[B]Nelson Mandela 1918 - 2013[/B]
[img]http://i.imgur.com/Hs4Ncan.jpg[/img]
[quote](CNN) -- Nelson Mandela, the revered statesman who emerged from prison after 27 years to lead South Africa out of decades of apartheid, has died, South African President Jacob Zuma announced late Thursday.
Mandela was 95.
"He is now resting. He is now at peace," Zuma said. "Our nation has lost its greatest son. Our people have lost a father."
"What made Nelson Mandela great was precisely what made him human," the president said in his late-night address. "We saw in him what we seek in ourselves."
Mandela will have a state funeral. Zuma ordered all flags in the nation to be flown at half-staff from Friday through that funeral.
Mandela, a former president, battled health issues in recent months, including a recurring lung infection that led to numerous hospitalizations.
With advancing age and bouts of illness, Mandela retreated to a quiet life at his boyhood home in the nation's Eastern Cape Province, where he said he was most at peace.
Despite rare public appearances, he held a special place in the consciousness of the nation and the world.
A hero to blacks and whites
In a nation healing from the scars of apartheid, Mandela became a moral compass.[/quote]
[url]http://www.cnn.com/2013/12/05/world/africa/nelson-mandela/index.html?hpt=hp_t1[/url]
[quote]Nelson Mandela, the revered South African anti-apartheid icon who spent 27 years in prison, led his country to democracy, and became its first black president, died Thursday. He was 95.
President Jacob Zuma announced Mandela’s death in a live televised address, saying South Africa “has lost its greatest son.”
“Nelson Mandela brought us together, and it is together that we bid him farewell,” he added.
Though he was in power for only five years, Mandela was a figure of enormous moral influence the world over–a symbol of revolution, resistance and triumph over racial segregation.
He inspired a generation of activists, left celebrities and world leaders star-struck, won the Nobel Peace Prize, and raised millions for humanitarian causes.
South Africa is still bedeviled by challenges, from class inequality to political corruption to AIDS. And with Mandela’s death, it has lost a beacon of optimism.
In his jailhouse memoirs, Mandela wrote that even after spending so many years in a Spartan cell on Robben Island–with one visitor a year and one letter every six months–he still had faith in human nature.
“No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion,” he wrote in “Long Walk to Freedom.”
“People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.”[/quote]
[url]http://www.cnn.com/2013/12/05/world/africa/nelson-mandela/index.html?hpt=hp_t1[/url]
[quote]Nelson Mandela, who spent 27 years as a prisoner in South Africa for opposing apartheid, then emerged to become his country's first black president, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize and an enduring symbol of integrity, principle and resilience, has died at 95.
...
Mandela, who had been in increasingly frail health in recent years, retired from public life in 2004. He is survived by his third wife, Graca Machel, three daughters (three other children died) and multiple grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
U.S. President Barack Obama, during a stop in Senegal, called Mandela a personal hero, saying his legacy will "live on throughout the ages."
In one of his last public appearances, televised in May 2012, Mandela sat in an armchair with a blanket pulled over his lap at his rural home in Qunu and received a symbolic flame to mark the centenary of the African National Congress.[/quote]
[url]http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/06/27/mandela-obit-hold-hold-hold/[/url]
[quote]South Africa's first black president and anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela has died, South Africa's president says.
Mr Mandela, 95, led South Africa's transition from white-minority rule in the 1990s, after 27 years in prison.
He had been receiving intense home-based medical care for a lung infection after three months in hospital.
In a statement on South African national TV, Mr Zuma said Mr Mandela had "departed" and was at peace. "Our nation has lost its greatest son," Mr Zuma said.
The Nobel Peace Prize laureate was one of the world's most revered statesmen after preaching reconciliation despite being imprisoned for 27 years.
He had rarely been seen in public since officially retiring in 2004.
"What made Nelson Mandela great was precisely what made him human. We saw in him what we seek in ourselves," Mr Zuma said.
"Fellow South Africans, Nelson Mandela brought us together and it is together that we will bid him farewell."
Earlier, the BBC's Mike Wooldridge, outside Mr Mandela's home in the Johannesburg suburb of Houghton, said there appeared to have been an unusually large family gathering.
Among those attending was family elder Bantu Holomisa,
A number of government vehicles were there during the evening as well, our correspondent says. [/quote]
[url]http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-25249520[/url]
[quote]Nelson Mandela, who became one of the world's most beloved statesmen and a colossus of the 20th century when he emerged from 27 years in prison to negotiate an end to white minority rule in South Africa, has died. He was 95.
South African President Jacob Zuma made the announcement at a news conference late Thursday, saying "we've lost our greatest son."
His death closed the final chapter in South Africa's struggle to cast off apartheid, leaving the world with indelible memories of a man of astonishing grace and good humor. Rock concerts celebrated his birthday. Hollywood stars glorified him on screen. And his regal bearing, graying hair and raspy voice made him instantly recognizable across the globe. As South Africa's first black president, the ex-boxer, lawyer and prisoner No. 46664 paved the way to racial reconciliation with well-chosen gestures of forgiveness. He lunched with the prosecutor who sent him to jail, sang the apartheid-era Afrikaans anthem at his inauguration, and traveled hundreds of miles to have tea with the widow of Hendrik Verwoerd, the prime minister at the time he was imprisoned.
His most memorable gesture came when he strode onto the field before the 1995 Rugby World Cup final in Johannesburg. When he came on the field in South African colors to congratulate the victorious South African team, he brought the overwhelmingly white crowd of 63,000 to its feet, chanting "Nelson! Nelson! Nelson!"
For he had marched headlong into a bastion of white Afrikanerdom — the temple of South African rugby — and made its followers feel they belonged in the new South Africa.
At the same time, Mandela was himself uneasy with the idea of being an icon and he did not escape criticism as an individual and a politician, though much of it was muted by his status as a unassailable symbol of decency and principle. As president, he failed to craft a lasting formula for overcoming South Africa's biggest post-apartheid problems, including one of the world's widest gaps between rich and poor. In his writings, he pondered the heavy cost to his family of his decision to devote himself to the struggle against apartheid.[/quote]
[url]http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2013/12/5/do-not-publish-mandelaobit.html[/url]
Streams:
[url]http://www.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/cvplive/cvpstream4.html[/url]
[url]http://video.foxnews.com/[/url]
(shitty late thread stuff was here, but was dumb so has been removed)
Instead I'll just put my condolences here, we all knew it was coming but still a shock when it eventually happened. A true icon.
-snip, three posts in a row picture-
Thus begins an era of darkness.
incoming comments on the amount of threads..
SH was pretty overzealous in their attempt to post a thread it seems.
RIP
RIP one of the greatest men to have ever lived.
Was going to happen someday... he had been in generally poor health for the last few years. I think ANC unfortunately liked to use him as a political rallying tool, til the very end.
RIP, hope South Africa can someday turn around from the trouble they have been in for the last few decades
At least he got to enjoy a few more months with his family and friends. RIP
We lost a great man today.
He'd been in and out of the hospital for a while now iirc. Hopefully he went out in peace.
Damn. He's an inspiration and one of the toughest men out there. Rest in peace, freedom fighter.
RIP. You changed the world, friend :(
snip
To live until age of 95 is impressive.
[QUOTE=UberMunchkin;43082110]This week hasn't been a good week.
My cat dies, Tails dies, Luigi dies and now this. :([/QUOTE]
Don't forget Paul Walker
Rest in peace, Manny
You died having accomplished much.
[quote]Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul. [/quote]
It's a shame he had to suffer long under poor health. RIP.
I had this moment in my mind, and it feels worse in reality :-(
trying to watch a stream surrounding a heroes death, and of course i have to watch a viagra commercial
I bet there was more acknowledgment on my facebook about Paul walkers death than there will be about Nelson Mandela. This is why I hate my facebook.
I swear to god this is the third time this year that he died
