Her remarks came as she responded to social media posts which claimed that the Gandhi Development and Phoenix Settlement Trust deliberately left out Hindu prayers at an interfaith meeting hosted at the Phoenix Settlement, which her grandfather started during his tenure in Durban.

Consensus remained elusive on a common BRICS currency as business leaders from the five-bloc nations debated the pivotal issue at a business forum on the periphery of a summit of the five-member bloc being hosted here by South Africa. In their two addresses at the Summit so far, the leaders of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa have made no or scant references to the issue either. "The BRICS Business Forum discussed the international payments system in detail. "Participants also debated the question of whether a BRICS currency is possible or desirable, with strong views expressed both for and against and little consensus reached," Sim Tshabalala, chief executive of Standard Bank Group, told several hundred captains of industry from the partner countries and over 40 other nations across the globe at the Summit.

South African pilot Rudolf Erasmus has been lauded by flight experts for a safe emergency landing after a highly venomous Cape cobra reared its head in the cockpit mid-flight.

A team of wildlife experts from South Africa returned to their country on Friday from India where they inspected the holding facility where the cheetahs will be released.

The police are investigating claims that a group of men arrived at the pub in a taxi and opened fire, killing 14 and injuring three patrons.

The Gupta brothers are accused in South Africa of using their relationship with former president Zuma to profit financially and influence senior appointments, charges that they have vehemently denied.

The report said Zuma 'would do anything that the Guptas wanted him to do for them,' including firing competent ministers and senior officials at parastatal institutions, so that Gupta lackeys could be appointed to those positions.

Some complained of being beaten up as they tried to join the fleeing crowds, purely because of their skin colour.

South Africa has lifted overnight curfew rules that were first imposed nearly two years ago, with officials saying the country may have passed the peak of its fourth wave of COVID-19 infections, offering hope to other nations facing a surge in cases fuelled by the fast-moving Omicron variant.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu, South Africa's anti-apartheid icon who won the Nobel Peace Prize for fighting racial discrimination in the country, died on Sunday. He was 90.

The percentage of patients with serious infections had halved from previous admissions.

President Ramaphosa contracted COVID-19 infection on a day when the country recorded a new high of 37,875 new infections overnight, dramatically up from the previous day's 17,154 new cases.

The South African Health Products Authority (SAHPRA) on Wednesday approved the use of Pfizer's Comirnaty COVID-19 vaccine after BioNTech and Pfizer announced that two doses of their vaccine may not be enough to protect against the Omicron variant.

South African experts have expressed concern about the rising number of COVID-19 infections among young children, even as the country recorded a further 16,055 infections and 25 deaths overnight on Friday.

President Cyril Ramaphosa announced last Sunday that there would be no change to the current lowest Level One of the country's five-level lockdown strategy.

South Africa will remain on the lowest 'level 1' of its five-level lockdown strategy to fight the COVID-19 pandemic despite the global panic around the detection of the Omicron variant in the country, President Cyril Ramaphosa has announced .

The Department of International Relations and Cooperation (DIRCO) in a statement urged world leaders not to implement 'knee-jerk' policy decisions in response to the detection of the Omicron variant.

Lata Ramgobin, who is the daughter of noted rights activists Ela Gandhi and late Mewa Ramgobind, was also refused leave to appeal both the conviction and the sentence by the Durban Specialised Commercial Crime Court.

'My beloved brother has passed on after a month of illness with pneumonia, a superbug contracted in hospital and then COVID-19 also contracted while he was being treated. He suffered a major cardiac arrest this evening.'

Moulana Yusuf Tootla, 80, attended the March 1-15 Tablighi Jamaat congregation in the Nizmuddin area, that has emerged as the epicentre for the spread of the coronavirus in different parts of India and abroad after thousands of people took part in it.