Former South African president Nelson Mandela, on his 89th birthday Wednesday, announced the formation of a group of former world leaders, including six Nobel Peace Prize winners, named The Elders to tackle some of the world's most "intractable" problems, DPA reported. Mandela was flanked by seven other founding members - South African Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu, former UN secretary general Kofi Annan, former US president Jimmy Carter, former Irish president Mary Robinson, Mandela's wife Mozambican social activist Graca Machel, Bangladeshi microcredit champion Muhammad Yunus and former Chinese foreign minister Li Zhaoxing - as he unveiled the group. Among the other members named to the group are the Indian founder of the Self-Employed Women's Association Ela Bhatt, former Norwegian prime minister Gro Harlem Brundtland and Burmese human rights activist Aung San Suu Kyi, who remains under house arrest. Mandela said The Elders would tackle "what seem like intractable problems" such as climate change, HIV/AIDS, malaria, Tuberculosis and "that entirely human-created affliction - violent conflict."
