Mandela hospitalized

Mandela was admitted to the hospital for the second time in two months on Saturday, with the office of President Jacob Zuma issuing a statement with the news.

"This morning at about 1:30 a.m. [2330 UTC Friday] his condition deteriorated and he was transferred to a Pretoria hospital. He remains in a serious but stable condition," the statement read.

Mandela, 94, was treated for pneumonia during a ten-day stay in the hospital back in April. He spent nearly three decades in jail as a result of his stance against the apartheid system in South Africa, but became president just a few years after he was released.

Mandela’s wife Graca Machel called off a trip to an international forum on hunger and nutrition in London on Saturday, to be at his bedside.

Known to many around the world by his clan name, Madiba, Mandela remains an inspiring figure in South Africa, and his past visits to the hospital have created waves of support and get-well wishes from South Africans and other admirers internationally.

He was South Africa's first black president and shared the 1993 Nobel Peace Price with former President Frederik Willem de Klerk; the foundation gave the duo the prize "for their work for the peaceful termination of the apartheid regime, and for laying the foundations for a new democratic South Africa."

mz/msh (Reuters, AP, AFP)