DINNER PARTY INTEL: Ditching Durban for Lobito
Transnet’s collapse has driven a mining company to switch copper exports from Durban’s port to a new rail link in Angola
1. Ditching Durbs for Lobito
Transnet’s failures have persuaded international mining company Ivanhoe Mines to give up on Durban’s port for its copper exports. On December 31 its first load from a mine in Kolwezi, Democratic Republic of Congo, was moved by a new rail link to Lobito in Angola. The 1,739km journey is just over half the distance to Durban, to which loads had been delivered by road.
2. Killing rats, saving kiwis
Wellington in New Zealand is aiming to become the world’s first capital free of rats. Predator Free 2050 is a state-backed group leading the fight to eliminate the rodents. It said that over the past 50 years, rats had cost the country’s economy almost R120bn. Researchers from three universities also found that rats had reduced the flightless kiwi bird population from 12-million to just 80,000.
3. Bird’s eye view with AI
Last week, the FM reported on rare bird sightings in South Africa of storm petrels and Knysna scrub warblers. Now AX Visio from Swarovski Optik helps you see them. At an electronics show in Las Vegas, the company unveiled what it said was the world’s first smart binoculars. Combining a camera and an app, it can identify 9,000 species of birds and mammals in real time.