Foreign News
UK ambassador to Mexico left post after ‘pointing gun at staff’
The UK ambassador to Mexico reportedly left his post earlier this year after he pointed a gun at a local member of embassy staff.
A video posted on social media, originally reported by the Financial Times, purports to show Jon Benjamin aiming a rifle at another man while looking down the weapon’s sights.
It was captioned: “In the context of daily killings in Mexico by drug dealers, he dares to joke.”
Mr Benjamin hasn’t commented so far on what appears to have been a badly misplaced joke.
No official announcement about Mr Benjamin’s position has been made by the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO). But he is no longer listed as ambassador to Mexico on the government’s official website, which says he was in post “between 2021 and 2024”.
In the video, a man resembling Mr Benjamin can be seen moving a weapon around the car, aiming it at different people. Laughter can be heard in the background. One man is seen gesturing uncomfortably as the weapon is aimed at him.
Mr Benjamin arrived in Mexico from previous postings including Ghana and Chile with a reputation as quite unconventional by the standards of most UK diplomats.
He was very active on social media with a large following on X. He could be quite outspoken, sometimes directly answering followers on issues he was passionate about – particularly African politics, football and rock music. It was part of a more approachable, less stuffy persona than that conveyed by other ambassadors.
In Mexico, as in most of his previous postings, Mr Benjamin was a firm believer in the role of the soft power of British rock and indie music. An avid music fan himself, he encouraged major UK bands and artists to visit Mexico, sometimes hosting them in his residence ahead of their concerts.
For decades, for example, he was the Rolling Stones’ chief point of contact within the FCDO, helping the supergroup to negotiate the tangled paperwork of performing live events around the world.
He always appeared fascinated and well-engaged in Mexico from the start of his posting in 2021, travelling to many of its 32 states. It was on one of those trips, to the drug-cartel controlled states of Sinaloa and Durango, that the incident with his staff took place.
Over 30,000 people were murdered in Mexico last year. The country has extremely restrictive gun laws, and is home to only one gun shop, housed in a Mexico City military complex.
That the ambassador was seen to brandish a gun at his team amid so many annual murders from drug-related violence in Mexico has struck even more of a nerve among the embassy staff affected – and many Mexicans.
Even if intended as a joke, that it took place with an apparently loaded machine gun in one of the most dangerous regions of Mexico was a serious miscalculation.
What was supposed to be a routine trip to northern Mexico has seemingly brought an ignominious end to a very long and otherwise distinguished career in the FCDO.
The FCDO told the Financial Times: “We are aware of this incident and have taken appropriate action.
“Where internal issues do arise the FCDO has robust HR processes to address them.”
The BBC has contacted Mr Benjamin and the FCDO for comment.
-BBC-
United States President-elect Donald Trump has threatened to demand control of the Panama Canal after accusing Panama of charging excessive rates on US ships passing through one of the busiest waterways in the world.
“Our Navy and Commerce have been treated in a very unfair and injudicious way. The fees being charged by Panama are ridiculous,” Trump posted on his Truth Social platform on Saturday.
He later doubled down during a speech in Arizona on Sunday, saying the US was “being ripped off at the Panama Canal like we’re being ripped off everywhere else”.
The US largely built the canal in 1914 and administrated territory surrounding the passage for decades. But Washington fully handed control of the canal to Panama in 1999 after a period of joint administration.
Trump also hinted at China’s growing influence around the canal, which connects the Atlantic to the Pacific oceans.
“It was solely for Panama to manage, not China, or anyone else,” he said in the original post. “We would and will NEVER let it fall into the wrong hands!”
“It was not given for the benefit of others, but merely as a token of cooperation with us and Panama. If the moral and legal principles of this magnanimous gesture of giving are not followed, then we will demand that the Panama Canal be returned to us, in full, and without question,” Trump said.
Panama’s President Jose Raul Mulino firmly responded to Trump on Sunday.
“Every square meter of the Panama canal and the surrounding area belongs to Panama and will continue belonging so,” Mulino said in a recorded message posted on social media.
He further denied that China or any other country has direct or indirect influence over the canal. He added that fees were not decided on a “whim”.
The canal is key to Panama’s economy and generates about one-fifth of the government’s annual revenue.
[Aljazeera]
At least 13 people, including four children, have been killed in two incidents in Nigeria as large crowds gathered to collect food and clothing distributed at annual Christmas events, police say.
In the capital, Abuja, at least 10 people died on Saturday and many more were injured in a scramble to receive gifts of charity being distributed by the Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Maitama district.
“This unfortunate event, which took place around 6:30am [05:30 GMT], resulted in a stampede that claimed the lives of 10 individuals, including four children, and left eight others with varying degrees of injuries,” said Josephine Adeh, a police spokesperson.
In a separate incident in Okija in Anambra State in southern Nigeria, three people were killed in a crush at a charity event organised by a philanthropist, state police said.
“The event had not even started when the rush began,” police spokesman Tochukwu Ikenga said. There could be more deaths recorded as officers investigate, he said.
In both incidents, the victims were mostly women and children who were trampled as crowds tried to reach the provisions being offered.
[Aljazeera]
A nine-year-old child and four adults have been killed, and more than 200 injured after a car drove into a crowd at a Christmas market in the eastern German city of Magdeburg on Friday, officials say.
At least 41 people were critically injured after the incident which lasted around three minutes, police said.
The arrested suspect has been named in local media as Taleb al-Abdulmohsen, a 50-year-old Saudi citizen who arrived in Germany in 2006 and had worked as a doctor.
Reiner Haseloff, the premier of Saxony-Anhalt state, said a preliminary investigation suggested the alleged attacker was acting alone.
He added that he could not rule out more deaths due to the number of injured.
The suspect is currently being questioned and prosecutors expect to charge him with murder and attempted murder in due course, the head of the local prosecutor’s office said on Saturday.
Prosecutor Horst Walter Nopens added that the investigation was ongoing but suggested the background to the crime “could have been disgruntlement with the way Saudi Arabian refugees are treated in Germany”.
The suspected attacker has no known links to Islamist extremism – social media and posts online appear to suggest he had been critical of Islam.
Footage from the scene showed numerous emergency services vehicles attending while people lay on the ground.
Further footage then emerged of armed police confronting and arresting a man who can be seen lying on the ground by a stationary vehicle.
Unverified video on social media purports to show a car ploughing into the crowd at the market.
City officials said around 100 police, medics and firefighters, as well as 50 rescue service personnel rushed to the scene.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who travelled to the city on Saturday, described the attack as a “dreadful tragedy” as “so many people were injured and killed with such brutality” in a place that is supposed to be “joyful”.
He told reporters that there were serious concerns for those who had been critically injured – which German media reports is in the dozens – and that “all resources” will be allocated to investigating the suspect behind the attack.
There would be a memorial service for the victims at the Magdeburg Cathedral later on Saturday, he added.
[BBC]
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