Archive

Desmond Tutu to Retire

South Africa

“The time has now come to slow down.”

Desmond Tutu, the South African Nobel Peace Prize winner and former Anglican archbishop of Cape Town, will retire. Tutu says, “The time has now come to slow down,” and he’ll work just one day a week in the office after his 79th birthday on October 7 until February 2011. Tutu attended several World Cup events this summer, including the opening ceremony, where he was seen dancing. After winning the Nobel Prize in 1984, Tutu worked hard to get international condemnation of apartheid, working from inside South Africa even as many activists were jailed or forced to leave the country. He headed the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which for two years heard the stories of people who were tortured and saw loved ones killed during the brutal regime. Tutu plans to hang out with his wife and watch cricket.

Read it at Associated Press