MyJHB

Stuff from Johannesburg

Sibanye-Stillwater buys half of ioneer’s Nevada project for $490m

Johannesburg, Gauteng, South Africa in the news:

  1. Sibanye-Stillwater buys half of ioneer’s Nevada project for 0m: Johannesburg- and New York-listed miner Sibanye-Stillwater is investing $ 490-million in a lithium-boron mining project in Nevada, US, as it steps up its presence in the battery materials supply chain. – “Johannesburg” – BingNews
  2. SAA needs new planes: South African Airways boss Thomas Kgokolo says the airline will need a more modern fleet to be competitive on routes outside Africa. – “Johannesburg” – BingNews
  3. S. African retailer tries cashierless shop: South African retail giant Shoprite has put on trial the first cashierless store in the country where customers could serve themselves. Customers scan a smartphone app to enter the store which is … – “Johannesburg” – BingNews
  4. Angola’s ex-leader Dos Santos back home after 30-month exile: Angola’s former Dos Santos returned home on Tuesday for the first time since he went into exile in Barcelona in April 2019, the official Angola Press News Agency reported. Dos Santos stepped down four … – “Johannesburg” – BingNews

Click here to submit your Johannesburg, Gauteng News – free.

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

Did you know this about Johannesburg? With the rich archaeological site known as the Cradle of Humankind on the outskirts of the city, it’s not surprising that 40% of the planet’s human ancestor fossils have been discovered in the Jo’burg area.

Category: Tag: , , , , , ,

The Randlord Mansions: History

The history of these mansions is also a story of urban warfare and preservation. In the 1960s and 70s, as Johannesburg expanded, many of the original Parktown estates were ruthlessly demolished to make way for the M1 Highway and the massive concrete campus of the Wits University Medical School. The “Parktown War” saw heritage activists fighting the bulldozers to save what remained of the city’s architectural soul. Today, several of the surviving mansions serve as corporate headquarters, schools, or museums, stripped of their private domesticity but preserved as monuments to a gilded age.

Interestingly, these mansions also played a secret role in the city’s political evolution. It was in the drawing rooms of Parktown that the “progressive” mining elite would meet to discuss the future of the country, often finding themselves at odds with the more conservative Boer government. Lady Florence Phillips, in particular, used her influence to found the Johannesburg Art Gallery, insisting that a world-class city needed world-class culture, not just gold bars. Today, walking the “Heritage Trail” through Parktown offers a haunting contrast; you stand in the quiet, manicured gardens of the victors, looking down at the pulsing, crowded city that their gold mines created. It is the ultimate “view from the top,” a reminder that the extreme wealth of Sandton today has its DNA rooted in the stone-and-timber palaces of the 1900s.