Mr Mandela will celebrate his 90th birthday later this year

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has asked for "embarrassing" travel restrictions on Nelson Mandela and South African leaders to be lifted.

A bill has been introduced in the US Congress to remove from databases any reference to South Africa's governing party and its leaders as terrorists

The African National Congress (ANC) was designated as a terrorist organisation by South Africa's old apartheid regime

"Amazingly, Nelson Mandela still needs to get a special waiver to enter the United States based on his courageous leadership of the ANC. What an indignity. This legislation will wipe it away,"

South Africa's apartheid government banned the ANC in 1960, imprisoning or forcing into exile its leaders

Mandela, who turns 90 this year, was released in 1990 after spending 27 years in prison

He then became the country's first post-apartheid-era president, before retiring after serving one term in office