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File picture from September, 1998 shows then South African president Nelson Mandela and his wife Graca Machel in Toronto/AFP

Africa

Mandela ‘steadily improving’ as he turns 95 in hospital

“He responds very well… with his eyes, and he nods and sometimes he lifts his hand like to shake your hand,” she told Britain’s Sky News.

“There was a time that we were all extremely anxious and worried, and we were prepared for the worst,” said Zindzi. “But he continues to amaze us every day.”

Global luminaries, pop stars and ordinary people around the world have joined South Africans in pledging support for Mandela on his birthday.

“I will also be giving my 67 minutes to make the world a better place, one small step at a time,” British business magnate Richard Branson vowed in a recorded message.

On Saturday, the Australian city of Melbourne will hold a concert featuring local and African artists, while a music festival later this year in Norway will promote equality in schools.

Born on July 18, 1918, Mandela fought against white rule in South Africa as a young lawyer and was convicted of treason in 1964.

He spent the next 27 years in jail.

It was in part through his willingness to forgive his white jailers that Mandela made his indelible mark on history.

After negotiating an end to apartheid, he became South Africa’s first black president, drawing a line under centuries of colonial and racist suppression.

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Never before in history was one human being so universally acknowledged in his lifetime as the embodiment of magnanimity and reconciliation as Nelson Mandela, said retired archbishop Desmond Tutu, himself a Nobel Peace laureate.

He then led reconciliation in the deeply divided country.

Mandela’s peace-making spirit has won him worldwide respect.

“Never before in history was one human being so universally acknowledged in his lifetime as the embodiment of magnanimity and reconciliation as Nelson Mandela,” said retired archbishop Desmond Tutu, himself a Nobel Peace laureate.

But the sunset of Mandela’s life has been somewhat eclipsed by bitter infighting among his relatives.

A row over his final resting place has seen three of his children’s graves dug up and their remains moved amid public brawling and legal action among his children and grandchildren.

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