The African group of ambassadors to the United Nations have issued an extraordinary statement condemning the “outrageous, racist and xenophobic remarks” by US president Donald Trump, and demanded a retraction and apology.
Former US ambassador to the UN Samantha Power has shared the statement on Twitter, saying: “Whoa. I’ve never seen a statement like this by African countries directed at the United States.”
The African ambassadors issued the statement following an emergency meeting after Mr Trump used vulgar language to reject an immigration bill, asking why the US would take in more people from Haiti and “s***hole countries” in Africa.
Mr Trump has denied using that language, but others present said that he did.
The new statement expresses concern over the Trump administration’s apparent increasing denigration of Africa “and people of colour”.
Ghana’s president Nana Akufo-Addo called Mr Trump’s remark “extremely unfortunate”, and said that “we will not accept such insults, even from a leader of a friendly country, no matter how powerful”.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel