Former South African Ambassador to the United States Ebrahim Rasool (c), surrounded by supporters and South African Police service members, arrives at the Cape Town International airport, in Cape Town, on March 23, 2025. (Photo by GIANLUIGI GUERCIA / AFP)
The South African ambassador who was expelled from the United States in a row with President Donald Trump’s government arrived home on Sunday to a raucous welcome and struck a defiant tone over the decision
“It was not our choice to come home, but we come home with no regrets,” Ebrahim Rasool told hundreds of supporters in Cape Town after he was ousted from Washington on accusations of being “a race-baiting politician” who hates Trump.
Ties between Washington and Pretoria have slumped since Trump cut financial aid to South Africa over what he alleges is its anti-white land policy, its genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice and other foreign policy clashes.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said last week Rasool was expelled after he described Trump’s Make America Great Again movement as a supremacist reaction to diversity in the US.
Rasool, a former anti-apartheid campaigner, defended his remarks on Sunday, saying he was speaking to South African intellectuals, political leaders and others to tell them that the “old way of doing business with the US was not going to work.”
“Unless we change our way of speaking to the US and recognising what is the US — it is not the US of Obama, it is not the US of Clinton — it is a different US and therefore our language must change not only to transactionality but also a language that can penetrate a group that has clearly identified a fringe white community in South Africa as their constituency,” he said.
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.
Trump further heightened tensions this month, saying South Africa’s farmers were welcome to settle in the United States after repeating his accusations — without providing evidence — that the government was “confiscating” land from white people.
A gunman killed a Canadian tourist and wounded six other people on Monday at Mexico’s famed Teotihuacan archaeological site, authorities said.
The gunman killed himself after opening fire at the heavily visited destination in central Mexico, home to pre-Aztecan pyramids, according to a security official.
The shooting occurred on the Pyramid of the Moon, a 45-meter (nearly 150-foot) high monument visitors are allowed to climb using steep steps carved of volcanic rock.
Six people were wounded by gunfire and taken to local hospitals, including a Canadian woman, a Colombian woman and child, a Brazilian and two Americans.
Seven other people were injured in the scramble for safety and were treated at the scene after the gunman — identified as Julio Cesar Jasso Ramirez of Mexico — opened fire.
The midday shooting stunned tourists at one of Mexico’s most visited pre-Hispanic sites, less than two months before the 2026 World Cup kicks off with games in Mexico, the United States and Canada.
AFPTV footage showed a body wrapped in a white sheet being walked down the steps of the pyramid.
State authorities at the scene seized a firearm, a knife and unused ammunition and evacuated tourists from the premises.
More than 2,000 years old, the pyramid city near Mexico City attracted over 1.8 million visitors in 2025, tourism officials said.
Canadian Foreign Minister Anita Anand in a post on X called the attack “a horrific act of gun violence.”
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum called for a thorough investigation, and said she sent personnel to the site to provide assistance.
“What happened today in Teotihuacan deeply pains us,” Sheinbaum posted on X.
‘Send security’
Forensic experts and members of the Red Cross transport a body on the Pyramid of the Moon at the Teotihuacan archaeological zone following a shooting in Teotihuacan, State of Mexico, on April 20, 2026. Photo by YURI CORTEZ / AFP
Located about 50 kilometers (31 miles) from the capital Mexico City, Teotihuacan draws domestic and foreign tourists to see its pyramids and its Avenue of the Dead.
Federal security officials said police and the national guard were dispatched to the area following the attack.
Videos on social media showed the gunman firing periodic shots from a pistol about halfway up the Pyramid of the Moon while some tourists took cover behind stairs below and others fled.
“A person is opening fire on us, take care friends, send security,” a voice from one video, which AFP has not verified, can be heard saying.
Other videos show authorities examining the pyramid in a complex cordoned off with crime-scene tape.
Designated as a World Heritage site of “outstanding universal value” by the United Nations, the monuments at Teotihuacan were built in the pre-Hispanic Classic period — a golden age of Mesoamerican history — between the first and seventh centuries.
Mexico’s nearly 200 archaeological sites are popular with tourists, and although accidents have been reported, this is the first reported case of armed violence in decades.
While Mexico continues to struggle with frequent drug gang-related violence, untargeted mass shootings are relatively rare, especially compared to the country’s northern neighbor, the United States.
Mexico expects over 5.5 million visitors for the World Cup in June, when the popular football contest hosts national teams from around the world.
American tourist Anna Durmont, a 37-year-old art historian, told AFP she was walking towards the pyramid when she was startled by the sight of emergency vehicles and police.
“It was very measured. The park is full of souvenir sellers and they hadn’t left. It wasn’t clear to us until we got closer that there was a serious emergency,” she said.
A 13-year-old teenager in India tragically lost his life after his family kept him immersed in the Ganges River for 12 hours following a snake bite instead of seeking medical help, the country’s media reported.
The death of the young boy recently caused outrage throughout India and reignited the heated debate regarding the potentially deadly consequences of superstition and the denial of proper medical care.
Acting on the instructions of a ‘witch doctor,’ a rural family kept their 13-year-old son immersed in the holy Ganges River for 12 hours, instead of taking him to a hospital after he got bitten by the poisonous snake.
The boy, whose name was given simply as Amit, a Class 4 student from Pitampur village in Uttar Pradesh, was bitten by the snake last week Thursday.
He immediately told his family what happened, but instead of rushing him to a hospital, they decided to consult a witch doctor.
The man reportedly told the family to tie Amit to bamboo poles and keep his body immersed in the Ganges River, so that the holy water of the river could cure him.
Indian media reported after 12 hours, the family noticed that Amit had become unconscious, and then they finally decided to take him to a medical doctor, but by that time, there was nothing to be done.
Even after learning of Amit’s death, the family allegedly tried to throw his body into the Ganges, hoping for a miracle.
Dr. Shashank Chaudhary of the health centre in the village told reporters that he and his colleagues routinely conduct awareness-raising campaigns, urging people to come to the hospital immediately after getting bitten by snakes, as every minute counts.
Amit’s preventable death sparked outrage on social media, with many asking that his parents should face consequences for their negligence.
US President Donald Trump says he is “not a big fan” of Pope Leo XIV, after the global leader of Catholics made a plea for peace amid the war in the Middle East.
The 70-year-old American pope publicly implored leaders on Saturday to end the violence, telling worshippers at St Peter’s Basilica: “Enough of the idolatry of self and money! Enough of the display of power! Enough of war!”
“I’m not a big fan of Pope Leo. He’s a very liberal person, and he’s a man that doesn’t believe in stopping crime,” Trump told reporters at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland.
He accused the pontiff of “toying with a country that wants a nuclear weapon.”
Trump later doubled down on his comments to reporters with a post on Truth Social, saying: “I don’t want a Pope who thinks it’s OK for Iran to have a Nuclear Weapon.”
“Pope Leo is WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy,” he said.
The president added that Leo had only been elected “because he was an American, and they thought that would be the best way to deal with President Donald J. Trump.”
“If I wasn’t in the White House, Leo wouldn’t be in the Vatican.”
Trump later posted an AI-generated image seemingly depicting himself as Jesus Christ.
In the image, the president appears dressed in red and white robes as he cures a man with his healing hand. The American flag is shown over his shoulder.
Trump and the White House have previously shared AI-generated images, including one that showed the president dressed as the pope.
On Friday, a Vatican official denied reports that a top Pentagon official gave the church’s envoy to the United States a “bitter lecture” over Pope Leo’s criticisms of the Trump administration.
The story in the Free Press — which the Pentagon had already dismissed as “distorted” — reported that Cardinal Christophe Pierre was summoned in January to the Pentagon, where he was given a dressing-down by US Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby.
The military official reportedly told the cardinal that the United States “has the military power to do whatever it wants — and that the Church had better take its side.”
Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said in a statement “the account presented by certain media outlets regarding this meeting does not correspond to the truth in any way.”
While both parties insist the meeting was cordial, the Holy See and the White House have openly been at odds over the Trump administration’s hardline mass deportation campaign — which the pope called “inhuman” — and the use of military force in the Middle East and Venezuela.
When Trump made genocidal threats against Iran Tuesday — saying “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again” — the pontiff slammed the “truly unacceptable” statement and urged parties to “come back to the table” for negotiations.
Earlier this month, Pope Leo hailed the news of a ceasefire between the United States and Iran as a “sign of real hope.”
But peace talks between the United States and Iran, held in the Pakistani capital Islamabad, ended abruptly and without a resolution on Saturday, with US Vice President JD Vance telling reporters after a marathon-session of talks that Washington has delivered its “final and best offer.”
