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We’ve known for some time that Nelson Mandela was a member of the South African Communist Party. It was hard for fawning liberals to acknowledge the meaning of his membership, so they came up with a narrative explaining it. Their story went something like this: He only briefly joined to get the benefit of their organizational talent, and his membership was rather symbolic, and hardly meaningful. What is important is his steadfast commitment to non-violence, his adherence to political democracy, and the role he played after emerging from prison in the waning days of apartheid.

A new species of crustacean has been named in honour of Nelson Mandela. The squat lobster is related to hermit crabs and now has the Latin name Munidopsis mandelai in honour of the South African revolutionary. The sea creature was discovered in a relatively unexplored area of the Southwest Indian Ocean Ridge, off the coast of South Africa, in 2011.

By their heroes shall you know them. In his eulogy, President Obama put Nelson Mandela in the company of three other heroes: Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and Abraham Lincoln. What did these men have in common? Three were assassinated, and all four are icons of resistance to white rule over peoples of color. Lincoln waged the bloodiest war in American history that ended slavery. Gandhi advanced the end of British rule in India. King led the civil rights struggle that buried Jim Crow. Mandela was the leader of the revolution that overthrew apartheid. Obama's heroes testify to his...

Benjamin Netanyahu Under Fire for Not Bowing Down to Mythical Idol Nelson Mandela By Julio Severo The mainstream international media were chocked when Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Shimon Peres said they would not be attending the funeral of Nelson Mandela in South Africa, citing costs and health reasons. Benjamin Netanyahu In contrast, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas did not miss the funeral. Why so much fuss about it? Russian President Vladimir Putin decided not to attend it, and he has not received the widespread criticism Netanyahu did. For Putin, who was an active leader in the infamous...

They say "happy wife happy life." While I don't deny the overriding truth to that, I always thought it was sort of obnoxious because it implies that the husbands happiness in a marriage is optional.Then there are times where the husband is indeed happy, and with "Selfiegate" that's precisely the problem...

As Nelson Mandela was being laid to rest, an opinion poll showed his political heir Jacob Zuma losing support over claims of abuse of public funds. A survey for the Sunday Times newspaper showed 51 per cent of registered voters of the ruling African National Congress (ANC) want the president to resign. The results of the survey conducted by the Ipsos market research company comes in the same week that Zuma was booed at Mandela's memorial service in Soweto. Of the 1,000 ANC voters polled in a representative survey, 33 per cent said they were less likely to vote for...

‘I don’t want to be emotional but this is one of the greatest moments of my life,” declared Nelson Mandela upon meeting the Spice Girls in 1997. So I like to think he would have appreciated the livelier aspects of his funeral observances. The Prince of Wales, who was also present on that occasion in Johannesburg, agreed with Mandela on the significance of their summit with the girls: “It is the second-greatest moment in my life,” he said. “The greatest was when I met them the first time.” His Royal Highness and at least two Spice Girls (reports are unclear)...

Another controversy hit South Africa’s long goodbye to anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela on Saturday when his fellow anti-apartheid foe Desmond Tutu said he had not been accredited as a clergyman at the funeral by the government so would not attend. Mac Maharaj, a spokesman for the South African president Jacob Zuma, insisted that Tutu is on the guest list and that he hopes a solution will be found so Tutu attends. The 82-year-old retired Anglican archbishop of Cape Town indicated he felt he had been snubbed by the current government, with which he has clashed several times in the past....

It's becoming increasingly clear that when President Obama arrived at the Nelson Mandela memorial service in Johannesburg, South Africa Tuesday, he stepped into an atmosphere so chaotic, disorganized, and unsafe that under any other circumstances the White House and Secret Service might well have insisted the president not appear. FNB Stadium, where the memorial was held, seats 95,000 people. Even with a steady rain and thousands of empty seats in uncovered areas, there were tens of thousands of people in the area with the president. It appears most of them got in without going through any security. "There were no...

The man who used jibberish sign language at Nelson Mandela’s memorial service also used incoherent hand gestures to sign a notorious anti-white song sung last year by current South African President Jacob Zuma. Thamsanqua Jantjie, 34, late said that he is schizophrenic and was hallucinating during the Mandela memorial speeches. The interpreter also admitted that he’d been prone to fits of violence in the past, an admission that was worrisome given his proximity to President Barack Obama and other world leaders. According to NBC News, Jantjie has worked two other gigs on behalf of the African National Congress (ANC), South...

Editor's Note: This column was coauthored by Bob Morrison. President Obama is receiving plenty of criticism for his selfie cellphone portrait at the funeral of South Africa’s revered leader, Nelson Mandela. What the president had to say in tribute to Africa’s greatest statesman was largely overshadowed by the press pictures of Obama, Prime Minister David Cameron, and Denmark’s shapely blonde chief of government, Helle Thorning Schmidt. The three leaders are shown, dressed appropriately enough in mourning black. But they are seen yucking it up like teenagers while First Lady Michelle Obama sits up attentively, the perfect picture of dignity and...

Joe Scarborough made a point of mentioning that until today, his MSNBC show hadn't discussed the Obama selfie at the memorial service for Nelson Mandela. Morning Joe's way too highbrow for that kind of stuff, don't you know, particularly when it might reflect badly on Barack Obama. But when the crew finally got around to it today, opinion from Joe to Mika to Ed Rendell to Thomas Roberts was unanimous: there was nothing to criticize. Mika made her point by seeking to snap a selfie with Scarborough, as Joe jokingly showed her the hand. View the video here.

A week ago, President Obama publicly threw his support to Bill de Blazio (shown in suit), the Democratic Party candidate for New York City mayor, joining Hollywood activists Alec Baldwin, Susan Sarandon, Harry Belafonte — along with Bill and Hillary Clinton, George Soros, and a host of veteran “Progressives” who are endorsing the former NYC councilman and public advocate. On the same day that President Obama announced his endorsement (September 23), the New York Times published an extensive investigation of de Blasio’s radical Marxist background, focusing particularly on his devotion to the Marxist-Leninist Sandinista regime in Nicaragua. De Blasio also...

Earlier Tuesday, NBC News reported that President Barack Obama had shaken hands with Zimbabwean leader Robert Mugabe. However, the UK Telegraph's Josie Ensor reported that Obama "was asked to take his seat just before reaching Mugabe." Complicating matters, another article in the UK Telegraph also claimed that Obama had shaken hands with Mugabe--in very similar terms to those used in the NBC article. Breitbart News caught the discrepancy--and suddenly the NBC News article was corrected, with no notice. Before: On his way to the rostrum, Obama also shook the hand of Robert Mugabe, the strongman ruler of Zimbabwe, and hugged...

PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe has denied media reports suggesting relations with the late South Africa president Nelson Mandela were strained, describing the late global icon as a “great friend”. Commentators have long claimed Mugabe was not happy to lose his standing as Africa’s leading liberation hero following Mandela’s release from prison in 1990 and subsequent rise to a revered global icon. The Zimbabwean leader was also peeved by Mandela’s criticism of his rule as Zimbabwe’s economy collapsed amid allegations of widespread corruption, human rights abuses and electoral fraud. Mugabe remarkably took his time to issue a condolence message after Mandela’s death...

Nearly three times as many BBC staff have been sent to cover Nelson Mandela’s death than all of its rival British broadcasters put together, it has been revealed. The corporation sent a total of 140 presenters and crew members to South Africa, while Sky News had the second highest number of the British broadcasters with 15. The BBC said it expected to have deployed about 120 journalists, technicians and support staff to work on the story over a ten-day period. The BBC World Service is also reported to have sent a further 20 staff, whose expenses will not be paid...

ou can't make things like this up, but this unnamed man apparently did. From AP via My Way News (12/11/2013): Mandela ceremony interpreter called a 'fake' JOHANNESBURG (AP) - A man who provided sign language interpretation on stage for Nelson Mandela's memorial service, attended by scores of heads of state, was a "fake," the national director of the Deaf Federation of South Africa said on Tuesday. Asked about the claim by The Associated Press, South Africa's government said it was preparing a statement. Three sign language experts said the man was not signing in South African or American sign languages....

Whether or not they were aware, the leaders of the Western democracies gathered in Pretoria’s stadium were inadvertently taking part in the celebration of “the people’s democracy” and not the democracy. (…) On the day of Mandela's Memorial Service in the Pretoria Stadium, the former deputy general secretary of the South African Communist Party, Solly Mapaila stated in an interview that Mandela was a member of the party but it was denied at the time for “political reasons”. Documents...

U.S. Rep. Albio Sires (D-8th Dist.), who immigrated to the United States from Cuba as a child, today slammed President Obama for shaking hands with Cuban President Raul Castro at Nelson Mandela’s memorial service in South Africa.

BURGLARS broke into the Cape Town home of South African peace icon Desmond Tutu when he was away speaking at Nelson Mandela's memorial. "I can confirm that there was a burglary last night," said Archbishop Tutu aide Roger Friedman. "We are not able to tell exactly what was stolen, the archbishop and his wife were not at home. The house was not pillaged." Archbishop Tutu had used the memorial to call on South Africans to follow Mandela's example. "I want to show the world we can come out here and celebrate the life of an icon." The timing of the...