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| FACTBOX-Reaction to the death of Nelson Mandela Thursday, Dec 05, 2013 08:06 PM PST South African President Jacob Zuma: "Our people have lost a father. His humility, passion and humanity earned him their love." U.S. President Barack Obama: "He achieved more than could be expected of any man. Nelson Mandela was a hero of our time." Desmond Tutu, archbishop emeritus and anti-apartheid activist: "Like a most precious diamond honed deep beneath the surface of the earth, the Madiba who emerged from prison in January 1990 was virtually flawless ... Instead of calling for his pound of flesh, he proclaimed the message of forgiveness and reconciliation, inspiring others by his example to extraordinary acts of nobility of spirit." Former South African President F.W. de Klerk, on CNN: "He was a great unifier and a very, very special man in this regard beyond everything else he did. This emphasis on reconciliation was his biggest legacy." U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon: "Nelson Mandela was a giant for justice and a down-to-earth human inspiration. Full Story | Top |
| South Africa, world mourn 'giant for justice' Mandela Thursday, Dec 05, 2013 07:12 PM PST  By Ed Cropley and Pascal Fletcher JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South African anti-apartheid hero Nelson Mandela died peacefully at home at the age of 95 on Thursday after months fighting a lung infection, leaving his nation and the world in mourning for a man revered as a moral giant. President Jacob Zuma's announcement late on Thursday of the death of a man who was a symbol of struggle against injustice and of racial reconciliation reverberated through South Africa and around the world. Mandela's passing, while long expected, left Africa's biggest economy still distant from being the "Rainbow Nation" ideal of social peace and shared prosperity that he had proclaimed on his triumphant release from prison in 1990. "He's in a better place, but I really hope South Africa realises what he wanted us to be ... we are not even half-way to what he wanted us to be," local resident Jack Van der Merwe said in the Johannesburg suburb of Melville. Full Story | Top |
| Mandela's struggle was personal inspiration, Obama says Thursday, Dec 05, 2013 06:37 PM PST By Jeff Mason and Steve Holland WASHINGTON (Reuters) - America's first black president, Barack Obama, hailed Nelson Mandela on Thursday as a source of personal inspiration whose struggle against racism in South Africa jump-started his own involvement in politics. Speaking in the White House press room shortly after the announcement of Mandela's death, a somber-looking Obama said the 95-year-old former South African president left a legacy of freedom and peace. "I am one of the countless millions who drew inspiration from Nelson Mandela's life. "Like so many around the globe, I cannot fully imagine my own life without the example that Nelson Mandela set, and so long as I live I will do what I can to learn from him," he said. Full Story | Top |
| Morgan Freeman, other entertainers, mourn Mandela Thursday, Dec 05, 2013 05:29 PM PST (Reuters) - Actors Morgan Freeman and Idris Elba, who both portrayed Nelson Mandela in the movies, were among many figures from the entertainment world who paid tribute to the South African anti-apartheid hero who died on Thursday. Freeman, who got to know the charismatic Mandela in the 1990s and portrayed him in the 2009 drama "Invictus," said he was "a saint to many, a hero to all who treasure liberty, freedom and the dignity of humankind." The American actor added: "As we remember his triumphs, let us, in his memory, not just reflect on how far we've come, but on how far we have to go. Madiba may no longer be with us, but his journey continues on with me and with all of us." In a recollection published by the Time magazine website, he said: "His only comment after we first screened the movie for him was a humble, 'Now perhaps people will remember me.'" Elba, a British actor and rapper, who starred in this year's biopic "Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom," said, "What an honor it was to step into the shoes of Nelson Mandela and portray a man who defied odds, broke down barriers, and championed human rights before the eyes of the world." U.S. filmmaker Harvey Weinstein, whose company has distribution rights for the film, said he had been "unspeakably fortunate to have been immersed in Nelson Mandela's story and legacy." He said he had spent time with Mandela, adding, "I can say his sense of humor was as great as his optimism." Oscar-winning South African-born actress Charlize Theron tweeted: "My thoughts and love go out to the Mandela family. Full Story | Top |
| World honors Mandela as champion of freedom and reconciliation Thursday, Dec 05, 2013 05:26 PM PST (Reuters) - Nelson Mandela was hailed on Thursday as a champion of reconciliation who "achieved more than could be expected of any man," as people the world over mourned his death and celebrated his triumphant fight against apartheid in South Africa. "Today he's gone home, and we've lost one of the most influential, courageous and profoundly good human beings that any of us will share time with on this earth," U.S. President Barack Obama said of Mandela, who became South Africa's first black president. "He achieved more than could be expected of any man," said Obama, who is expected to go to South Africa for Mandela's state funeral. "Nelson Mandela was a hero of our time," British Prime Minister David Cameron wrote on Twitter. Full Story | Top |
| Stunned South Africa falls silent at Mandela's passing Thursday, Dec 05, 2013 05:20 PM PST By Xola Potelwa and Tiisetso Motsoeneng JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - The music decks and end-of-year office parties fell silent across South Africa on Thursday when President Jacob Zuma delivered the news nobody wanted to hear: Beloved anti-apartheid hero Nelson Mandela had died. From sweaty nightclubs in the sprawling township of Soweto to the heart of Johannesburg's Sandton financial district, DJs hit the pause button as party-goers stood in stunned silence to listen to Zuma's nationally televised address. For most, the passing of South Africa's first black president was an unforgettable moment in history. "I can speak next to you now because of Nelson Mandela. Full Story | Top |
| Uniting South Africa was Mandela's greatest accomplishment: de Klerk Thursday, Dec 05, 2013 04:23 PM PST Nelson Mandela's greatest accomplishment was to unify South Africa and push for reconciliation between blacks and whites in the post-apartheid era, F.W. de Klerk, the country's last white president, said on Thursday. This emphasis on reconciliation was his biggest legacy," de Klerk, 77, said in an interview with CNN after the announcement of Mandela's death at age 95. De Klerk, a white Afrikaner who released Mandela from prison in 1990 and then negotiated the end of apartheid, said Mandela was a humane man who was able to understand and soothe the fears of South Africa's white minority in the transition to democracy. De Klerk said he felt a connection to the African National Congress leader during their first meeting in 1989, shortly after de Klerk had taken over as leader of South Africa's apartheid government. Full Story | Top |
| Decaying steel town gets movie star turn in 'Out of the Furnace' Thursday, Dec 05, 2013 04:05 PM PST  By Eric Kelsey BEVERLY HILLS, California (Reuters) - A brief drive through Pittsburgh's down-and-out steel mill borough of Braddock at the time of the economic downturn in 2009 was all it took, and director Scott Cooper knew where he wanted to set his next film. Starring Christian Bale and Casey Affleck, it will be in wide release in U.S. movie theaters on Friday. "I wasn't going to make the movie if I didn't shoot it there." "Out of the Furnace," distributed by independent studio Relativity Media, tells the story of steel mill worker Russell Baze (Bale) and his younger brother, Rodney (Affleck), an Iraq War veteran haunted by his tours of duty, who would do anything to avoid working in the mills like his brother and father. "Even if something disastrous was to happen, they would rather stay there." The film - which features several past Oscar nominees and winners, including Willem Dafoe, Woody Harrelson, Forest Whitaker and Sam Shepard - adds a working-class quality to the recent spate of Hollywood fare that touches on the social anxieties and financial insecurity wrought by the recession. Full Story | Top |
| World leaders honor Mandela as champion of freedom and reconciliation Thursday, Dec 05, 2013 03:39 PM PST (Reuters) - Nelson Mandela was hailed on Thursday as a "hero of our time" as tributes poured in from world leaders on the death of the man who led the triumphant fight against apartheid in South Africa and became that country's first black president. "Nelson Mandela was a hero of our time." Barack Obama, the first black U.S. president, said Mandela "achieved more than could be expected of any man. South African President Jacob Zuma, announcing that Mandela died at his Johannesburg home on Thursday after a prolonged lung infection, said, "Our people have lost a father. Mandela emerged from 27 years in apartheid prisons to help guide South Africa to democracy, becoming one of the world's most respected and loved political figures. Full Story | Top |
| Obama: 'courageous' Mandela left legacy of freedom, peace Thursday, Dec 05, 2013 03:06 PM PST President Barack Obama hailed former South African President Nelson Mandela on Thursday as a leader who left his country with a legacy of freedom and peace. "He achieved more than could be expected of any man," Obama said at the White House shortly after the announcement of Mandela's death. "Today he's gone home, and we've lost one of the most influential, courageous and profoundly good human beings that any of us will share time with on this earth," Obama said. Obama, the first black U.S. president, has long referred to Mandela as a personal inspiration. Full Story | Top |
| Zuma's announcement on death of Nelson Mandela Thursday, Dec 05, 2013 03:03 PM PST Following is the full text of South African President Jacob Zuma's address to the nation on the death of anti-apartheid leader Nelson Mandela on Thursday: "My Fellow South Africans, our beloved Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela, the founding President of our democratic nation, has departed. "Let us express, each in our own way, the deep gratitude we feel for a life spent in service of the people of this country and in the cause of humanity. Full Story | Top |
| South Africa has lost 'colossus' in Mandela: ANC Thursday, Dec 05, 2013 02:50 PM PST JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South Africa and the world have lost "a colossus and epitome of humility, equality, justice and peace" with the death of anti-apartheid leader Nelson Mandela, the ruling African National Congress said on Friday. "His life gives us the courage to push forward for development and progress towards ending hunger and poverty," it said in a statement. (Reporting by Stella Mapenzauswa; Editing by Ed Cropley) Full Story | Top |
| Springsteen's handwritten 'Born to Run' draft fetches $197,000 Thursday, Dec 05, 2013 02:33 PM PST  (Reuters) - Rocker Bruce Springsteen's 1974 handwritten draft of his hit song "Born to Run" has sold for $197,000, auctioneers Sotheby's said on Thursday. Springsteen's "Born to Run," the title song from his 1975 album of the same name, has become an essential American anthem, and the draft, written in the singer's cursive hand in blue ink, fetched more than double its estimate of $70,000 to $100,000 at a New York sale. The one notebook page of lyrics shows Springsteen's creative process for the song. "This was done in 1974 when he was going through preparing for his third album," Richard Austin, head of Sotheby's books and manuscripts department, told Reuters ahead of the sale. Full Story | Top |
| Factbox: Quotations about Nelson Mandela Thursday, Dec 05, 2013 02:23 PM PST (Reuters) - Here are some comments from notable figures about Nelson Mandela, made during his lifetime. "Nelson Mandela gave 27 years of his life, walked out of prison, and included his oppressors in his government so that they could all be free. He taught us that none of us can ever be free at another's expense." - Former U.S. President Bill Clinton in 2008. - - - - "Anyone who wants to talk to me on the basis that Mandela is the leader of black South Africa can forget it." - South African Prime Minister John Vorster in 1975. Full Story | Top |
| Witness: Searching for Mandela, from Robben Island to release Thursday, Dec 05, 2013 02:16 PM PST By Marius Bosch JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - One summer day in 1979 I broke several apartheid laws as a teenager, searching for a glimpse of Nelson Mandela on South Africa's notorious Robben Island prison. My businessman father managed to secure an invitation to the island through one of his employees, a rare chance to see the secluded jail where the white minority government imprisoned Mandela and scores of other anti-apartheid leaders for decades. Full Story | Top |
| "It is an ideal for which I am prepared to die," Mandela told court Thursday, Dec 05, 2013 02:12 PM PST Nelson Mandela was found guilty on June 11, 1964 of four charges of sabotage and was sentenced to life imprisonment. "At the outset, I want to say that the suggestion made by the State in its opening that the struggle in South Africa is under the influence of foreigners or communists is wholly incorrect. Full Story | Top |
| Nelson Mandela in his own words Thursday, Dec 05, 2013 02:10 PM PST (Reuters) - Following are notable quotations by former South African President Nelson Mandela. I will not leave South Africa, nor will I surrender. Full Story | Top |
| Mandela's legacy: peace, but poverty for many blacks Thursday, Dec 05, 2013 02:08 PM PST By Ed Cropley JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - In the 10 years after he withdrew from public life, Nelson Mandela divided his time between a mansion in one of Johannesburg's wealthiest suburbs and his ancestral home in Qunu, a village in South Africa's impoverished eastern Cape. While few query Mandela's achievement in dragging South Africa back from the brink of civil war in the early 1990s and brokering a peaceful end to three centuries of white dominance, tougher questions are being asked of the country he leaves behind. Despite more than 10 years of affirmative action to redress the balance under the banner of "black economic empowerment", South Africa remains one of the world's most unequal societies and whites still control huge swathes of the economy. Such ratios are fodder for critics of the 1994 settlement that brought the curtain down on nearly half a century of institutionalized white-minority rule and saw Mandela anointed South Africa's first black president. Full Story | Top |
| Mandela - teacher to his jailmates, "father" to his jailers Thursday, Dec 05, 2013 02:08 PM PST By Wendell Roelf ROBBEN ISLAND, South Africa (Reuters) - Apartheid-era South Africa's most feared prison, Robben Island, remains inextricably linked with Nelson Mandela, its most famous inmate who spent decades of hard labor educating his comrades and charming even his granite-hearted jailers. Mandela, who died on December 5 aged 95, was first sent to Robben Island for a brief period in 1962 for minor political offences, then returned two years later for a life sentence after being convicted of sabotage and conspiracy to overthrow the state. Aged 46 when he began his term, Mandela was sentenced with other leading members of the African National Congress to years of hard labor, breaking rocks in a limestone quarry. "He was always friendly, polite and helpful," Christo Brand, a prison warder who was with Mandela from 1978 until his release in 1990, told Reuters during a recent visit to the island. Full Story | Top |
| Timeline: Life and times of Nelson Mandela Thursday, Dec 05, 2013 02:08 PM PST  Dec 5 - Here are some important dates and events in the life of former South African President and anti-apartheid fighter Nelson Mandela, who died on Thursday aged 95: July 18, 1918 - Born Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela near Qunu, in Transkei (now Eastern Cape), the youngest son of a counselor to the chief of his Thembu clan. 1944 - Founds African National Congress (ANC) Youth League with Oliver Tambo and Walter Sisulu. - Marries his first wife Evelyn. They had a daughter and two sons and were divorced in 1957. 1952 - Mandela and others arrested and charged under the Suppression of Communism Act. ... Full Story | Top |
| Nelson Mandela, from apartheid fighter to president and unifier Thursday, Dec 05, 2013 01:52 PM PST  Nelson Mandela guided South Africa from the shackles of apartheid to multi-racial democracy, as an icon of peace and reconciliation who came to embody the struggle for justice around the world. Imprisoned for nearly three decades for his fight against white minority rule, Mandela emerged determined to use his prestige and charisma to bring down apartheid while avoiding a civil war. The moment to bridge the chasms that divide us has come," Mandela said in his acceptance speech on becoming South Africa's first black president in 1994. "We have, at last, achieved our political emancipation." In 1993, Mandela was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, an honor he shared with F.W. de Klerk, the white Afrikaner leader who freed him from prison three years earlier and negotiated the end of apartheid. Full Story | Top |
| A drop in the bucket? Christie's appraises Detroit's art Thursday, Dec 05, 2013 12:39 PM PST  By Joseph Lichterman DETROIT (Reuters) - The auction house Christie's put a price tag on one of Detroit's highest-profile assets - the city's share of the Detroit Institute of Arts collection - but the masterworks might not be worth enough to help the city out of its financial crisis. The finding by Christie's, hired to place a value on art treasures that have become a point of heated debate over the past few months in the city and its suburbs, could become a contested element of the Detroit bankruptcy if the city tries to "monetize" its masterpieces. The holdings represent only about 5 percent of the total number of art pieces in DIA's collection. With the finding Tuesday that Detroit is bankrupt under Chapter 9 of the federal bankruptcy code, it is possible the city may seek to monetize some of the artwork. Full Story | Top |
| Actor Walker died from multiple injuries in crash, 'Fast 7' filming halted Thursday, Dec 05, 2013 12:35 PM PST  By Eric Kelsey and Lisa Richwine LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - "Fast & Furious" actor Paul Walker died from multiple injuries in a weekend car crash, the Los Angeles County coroner said on Wednesday, as Universal Pictures suspended production of the seventh installment in its lucrative car racing film franchise. Walker, 40, was a passenger in a fiery one-car crash on Saturday in Santa Clarita, California, about 30 miles northwest of Los Angeles, that also killed 38-year-old driver Roger Rodas. The coroner said Walker's death resulted from "traumatic and thermal injuries." While the coroner did not elaborate, thermal injuries are heat-related and are commonly burns. Full Story | Top |
| Actress Amanda Bynes leaves facility after psychiatric treatment Thursday, Dec 05, 2013 11:11 AM PST  Troubled former teenage star Amanda Bynes has left a California facility after court-ordered psychiatric treatment and is recovering at her parents' home in Los Angeles, People magazine said on Thursday. The 27-year-old actress was receiving psychiatric care at a Malibu facility after she was alleged to have started a small fire in the front of a home in Thousand Oaks, a Los Angeles suburb, in July. "Amanda has completed her inpatient rehabilitation and she's feeling better every day," lawyer Tamar Arminak said in a statement released to the magazine. "Despite the fact Amanda is no longer in a facility, her outpatient treatment is continuing," he added. Full Story | Top |
| Billionaire U.S. candy heiress pleads guilty in fatal crash Thursday, Dec 05, 2013 11:08 AM PST By Lacey Johnson WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Billionaire candy heiress Jacqueline Badger Mars, who owns a third of the Mars Inc candy company, pleaded guilty on Thursday to misdemeanor reckless driving charges stemming from a fatal accident in Virginia. Loudoun County General District Court Judge Deborah Welsh ordered Mars, 74, to pay a $2,500 fine and suspended her license for six months, according to online court records. Mars was driving a Porsche SUV on October 4 when it crossed into oncoming traffic and collided with a minivan in Aldie, Virginia, according to the Sheriff's Office in Loudoun County, on the outskirts of Washington. A minivan passenger, Irene Ellisor, 86, died at the scene. Full Story | Top |
| A Minute With: Opera director Robert Carsen on the Met's 'Falstaff' Thursday, Dec 05, 2013 03:10 AM PST  By Ellen Freilich NEW YORK (Reuters) - The New York Metropolitan Opera will stage its first new production of Giuseppe Verdi's comic opera "Falstaff" in nearly 50 years on Friday and transmit a live performance next week to 2,000 movie theaters in 64 countries. Canadian opera director Robert Carsen has set the production, which will be conducted by music director James Levine and feature Ambrogio Maestri in the title role, in 1950s England. Carsen, whose production of the opera premiered to critical acclaim in London in 2012 and in Milan in 2013 to mark the 200th anniversary of Verdi's birthday, spoke to Reuters about the work, its relevance to audiences and the character of Sir John Falstaff. (Italian composer) Arrigo Boito's libretto is a fantastic achievement in the astonishing way he wove Falstaff together from Shakespeare's plays so that the character was based on Shakespeare, but still completely his own. Full Story | Top |
| Jamaica lanza su primera compañía de marihuana medicinal Wednesday, Dec 04, 2013 11:05 PM PST (Reuters) - Hace tiempo que se anticipaba, pero Jamaica, cuna del reggae y del legendario activista de la marihuana Bob Marley, ha anunciado el lanzamiento de su primera compañía de marihuana medicinal. El ministro de Industria, Inversión y Comercio de Jamaica Anthony Hylton estuvo entre los altos cargos gubernamentales presentes en la ceremonia celebrada en la capital, Kingston, el martes por la noche, en la que se anunció la apertura de la firma MediCanja. ... Full Story | Top |
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