Melding serious statesmanship and a dose of audacity, former South African president Nelson Mandela and a clutch of world-famous figures were to launch a private alliance yesterday to make diplomatic assaults on the globe's most intractable problems.
The alliance, was scheduled to be unveiled during events marking Mandela's 89th birthday late yesterday. It will be called the Elders. It includes the retired Anglican archbishop Desmond Tutu; former US president Jimmy Carter; former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan and former Irish president Mary Robinson.
Many, including Mandela, have been early and harsh critics of US President George W. Bush and US foreign policy, particularly toward Iraq and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The group's members and backers have insisted that they were guided neither by ideology nor by geopolitical bent.
Mandela, in remarks prepared for yesterday, said that since members no longer held public office, they could work solely for the common good, not for outside interests.
"This group can speak freely and boldly, working both publicly and behind the scenes on whatever actions need to be taken," he wrote. "Together we will work to support courage where there is fear, foster agreement where there is conflict and inspire hope where there is despair."
Whether governments that become the objects of the Elders' efforts would agree remains to be seen. One of the group's founders and principal financial backers, British tycoon Richard Branson, said leaders he had briefed -- including British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and South African President Thabo Mbeki -- "very much support the initiative."
"There will always be skeptics of any positive initiatives, but these are people giving up their time for nothing," Branson said. "Most individuals in the world would welcome a group of people who are above ego, who, in the last 12 or 15 years of their lives, are above partisan politics."
The Elders would not try to solve all the world's problems but would work on those where they could do some good, he said.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
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Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
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