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Pele is eternal: Brazil says a final goodbye to the soccer legend

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Eva Deschamps / January 3, 2023

 


President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva will be one of the last to pay tribute to Pele on Tuesday as the whole of Brazil prepares to say a final farewell to the soccer legend who will be buried later today.

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Lula, who took office on Sunday, is expected in the city of Santos, in the southeast of the country, to “pay tribute to Pele and in solidarity with his family” at 09:00 local time (12:00 GMT), one hour before the end of the funeral vigil started 24 hours earlier.

 

Pele and in solidarity with his family” at 09H00 local, one hour before the end of the funeral vigil begun 24 hours earlier.

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Then the funeral procession will cross Santos and will pass in particular in front of the house of the mother of Pelé, Celeste Arantes. She is 100 years old but has cognitive problems and is not aware of her son’s death.

 

Pele’s remains will then be taken to his final resting place, a specially erected mausoleum in a cemetery, for a Catholic rite ceremony in strict family privacy.

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On Monday, thousands of fans and soccer dignitaries, including FIFA President Gianni Infantino, gathered in front of Pele’s black coffin set up in the center of the FC Santos stadium, the club where he played from 1956 to 1974.

 

“Pele is eternal. He is a global soccer icon,” Infantino said Monday, noting that soccer’s governing body would ask all member countries to name a stadium after Pele.

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Antonio Carlos Pereira da Silva, a 36-year-old artist, said he arrived at midnight to be among the first to walk past the open casket covered with a tulle veil where the man many consider the greatest footballer in history, the only one to have won the World Cup three times in 1958, 1962 and 1970, lies.

 

“If I said I didn’t cry when he died, I would be lying,” he told AFP. “Pele taught us so many things. Not only in Brazil, but in the whole world.

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Tributes have poured in from around the world since his death, with the biggest names in soccer, both current and former, hailing his genius for the “beautiful game.”

 

Inside the stadium, fans of Pele advanced all day Monday slowly and quietly to the large white canopy where the coffin is displayed.

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Arriving early, Pele’s third wife, Marcia Cibela Aoki, dressed in black and in tears, placed her hand on the head of the footballer she married in 2016. Three of Pele’s six surviving children were present.

 

She also placed a rosary in his coffin draped with the flags of FC Santos and Brazil.

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Relatives paid an emotional tribute to her, holding hands around her coffin in prayer.

 

Dozens of wreaths, sent by soccer personalities like Paris SG star Neymar or foreign clubs like Real Madrid, were placed around the coffin.

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He “inspired all generations, he was always a reference”, said the father of Neymar, the current number 10 of the Seleçao retained in Paris, who equaled the number of goals of Pele in the national team (77) during the recent World Cup in Qatar.

 

In the 16,000-seat Vila Belmiro stadium, three giant banners placed in the stands show Pele’s back with his famous number 10 shirt, and two others with the inscription “Long live the king” and “Pele 82 years ».

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Edson Arantes do Nascimento, known as Pele, spent a month in Albert Einstein Hospital in Sao Paulo until his death on Thursday at 82 years old from kidney and heart failure, bronchopneumonia and adenocarcinoma of the colon, according to the death certificate published by local media.

 

Until the end he remained active on social networks, encouraging Brazil from his hospital bed during the World Cup in Qatar, consoling the seleçao after its defeat in the quarterfinals, three weeks before his death.

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China sends its first civilian astronaut into space

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China sends its first civilian astronaut into space, Magnate Daily
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Eva Deschamps / June 1, 2023

The three astronauts’ stay is scheduled to last six months, and marks a new stage in the progress of Beijing’s space program.
 
On Tuesday May 30, China sent three new astronauts to its Tiangong space station, including for the first time a civilian. This is a valuable experience for the Asian giant, which has reaffirmed its desire to send a Chinese astronaut to the Moon by 2030, a major objective of a space program that has been progressing steadily for several decades.
 
The trio on the Shenzhou-16 mission lifted off aboard a Long March 2F rocket at 9:31 a.m. local time from the Jiuquan launch center in the Gobi Desert, according to AFP reporters on site. The launch was a “total success” and the “astronauts are in good shape”, said Zou Lipeng, director of the launch center.
 
Mission commander, veteran engineer Jing Haipeng, on his fourth space flight, is accompanied by engineer Zhu Yangzhu and Gui Haichao, a professor and the first Chinese civilian in space. A specialist in space science and engineering, Haichao will be in charge of experiments on the station. He does not come from the armed forces, as has always been the case until now. Their stay in Tiangong (“Heavenly Palace” in Chinese) is scheduled to last six months.
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The big announcement tonight: North Korea confirms launch of military spy satellite in June

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The big announcement tonight: North Korea confirms launch of military spy satellite in June, Magnate Daily
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Sylvie Claire /  June 1, 2023

North Korea confirmed on Tuesday that it will launch a military spy satellite in June, in order to “confront dangerous US military actions”, according to the official KCNA agency.
The “military reconnaissance satellite number 1” will be “launched in June”, in order to “confront the dangerous military actions of the United States and its vassals”, according to Ri Pyong Chol, vice-chairman of the ruling party’s Central Military Commission, quoted by KCNA.
On Monday, Japan announced that it had been informed by North Korea of a forthcoming satellite launch, a project which the Japanese government believed to conceal a ballistic missile launch.
According to Tokyo, Pyongyang has told the Japanese coastguard that a rocket will be launched between May 31 and June 11, and is expected to land in an area near the Yellow Sea, the East China Sea and east of Luzon Island in the Philippines.
North Korea has already tested ballistic missiles in 2012 and 2016, which it described as satellite launches and which flew over the island department of Okinawa in southern Japan.
The development of a reconnaissance satellite was one of Pyongyang’s key defense projects unveiled last year by Kim Jong Un.
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China to send its first civilian into space on Tuesday

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China to send its first civilian into space on Tuesday, Magnate Daily
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Steph Deschamps / June 1, 2023

On Tuesday, China will send a civilian astronaut into space for the first time in its history on a manned mission to the Tiangong space station, the China Human Spaceflight Agency announced.

 

This astronaut, Gui Haichao, a “payload specialist”, is “a professor at the Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics”, Lin Xiqiang, spokesman for the space agency, told a press conference on Monday.

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Until now, all Chinese astronauts who have launched into space have been members of the People’s Liberation Army.

 

Mr. Gui will be “mainly responsible for in-orbit management of payloads” dedicated to space science experiments, the spokesman said.

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The civilian astronaut will orbit alongside Shenzhou-16 mission commander Jing Haipeng and astronaut Zhu Yangzhu.

 

The crew is due to take off from the Jiuquan launch base in northwest China at 09:31 local time, according to the space agency.

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Projects linked to China’s “space dream” are multiplying under the presidency of Xi Jinping.

 

The Asian giant has been investing billions of euros in its military-led space program for several decades, enabling it to make up most of the ground lost to the Americans and Russians.

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China sent its first astronaut into space in 2003, and its Tiangong (“Celestial Palace”) space station has been fully operational since late 2022. In 2019, a Chinese spacecraft landed on the far side of the Moon. Then, in 2021, China landed a small robot on the surface of Mars. China plans to send its first crew to the Moon by 2029.

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