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By Tiisetso Motsoeneng PRETORIA (Reuters) - The body of former South African president Nelson Mandela arrived early on Wednesday at the Union Buildings in the country's capital of Pretoria, where the anti-apartheid hero will lie in state. Thousands of people lined the streets as a procession of police motorcycles lead the black hearse carrying Mandela's coffin, draped in the South African flag. Mandela's death last Thursday at the age of 95 has sparked an outpouring of grief and mourning in the country he led from 1994 to 1999 as its first black president. "This a significant moment for me and my children," said 48-year-old teacher Thapelo Dlamini, who had been waiting on the street for two hours with his two children.

India's Supreme Court Wednesday upheld a colonial-era law criminalising homosexuality in a landmark judgment that crushes activists' hopes for guarantees on sexual freedom in the world's biggest democracy. A two-judge bench cancelled a Delhi High Court ruling in 2009 that section 377 of the Indian penal code prohibiting people from engaging in "carnal acts against the order of nature" infringed the fundamental rights of Indians. The Delhi High Court decision was strongly opposed by religious groups, particularly leaders of India's Muslim and Christian communities, who appealed to the Supreme Court. It is a black day for the community," Arvind Narayan, a lawyer of the Alternative Law Forum gay rights group, told reporters.