CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) — South Africa's new special envoy to the United States is already under scrutiny for calling U.S. President Donald Trump a racist, homophobic and narcissistic "right-winger" in a speech in 2020.
Mcebisi Jonas, a former deputy finance minister, was appointed Monday by President Cyril Ramaphosa as his representative to Washington, tasked with rebuilding South Africa's deteriorating relationship with the U.S. under Trump.
The Trump administration expelled the South African ambassador last month.
Trump has singled out South Africa, issuing an executive order in February suspending all U.S. funding to the country over what he claimed are its anti-white and anti-American policies.
South Africa's ambassador was expelled from the U.S. for saying during a webinar that the politics of Trump and the Make America Great Again movement were partly the result of a “supremacist instinct.”
The Trump administration called the ambassador, Ebrahim Rasool, a “race-baiting politician” who hated Trump. South Africa hasn't named a new ambassador.
The new South African envoy's speech criticizing Trump and his first term was delivered on Nov. 8, 2020, five days after the election where Joe Biden defeated Trump. His comments have been circulated in the media.
“Right now, the U.S. is undergoing a watershed moment, with Biden the certain winner in the presidential race against the racist, homophobic Donald Trump,” Jonas said. “How we got to a situation where a narcissistic right-winger took charge of the world's greatest economic and military powerhouse is something that we need to ponder over. It is something that all democracies need to ponder over.”
Jonas was delivering South Africa's annual Ahmed Kathrada Lecture, where public figures are invited to give a speech for the foundation of Kathrada, one of the anti-apartheid activists put on trial by the white minority government in the 1960s and imprisoned alongside Nelson Mandela.
Jonas' speech largely focused on inequality, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and promoting the ideas of globalism and international trade. “Hopefully the defeat of Trump will deal a blow to the deglobalization lobby,” he said.
There was no immediate comment from him or the government over those remarks. After he was appointed, Jonas said he would do his best to “promote a healthy working relationship” between the countries but was aware of the "difficulties that lie ahead considering recent global developments.”
South Africa has been a prime target for Trump's criticism.
He has falsely accused the South African government of allowing violent attacks on white minority farmers and seizing their land, claims that have been rejected by political parties across the spectrum and experts in South Africa.
A new land expropriation law does allow the government to expropriate some land without compensation as long as it's in the public interest. No land has been taken under it. But its passing led groups representing some of South Africa's white minority to lobby the Trump administration for help, saying their land was likely to be targeted.
Trump has also announced a program offering white South African farmers refugee status in the U.S.
AP Africa news: https://apnews.com/hub/africa
President Donald Trump gestures to the crowd as he departs after welcoming the 2025 College Football National Champions, the Ohio State University football team, during an event on the South Lawn of the White House, Monday, April 14, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Nationwide protests challenging Iran's theocracy saw protesters flood the streets in the country's capital and its second-largest city into Sunday, crossing the two-week mark as violence surrounding the demonstrations has killed at least 116 people, activists said.
With the internet down in Iran and phone lines cut off, gauging the demonstrations from abroad has grown more difficult. But the death toll in the protests has grown, while 2,600 others have been detained, according to the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency.
Those abroad fear the information blackout will embolden hard-liners within Iran's security services to launch a bloody crackdown, despite warnings from U.S. President Donald Trump he's willing to strike the Islamic Republic to protect peaceful demonstrators.
Trump offered support for the protesters, saying on social media that “Iran is looking at FREEDOM, perhaps like never before. The USA stands ready to help!!!” The New York Times and Wall Street Journal, citing anonymous U.S. officials, said on Saturday night that Trump had been given military options for a strike on Iran, but hadn’t made a final decision.
The State Department separately warned: “Do not play games with President Trump. When he says he’ll do something, he means it.”
Online videos sent out of Iran, likely using Starlink satellite transmitters, purportedly showed demonstrators gathering in northern Tehran's Punak neighborhood. There, it appeared authorities shut off streets, with protesters waving their lit mobile phones. Others banged metal while fireworks went off.
Other footage purportedly showed demonstrators peacefully marching down a street and others honking their car horns on the street.
In Mashhad, Iran's second-largest city, some 725 kilometers (450 miles) northeast of Tehran, footage purported to show protesters confronting security forces. Flaming debris and dumpsters could be seen in the street, blocking the road. Mashhad is home to the Imam Reza shrine, the holiest in Shiite Islam, making the protests there carry heavy significance for the country's theocracy.
Protests also appeared to happen in Kerman, 800 kilometers (500 miles) southeast of Tehran.
Iranian state television on Sunday morning took a page from demonstrators, having their correspondents appear on streets in several cities to show calm areas with a date stamp shown on screen. Tehran and Mashhad were not included. They also showed pro-government demonstrations in Qom and Qazvin.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has signaled a coming clampdown, despite U.S. warnings. Tehran escalated its threats Saturday, with Iran’s attorney general, Mohammad Movahedi Azad, warning that anyone taking part in protests will be considered an “enemy of God,” a death-penalty charge. The statement carried by Iranian state television said even those who “helped rioters” would face the charge.
Iran’s theocracy cut off the nation from the internet and international telephone calls on Thursday, though it allowed some state-owned and semiofficial media to publish. Qatar’s state-funded Al Jazeera news network reported live from Iran, but they appeared to be the only major foreign outlet able to work.
Iran’s exiled Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, who called for protests Thursday and Friday, asked in his latest message for demonstrators to take to the streets Saturday and Sunday. He urged protesters to carry Iran’s old lion-and-sun flag and other national symbols used during the time of the shah to “claim public spaces as your own.”
Pahlavi’s support of and from Israel has drawn criticism in the past — particularly after the 12-day war. Demonstrators have shouted in support of the shah in some protests, but it isn’t clear whether that’s support for Pahlavi himself or a desire to return to a time before the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
The demonstrations began Dec. 28 over the collapse of the Iranian rial currency, which trades at over 1.4 million to $1, as the country’s economy is squeezed by international sanctions in part levied over its nuclear program. The protests intensified and grew into calls directly challenging Iran’s theocracy.
In this frame grab from footage circulating on social media from Iran showed protesters once again taking to the streets of Tehran despite an intensifying crackdown as the Islamic Republic remains cut off from the rest of the world in Tehran, Iran, Saturday Jan. 10, 2026. (UGC via AP)
