South Africa: "health Mandela ruin Obama visit. Which only sees ... - Reuters Press Agency

(AFP) – Johannesburg, June 29 -” A meeting in private to pay their wishes and prayers during this difficult time.” So ‘the White House has described the character of the meeting today in Johannesburg, including U.S. President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle with the family of Nelson Mandela who struggle in these hours between life and death, which is why the couple U.S. presidential gave up to see it. Salta, so ‘, the encounter between the first black president of South Africa and the first black president of the United States of America: the fact was supposed to be the highlight of the stay of Obama in South Africa, the second leg of African tour that has already ‘taken in Senegal and will end’ in Tanzania. From Johannesburg, Obama phoned the wife of former South African president, Graca Machel, who is attending her husband hospitalized in the capital, Pretoria, and to which the tenant of the White House has expressed its” support”. ” I’m honored: finding the time to call me to express their solidarity ‘and to meet our grandchildren, they added a touch of warmth and personality of the Obama family,” said Mrs. Mandela after talking to the U.S. president and the first lady, Michelle. ” I’ve already ‘reported their message to Madiba,” she added using the affectionate nickname by which the South Africans used to call the leader of the end of apartheid. ” His courage and moral ‘was a source of personal inspiration and a source of inspiration in the world,” Obama said of Mandela during a joint press conference with South African President, Jacob Zuma. The latter, on the same occasion, he reported that his predecessor and ”’ in critical condition, but stable. Hopefully it will come out soon from the hospital where” and ‘hospitalized since last June 8 for severe p ulmonary insufficiency. Obama, who” respect” for the state of health of Mandela declined to see him, called his” hero”, stressing that” the triumph of Nelson Mandela and of this nation says something very deep in the the human spirit.” The U.S. president has met only once Madiba in 2005, when he was still just a simple senator after the first election to the White House, the two felt more ‘times on the phone, but never seen in person. Meanwhile in Johannesburg Obama and ‘went to the meeting scheduled with college students, despite the protests of a few hundred protesters – mainly with critical U.S. foreign policy – that the police dispersed using sound bombs. stt / sam /