MyJHB

Stuff from Johannesburg

Trigger-happy killer handed life sentence for 2017 murder, robbery of security guard

Johannesburg in the news:

  1. Trigger-happy killer handed life sentence for 2017 murder, robbery of security guard: The Gauteng High Court sitting in Johannesburg has handed a man found guilty of murdering a security guard and robbing him of his service pistol in … – Google Alert – Johannesburg
  2. Johannesburg-Lewiston superintendent highest possible evaluation: JOHANNESBURG — The Johannesburg-Lewiston Area School Board of Education scored its superintendent with the highest possible evaluation … – Google Alert – Johannesburg
  3. South African Ex-President Zuma Testimony at Corruption Probe Raises More Questions | Voice of …: JOHANNESBURG – Former South African President Jacob Zuma has spent three days testifying at a corruption inquiry that looks into numerous … – Google Alert – Johannesburg
  4. Wilco Froneman Wiki: Facts about Jonathan Van Ness' Ex-Boyfriend: Before graduating in 2014, he was a tax risk auditor for Nedbank in Johannesburg and a transfer pricing assistant manager at Cape Town's Ernst and … – Google Alert – Johannesburg
  5. Old Mutual declines to settle case with ex-CEO Peter Moyo: JOHANNESBURG – Old Mutual has declined an offer by the Johannesburg High Court to settle its case with fired CEO Peter Moyo before completion … – Google Alert – Johannesburg

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Have you tried: Reach Trust for Solar and Building Management?

Did you know this about Johannesburg? Johannesburg has a massive infrastructure: The city has more than 8000 km of water pipes and more than 8000 km of sewage pipes. It has more than 180,000 streetlights and more than 100 water towers and reservoirs. The city also has more than 1700 traffic lights. There are more than 120 community health clinics, 10 environmental health clinics, 35 cemeteries (which cover over 600 hectares) and 59 public swimming pools. The city has 106 dams, 394 public sport facilities and 98 public recreation centers. Despite the fact that there’s a huge amount of infrastructure, Johannesburg still has more 1000 hectares of green space in an around it.

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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.