🚢 Russian warship makes waves at South African Naval Festival

🇷🇺🇿🇦The Russian frigate Neustrashimy, part of the Baltic Fleet, participated in South Africa's Navy Festival at the main naval base in Simon's Town.

The warship, accompanied by the replenishment vessel Akademik Pashin, took part in a naval parade on the roadstead and was open to visitors on Saturday, attracting a large crowd.

The frigate's presence attracted a lot of interest from visitors, including a visit from South Africa's navy chief, Vice Admiral Monde Lobese.

📎Russian Embassy in South Africa

🌳🇿🇦 Urban Heat Stress Is Another Disparity in the World’s Most Unequal Nation

Geja’s home nestles in a hodgepodge of tightly packed, rudimentary brick structures and cobbled-together tin shacks dotted with the odd scrubby tree. But just 25 miles to the east, in Pretoria’s Waterkloof, spacious and verdant gardens face onto streets lined with purple-flowering jacaranda trees. A similar distance to the south, in Johannesburg’s affluent northern suburbs, oak and London plane trees shade ample gardens in what affluent locals like to describe as one of the world’s largest urban forests.

By contrast, the largely treeless plains that are the natural habitat in the region have, in the case of the more affluent areas of Johannesburg, been heavily planted with shady exotic trees from temperate regions such as Europe. Today the city is home to more than 10 million trees and has more than 2,000 public parks, according to an assessment by The Nature Conservancy, a US-based conservation nonprofit.

Older parts of Johannesburg boast tree cover of more than 80%, with many planted to provide shade, according to Jason Sampson, head of the University of Pretoria’s Botanical Gardens department. Waterkloof has 54.1% tree cover and almost 10 times the median income as that of Mamelodi, a township on the outskirts of the city, where the tree cover is just 2.6%

“They’re generally quite big. They’ve got a big spread,” Sampson said of the shade trees. “The lack of trees in informal settlements is structural inequality in a different way. Informal settlements don’t have the luxury of pre-planned green infrastructure.”

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2024-10-07/johannesburg-s-inequality-an-apartheid-legacy-shows-in-urban-heat-zones

https://archive.is/rogKZ

🏎🏁 South African Government to Pitch for Return of Formula 1 Racing — Bloomberg

South Africa’s government plan to meet organizers of Formula 1 motor racing about the return of the sport after a three-decade absence.

The tourism and sports ministers expect to hold talks on the matter before the end of the year, possibly in Abu Dhabi, Tourism Minister Patricia de Lille told reporters in Cape Town on Friday.

The authorities are considering using a portion of the Tourism Ministry’s infrastructure budget to develop facilities that would be needed to support the event, De Lille said.

“Such a project would have to get cabinet approval,” she said.

South Africa last hosted a Formula 1 race at the Kyalami race track north of Johannesburg in 1993 — the year before the country’s first multiracial elections ended decades of White-minority rule.

Formula 1’s current 24-race calendar excludes Africa — the last race it held on the continent was in South Africa.