Nelson Mandela is no more....

Nelson Mandela is no more....

>>  South African anti-apartheid hero Nelson Mandela died aged 95 at his Johannesburg home on Thursday after a prolonged lung infection, plunging his nation and the world into mourning for a man hailed by global leaders as a moral giant.

>> Although Mandela had been frail and ailing for nearly a year, Zuma's announcement late on Thursday of the death of the former president and Nobel Peace Prize laureate shook South Africa.

>> Tributes began flooding in almost immediately for a man who was an iconic global symbol of struggle against injustice and of racial reconciliation.

>> US President Barack Obama said the world had lost "one of the most influential, courageous and profoundly good human beings that any of us will share time with on this earth".

>> PM Manmohan Singh said, "A giant among men has passed away. This is as much India's loss as South Africa's. He was a true Gandhian. His life and work will remain a source of eternal inspiration for generations to come. I join all those who are praying for his soul."

>> British Prime Minister David Cameron called Mandela "a hero of our time" and said "a great light has gone out in the world".

>> A somber Zuma made a national broadcast to announce the death of South Africa's first black president, who emerged from 27 years in apartheid prisons to help guide Africa's biggest economy through bloodshed and turmoil to democracy.

>> Mandela rose from rural obscurity to challenge the might of white minority apartheid government - a struggle that gave the 20th century one of its most respected and loved figures

>> He was among the first to advocate armed resistance to apartheid in 1960, but was quick to preach reconciliation and forgiveness when the country's white minority began easing its grip on power 30 years later.

>> He was elected president in landmark all-race elections in 1994 and retired in 1999.