Cape Town – Head of EyeWitnessNews, Gasant Abarder, has been appointed as the new Cape Times editor following the dismissal of Alide Dasnois.

Mail & Guardian reported that the former Cape Argus (also an Independent Newspapers group publication) editor will head up the Cape Times after Dasnois was removed by the group’s controlling shareholder, Sekunjalo Consortium.

An internal staff memo welcomed Abarder back to the group and wished him the best for his new role.

The reason for Dasnois’ dismissal was unclear but it coincided with the Cape Times having published a front page article on public protector Thuli madonsela’s findings which implicated Sekunjalo Consortium in an R800m tender irregularity with the Department of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries.

Dasnois was apparently offered a different position within the company but told the Mail & Guardian that she was seeking legal advice.

– News24

Johannesburg – Activity outside Nelson Mandela’s former Soweto house was increasing on Monday morning.

Crowds of people gathered to sing and dance in celebration of the former president’s life.

“I am here to pay my last respect to Tata for what he has done for the nation,” Lesego Tabude said.

Many people delivered flowers and personalised messages inscribed on cards.

Some visitors wore traditional South African outfits or clothes bearing the South African colours.

“We are South African, we our proud of our heritage. Mandela is our father,” said Kagiso Mponde wearing traditional Zulu attire.

Mandela died on Thursday night at his Houghton, Johannesburg, home at the age of 95, and people spontaneously started gathering outside his old home in Vilakazi Street, Soweto, and in Houghton.

His funeral is scheduled to take place in Qunu in the Eastern Cape on Sunday, where he grew up.

Friends, colleagues, comrades and family of Nelson Mandela are invited to share their memories and tributes, and to light a candle for him, on his profile at Remembered.co.za.

– SAPA

Johannesburg – The ANC will lay out condolence books at its Johannesburg headquarters, all provincial offices and parliamentary constituency offices from Monday morning, it said.

Spokesperson Jackson Mthembu said the offices of its alliance partners [the SA Communist Party, the Congress of SA Trade Unions and the SA National Civic Organisation] would also lay out books for citizens to leave messages for former president Nelson Mandela and his family.

The books will be laid out from 09:00 on Monday.

Mandela died at his Houghton, Johannesburg, home on Thursday night at the age of 95.

“The African National Congress, South Africans and the world at large continue to mourn the passing… of comrade Nelson Mandela,” said Mthembu.

The ANC said it would hold provincial memorial services for Mandela in all nine provinces this week.

“These memorial services will be addressed by leaders of the ANC and various leaders coming from our fraternal organisations that shall be in South Africa to console and support the Mandela family and South Africans during this difficult time,” he said.

Meanwhile, the City of Cape Town said there were various places where people could leave messages for Mandela and his family.

“These messages will be collected, bound into a commemorative book and sent to the Nelson Mandela Centre of Memory,” said spokesperson Priya Reddy in a statement on Sunday.

“Members of the public can visit any of the commemorative sites across the city to lay flowers or write their messages in special remembrance books.”

The sites included the Grand Parade, the Civic Centre, OR Tambo Hall, the Swartklip sports complex and the Muizenberg Civic Centre.

“People can use this opportunity to explain what Madiba meant to them, or share their fondest memory of him,” said Reddy.

Friends, colleagues, comrades and family of Nelson Mandela are invited to share their memories and tributes, and to light a candle for him, on his profile at Remembered.co.za.
– SAPA

Johannesburg – Abathembu King Buyelekhaya Dalindyebo stepped in to quell any disagreements among the Mandela family ahead of former president Nelson Mandela’s memorial service, The Times reported on Monday.

Dalindyebo visited Mandela’s Houghton home two days after Mandela’s eldest daughter Makaziwe wrote to her nephew Mandla Mandela demanding he remove his four dogs from Mandela’s house in Qunu, Eastern Cape, according to the report.

A security official at the Qunu home on Sunday reportedly told the newspaper Mandla had removed his dogs from the house.

The king, at a meeting with Mandela’s family on Sunday, called for unity.

“Every family member must respect each other and support each other,” he reportedly said to those present.

“Everything must be done with love and peace. We have to support each other.”

Mandela died at the age of 95 at his home in Houghton, Johannesburg, on Thursday night.

Friends, colleagues, comrades and family of Nelson Mandela are invited to share their memories and tributes, and to light a candle for him, on his profile at Remembered.co.za.

– SAPA

Johannesburg – As former president Nelson Mandela finally rests, it is certain his face will be enveloped in a gentle, enduring smile, former ANC secretary general Walter Sisulu said in a posthumous letter published in The Star on Monday.

Sisulu, who with Mandela wrote tributes to each other before their respective deaths, said overarching Mandela’s life of struggle, hardship, humiliation and pain, “there must be a sense of fulfilment that he had left an indelible footprint in the service of humankind”.

“His is a life that touched millions not only in South Africa, not only in our continent of Africa, but throughout the world,” Sisulu said.

“For the greater part of his life he was a beacon of the struggle. In his later years he became the symbol of hope. In death he stands confirmed as the embodiment of humanity’s hope for the future.”

Truth for Mandela was never something out there, clinically defined, and dispassionately stated.

“He combined passion with his search for truth and understanding… He was at heart a man of action,” Sisulu said.

“And when he loved, he loved.”

Friends, colleagues, comrades and family of Nelson Mandela are invited to share their memories and tributes, and to light a candle for him, on his profile at Remembered.co.za.
– SAPA

Johannesburg – Correctional Services Minister Sibusiso Ndebele has likened former president Nelson Mandela to Moses, his office said in a statement on Monday

“He said in Nelson Mandela, God gave South Africa a… Moses to lead and liberate his people from apartheid and oppression,” his office said.

Moses is a religious figure who freed the Israelites from slavery in Egypt.

Ndebele along with Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi attended a prayer service for Mandela at the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God in Johannesburg on Sunday.

“He [Ndebele] described the departed Mandela as a giant of South Africa, a giant of Africa, and a giant of the world which South Africans must be proud of and emulate.”

Mandela died at his home in Houghton, Johannesburg, on Thursday at the age of 95.

President Jacob Zuma told reporters in Johannesburg on Friday that Sunday would be a national day of prayer and reflection for Mandela.

Friends, colleagues, comrades and family of Nelson Mandela are invited to share their memories and tributes, and to light a candle for him, on his profile at Remembered.co.za.

– Share your memories of Nelson Mandela with us.

– SAPA

Johannesburg – Presidents past and present, global figures and A-list celebrities are making their way to South Africa on Monday to pay the world’s respects at a memorial service and state funeral for freedom icon Nelson Mandela.

More than 80 000 people will attend an impassioned, emotional tribute on Tuesday to the country’s inspirational first black president at the FNB stadium in Soweto, where he made his last major public appearance for the 2010 World Cup final.

The service is seen as a final chance for grieving South Africans to unite in a mass celebration of Mandela’s life ahead of the more formal state funeral.

Although Mandela had been critically ill for months, the announcement of his death on Thursday night was still a body blow for a country that had looked to his unassailable moral authority as a comforting constant in a time of uncertain social and economic change.

Vigils

Permanent day and night vigils have been held outside the Johannesburg residence where he died – the mood alternating between one of profound loss and relief that his physical suffering was over.

“Madiba was our version, the South African version, of the great Mahatma Gandhi,” said Laloo Isu Chiba, a fellow prison inmate of Mandela’s on Robben Island.

“For many, many, many generations to come, it will be almost impossible to get a person … with his commitment, his dedication and his qualities,” Chiba said.

Sunday marked the formal start of a week-long state funeral for the man who forged a new multi-racial South Africa from the discredited remnants of the apartheid era he helped dismantle.

On Monday, Parliament will meet for a special session to honour Mandela, who emerged from 27 years in prison to lead his country out of the shadow of apartheid into a multi-racial democracy.

Mandela last appeared in the house in February 2010, on the 20th anniversary of his prison release.

His former wife Winnie Madikizela-Mandela and grandson Mandla are both African National Congress MPs, but it was unclear if they would participate in the session.

“We hope some members of the Mandela family will be there,” ANC caucus spokesperson Moloto Mothapo said.

Former president FW de Klerk, who shared the 1993 Nobel peace Prize with Mandela, was also invited.

Winnie and Mandla both attended a Methodist service in Johannesburg on Sunday as part of a national day of prayer for Mandela observed in churches, mosques, synagogues and temples across the country.

President Jacob Zuma used the occasion to make a passionate public appeal for South Africans to unite behind Mandela’s ideals of equality, freedom and justice and to “keep his dream alive”.

70 heads of state

US President Barack Obama together with his wife Michelle and three previous occupants of the White House were among the roughly 70 heads of state and government flying in from every corner of the globe.

While Obama will attend Tuesday’s memorial service at the Soweto stadium, others will arrive later in the week for Mandela’s burial on 15 December in his boyhood home of Qunu.

British Prime Minister David Cameron, French President Francois Hollande and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon are all expected, along with a long-list of international dignitaries and marquee celebrities.

One leader notable by his absence will be Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, due to the costs involved, according to Israeli press reports.

Mandela’s fellow Nobel peace laureate, the Dalai Lama, who since 2009 has twice been denied a visa for South Africa, will also not attend, his spokesperson said.

Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas has announced that he will attend Tuesday’s memorial service.

Among the other world leaders scheduled to attend is Nigeria’s Goodluck Jonathan and more than a dozen other African heads of state and government.

Celebrity mourners

Talk show queen Oprah Winfrey and singer-activist Bono, as well as British billionaire Richard Branson and musician Peter Gabriel are expected to be among the celebrity mourners.

Around 11 000 troops have been mobilised to ensure security and help with crowd control efforts during the week-long series of funeral events.

Prior to his burial, Mandela’s body will lie in state for three days from Wednesday in the amphitheatre of the Union Buildings in Pretoria where was sworn in as president in 1994.

Each morning, his coffin will be carried through the streets of the capital in a funeral cortege, to give as many people as possible the chance to pay their final respects.

– Add your voice to the many who have already paid tribute to Nelson Mandela Send us your thoughts and photos. 

Friends, colleagues, comrades and family of Nelson Mandela are invited to share their memories and tributes, and to light a candle for him, on his profile at Remembered.co.za.

AFP