Monday, September 2, 2013
National Mirror www.nationalmirroronline.net
49
World News
“Syria... is capable of facing up to any external aggression just as it faces up to internal aggression every day, in the form of terrorist groups and those that support them.” –SYRIAN PRESIDENT BASHAR AL-ASSAD
Mandela leaves hospital PAUL ARHEWE
WITH AGENCY REPORTS
N
elson Mandela has left hospital and has gone to his Johannesburg home, where he is continuing to receive intensive care, the South African presidency says on its website. The announcement came a day after officials denied reports that the 95-year-old had already been discharged. The statement says Mandela condition remains critical and at times unstable. South Africa’s first democratically elected president has been in hospital since June with a lung infection. Well-wishers have already started visiting Nelson Mandela’s home in the Houghton suburb of Johannesburg. One man told me that as soon as he heard that Mandela had left hospital, he woke up the children, jumped in the car and drove here. “It’s a spring day and we hope this will be a new dawn for Mandela that he will be a healthier person,” he told me. “If he dies, we won’t feel the same - this world won’t be the same,” said his young daughter after reading some of the pebbles outside the house painted with messages of goodwill and love for the 95-year-old. The statement from the presidency tells us that behind the high walls of his home, Mandela will still receive the same level of intensive care from the same peo-
An ambulance transporting former South African president, Nelson Mandela, arrives at the home of the former statesman in Johannesburg, South Africa, yesterday. PHOTO: AP
ple who treated him at the Pretoria hospital - so in effect a special medical unit has been created. The Nobel Peace Prize laureate is revered around the world for leading the fight against white minority rule and preaching reconciliation with the white community despite being imprisoned for 27 years. “His team of doctors are convinced that he will receive the same level of intensive care at his Houghton home that he received in Pretoria [hospital],” the statement from President Jacob Zuma’s says. It adds that Mandela’s home in the suburb of Houghton has been “reconfigured to allow him to re-
ceive intensive care there” and he will be treated by the same health care personnel who have been looking after him since 8 June. If necessary, he will be readmitted to hospital, the presidency says. Despite his various illnesses, the statement from Zuma’s office notes, the former president had displayed “immense grace and fortitude”. The South African government has released few details about his condition, appealing for Mandela’s privacy and dignity to be respected. The BBC’s reporter in South Africa says this is not the discharge of a man who has made a
Senegal’s President fires PM Mbaye
S
enegal’s President Macky Sall fired Prime Minister Abdoul Mbaye yesterday just over a year after naming the former banker to head the government, an official said. Presidential spokesman Abou Abel Thiam did not say why Mbaye, who was not a member of any political party, was sacked but said a replacement and new government would be
named soon. Mbaye, 60, was appointed in April 2012. He studied in Senegal and France’s top business schools and previously worked at West Africa’s BCEAO central bank. He has been credited with turning around several ailing private banks in the country. Sall won a hotly contested presidential election in March 2012 against veteran incum-
significant recovery but the transfer of a patient from an intensive care ward in a hospital to a specially built intensive care unit in his own home, presumably in line with his family’s wishes. But he notes that some people will take some encouragement from the fact that his doctors have said he was fit enough to make the 55km-journey (34 miles) and says such a decision will not have been taken lightly. “It is a day of celebration for us, that he is finally back home with us,” said his grandson Mandla Mandela. On Saturday, sources close to Mandela told the BBC and other international media that he had already returned home.
US has evidence sarin gas was used in Syria –Kerry
U Sall
bent Abdoulaye Wade, promising to tackle poverty and corruption as a priority and reduce the cost of running the West African state’s government.
nited States Secretary of State John Kerry asserted yesterday that the US government now has evidence of sarin gas use in Syria and said “the case gets stronger by the day” for a military attack. A day after President Barack Obama stepped back from his threat to launch an attack, Kerry said in a series of interviews on the Sunday news shows that the administration learned of the sarin use within the past 24 hours through samples of hair and blood provided
to Washington by first responders in Damascus. Kerry also said he was confident that Congress will give Obama its backing for an attack against Syria, but the former Massachusetts senator also said the president has authority to act on his own if Congress doesn’t give its approval. While Kerry stopped short of saying Obama was committed to such a course even if lawmakers refuse to authorize force, he did say that “we are not going to lose this vote.”
WORLD BULLETIN Indian spiritual leader arrested on rape charge A controversial spiritual guru was arrested early yesterday on a rape charge filed by a teenage girl in the north-western Indian state of Rajasthan, police said. Asaram Bapu was arrested at a spiritual retreat in central India and flown to the city of Jodhpur, where police say he is wanted for allegedly raping the girl, said Ajay Singh Lamba, a top police officer. The case is the latest in a series of high-profile rape cases in India that have fuelled public protests and raised questions about how police handle the cases and treat the victims. The girl filed a complaint two weeks ago accusing the Hindu religious preacher of raping her when she visited his retreat in Jodhpur with her mother. The girl’s family says they have been followers of Asaram Bapu for more than a decade. Asaram Bapu, who has hundreds of thousands of followers in India and is well known for his discourses on Hindu religion, has denied the charge. There was drama Saturday when Rajasthan police arrived at his retreat to arrest him, with hundreds of his supporters thronging the ashram and attacking television crews.
Congolese army fights on despite rebel ceasefire offer Fighting erupted on Saturday between eastern Congolese rebels and the army, which said it would push on with an offensive to recapture all territory controlled by insurgents despite their call for a ceasefire. Democratic Republic of Congo’s army, backed by a new U.N. brigade with an unprecedented mandate to launch attacks, has forced M23 rebels to retreat from positions they have held for months overlooking the eastern city of Goma. Some shells fired during recent fighting have landed in neighbouring Rwanda, threatening to pull the small but militarily powerful country openly into the conflict. Both Congo’s army and rebels have accused the other of firing the missiles. U.N. experts and Congo’s government says Rwanda is already backing the rebels but Kigali denies this. Both sides said fighting erupted several kilometres (miles) north of Kibati, hilltop positions seized from rebels on Friday the latest in nearly two decades of unrest fuelled by ethnicity, local politics and competition over land and mineral wealth. “Are criminals and we are obliged to pursue them. We want to recapture all of the territory they currently occupy and restore the authority of the army and state,” said Congolese army spokesman Lt Colonel Olivier Hamuli.