Leaders gather, thousands sing in rain in farewell to Mandela

By means of Stella Mapenzauswa and David Dolan JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – World leaders from U.S. President Barack Obama to Cuba’s Raul Castro joined heaps of South Africans to honor Nelson Mandela on Tuesday in a memorial with a view to have fun his present for uniting enemies throughout political and racial divides. Obama and former president George W. Bush and their other halves Michelle and Laura arrived from Pretoria’s Waterkloof air base as singing, dancing South Africans made their means thru heavy rain to Johannesburg’s Soccer City the place the homage to Mandela shall be held. Obama and Castro, whose nations have been foes for greater than half a century, are among the many distinctive audio system at the stadium the place 23 years previous Mandela, newly free of apartheid detention center, was once hailed through supporters as the hope of a brand new South Africa. Since Mandela’s dying, Johannesburg has been blanketed in unseasonal cloud and rain – an indication, consistent with African tradition, of an esteemed elder passing on and being welcomed into the afterlife by using his ancestors.