South Africa’s first black president and Nobel peace prize laureate Nelson Mandela spent the night in hospital, where he was admitted to undergo tests, officials said yesterday.
South African President Jacob Zuma’s spokesman and former Mandela prison mate Mac Maharaj refused to give details yesterday and said he would give an update when doctors issue a report.
The government insisted there was “no cause for alarm.”
The revered statesman is 94 and has not appeared in public since South Africa’s Football World Cup final in 2010.
Madiba, as he is affectionately known by South Africans, has all but retired from public life, choosing to live in his childhood hometown of Qunu in the rural Eastern Cape.
Villagers in the town reported a slightly unusual movement of police around Mandela’s Qunu homestead on Saturday. He was later flown from Qunu to the capital, Pretoria, about 900km away.
A traditional ruler for the village, Nokwanele Balizulu, told reporters she saw Mandela shortly before he was taken to hospital.
“I was called by the Mandela family saying Tata [grandfather] is not well. I rushed there and I saw he is not well,” she said in the local Xhosa dialect.
Rumors of his failing health or even death flare up periodically, forcing the government to issue assurances to calm the speculation.
His last hospitalization was in February, when he spent a night in hospital for a minor exploratory procedure to investigate persistent abdominal pain. Those tests showed there was nothing wrong with him.
In January last year, Mandela was admitted for a chest infection, sparking public panic and a media frenzy as the government and Mandela’s charitable foundation refused to release information on his condition.
In May, a smiling Mandela made a television appearance to receive a flame to mark the African National Congress’ centenary at his home, but the once spry boxer, who stayed fit during his 27 years in prison by doing calisthenics in his cell, has grown increasingly frail.
However, his stature as one of the world’s most famous and loved public figures remains undimmed.
After years fighting white-only rule, he shared the Nobel Peace Prize with the last white South African president, F.W. de Klerk, in 1993.
A year later, he crowned his long fight against minority rule by becoming the country’s first black president with the end of apartheid.
After ushering in a period of immense change he handed over to former South African president Thabo Mbeki in 1999.
Lately, he has received visits from US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and her husband, former US president Bill Clinton.
Both reported that he was doing well and in good spirits.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in