<p></p><div class="media media-element-container media-feature_medium media-float-left"><div id="file-59512--4" class="file file-image file-image-jpeg"> <div class="content"> <img style="width: 429px; height: 242px; margin: 5px; float: left;" class="media-element file-feature-medium" typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://media.pri.org/s3fs-public/styles/feature_medium/public/story/gallery/mandela-2005-laughing.jpg?itok=aXojiFx9" width="429" height="242" alt="Nelson Mandela in 2005" title="" /> </div> </div> </div> Nelson Mandela, the acclaimed former president of South Africa who became famous for his staunch opposition to apartheid, died on Thursday, December 5, 2013. He was 95.
Author Jonny Steinberg’s new book, "Winnie and Nelson: Portrait of a Marriage," explores the complex relationship between Nelson Mandela and Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, two of the world’s best-known freedom fighters. Steinberg joined The World’s host Marco Werman to discuss the fraught political partnership of these iconic revolutionaries.
American cops rarely go to jail for the killings of civilians, and the same goes for police officers in South Africa. And in both countries, the anger at such perceived biases is at odds with the perception that they've become post-racial societies after electing black leaders.
You can see the phrase scrawled on walls around the globe from Tahrir Square to Ferguson, seemingly anywhere people take to the streets: "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised." It was the creation of American jazz poet Gil Scott-Heron, whose biographer says he'd enjoy the term's enduring use.
When Nelson Mandela was released from prison in 1990, Zelda la Grange had no idea who he was. In her Afrikaaner family, he was simply a "terrorist." She was in her twenties and would soon become Mandela's personal assistant, and later, a close friend.
If you're in Pretoria, South Africa, one show you won't be able to see is a new opera about Nelson Mandela. That's because the show, "Madiba: The African Opera," was cancelled after just three nights because of a lack of funding. The opera depicts Nelson Mandela's early years in his native home of Qunu, on South Africa's Eastern Cape. Thabang Senekal is the well-known South African baritone who played Mandela in the production. He describes what it's like to play Mandela on stage.
South Africa kept recordings of Nelson Mandela's famous Rivonia speech. But no one could hear them because they were on dictabelts. And then South Africa's last remaining dictaphone machine broke.
A woman was sentenced by elders to a public gang rape in her village in the West Bengal area to punish her for an affair. India's Supreme Court is investigating. A signal room in London's Underground gets flooded, with quick-drying cement. And an artist is painting and placing cut-outs of immigrant workers around LA. All that and more, in today's Global Scan.
'Selfie' is topping some word of the year lists. Its rise to fame has been so rapid that it doesn't exist in most other languages. Speakers of those languages just use the English word, and they don't have much choice about it if they want to be part of the conversation on social media.
Nelson Mandela's funeral service was held on Sunday, but media were kept at a distance, at a media center. Many ordinary South Africans also flocked to the media center, to say goodbye.
Kim Jong Un has consolidated his power in North Korea and now he's back in the public eye. But was Kim's uncle really the biggest threat to North Korea's stability?
Nelson Mandela was many many things, among them a lover of humor and satire. He once sat down for a 30-minute TV interview with a man in a dress pretending to be an apartheid-era Afrikaner housewife. Mandela knew that talking to the fictitious Evita Bezuidenhout was going to reach more people than appearing on the nightly news. Satirist Pieter-Dirk Uys was the man behind Evita.