Former South African President Nelson Mandela's speaks to journalists at
his home in Qunu to mark his 90th birthday celebrations. 

 QUNU, SOUTH AFRICA (JULY 18, 2008) AGENCY POOL -
 Nelson Mandela invited media to his home in eastern South Africa on
Friday (July 18) as celebrations got underway to mark his 90th birthday.
    Mandela, imprisoned for 27 years but forgiving of his former captors,
is hailed as a shining example of the power of forgiveness and reconciliation.

    His smile and sense of humour have made him a treasured international
icon. 
    He transcends races and opinions in South Africa itself, and has
dedicated many of his more recent years to tackling poverty.
    "When there are many people in South Africa who are rich, who can
share those riches with people who are not so fortunate, who have not been
able to conquer poverty, if you look around - even in towns, not only the
countryside, even in towns - there's a lot of poverty," he told
reporters.
    He is rare among African leaders in agreeing to give up power quickly,
after only one term following the 1994 end of apartheid. 
    On Friday, he said he was grateful to be able to mark such an important
birthday.
    "I'm happy that I've lived until now because there are not many
people who look after themselves and who can live for such a long time and I'm
happy that I'm still alive," he said." 
    "I hope many South Africans and other people in the world will
live like this so that they could be the object of admiration," he
added.
    South Africa shared the pain of Mandela's humiliating divorce in 1996
from Winnie Mandela, his second wife, and watched his courtship of Graca
Machel, widow of Mozambican President Samora Machel, whom he married on his
80th birthday in 1998. 
    "It is not easy to talk about the 10 years of my marriage, except
to say that I am happy to have had a wife like her and I'm very happy about
that," Mandela said, when asked about marriage.
    Restful retirement was not on the cards as Mandela shifted his
political energies to battling South Africa's AIDS crisis raising millions of
dollars to fight the disease. His struggle against AIDS became starkly
personal in early 2005 when he lost his only surviving son to the disease.