BBC News with Jerry Smit.
The South African President Jacob Zuma has been leading the tributes to Nelson Mandela who died on Thursday night at the age of 95. Mr. Zuma said the outpouring of love from home and abroad was unprecedented. He said Nelson Mandela who led South Africa to freedom from white minority rule and was the first black president has taught South Africans that there was possible to overcome hatred to build a new society.
We sincerely thank all South Africans for the dignified manner in which they have respected and responded to the monumental loss of this international icon who was a symbol of the reconciliation, unity, love, human rights and justice.
Across South Africa, people have gathered to mourn and celebrate Nelson Mandela's life. Crowds formed outside his house in Johannesburg to pay their respects. From there Mike Wooldridge sends this report.
It is spontaneous, sorrowful and celebratory at the same time. They were formal marking that Nelson Mandela's passing is to come. This is the people of South Africa want to demonstrate the regard they had for their first democratically elected their first black president. This was the same at the Houghton that X and usually quiet suburb of Johannesburg where Nelson Mandela lived during the later years of his life. Mandela family members kept their privacy as preparation begins for the official mourning.
Mourners also gathered outside the Mandela's former home in Soweto to pay their respects. These people were among them.
I came so far just to celebrate our hero. So I saw it as a need for me to be here in X this in Soweto. All we just had to come his family to support and celebrate his life and show what would here is telling us forgiveness.
The atmosphere here is just as good as many it was he is. The inspiration, the positive nurse and although we are mourning,but we all celebrating a true legend.
The South African communist party has said Nelson Mandela was in fact a member of its central committee at the time of he was arrested in 1962. Although it's been subjected to much debate among historian and academics, Mandela himself always denied being a member of the Communist Party. At his trail, he dismissed the allegations saying they were a smear by the a party government to disgrace him.
The Withe House has announced that President Obama and his wife Michelle will travel to South Africa next week to join the memorial services. Tributes to the former South African president had continued to pour in from the leaders around the world.
World News from the BBC.
The death of Nelson Mandela is overshadowing of a two-day summit in Paris where African leaders have gathered to discuss peace and security on the continent. The French President Francois Hollande who called the meeting urged the African leaders to help create a continental security force, he said French was ready to train up to 20,000 African soldiers per year.
Hundreds of additional French troops have arrived in the Central African Republic as a part of United Nations backed operation to restore security. French soldiers and armed vehicles are patrolling the capital Bangui and fighter jets have flown over the city. The Red Cross says about 300 people were killed in Bangui in sectarian violence on Thursday. The UN says it has reports of hundreds of homes burnt in the northern town of Bossangoa.
Six people in Mexico have been admitted to hospital for possible radiation poisoning. Police are blocking access to the hospital in Hidalgo state. Earlier this week a truck carrying medical equipment with radioactive material inside were stolen in the area, it was found abandoned a couple of days later.
The draw for the 2014 World Cup final has taken place in Brazil. The 32 teams were split into eight groups of four. Our sports reporter Alex Capstick has some of the highlights.
Games against Croatia, Mexico and Cameroon should post few problems for Brazil in the early stages of the tournaments but it's looking more difficult for the defending champions, Spain will open their campaign against the team they defeated in the bad tempered final three years ago, the Netherlands. The USA's Coach Jurgen Klinsmann compound a fixture against his native Germany. Group G also includes Portugal and Ghana and it's considered one of the toughest along Group D which is joined Uruguay with the Costa Rica, England and Italy. The two European nations will face extreme humidity when they clash in the Amazonian city of Manas in their first match.