The wildfires plaguing South Korea’s southeast region continued to rage on Tuesday, threatening a world heritage site and forcing thousands more residents to evacuate their homes.

With a population of 150,000 people, the city of Andong, home to Hahoe Village, a UNESCO World Heritage site, issued an alert to its residents to evacuate to safe areas.

Deadly wildfires continued to rage across the region as authorities designated the affected counties ‘special disaster zones’.

No fewer than four people have been killed and hundreds forced to flee their homes since blazes broke out in several areas on Saturday, stoked by strong winds and dry weather.

It was gathered that the wildfires have already gutted local landmarks including ancient Buddhist temples.

“Because this is such an old temple, it is so regrettable and heartbreaking that it has been burned down,” said Jeung Meung-suk, a 55-year-old Buddhist follower at Unramsa, a thousands-year old temple whose most buildings were burnt.

Meanwhile, acting President Han Duck-soo on Tuesday vowed to deploy resources from helicopters to workers on the ground to put out the fires as quickly as possible.

The United States government has placed a bounty on Liu Baoxia, also known as Emily Liu, and three other Chinese nationals accused of supporting Iran.

The 43-year-old woman, a “procurement agent and arms broker”, is on the most wanted list of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

Liu, Li Yongxin (Emma Lee), Yung Yiu Wa (Stephen Yung) and Zhong Yanlai (Sydney Chung) allegedly aided IRGC armaments production and sales through delivery of U.S. dual-use technology.

The Department of State, through its Rewards for Justice (RFJ) program, is offering a reward of up to $15 million for information leading to their arrest.

The U.S. is working to disrupt the financial mechanisms of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and its branches, all designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations.

The government accused the IRGC of financing terrorist attacks globally, “including via its external proxies such as Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran-backed militia groups in Iraq.”

A statement by the department said the IRGC partly funds its terrorist activities through sales of military equipment, including unmanned aerial vehicles or drones.

On Thursday, the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) announced it had sanctioned a “teapot” oil refinery and its chief executive officer.

The allegedly purchased and refined hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of Iranian crude oil from vessels linked to the Ansarallah, aka the Houthis, and the Iranian Ministry of Defense of Armed Forces Logistics.

Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent stated that the teapot refinery’s purchases of Iranian oil “provide the primary economic lifeline for the Iranian regime.”

Bessent reiterated America’s commitment to “cutting off the revenue streams that enable Tehran’s continued financing of terrorism and development of its nuclear program.”

The South African presidency on Saturday said the expulsion of its Ambassador to the United States, Ebrahim Rasool, is “regrettable.”

The presidency disclosed this in a short statement published on X on Saturday.It also called for decorum on both sides to resolve the matter as soon as possible.

“The Presidency has noted the regrettable expulsion of South Africa’s Ambassador to the United States of America, Mr. Ebrahim Rasool,” the statement read.

“The Presidency urges all relevant and impacted stakeholders to maintain the established diplomatic decorum in their engagement with the matter.

“South Africa remains committed to building a mutually beneficial relationship with the United States of America.”

The ppolitician was expelled after he was seen as a race-baiting politician” who hates the US and President Donald Trump.

Rubio wrote on X that Rasool was “no longer welcome in our great country”, adding: “We have nothing to discuss with him and so he is considered PERSONA NON GRATA.

”Rubio linked his remarks to an article by the right-wing media outlet Breitbart, wherein Rasool is quoted as saying Trump mobilised a “supremacist instinct” and “white victimhood” as a “dog whistle” during the 2024 elections.

But South African political analyst Sandile Swana said the “core of the dispute” was Pretoria’s decision to form a genocide case at the International Court of Justice against Israel, a close US ally, over its war on Gaza.

In February, Rasool, an anti-apartheid campaigner, told the Zeteo news site that what South Africans experienced during apartheid rule “is on steroids in Palestine”.

Moreover, Swana explained that in the fight against apartheid, the US “supported the apartheid regime”.

“[So] Rasool continues to point out the behaviour of the United States, even now is to support apartheid and genocide,” he added.

Land policy

Still, the decision by Washington to expel the South African ambassador comes at a time of heightened tensions between the two countries, since Trump cut financial aid to South Africa after citing his disapproval of its land policy that he alleged allows land to be seized from white farmers.

Last week, Trump pushed this further and said South Africa’s farmers were welcome to settle in the US, repeating that the South African government was “confiscating” land from white people.

South African-born tech billionaire Elon Musk, a close Trump ally, has also accused the country of having “openly racist ownership laws”.

However, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has defended the policy, saying the government was not confiscating land but aiming to level racial disparities in land ownership in the Black-majority nation.