Johannesburg - Nelson Mandela on Monday paid tribute to singer and fellow anti-apartheid icon Miriam Makeba, calling her "South Africa's first lady of song."

"The sudden passing of our beloved Miriam has saddened us and our nation," the former South African president and Nobel laureate said.

"It was fitting that her last moments were spent on a stage, enriching the hearts and lives of others - and again in support of a good cause," he added.

Johannesburg  - Miriam Makeba, South Africa's "Mama Africa", who died at 76 in Italy on Sunday, was the much-loved voice of her country's anti-apartheid struggle during her long years in exile and an ambassador for African music in the West.

Born outside Johannesburg on March 4, 1932, in Soweto township, Makeba was the first female African musician to receive a Grammy award, which came in 1966 for her album with Calypso king Harry Belafonte, entitled An Evening with Belafonte/Makeba.

Johannesburg  - South African singer Miriam Makeba died Monday morning from a heart attack in an Italian clinic, her manager confirmed.

Makeba, 76, felt ill after a performance on Sunday evening and was brought by ambulance to a hospital in Castel Volturno in southern Italy, where she died, Italy's ANSA news agency said.

"It was a life well lived," her manager told South African private radio station Radio 702.

"It's really the passing of an era, her legacy will always live on. She hasn't been well for some time now, she had serious arthritis. She had plans for another album to come out. She opened the eyes and ears of the world to South African music," he said in an interview with a different radio station.

Rome/Johannesburg  - South African singer Miriam Makeba died Monday morning from a heart attack in an Italian clinic, an Italian media report said.

According to the ANSA news agency, 76-year-old Makeba felt ill after a performance on Sunday evening and was brought by ambulance to a hospital in Castel Volturno in southern Italy, where she died.

Makeba, a former anti-apartheid activist, was born on March 4, 1932, and enjoyed international fame with the hit song Pata Pata.

Pretoria - Animal rights activists and a renowned conservationist on Thursday slammed the sale by South Africa of 51 tonnes of ivory, calling four recent auctions of tusks to Asian buyers "irresponsible" and a "disservice to conservation."

Johannesburg - The last and the biggest of four special auctions of ivory stockpiles got underway in South Africa Thursday after a nearly two-hour delay caused when Asian buyers refused to bid for 51 tonnes of tusks in front of the media.

Around two dozen mainly Chinese and Japanese buyers threatened to boycott the one-off sale unless journalists were barred from the conference centre of the Reserve Bank in Pretoria, where the auction opened shortly after 10 am (0800 GMT).

The ivory was not on show in Pretoria. Instead, images of the tusks, which are being stored in Kruger National Park, were being displayed on a big screen.