The Zambian government insisted today that President Levy Mwanawasa was alive - denying media reports he had died in a Paris hospital - and described South African President Thabo Mbeki's minute of silence in respect of his counterpart at a rally in Pretoria as "erroneous".
The South African radio station, Radio 702, first reported that Mwanawasa had died, after he had suffered a stroke on the eve of the African Union summit in Egypt on 29 June and had been taken to the French capital on 2 July for further treatment.
