Barack Obama has said that Nelson Mandela “makes me want to be a better man” at his memorial service in Johannesburg. As well as hailing the late President, Obama also used the opportunity to chide other world leaders who he said claimed solidarity with Mandela’s struggle for freedom “but do not tolerate dissent from their own people… There are too many of us who happily embrace Madiba’s legacy of racial reconciliation, but passionately resist even modest reforms that would challenge chronic poverty and growing inequality.” He made the comment in front of an audience of leaders that included Chinese Vice President Li Yuanchao, Cuban President Raul Castro and Zimbabwe’s president, Robert Mugabe.
Following his speech, he then shook the hand of Cuban President Raul Castro, a rare gesture between the leaders of two nations at loggerheads for more than half a century. Relations between Cuba and the US have been frozen since soon after Cuba’s 1959 revolution led by Raul’s brother Fidel Castro. Report by Sophie Foster.
