South Africa marked Nelson Mandela's 89th birthday yesterday with tributes and congratulations as the anti-apartheid icon launched a new international group to help solve the world's problems.
Mandela unveiled the group of elder statesmen including former US President Jimmy Carter, former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and former Irish President Mary Robinson at a news conference in Johannesburg.
"Nelson Mandela's role in this was to help bring the group together. What he will do today is introduce them to the media and to the public, bless them, and let them carry on with the work," Nelson Mandela Foundation head Achmat Dangor told SABC radio before the news conference yesterday.
Dangor said the new group would tackle pressing world issues, but that Mandela himself - who stepped down as South Africa's president in 1999 and officially retired from public life in 2004 - would not play a major role.
"Not only does he not have the time to devote to such a very complicated process, but we also think that his priorities should lie in Africa," he said.
Aides say Mandela is in good physical health for his age, and that he is spending his retirement quietly devoting time to his large family and wife Graca Machel, whom he married on his 80th birthday in 1998.
South African newspapers were full of well-wishes for the man who - more than a decade after he won the first all-race elections that buried apartheid - remains affectionately known by his clan name "Madiba" to South Africans across all racial lines.
"Madiba takes the cake" Johannesburg's Star newspaper said, running page after page of tributes and congratulatory messages from its readers.
A new poll released to coincide with the birthday showed Mandela's popularity in South Africa has actually grown since he stepped down as president.
The Markinor poll said Mandela scored an average rating of 9.2 out of 10 among some 3,500 people surveyed, "making him the country's most beloved leader."
The survey marked an improvement over Mandela's rating at the end of his presidency, which was about 8.2 out of 10, the results showed.
Mandela's birthday was also marked in Cape Town yesterday with a special soccer game between African soccer stars and a selection of great world players.
Retired Brazilian soccer star Pele and three-time African player of the year Samuel Eto'o, of Cameroon, were among more than 50 past and present stars of the game taking part in "90 Minutes for Mandela" match.
The week of festivities will feature visits by many of Mandela's friends, including former US President Bill Clinton, before wrapping up on July 24 with a children's party that has become an annual fixture.
Source: China Daily/agencies
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