'Improving' Mandela marks 95th birthday

Well-wishers hold a giant banner with an image of former South African President Nelson Mandela as they gather to wish him a happy birthday outside the Medi-Clinic Heart Hospital, where he is being treated, in Pretoria July 18, 2013. Anti-apartheid hero Mandela is "steadily improving", South Africa's government said on Thursday as the former president celebrated his 95th birthday in hospital amid tributes from around the country and the world. The Nobel Peace Prize laureate, globally admired as a symbol of struggle against injustice and of racial reconciliation, has been under treatment since June 8 for a recurring lung infection that has led to four hospital stays in the past six months.[Photo/Agencies]