JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - Former South African President Nelson Mandela continues to respond to treatment more than two weeks after being taken to hospital in Pretoria and will remain there for Christmas Day, the presidency said on Monday.
The 94-year-old anti-apartheid hero and Nobel Peace laureate has been treated for a lung infection and gallstones after being hospitalized on December 8.
President Jacob Zuma said in a statement that Mandela "will recover from this episode with all our support... We also humbly invite all freedom loving people around the world to pray for him."
It will be the first Christmas that Mandela has spent away from home since 1989, when he was still in prison. He was jailed for almost three decades for his role in the struggle against white minority rule.
He was released in 1990 and went on to use his prestige to push for reconciliation between whites and blacks as the bedrock of the post-apartheid "Rainbow Nation".
Mandela was elected South Africa's first black president in 1994. He stepped down five years later after one term in office and has been largely removed from public life for the last decade.
(Reporting and writing by Ed Stoddard; Editing by Stella Mapenzauswa and Tom Pfeiffer)
Blog List
-
Kaley Cuoco Shows Off Fit Physique In Skin-Revealing Yoga Outfit - By Suzy Byrne Kaley Cuoco leaving yoga class in L.A. on Monday. (X17online.com)Kaley Cuoco gave new meaning to hot yoga on Monday when she emerged from cla...
11 years ago
Popular Posts
-
AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Thousands of Dutch Catholics are researching how they can leave the church in protest at its opposition to gay marriag...
-
President Barack Obama salutes as he returns via Marine One from a Christmas visit with his family in Hawaii, to Will parachutes be provided...
-
Mystery BlackBerry phone leak Research In Motion ( RIMM ) CEO Thorsten Heins recently said during the company s Q3 earnings call that Blac...
-
WASHINGTON (AP) Scott Harrison knows his charity has funded nearly 7,000 clean water projects in some of the poorest areas of the world in...
-
VIENNA (AP) A tiny pony is back at its Austrian circus home more than a week after apparently being kidnapped by a woman who wanted to give ...
-
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Dominique Strauss-Kahn and a New York hotel maid who accused the former International Monetary Fund chief of sexual ...
-
NEW YORK (AP) The Sexiest Man Alive will soon be a sexy dad. Actor Channing Tatum and his wife Jenna Dewan-Tatum are expecting the...
-
NEW YORK (AP) Powered by football and "The Voice," NBC took the lead in the ratings last week. But even football couldn't ta...
-
In a rare and now controversial investigation, scientists have been asked by Connecticut's medical examiner to study Sandy Hook shooter ...
-
MOSCOW (AP) President Vladimir Putin on Friday signed a bill banning Americans from adopting Russian children, making the legislation offi...
