South Africa's ambassador to Washington Ebrahim Rasool is no longer welcome in the US, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced on Friday, taking ties between the two countries to a new low since US President Donald Trump assumed office in January.
Mr Rubio accused Mr Rasool of being “a race-baiting politician who hates America and hates @POTUS”, referring to Mr Trump by his White House X account handle.
“We have nothing to discuss with him and so he is considered persona non grata,” he said in a post on X.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said the US decision was “regrettable” and called for “diplomatic decorum” between the two states.
Mr Rubio, in his post on X, linked to an article from the conservative news outlet Breitbart, which addressed Mr Rasool's remarks by livestream to a foreign policy seminar on Friday.
“He said that white supremacism was motivating Trump's 'disrespect' for the 'current hegemonic order' of the world,” Breitbart reported, adding that Mr Rasool noted that Mr Trump's Make America Great Again movement “was a white supremacist response to growing demographic diversity in the United States”.
In response, South Africa's presidency said it “urges all relevant and impacted stakeholders to maintain the established diplomatic decorum in their engagement with the matter”.
The presidency “remains committed to building a mutually beneficial relationship with the United States of America”, it said.
The representative for South Africa’s Department of International Relations and Co-operation, Chrispin Phiri, said on X that the government “will engage through the diplomatic channel”.
Mr Rasool, 62, served as South Africa's ambassador to the US from 2010 to 2015 and was reappointed to the post in January. He has served time in prison for his anti-apartheid activism and later became a politician in the African National Congress, the party of Nelson Mandela, the country’s first post-apartheid president.
Mr Rasool has expressed anger towards the Israeli government for its war in Gaza.
In February, in an interview with news site Zeteo, he said what South Africans experienced during apartheid rule “is on steroids in Palestine”.
The expulsion of an ambassador is a very rare move by the US and comes amid increased tensions between Washington and Pretoria.
South Africa has been a supporter of Palestinian rights and has pushed for a case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) accusing Israel, one of Washington's biggest allies, of genocide in Gaza.
Mr Trump in February froze US aid to South Africa, citing a law in the country that he alleges allows land to be seized from white farmers. One of the president's closest allies, South African-born billionaire Elon Musk, has accused Mr Ramaphosa's government of having “openly racist ownership laws”.
Most farmland in South Africa is still owned by white people three decades after the end of apartheid and the government is under pressure to implement reforms.
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Our legal columnist
Name: Yousef Al Bahar
Advocate at Al Bahar & Associate Advocates and Legal Consultants, established in 1994
Education: Mr Al Bahar was born in 1979 and graduated in 2008 from the Judicial Institute. He took after his father, who was one of the first Emirati lawyers
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Match info
Athletic Bilbao 0
Real Madrid 1 (Ramos 73' pen)
How to watch Ireland v Pakistan in UAE
When: The one-off Test starts on Friday, May 11
What time: Each day’s play is scheduled to start at 2pm UAE time.
TV: The match will be broadcast on OSN Sports Cricket HD. Subscribers to the channel can also stream the action live on OSN Play.
Difference between fractional ownership and timeshare
Although similar in its appearance, the concept of a fractional title deed is unlike that of a timeshare, which usually involves multiple investors buying “time” in a property whereby the owner has the right to occupation for a specified period of time in any year, as opposed to the actual real estate, said John Peacock, Head of Indirect Tax and Conveyancing, BSA Ahmad Bin Hezeem & Associates, a law firm.
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Favourite book: That Is How They Defeat Despair by Salwa Aladian
Favourite Motto: Their happiness is your happiness
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At a glance
Global events: Much of the UK’s economic woes were blamed on “increased global uncertainty”, which can be interpreted as the economic impact of the Ukraine war and the uncertainty over Donald Trump’s tariffs.
Growth forecasts: Cut for 2025 from 2 per cent to 1 per cent. The OBR watchdog also estimated inflation will average 3.2 per cent this year
Welfare: Universal credit health element cut by 50 per cent and frozen for new claimants, building on cuts to the disability and incapacity bill set out earlier this month
Spending cuts: Overall day-to day-spending across government cut by £6.1bn in 2029-30
Tax evasion: Steps to crack down on tax evasion to raise “£6.5bn per year” for the public purse
Defence: New high-tech weaponry, upgrading HM Naval Base in Portsmouth
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"They see their tomorrows slipping out of their reach. And though it seems to them that everything outside this reality is heaven, yet they do not want to go to that heaven. They stay, because they are afflicted with hope." - Mahmoud Darwish, to attendees of the Palestine Festival of Literature, 2008
His life in brief: Born in a village near Galilee, he lived in exile for most of his life and started writing poetry after high school. He was arrested several times by Israel for what were deemed to be inciteful poems. Most of his work focused on the love and yearning for his homeland, and he was regarded the Palestinian poet of resistance. Over the course of his life, he published more than 30 poetry collections and books of prose, with his work translated into more than 20 languages. Many of his poems were set to music by Arab composers, most significantly Marcel Khalife. Darwish died on August 9, 2008 after undergoing heart surgery in the United States. He was later buried in Ramallah where a shrine was erected in his honour.
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