A grandson of Nelson Mandela says hopefully he will be headed home soon, as the 94-year-old beloved former South African president marked two weeks in the hospital on Friday.
Ndaba Mandela addressed concerns about his grandfather’s health at a media briefing on Thursday about a soccer invitational that will be part of celebrations surrounding Mandela’s 95th birthday on July 18.
“Positively we can say that he has been getting better and better each day and hopefully he’ll be coming home soon,” Ndaba Mandela was quoted as saying by the Star, a South African newspaper.
“For us, as family, as long as he can still hear and understand what is said to him, and talk to us, we’ll continue to celebrate him,” he said.
Mandela, who spent 27 years in prison for human rights activism, was taken to a Pretoria hospital on June 8 to be treated for a recurring lung infection. It marked the fourth time he has been hospitalized since December last year.
Meanwhile, former South African president Thabo Mbeki, who succeeded Mandela as president in 1999, said he has remained in close contact with doctors about Mandela’s condition.
“Nelson Mandela is in fact improving, in terms of his health,” Mbeki said on Thursday night in an interview with Power FM, a radio station. “I think we really need to feel comforted that we still have him with us now.”
The government had described Mandela’s condition as serious but stable, but later said he was improving.
Mandela was released from prison in 1990 and became South Africa’s first black president in all-race elections in 1994.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not