MyJHB

Stuff from Johannesburg

Cosatu is not perfect but ANC can learn few things from it – Ntshalintshali

Johannesburg, Gauteng, South Africa in the news:

  1. Cosatu is not perfect but ANC can learn few things from it – Ntshalintshali: Cosatu’s Bheki Ntshalintshali says the ANC must to put its members first and realise that leaders come and go but the organisation remains. – “Johannesburg” – BingNews
  2. Loss of support sees Magashule backtrack on step-aside motion: Loss of support and stern advice from former president Thabo Mbeki and former deputy president Kgalema Motlanthe have, forced embattled ANC secretary- general Ace Magashule to finally capitulate and … – “Johannesburg” – BingNews
  3. Metrobus commuters urged to find alternative transport: Metrobus commuters have been urged to find alternative transport in and around Johannesburg following strike action by bus drivers. – “Johannesburg” – BingNews
  4. Workbench starts a new tradition with a new look: One of Sean van der Westhuizen’s first tasks as Workbench’s new creative director, was to refresh the agency’s corporate … – “Johannesburg” – BingNews
  5. Caf competitions: Predicting all eight semi-finalists: They will fear no one, and having topped their group ahead of Al-Ahly, will be confident of taking another major scalp in the Caf Champions League. The Tunisian giants were influential in eliminating … – “Johannesburg” – BingNews

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Have you tried: Whale and Dolphin Watching in Algoa Bay?

Did you know this about Johannesburg? In 1971 the South African Broadcasting Corporation was eventually allowed to introduce a television service. When television was finally introduced, there was only one channel with airtime divided evenly between English and Afrikaans, alternating between the two languages. Test transmissions in Johannesburg began on 5 May 1975, followed in July by ones in Cape Town and Durban. Nationwide services finally commenced on 5 January 1976.

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Top Star Drive-In: Destroyed by What Created it

However, the very thing that created the Top Star eventually destroyed it. Because the early miners had used crude methods, the Ferreira Dump—and dozens of others like it—still contained significant traces of gold. As the price of gold rose and new chemical extraction technologies (like the carbon-in-pulp process) made it profitable to “mine the waste,” the ground beneath the Top Star became more valuable than the cinema itself. In 2006, despite fierce opposition from heritage groups who argued that the dump and the drive-in were culturally significant landmarks, the projectors were turned off for the last time.

The reclamation of the dump was a staggering industrial feat. Starting in 2008, mining giant DRDGold used high-pressure water cannons to “monitor” the dump, turning 5 million tons of solid earth back into a liquid slurry. This slurry was then piped 40 kilometers across the province to a processing plant in Brakpan. By 2011, the “mountain” had completely vanished. The 50-meter-high plateau that had dominated the southern skyline for a century was reduced to a flat, dusty crater.

The disappearance of the Top Star is a poignant symbol of Johannesburg’s “extractive” nature. It is a city that consumes itself to stay alive; even its historical landmarks are subject to the fluctuating price of minerals on the London and New York stock exchanges. Today, if you drive along the M2, there is an empty space in the sky where the Top Star used to be. While the reclamation removed a source of toxic dust and “acid mine drainage,” it also erased a piece of the city’s collective memory. The land where the gold-flecked mountain once stood is now being rehabilitated for light industrial use, proving that in eGoli, even the horizon is for sale if there’s enough gold hidden inside it.