HELLO

Children pose in front of a poster of Mandela at the Nelson Mandela Foundation’s Centre of Memory in Houghton, Johannesburg. PHOTO/AFPnewvision A grieving South Africa started preparing Saturday to host a unique gathering of world leaders for Nelson Mandela's funeral, as his family expressed their profound sadness and loss at the anti-apartheid icon's death. Across the country, ordinary South Africans gathered in groups large and small, to both mourn and celebrate the life of the prisoner turned president who transformed their country and became a global symbol of hope and freedom. Presidents, religious leaders and cultural figureheads from all corners of the world are expected for the funeral, which will see a cortege with Mandela's coffin pass through the streets of Pretoria on three consecutive days. The memorials and events will culminate in Mandela's burial on December 1

Nelson Mandela, who led the emancipation of South Africa from white minority rule and served as his country’s first black president, becoming an international emblem of dignity and forbearance, died Thursday. He was 95. Mr. Mandela had long declared he wanted a quiet exit, but the time he spent in a Pretoria hospital in recent months was a clamor of quarreling family, hungry news media, spotlight-seeking politicians and a national outpouring of affection and loss. The vigil even eclipsed a visit by President Obama, who paid homage to Mr. Mandela but decided not to intrude on the privacy of a dying man he considered his hero. Mr. Mandela will be buried, according to his wishes, in the village of Qunu, where he grew up. The exhumed remains of three of his children were reinterred there in early July under a court order, resolving a family squabble that had played out in the news media. Mr. Mandela’s quest for freedom took him from the court of tribal royalty to the liberation und