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World
S. Africa Braces for Farewell
AMMAN, JORDAN
Kerry in Jordan to Press For Mideast Peace Talks Secretary of State John Kerry is poised to begin a new round of Middle East talks between Israel and the Palestinians, saying Wednesday Kerry that “the time is getting near where we need to make some judgments.” Kerry expressed hope that two sides could make progress but denied reports that three-way meetings were expected. (AP) ARCTIC BAY, NUNAVUT
Tourists Trapped on Ice In Canada to Be Rescued
Some 20 tourists and their guides stuck on an ice floe in the Canadian Arctic since Monday have made it to shore and are waiting to be rescued, officials said Wednesday. Arctic Kingdom Expeditions company president Graham Dickson said he expects they will be picked up by helicopter later Wednesday. (AP) BEIJING
27 Killed in Clashes Assailants attacked police and others and set fire to police cars in China’s restive western Xinjiang region Wednesday in violence that killed 27 people, one of the bloodiest incidents since 2009. The violence — described by state media as riots — injured at least three people, the official Xinhua News Agency said. (AP) BEIRUT
Activists: Death Toll Tops 100K in Syrian Conflict
More than 100,000 people have been killed since the start of the Syrian conflict more than two years ago, Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Wednesday. Rami Abdul-Rahman, the leader of the activist group, said he expected the actual toll is higher. (AP)
Nation gathers as health of Mandela, 94, declines further Johannesburg
South A fricans were torn on Wednesday between the desire not to lose a critically ill Nelson Mandela, who defined the aspirations of so many of his compatriots, and resignation that the beloved former prisoner and president is approaching the end of his life. The sense of anticipation and foreboding about 94-year-old Mandela’s fate has grown since late Sunday, when South African officials said the condition of the statesman, who was hospitalized in Pretoria on June 8, had deteriorated. A tide of tributes has built on social media and in messages and flowers outside the hospital and Mandela’s home. On Wednesday, about 20 children posted a card at the hospital and recited a poem. “Hold on, old man,” was one line, according to the South African Press Association. In recent days, international leaders, celebrities, athletes and others have praised Mandela, not
GETTY IIMAGES
In Brief
Fans of Nelson Mandela gather Wednesday near the hospital in Pretoria, South Africa, where the 94-year-old is being treated.
just as the man who steered South Africa through its tense transition from white racist rule to democracy two decades ago, but as a symbol of sacrifice and reconciliation. For many South Africans, Mandela’s decline is a far more personal matter, echoing the protracted and emotionally draining process of losing one of their own relatives. Matthew Rusznyah, 9, stopped outside Mandela’s home in the Johannesburg neighborhood of Houghton. “We came because we care about Mandela being sick, and we
A Legendary Life Nelson Mandela, whose 95th birthday is on July 18, spent 27 years in prison under apartheid before becoming South Africa’s first black president in all-race elections in 1994. He served a single five-year term and afterward focused on charitable causes. He withdrew from public life years ago and became increasingly frail in recent years. (AP)
Mass Protests Turn Violent at Brazil Soccer Game Belo Horizonte, Brazil Brazilian protesters and police clashed Wednesday outside a stadium hosting a Confederations Cup soccer match, with thousands of demonstrators trying to march on the site confronting police firing tear gas and rubber bullets. Protesters picked up tear gas canisters and lobbed them back at police, along with a shower of rocks. A dense fog of the acrid gas enveloped the mass of protesters,
Backstory The wave of protests that hit Brazil began as opposition to transportation fare hikes, then expanded to a laundry list of causes including anger at high taxes, poor services and high World Cup spending, before coalescing around the issue of rampant government corruption. It has become the largest eruption of protests that Latin America’s biggest nation has seen in two decades. (AP)
just hundreds of yards away from the stadium where Brazil was playing Uruguay in a semifinal match of the warm-up tournament for next year’s World Cup. It’s the latest protest to turn violent as Latin America’s biggest nation has been hit by nationwide protests since June 17. Elsewhere in Brazil the situation was mostly calm, in part because Brazil’s congress shelved legislation that was a target of nationwide protests. (AP)
wish we could put a stop to it, like snap our fingers,” he said. “But we can’t. It’s how life works.” His mother, Lee Rusznyah, said Mandela had made the world a better place. Dan Lehman, an American academic, chose a jogging route on Wednesday morning that passed by the hospital where Mandela is being treated. “I was just going out for my morning run down here and come to pay my respects to the greatest man in the world,” he said. Then he began to cry. CHRISTOPHER TORCHIA (AP)
Hearsay
“I want to create a future where humans and robots can live together and get along.” — K IROBO, A ROBOT-ASTRONAUT CREATED BY JAPANESE DEVELOPERS, SPEAK-
$45M
ING WEDNESDAY DURING A DEMONSTRA-
The amount Ireland will pay about 770 former residents of Catholic-run Magdalene laundries to compensate for years of unpaid labor and public shame, officials announced Wednesday. The move is the latest step in a two-decade effort to redress the abuses that occurred at the institutions from 1922 to 1996. (AP)
TION IN TOKYO. TOMOTAKA TAKAHASHI SAID HE HOPES SUCH ROBOTS WILL ONE DAY AID ASTRONAUTS IN SPACE. KIROBO IS SCHEDULED TO BLAST OFF ON AUG. 4.