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Post by Admin on Dec 16, 2013 15:52:46 GMT
The world's biggest statue of Nelson Mandela has been unveiled. The former South African president's grandson, Mandla Mandela, and the current president, Jacob Zuma attended the ceremony in Pretoria. The nine metre bronze figure weighs 4.5 tonnes and is the largest of the anti-apartheid hero in the world so far. Report by Anna Collinson. The nine-metre (30ft) bronze statue has been erected at the Union Buildings, the government headquarters. The statue, with Mr Mandela's hands reaching outward, was intended to show that he had embraced the whole nation, President Jacob Zuma said. Mr Mandela was given a state funeral at his ancestral home on Sunday The national flag was raised on Monday from its half-mast position, and was flying as normal. The statue was unveiled on South Africa's Day of Reconciliation, a public holiday which marks the end of racial conflict in South Africa. " Former President Mandela is associated with the promotion of reconciliation which is why the day was chosen for the unveiling," said the government. Nelson Mandela always said he wanted to be buried in his childhood home President Zuma sat between Mr Mandela's widow Graca Machel and his ex-wife Winnie Madikizela-Mandela
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Post by Admin on Dec 19, 2013 23:16:28 GMT
The “fake” interpreter at Nelson Mandela’s memorial service has been committed to a secure psychiatric unit, it was revealed tonight. Thamsanqa Jantjie shot to fame after being criticised for his controversial hand gestures while just feet away from US President Barack Obama. He later claimed he had suffered a schizophrenic episode in which he had “seen angels and heard voices”. Now Jantjie, 34, has been admitted to Sterkfontein Psychiatric Hospital in South Africa. Jantjie’s interpreting was widely derided after it was discovered that he had introduced words like “prawns” and “rocking horse” into some of the speeches. He was supposed to have gone to Sterkfontein on December 10 for a check-up. However, when he was offered the job to interpret at the memorial service Siziwe called the hospital on his behalf and asked that he be given another date.
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Post by Admin on Dec 21, 2013 2:21:45 GMT
Among the memorials to Nelson Mandela put up across India is a billboard in Tamil Nadu that features a photo of actor Morgan Freeman, not the iconic anti-apartheid hero from South Africa who died earlier this month. The businessman who paid for the sign says it will be replaced with one that has the right image. Perhaps the billboard's designer got confused because Freeman portrayed Mandela in the 2009 movie Invictus. Freeman has inadvertently been part of such a mix-up before. At President Obama's inauguration back in January, ABC News' George Stephanopoulos got famously confused. He thought basketball great Bill Russell was the actor.
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Post by Admin on Dec 24, 2013 2:09:42 GMT
To mark Mandela's passing, the Israel State Archives presents a publication including six documents on Israel's attitude towards the African National Congress leader in the 1960s. The documents focus on Israel's mobilization in the international protest campaign to prevent the South African government from imposing the death sentence on Mandela during the Rivonia Trial in 1964. Israel also called on South Africa to stop the trial and to abolish the apartheid regime. The Israel State Archives holds a document showing that Mandela (under an assumed identity) met with an unofficial Israeli representative in Ethiopia as early as 1962. He had fled South Africa in 1961, and visited several African states, including Ethiopia, Algeria, Egypt and Ghana. The Israeli representative in Ethiopia was not aware of Mandela's true identity. Instead the two discussed Israel's problems in the Middle East, with Mandela displaying wide-ranging interest in the subject. Only after his arrest in 1962, on his return to South Africa, did Israel learn the truth. The Israeli government became interested in the trial for several reasons. They were particularly concerned that the large number of Jews arrested (about a third of the defendants) in the incident would spark antisemitism in South Africa. The South African government addressed this issue by appointing a Jewish lawyer Percy Yutar, deputy general prosecutor of the province of Transvaal, as chief prosecutor in the case to offset accusations of antisemitism. The second reason for Israeli interest in the trial was its desire to strengthen ties with black African nations, who naturally rejected the apartheid regime in South Africa. Another contributing factor to Israel's stand was then Foreign Minister Golda Meir's opposition to racism and discrimination. She herself invested a large amount of time and attention to developing ties with African countries. Israel had a chargé d'affaires in Cape Town, Azriel Harel. The minister in South Africa Simcha Pratt, had ended his service in November 1963, and, as part of the international campaign against apartheid which called for cutting diplomatic ties with South Africa, Israel did not replace him. At the height of the Rivonia trial, in April 1964, Harel proposed that Israel should act to advance an international protest campaign to prevent the Rivonia defendants from receiving the death sentence. "I believe we must recruit world public opinion already now ahead of the results of the trial," he wrote (See Document 1). Golda Meir instructed senior Foreign Ministry officials to prepare a manifesto by leading intellectuals criticizing the trial. Nelson Mandela meets Ezer Weizman and Syd Cohen, South African co-founder of the Israel Air Force, 1999 The Foreign Ministry appealed to philosopher Martin Buber to lend his voice to the campaign. Foreign Ministry Assistant Director-General Ehud Avriel asked Hanan Aynor,of the Israeli delegation to the United Nations in New York, to appeal to author Haim Hazaz to join Buber in signing a declaration on behalf of the Rivonia defendants (Document 2). Buber and Hazaz's declaration was published on May 20, 1964. They called on the South African government to release the defendants. "You will not silence their voices by hanging them. Their words will ring a thousand times more loudly if you do," the two wrote (Document 3). On June 12, 1964 the defendants were sentenced. Six of them including Mandela were sentenced to life imprisonment – but not to the death penalty. Five days later, on June 17, Israeli Communist Party Knesset member Shmuel Mikunis introduced a motion called "A Call For the Release of the Freedom Fighters in South Africa." In his speech, he criticized the apartheid government, and accused the Israeli government of not doing enough to fight the regime. He called on the Knesset to appeal to South Africa to release the Rivonia defendants. In her response, Golda Meir repeated Israel's strong opposition to apartheid, and noted what the government had done in this regard. She praised the declaration by Buber and Hazaz and said "their words undoubtedly expressed what all Israelis feel" about the trial and the apartheid regime. She praised Mandela's "brilliant appearance" at the trial, and even quoted his words (For Golda Meir's Knesset remarks see Document 4). After the trial ended, restrictions were also imposed on Winnie Mandela, Nelson Mandela's wife, including a ban on her leaving the area where she lived. This decree severely interfered with her ability to work as a social worker in the country's poorer neighbourhoods and to provide for her family. In March 1965, Harel wrote to the Foreign Ministry and said: "If this report [on the restrictions placed on Mandela's wife] has not yet been made public, we should see to it that it be disseminated and she and her family are provided for " ( See Document 5). It is unclear how the Foreign Ministry responded to his plea. Nelson Mandela was held in prison until 1990, when he was pardoned by then South African prime minister F.W. De Klerke. After the fall of the apartheid regime he served as president of South Africa between 1994 and 1999. Over the years the close relations between Israel and South Africa drew criticism by those who saw them as expressing Israeli support for South Africa's racist apartheid government. The documents to be released, however, reveal that relations between the two countries in the 1960s were tense, problematic and complicated, and include many examples of Israeli criticism of the South African government.
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Post by Admin on Dec 29, 2013 22:49:49 GMT
The controversial interpreter at Nelson Mandela’s memorial service has told how he is a "great fake" who exposed the South African government. This video shows a rambling Thamsanqa Jantjie speaking to a group of unidentified men. In it, Jantjie says: "I am going to fight even if they call me a fake. I am a great fake because I expose what is going on in the government and the system. "The system has been created to put us down. But to me I will rise. Even of they put me down I will rise . Even if they put me in the sea or river I will keep on rising." Jantjie shot to fame after being criticised for his controversial hand gestures while just feet away from US President Barack Obama at Mandela's memorial. He was watched by hundreds of millions of people around the world interpreting the speeches of Obama and other world leaders. His interpreting was widely derided after it was discovered that he had introduced words like “prawns” and “rocking horse” into some of the speeches.
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