot-out.
The NBI, the equivalent of the United States' FBI, said the policemen probably placed pistols and illegal drugs in the cells of the two dead inmates to justify the police raid.
"What the police stated is the truth for me," Duterte said in a speech. He added he would not allow the policemen to go to jail.
The NBI findings cast a black mark on Duterte's deadly anti-drug crackdown, which has alarmed western governments and human rights groups. There have been suspicions that some of the more than 4,000 slain drug suspects may have been killed deliberately by law enforcers and did not die in gun battles as claimed by police.
NBI spokesman Ferdinand Lavin said on Tuesday that the bureau filed murder complaints against the policemen at the Department of Justice last Friday. Prosecutors will rule whether there is enough evidence to indict the policemen.
All the policemen involved in the raid at the jail conspired to kill Espinosa and Yap and cover up the murders, Lavin said.
Espinosa's death has sparked scepticism even among politicians backing Duterte's crackdown because of the apparent brazenness of the killings. He had surrendered to the national police chief in a nationally televised event after he and more than 160 other officials were named publicly by Duterte in August as part of a shame campaign.
Espinosa was later released, but was re-arrested and jailed in October after being indicted on drug and firearm charges.
His son, an alleged drug lord, was arrested in the United Arab Emirates in October and has been repatriated to the Philippines, where he has acknowledged past involvement in illegal drugs.
Duterte said on Wednesday he still believes the accounts of the policemen, who said Mayor Rolando Espinosa Sr and another inmate, Raul Yap, died in their cells when they shot it out with police during a November 5 raid in a jail in central Leyte province.
The president said he was willing to go to jail for his policemen.
After weeks of investigation, the National Bureau of Investigation said on Tuesday it determined the two inmates died in a police "rub-out" and not a shoot-out.
The NBI, the equivalent of the United States' FBI, said the policemen probably placed pistols and illegal drugs in the cells of the two dead inmates to justify the police raid.
"What the police stated is the truth for me," Duterte said in a speech. He added he would not allow the policemen to go to jail.
The NBI findings cast a black mark on Duterte's deadly anti-drug crackdown, which has alarmed western governments and human rights groups. There have been suspicions that some of the more than 4,000 slain drug suspects may have been killed deliberately by law enforcers and did not die in gun battles as claimed by police.
NBI spokesman Ferdinand Lavin said on Tuesday that the bureau filed murder complaints against the policemen at the Department of Justice last Friday. Prosecutors will rule whether there is enough evidence to indict the policemen.
All the policemen involved in the raid at the jail conspired to kill Espinosa and Yap and cover up the murders, Lavin said.
Espinosa's death has sparked scepticism even among politicians backing Duterte's crackdown because of the apparent brazenness of the killings. He had surrendered to the national police chief in a nationally televised event after he and more than 160 other officials were named publicly by Duterte in August as part of a shame campaign.
Espinosa was later released, but was re-arrested and jailed in October after being indicted on drug and firearm charges.
His son, an alleged drug lord, was arrested in the United Arab Emirates in October and has been repatriated to the Philippines, where he has acknowledged past involvement in illegal drugs.
Pakistan: PIA PK667 crashes with 47 people on board
A commercial aircraft carrying 47 people onboard crashed in northern Pakistan near the capital Islamabad, Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) said.
PK 661 went down on Wednesday on a domestic flight from the mountainous northern city of Chitral to Islamabad, aviation authorities said.
The flight departed from Chitral around 1530 local time (1030 GMT) and was expected to land in Islamabad around 1640.
Junaid Jamshed, Pakistan's singer-turned-preacher, and his wife were also on-board the plane that came down near the town of Havelian in Abbottabad district.
A PIA spokesperson told Al Jazeera it was too early to ascertain the cause of the crash.
"PIA aircraft ATR-42 (AP-BHO) crashed near Havelian at 1642 hours, 42 passengers, five crew members and one ground engineer were on board," a PIA spokesperson said in a statement.
"Rescue efforts are underway, and we are ascertaining the extent of damage to life of those on board the aircraft."
An earlier airline statement said the ATR-42 turboprop aircraft had lost contact en route from Chitral.
"A plane has crashed and locals told us that it is on fire," said Saeed Wazir, a senior local police official. "Police and rescue officials are on the way but have yet not reached on site."
Seven bodies have been recovered from the debris and there are unlikely to be any survivors, a government official on the scene said.
"All of the bodies are burned beyond recognition. The debris is scattered," Taj Muhammad Khan, an official based in the Havelian region, told Reuters news agency.
Khan added witnesses told him "the aircraft has crashed in a mountainous area, and before it hit the ground it was on fire".
Jamshed rocketed to fame in Pakistan in the 1980s and 1990s as the singer for the Vital Signs pop band. He launched a solo career later with a string of chart-topping albums and hits.
Jamshed gave up music in 2001 and announced that he was devoting his life to spreading Islam.
Deputy Commissioner Chitral Osama Warraich was on board the flight.
Distress signal
Al Jazeera's Kamal Hyder, reporting from the capital Islamabad, said the pilot had sent a distress signal before the plane crashed.
Some relatives of those onboard have gathered at Islamabad airport but are getting very little information or assistance from authorities, according to Al Jazeera's Hameedullah Khan who added the crash site was three to four hours' drive from the capital.
Pakistan's Dawn News reported that 40 ambulances have been dispatched from Islamabad and a helicopter will be used to put out the fire. It added that due to darkness and remoteness of the crash site, rescue efforts were proving to be very difficult.
Pakistan's last major air disaster was in 2015 when a Pakistani military helicopter crashed in a remote northern valley, killing eight people including the Norwegian, Philippine and Indonesian envoys and the wives of Malaysian and Indonesian envoys.
The deadliest crash was in 2010, when an Airbus 321 operated by private airline Airblue and flying from Karachi crashed into hills outside Islamabad while about to land, killing all 152 on board.
PK 661 went down on Wednesday on a domestic flight from the mountainous northern city of Chitral to Islamabad, aviation authorities said.
The flight departed from Chitral around 1530 local time (1030 GMT) and was expected to land in Islamabad around 1640.
Junaid Jamshed, Pakistan's singer-turned-preacher, and his wife were also on-board the plane that came down near the town of Havelian in Abbottabad district.
A PIA spokesperson told Al Jazeera it was too early to ascertain the cause of the crash.
"PIA aircraft ATR-42 (AP-BHO) crashed near Havelian at 1642 hours, 42 passengers, five crew members and one ground engineer were on board," a PIA spokesperson said in a statement.
"Rescue efforts are underway, and we are ascertaining the extent of damage to life of those on board the aircraft."
An earlier airline statement said the ATR-42 turboprop aircraft had lost contact en route from Chitral.
"A plane has crashed and locals told us that it is on fire," said Saeed Wazir, a senior local police official. "Police and rescue officials are on the way but have yet not reached on site."
Seven bodies have been recovered from the debris and there are unlikely to be any survivors, a government official on the scene said.
"All of the bodies are burned beyond recognition. The debris is scattered," Taj Muhammad Khan, an official based in the Havelian region, told Reuters news agency.
Khan added witnesses told him "the aircraft has crashed in a mountainous area, and before it hit the ground it was on fire".
Jamshed rocketed to fame in Pakistan in the 1980s and 1990s as the singer for the Vital Signs pop band. He launched a solo career later with a string of chart-topping albums and hits.
Jamshed gave up music in 2001 and announced that he was devoting his life to spreading Islam.
Deputy Commissioner Chitral Osama Warraich was on board the flight.
Distress signal
Al Jazeera's Kamal Hyder, reporting from the capital Islamabad, said the pilot had sent a distress signal before the plane crashed.
Some relatives of those onboard have gathered at Islamabad airport but are getting very little information or assistance from authorities, according to Al Jazeera's Hameedullah Khan who added the crash site was three to four hours' drive from the capital.
Pakistan's Dawn News reported that 40 ambulances have been dispatched from Islamabad and a helicopter will be used to put out the fire. It added that due to darkness and remoteness of the crash site, rescue efforts were proving to be very difficult.
Pakistan's last major air disaster was in 2015 when a Pakistani military helicopter crashed in a remote northern valley, killing eight people including the Norwegian, Philippine and Indonesian envoys and the wives of Malaysian and Indonesian envoys.
The deadliest crash was in 2010, when an Airbus 321 operated by private airline Airblue and flying from Karachi crashed into hills outside Islamabad while about to land, killing all 152 on board.
Earth heading for 25-hour day as orbit slows
Days on Earth are getting longer, a team of experts has concluded, as they predict in the future there will be 25 hours in a day.
Over the past 27 centuries, the average day has lengthened at a rate of almost two milliseconds (ms) per century.
However, it will take about 6.7 million years to gain just one minute extra per day and we will have to wait about 200 million years for the extra hour.
Study lead co-author Leslie Morrison said: "It's a very slow process."
Researchers at Durham University and the UK's Nautical Almanac Office gathered evidence from historical accounts of eclipses and celestial events from 720BC to 2015.
Mr Morrison, a retired astronomer with Royal Greenwich Observatory, said the earth's orbit is not slowing as rapidly as first expected.
It was previously estimated it will take 5.2 million years to add one minute to every day.
"These estimates are approximate, because the geophysical forces operating on the Earth's rotation will not necessarily be constant over such a long period of time," Mr Morrison said.
The team of experts used gravitational theories about the movement of Earth around the Sun, and the Moon around Earth, to compute the timing of eclipses of the Moon and Sun over time, as viewed from our planet.
They then calculated from where on Earth these would have been visible, and compared this to observations of eclipses recorded by ancient Babylonians, Chinese, Greeks, Arabs and medieval Europeans.
Mr Morrison said: "For example, the Babylonian tablets, which are written in cuneiform script, are stored at the British Museum and have been decoded by experts there and elsewhere."
The team found discrepancies between where the eclipses should have been observable, and where on Earth they were actually seen.
The Earth's rotation can be influenced by factors including its altering shape due to shrinking polar ice caps since the last Ice Age, electro-magnetic interactions between the mantle and core, and changes in the sea level.
Over the past 27 centuries, the average day has lengthened at a rate of almost two milliseconds (ms) per century.
However, it will take about 6.7 million years to gain just one minute extra per day and we will have to wait about 200 million years for the extra hour.
Study lead co-author Leslie Morrison said: "It's a very slow process."
Researchers at Durham University and the UK's Nautical Almanac Office gathered evidence from historical accounts of eclipses and celestial events from 720BC to 2015.
Mr Morrison, a retired astronomer with Royal Greenwich Observatory, said the earth's orbit is not slowing as rapidly as first expected.
It was previously estimated it will take 5.2 million years to add one minute to every day.
"These estimates are approximate, because the geophysical forces operating on the Earth's rotation will not necessarily be constant over such a long period of time," Mr Morrison said.
The team of experts used gravitational theories about the movement of Earth around the Sun, and the Moon around Earth, to compute the timing of eclipses of the Moon and Sun over time, as viewed from our planet.
They then calculated from where on Earth these would have been visible, and compared this to observations of eclipses recorded by ancient Babylonians, Chinese, Greeks, Arabs and medieval Europeans.
Mr Morrison said: "For example, the Babylonian tablets, which are written in cuneiform script, are stored at the British Museum and have been decoded by experts there and elsewhere."
The team found discrepancies between where the eclipses should have been observable, and where on Earth they were actually seen.
The Earth's rotation can be influenced by factors including its altering shape due to shrinking polar ice caps since the last Ice Age, electro-magnetic interactions between the mantle and core, and changes in the sea level.
Theresa May: Talking to Donald Trump is 'very easy'
Theresa May has said that Donald Trump is "very easy to talk to" - despite taking him to task during the US presidential election.
Speaking to reporters on a trip to Bahrain, the Prime Minister was asked what she thought of the President-elect following her phone conversation with the victorious candidate.
She said: "What I have found with Donald Trump is that he is somebody who very much values the relationship he has with the UK.
"When we've talked, one of the key things we've talked about is the depth of our special relationship, and the fact that we both want to ensure that we obviously maintain that, but we also build on that for the future."
Despite the firm ties between the UK and US, Mrs May was 11th on the list of world leaders when Mr Trump came to make his traditional round of telephone calls.
His tardiness may have had something to do with Mrs May's apparent antipathy towards the former reality TV host and billionaire property developer.
When Mr Trump suggested Muslim extremists had made some areas of London no-go areas for police, she retorted: "I just think it shows he does not understand the UK and what happens in the UK."
:: Trump: 'Out of control' Air Force One deal should be cancelled
But as he contemplates building walls, Mr Trump is also mending fences.
The pair have had a second telephone conversation, and Mr Trump has invited Theresa May to Washington after his inauguration.
Meanwhile, Downing Street has said that a state visit for Mr Trump next year is "under consideration".
On the final day of her three day visit, Iran will take centre stage at the Gulf Cooperation Council Summit which she has become the first woman to attend.
She is expected to tell the leaders of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, UAE, Bahrain and Qatar that she is "clear eyed" about the threat Iran poses to the Gulf and the Middle East while underlining the importance of the nuclear deal struck last year.
As the British leader seeks to sign lucrative trade and investment deals with the region she will firmly align herself against the Gulf country's traditional enemy.
Donald Trump has threatened to rip up a landmark deal which halted Iran's nuclear ambition in return for the lifting of sanctions, but Theresa May will make clear that it was vitally important for regional security.
Addressing the plenary of the Gulf Co-operation Council in Manama, the Prime Minister is expected to say: "As we address new threats to our security, so we must also continue to confront state actors whose influence fuels instability in the region.
"So I want to assure you that I am clear-eyed about the threat that Iran poses to the Gulf and the wider Middle East; and the UK is fully committed to our strategic partnership with the Gulf and working with you to counter that threat.
"We must also work together to push back against Iran's aggressive regional actions, whether in Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen, Syria or in the Gulf itself."
Speaking to reporters on a trip to Bahrain, the Prime Minister was asked what she thought of the President-elect following her phone conversation with the victorious candidate.
She said: "What I have found with Donald Trump is that he is somebody who very much values the relationship he has with the UK.
"When we've talked, one of the key things we've talked about is the depth of our special relationship, and the fact that we both want to ensure that we obviously maintain that, but we also build on that for the future."
Despite the firm ties between the UK and US, Mrs May was 11th on the list of world leaders when Mr Trump came to make his traditional round of telephone calls.
His tardiness may have had something to do with Mrs May's apparent antipathy towards the former reality TV host and billionaire property developer.
When Mr Trump suggested Muslim extremists had made some areas of London no-go areas for police, she retorted: "I just think it shows he does not understand the UK and what happens in the UK."
:: Trump: 'Out of control' Air Force One deal should be cancelled
But as he contemplates building walls, Mr Trump is also mending fences.
The pair have had a second telephone conversation, and Mr Trump has invited Theresa May to Washington after his inauguration.
Meanwhile, Downing Street has said that a state visit for Mr Trump next year is "under consideration".
On the final day of her three day visit, Iran will take centre stage at the Gulf Cooperation Council Summit which she has become the first woman to attend.
She is expected to tell the leaders of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, UAE, Bahrain and Qatar that she is "clear eyed" about the threat Iran poses to the Gulf and the Middle East while underlining the importance of the nuclear deal struck last year.
As the British leader seeks to sign lucrative trade and investment deals with the region she will firmly align herself against the Gulf country's traditional enemy.
Donald Trump has threatened to rip up a landmark deal which halted Iran's nuclear ambition in return for the lifting of sanctions, but Theresa May will make clear that it was vitally important for regional security.
Addressing the plenary of the Gulf Co-operation Council in Manama, the Prime Minister is expected to say: "As we address new threats to our security, so we must also continue to confront state actors whose influence fuels instability in the region.
"So I want to assure you that I am clear-eyed about the threat that Iran poses to the Gulf and the wider Middle East; and the UK is fully committed to our strategic partnership with the Gulf and working with you to counter that threat.
"We must also work together to push back against Iran's aggressive regional actions, whether in Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen, Syria or in the Gulf itself."
Tuesday, December 6, 2016
Deadly earthquake hits Aceh in Indonesia
An undersea earthquake off Indonesia's northern Aceh province has killed at least 25 people.
The 6.5 magnitude quake struck 19km (12 miles) south-east of the town of Sigli on Sumatra island, where dozens of buildings have collapsed and people are feared trapped under rubble.
Indonesia's meteorological agency said there was no risk of a tsunami.
In 2004, Aceh was devastated by a tsunami caused by a huge undersea earthquake that killed 120,000 people.
The US Geological Survey said the earthquake struck just offshore at 05:03 local time (22:03 GMT Tuesday) at a depth of 17.2km.
Images from earthquake-hit Aceh
Said Mulyadi, deputy district chief of Pidie Jaya, the region hit hardest by the quake, told the BBC's Indonesian service that the death toll could rise.
He told the AFP news agency that several children were among the dead and that local hospitals had been overwhelmed.
Heavy equipment is being used to search for survivors, but Pidie Jaya District Chief Aiyub Abbas told the Associated Press that more was needed.
The quake shook the provincial capital of Banda Aceh and prompted many people across the region to flee their homes. Many are said to be reluctant to go back indoors, amid a number of aftershocks.
Indonesia is prone to earthquakes because it lies on the Ring of Fire - the line of frequent quakes and volcanic eruptions that circles virtually the entire Pacific rim.
The island of Sumatra has been hit by several earthquakes this year.
The 6.5 magnitude quake struck 19km (12 miles) south-east of the town of Sigli on Sumatra island, where dozens of buildings have collapsed and people are feared trapped under rubble.
Indonesia's meteorological agency said there was no risk of a tsunami.
In 2004, Aceh was devastated by a tsunami caused by a huge undersea earthquake that killed 120,000 people.
The US Geological Survey said the earthquake struck just offshore at 05:03 local time (22:03 GMT Tuesday) at a depth of 17.2km.
Images from earthquake-hit Aceh
Said Mulyadi, deputy district chief of Pidie Jaya, the region hit hardest by the quake, told the BBC's Indonesian service that the death toll could rise.
He told the AFP news agency that several children were among the dead and that local hospitals had been overwhelmed.
Heavy equipment is being used to search for survivors, but Pidie Jaya District Chief Aiyub Abbas told the Associated Press that more was needed.
The quake shook the provincial capital of Banda Aceh and prompted many people across the region to flee their homes. Many are said to be reluctant to go back indoors, amid a number of aftershocks.
Indonesia is prone to earthquakes because it lies on the Ring of Fire - the line of frequent quakes and volcanic eruptions that circles virtually the entire Pacific rim.
The island of Sumatra has been hit by several earthquakes this year.
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