Nelson Mandela's smile on his 95th birthday - despite the fact that he remains critical ill in hospital - cheers the newspapers and lifts millions of hearts in the rainbow nation and around the world.

News that Mandela was making good progress was announced by South African President Jacob Zuma as he opened a one-day summit between the EU and South Africa in Johannesburg.

BusinessDay reports that Zuma and his guests Herman Van Rompuy, the European Council president and Manuel Barroso, president of the EU Commission, cut a giant one-square metre white birthday cake decorated with South African and European Union flags in the presidential guesthouse in Pretoria

The Mail and Guardian praises Zuma, ministers, the opposition and the public for standing united in celebrating Mandela's 95th birthday as he spent his 41st day in a Pretoria hospital.

The Sowetan is full of praise for Graca Machel, who also marks 15 years of her marriage to Mandela. The paper says she has wooed the rainbow nation with her dignified poise and her near round the clock vigil at her husband's hospital bedside.

The Sowetan also runs 67 quotes that show why Mandela was such an effective leader, among them:

"Things always seem impossible until they are done;"

"Lead from the back - and let others believe they are in front;"

"Resentment is like drinking poison and then hoping it will kill your enemies."

The Durban-based Mercury newspaper publishes a photograph taken at this year's Tour de France cycling Grand Prix as the peloton waited behind a large picture of Mandela before the start of Stage 8 in Gap on Thursday.

Mandela's birthday is also Nelson Mandela International Day, a day declared by the UN as a way to recognise the Nobel Prize winner's contribution to reconciliation, according to Kenya's Standard Digital newspaper.

The Nairobi-based Daily Nation takes interest in the creation by the city of Pretoria, now known as Tshwane, of a giant Mandela birthday card which officials hope will enter the Guinness Book of Records as the largest ever as they launched an operation to collect the signatures of 10,000 Madiba well-wishers.

Ghana's Joy Online newspaper reports that Mandela's ill health gives special poignancy to this year's Mandela Day with giant concerts planned later this week in the Australian city of Melbourne.

It notes that a large Mandela painting by South African artist Paul Blomkamp is on display in New York's Times Square while in London British entrepreneur Richard Branson pledged 67 minutes of community service to make the world a better place, one small step at a time.