Mandela still fighting

JOHANNESBURG (AP):Nelson Mandela is in critical but stable condition, the South African government said late Friday, while a close friend said the anti-apartheid leader was conscious and responsive earlier this week.

The government reiterated that Mandela was not in a vegetative state, contrary to recent court documents.

A court paper filed June 27 concerning Mandela family graves said affidavits would be provided from his physicians to show that Mandela "is in a permanent vegetative state."

A later filing dropped that phrase. Both court filings, however, said that Mandela's breathing was machine assisted.

A close friend of Mandela's, Denis Goldberg, told Sky News on Friday that he visited Mandela last Monday and that Mandela was conscious and responsive to what he was saying. Goldberg also quoted from something Mandela's wife told him.

"There is no sign of a general organ collapse and, therefore, they do not recommend switching off the machine because there's every chance that his health will improve," Goldberg quoted wife Graca Machel as saying.

"The matter has been discussed and the decision was against."

A "persistent vegetative state" is defined as the condition of patients with severe brain damage in whom coma has progressed to a state of wakefulness without detectable awareness, according to the New England Journal of Medicine.

CONDITION IMPROVED

Goldberg said the legal papers that said Mandela was "vegetative" might have been written when Mandela was in a coma or unconscious, and that perhaps Mandela then improved.

"Maybe he's recovered a bit and that's what I assume," he said. "The lawyers can say what they like. I'm telling you what I saw."

Still, Mandela's situation is grave.

Another court affidavit said that "the anticipation of his impending death is based on real and substantial grounds." A South African doctor, Adri Kok, said it was unlikely that a person of Mandela's age - he is 94 - can be taken off mechanical ventilation, another word for life support, and recover.