MAJOR UPDATE - 4:58 P.M. NELSON MANDELA DEAD

What? He's not dead? But President Bush said...MERCY, he's alive.

Just another OOPS - I POSTED TOO EARLY TODAY

Mandela still alive after embarrassing Bush remark

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - Nelson Mandela is still very much alive despite an embarrassing gaffe by U.S. President George W. Bush, who alluded to the former South African leader's death in an attempt to explain sectarian violence in Iraq.

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"It's out there. All we can do is reassure people, especially South Africans, that President Mandela is alive," Achmat Dangor, chief executive officer of the Nelson Mandela Foundation, said as Bush's comments received worldwide coverage.

In a speech defending his administration's Iraq policy, Bush said former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's brutality had made it impossible for a unifying leader to emerge and stop the sectarian violence that has engulfed the Middle Eastern nation.

"I heard somebody say, Where's Mandela?' Well, Mandela's dead because Saddam Hussein killed all the Mandelas," Bush, who has a reputation for verbal faux pas, said in a press conference in Washington on Thursday.

Jailed for 27 years for fighting white minority rule, Mandela became South Africa's first black president in 1994. He won a Nobel Peace Prize for preaching racial harmony and guiding the nation peacefully into the post-apartheid era.

References to his death -- Mandela is now 89 and increasingly frail -- are seen as insensitive in South Africa.

REALLY? INSENSITIVE? OUR BUSH? SAY IT SO"

Oops, PART I

Think you had a bad, embarrassing, humiliating moment at work? How'd you like this?

Referee Forced to Check Gender of Female Soccer Player
South Africa: The referee in a Ghana v. South Africa women's Olympic soccer qualifier has been forced to carry out an inspection in the South African dressing room after allegations were made by the Ghanan camp that one of the strikers was male.

Augustine Makalakalane, the coach of the South African side, said he believes that the suspicion was raised in order to play mind games with his side. He said that he will be bringing two players with male features to the return leg in December.

"The referee would not have allowed her to be part of the game if Alice or anyone else was indeed male... If it is indeed correct that the Ghanaian official has said this, then I’m personally disappointed with his conduct." said Makalakalane.

Oops Part II

WASHINGTON — A homeland security adviser to Rudy Giuliani came under fire Thursday for claiming there were "too many mosques" in the United States _ and defended himself by saying his point was that not enough Muslim leaders cooperate with law enforcement.

Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., the former chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee and the top GOP member on the panel, said his comments to the Politico Web site were taken out of context. Democrats said Giuliani should drop him as a campaign adviser.

"I stand by everything I said other than the fact that the Politico totally took it out of context," King said Thursday.

In the Politico interview, King said: "Unfortunately we have too many mosques in this country, there's too many people who are sympathetic to radical Islam. We should be looking at them more carefully, we should be finding out how we can infiltrate, we should be much more aggressive in law enforcement."

After King complained, Politico posted video of the entire interview.