Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Bangladesh: Shamima is not a citizen
Book reveals he didn’t know Britain had nukes, thought Finland was in Russia & said invading Venezuela would be ‘cool’
RUNAWAY IS bride Shamima Begum’s UK ban is under added pressure after Bangladesh confirmed it would not give her citizenship.
The 20-year-old Londoner is fighting the decision last year to strip her of British citizenship after she was found in a Syrian refugee camp.
Then-home Secretary Sajid Javid said she was not left stateless as she had Bangladesh heritage.
But Bangladesh’s foreign ministry said this week that Shamima, currently in a Syrian detention camp, had “never been a Bangladeshi national”.
The foreign ministry added: “She has no right to claim... and there is no question to allow her to enter into Bangladesh.”
DONALD Trump’s former national security adviser has described the US President as “stunningly uninformed” in a book exposing the chaos in the White House.
Trump yesterday dubbed John Bolton “a sick puppy” over his claims that the US President had no idea Britain had nuclear weapons, thought Finland was in Russia, quite fancied invading Venezuela, and begged China to increase trade to boost his re-election chances.
The clearly rattled Mr Trump hit out at Mr Bolton as the American government battled to have his memoir, The Room Where It Happened, due for release on Tuesday, stopped.
Mr Bolton, who worked for Mr Trump for 17 months, writes “obstruction of justice was a way of life” in the White House, claiming the President gave “personal favours to dictators he liked”.
The President is alleged to have made the comments about the UK’S military capability at a summit with the thenprime Minister Theresa May in 2018.
When a British official referred to the UK as a “nuclear power”, Trump allegedly asked, “Oh, are you a nuclear power?” in a way which made Mr Bolton believe it “was not intended as a joke”.
Mr Bolton, who served four Republican presidents, claims Trump’s decisions put his re-election and his family above the interests of American people.
He claims the President said invading Venezuela would be “cool”, requesting military options after saying he felt it was “really part of the United States”.
Mr Bolton also tells how Mr Trump thought Finland was in Russia, and describes him as childlike and absurd, claiming he is easily manipulated by aides, foreign leaders and dictators.
He writes that Russian President Vladimir Putin showed “a brilliant display of Soviet-style propaganda” in May 2019 in a call with the US leader that “largely persuaded Trump” to go easy on additional Venezuela sanctions.
The President defended Saudi Arabia’s crown prince Mohammed bin Salman over the gruesome murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, allegedly to divert attention from the revelation that his daughter Ivanka, a White House adviser, was using a private email account.
“This will divert from Ivanka,” Mr Bolton quotes the President as saying.
Mr Bolton claims Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, supposedly a Trump ally, slipped him a note saying “he [Trump] is so full of s***” in the famous meeting with North Korean despot Kim Jong-un. The book also alleges that Trump called former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley a “c***”, but Ivanka and her husband Jared Kushner still wanted her to replace Mike Pence as his Vice President pick for November’s election.
The book also supports a report that Attorney General Bill Barr personally tried to block a US prosecution of a Turkish bank after Turkey’s President Recep Erdogan asked Trump about it.
Bolton claims Trump begged Chinese President Xi Jinping to help his re-election, writing Trump was “pleading with Xi to ensure he’d win. He stressed the importance of farmers, and increased Chinese purchases of soybeans and wheat in the electoral outcome”.
Responding to the claims yesterday, Trump tweeted: “Bolton’s book, which is getting terrible reviews, is a compilation of lies and made-up stories.” Earlier, he said of Bolton; “He is a liar, everybody in the White House hated John Bolton.”
In a trailer for an ABC interview, Mr Bolton said of Mr Trump: “I don’t think he’s fit for office. I don’t think he has the competence to carry out the job.”