Nelson Mandela Is 'Fine' Despite Some Pain, Wife Says - East Idaho News
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Nelson Mandela Is ‘Fine’ Despite Some Pain, Wife Says

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GETTY W 012811 NelsonMandelaWaving?  SQUARESPACE CACHEVERSION=1373013808952Leon Neal/AFP/Getty Images(PRETORIA, South Africa) — The wife of former South African President Nelson Mandela said on Thursday that “he is fine” despite occasional pain and discomfort from his recurring lung infection.

Graca Machel, who married Mandela 16 years ago, told reporters that “even lying in hospital,” her husband had “given us yet another gift: for all of us to be united.”

Machel, the widow of a former president of Mozambique, has been constantly at Mandela’s bedside at the Pretoria hospital he was admitted to nearly a month ago.

Rumors have been swirling about the condition of the 94-year-old civil rights leader during this latest hospitalization.  On Thursday, South African President Jacob Zuma’s office denied reports that Mandela is in a vegetative state.

“We confirm our earlier statement released this afternoon after President Jacob Zuma visited Madiba [Mandela’s clan nickname] in hospital that Madiba remains in a critical, but stable condition,” a statement from the office said.

Meanwhile, on another note, Mandela’s eldest grandson announced on Thursday that he will no longer challenge the rest of his family about where Mandela and three of his grandfather’s children should be buried.

The situation had turned into a court battle with Mandla Mandela wanting to remove the remains of his relatives from the village where his grandfather was raised to his own compound in Mvezo.

Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio

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