Rare meteorite fragment found in Eastern Cape provisionally named the ‘Nqweba’:
At 8.51am on 25 August, residents from as far afield as the Garden Route, the Karoo, the Western Cape and the Free State saw a bright blue-white and orange streak of light moving through the sky.
The meteorite, after splitting into several smaller fragments, disappeared from view. Shortly afterwards, people reported hearing loud explosions and sensing vibrations.
This meteorite fall in the Eastern Cape sparked a collaborative scientific investigation that involved researchers from the University of the Witwatersrand, Nelson Mandela University and Rhodes University.
They have worked around the clock to establish various facts about the meteorite, including its probable origin, size and trajectory, and speed as it entered Earth’s atmosphere as well as the possible fall area.
The results of their search for facts about the meteorite were announced at a media briefing at Nelson Mandela University on Tuesday. The rare meteorite fragment that has been recovered is provisionally named the “Nqweba Meteorite” after the nearby town of its discovery.
The incident is consistent with a rocky asteroid about the size of a car entering Earth’s atmosphere at very high speed, said Roger Gibson, of the Wits School of Geosciences. Friction with the atmosphere created a “spectacular fireball” and caused it to break up in flight.
Among the eyewitness accounts, the researchers credited nine-year-old Eli-zé du Toit, who was sitting on her grandparents’ porch in Nqweba when she saw a dark rock fall from the sky and land near a wild fig tree in the garden. The rock, black and shiny on the outside with a light grey, concrete-like interior, was still warm when she picked it up and showed it to her mother.
Deon van Niekerk, of Rhodes University, obtained a permit from the Eastern Cape Provincial Heritage Resources Authority to recover all fragments from this meteor for scientific analysis.
Carla Dodd, a postdoctoral research fellow in the department of geoscience at Nelson Mandela University, quickly secured the sample collected by Eli-zé, recognising the rarity and importance of such a find.
“Our response time was going to be critical if we were going to collect valuable scientific data and meteorite fragments, as well as to explain to the local public that this was a natural event and how the individual parts linked together,” Gibson noted.
Events such as these are “incredible and are very exciting”, both for the public who witness these falls and the scientists who gain invaluable information from studying the bolides and rocks, said Leonidas Vonopartis, of the Wits School of Geosciences.
A bolide is a special type of firewall that explodes in a right terminal flash, often with fragmentation.
“There are lots more questions about the classification and origin of this rock that will be followed up through methodical science,” he said.
“Not a lot of time has passed since this event has occurred and we scientists are not very reactive creatures,” Dodd said. “We like to move slowly and especially as geologists, we are not often in a rush since we study rocks that have been around for millions of years.
“I think it’s really significant that in less than 12 hours since the bolide was sighted and the sonic boom was heard, we already had an indication that meteorite fragments were collected and we had a semblance of the plan in place.”
The Nqweba Meteorite is believed to be an achondritic meteorite, a rare type in the Howardite-Eucrite-Diogenite group. It weighs less than 90g and has a pre-fragmentation diameter of about 5cm.
The specimens have a dark black glassy coating (fusion crust) with a light grey interior, peppered with dark-green and light-green grains and clasts.
Gibson said that globally, 75 000 meteorites have been collected that would fit into two passenger buses. Of these, less than one in 10 would be achondritic meteorites.
In the coming weeks, a team of researchers and astronomers affiliated with the Astronomical Society of Southern Africa will collect data from official observatories and eyewitness accounts to piece together the details of the bolide event. They will also search for more meteorite fragments.
The initial scientific focus will involve microscopic and geochemical analysis of the fragment to fully classify it and understand its origin. This investigation could provide insights into the meteorite’s source region in space and possibly identify its parent body.
“We have received hundreds of reports from both ear witnesses and eye witnesses and we thank you for that,” Dodd added. “It’s great to have these multiple lines of evidence pointing at the same thing. This has really helped us to define the flight path as well as the strewn field where there may be other fragments.”
China-Africa forum 2024: A watershed re-alignment of the Global South?:
The 2024 Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) Summit is a defining moment in the evolving geostrategic significance of this economic bloc, with South Africa paving the way for China-Africa international solidarity.
The expansion of the Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa bloc has led to some policy uncertainty about the nature of Brics + 6. Russia has recently taken a stand against this expansion, given its war in Ukraine.
In contrast, the FOCAC has emerged as an increasingly stable economic development platform with the greatest amount of political commitment on the part of African states and China. Despite fault lines, which include rising debt in Africa — as a result of large infrastructural loans provided by China — the enthusiasm of African leadership is demonstrated by the number of leaders arriving in Beijing.
There are also plans afoot on both the African and Chinese sides to re-brand economic relations. In the pipeline is economic cooperation that departs from the controversial mega-projects that have characterised China’s economic expansion of the Belt and Road Initiative into Africa.
China is aware of the criticism levelled at investments that have been taking place in Africa. The criticism from the United States and European Union and the media, referred to by the Chinese media as a form of “blackmail”, depicts the Chinese government and its banks as rapacious lenders who seize state assets to pay back defaulted loans. The most notorious example is that of Sri Lanka, with the Chinese takeover of the Hambantota International Port.
The Chinese government and major lenders such as Exim Bank have shown a more committed economic approach to realising the risks of high expense transport projects in Africa and Asia. China’s changing priorities towards funding African development is illustrating that there is a willingness to adapt to African priorities and economic needs.
High risk investments that have not paid off have been renegotiated, protecting Chinese banks and African and Asian lenders. Two examples stand out: Kenya’s standard gauge railway line and that of Laos.
During the past year, China and Africa have amended their joint narrative on modernisation and development cooperation. The new story is said to focus on smaller projects with a greater emphasis on green energy and the digital Silk Route, including technology transfer and artificial intelligence innovation.
Large infrastructural projects will still take place. For example, earlier in the year, China pledged to revamp the Tazara railway line from Zambia to the port of Dar es Salaam — and will be done with greater risk analysis. Part of the reason is to avoid criticism from the US and Europe, but the main reason is to ensure that China-Africa economic relationships have long-term stability.
China has also committed to the Musina-Makhado Special Economic Zone (MMSEZ) in Limpopo, which will link South Africa to the Belt and Road through Mozambique. Further expansion may stretch down to Richards Bay and Durban, as well as to the Coega Special Economic Zone Deep Port near Port Elizabeth.
The MMSEZ shifted its energy supply from a 3300 megawatt coal-fired power station for a metallurgical cluster to a purportedly clean solar run energy supply, the Mutsho power plant. Although it is unclear where the bulk of the energy deficit will come from (it looks like it will be Eskom) the MMSEZ has side-stepped some controversy by this move. China has also promised to assist South Africa with its power supply.
In other developments intended to enhance the FOCAC solidarity vibe, last week, ahead of the summit, the New Development Bank pledged R5 billion to the upgrading of Transnet, which has been lagging in terms of freight capacity.
Despite the debt, and projects such as the Kenya Nairobi-Mombasa line not yielding the returns expected, geostrategically, relations look to be tighter than ever. This global display of South-South solidarity is a major planned outcome of the summit on the part of China.
As is being demonstrated with the pomp and splendour of the African leaders’ arrival in Beijing for the summit, the symbolism of equality and respect has earned the loyalty of the African Union and its leaders. The respectful note that is part of all FOCAC deliberations are in sharp contrast to the conditional loans and structural adjustment programmes of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund in the 1980s and 1990s.
Africa and China see beneficiation as a priority and there have been some wins. For example, in 2023 Zimbabwe added a beneficiation component to the joint Zimbabwe in Chinese endeavour regarding lithium. As a result, Zimbabwe is producing batteries instead of exporting the mineral.
Aside from economic cooperation, the main narrative at the summit is China’s emphasis on how important Africa is to China’s redefinition of Global South relations. China is ostensibly part of the South because of its history of having been exploited.
The Chinese government said recently that economic relations are now less important than the geostrategic relations between China and Africa and it places great emphasis on the principles of equality, fairness and mutually beneficial cooperation. There is an underlying soft-power leitmotif to this narrative that appeals to African leaders.
Should China lend its support to Africa’s goals in the arena of international fora like the United Nations General Assembly, it will affect the future influence of the US in Africa.
The US and the EU are trying to claw back infrastructural influence, for example, through the upgrading of the Lobito corridor between Angola, Democratic Republic of the Congo and Zambia. In response, China announced the upgrading of the Tazara line. African states can use this rivalry to be strategic about the battle for influence between the superpowers.
The significance of the cultural and technology transfer between Africa and China bodes well for African modernisation if it is done cooperatively rather than by dictate. It is also clear that China learns from its mistakes. In the case of the Kenya-Mombasa to Nairobi line, a major miscalculation about its profitability occurred because China under-estimated the dominance of the freight truck industry in Kenya. The truck sector has actively sought to thwart commercial containerisation and, as a result, the line is serving as a passenger service and making a significant loss.
As social media from both the critical left and more mainstream have emphasised, it’s up to African leaders and business to help define the parameters of the emerging relationships between the Chinese government and business.
The general consensus is that more coordination should occur and continental objectives should be prioritised. President Cyril Ramaphosa’s address on his arrival in Beijing shows promise for the increasing power of African states to call the shots on economic priorities in the FOCAC.
Lisa Thompson is a political economist and public sector transformation specialist based at the University of the Western Cape.
Nugent calls for reform in judicial appointments, condemns ‘political caucusing’ at JSC:
Retired judge Robert Nugent has told a panel of legal experts that there should be no place for “political caucusing” at the Judicial Service Commission (JSC).
If South Africa wanted a strong judiciary, priority should be given to ensure that those responsible for appointing judges were “the right people to do so”, he said on Tuesday during a webinar hosted by the Centre for Development and Enterprise (CDE).
The centre released its fourth report in a series on priorities for South Africa’s new government, on how the judiciary could be strengthened.
Selecting judges to serve in South Africa’s courts and to investigate complaints against judges is the realm of the JSC, a body considered by many legal practitioners as being politically driven and inexperienced for the gravity of its task, meaning that some of the country’s finest legal minds are overlooked for positions.
In 2021, the Council for the Advancement of the South African Constitution forced a rerun of JSC interviews for constitutional court vacancies after the questioning of candidates took a political trajectory.
Economic Freedom Fighters leader Julius Malema at the time questioned candidates about rulings they made that were not in favour of his party. Those interviews also descended into personal attacks on some candidates.
In 2022, during interviews for the chief justice position, Gauteng’s judge president, Dunstan Mlambo, was asked by Malema and advocate Dali Mpofu about “rumours” of sexual harassment. Mlambo responded to the unsubstantiated allegations, denying them, and his responses were expunged during the same sitting. No formal complaint has ever been made against the judge regarding sexual harassment.
The 23-person commission comprises National Assembly members, members of the National Council of Provinces (NCOP), members from the law fraternity and four members designated by the president. The chief justice or deputy chief justice presides over the commission.
“I think that there is a strong case to be made for adjusting the composition of the JSC. At the moment, there are 11 political appointments, and then there are also four to be made by the president,” Nugent said on Tuesday.
“It might have been that 30 years ago that was an appropriate composition, but we’ve moved on since, and it is by no means an appropriate composition.”
Those who sat on the JSC needed to be qualified to do so, he said. “They must be people of integrity who will do a proper inquiry into the fitness of a judge, or of a person to be a judge.”
Members of the JSC being appointed by the National Assembly led to a situation where “any person nominated by any political party is appointed as a matter of course”, Nugent added.
“The National Assembly has its own obligation to consider people who are nominated by the political parties, to consider whether they are actually appropriately qualified to be appointed.
“Once appointed, the people who are appointed, politicians who are appointed to the judicial service commission, [should not be there] to represent their parties. They are there to make decisions in the national interest, irrespective of the views of their political parties.
“There is no place for them to be caucusing politically in their decision-making. There is no place for them to be taking instructions from their political parties as to what decisions they should make. They ought to be making their decisions independently, not as politicians, but as representatives of the country.”
Prior to Nugent, the CDE’s Ann Bernstein said weak judges could be a threat to the rule of law, and that the country’s judiciary was undermined by an executive that underfunded the courts.
“A modern economy needs skilled judges. Our Constitution is a complex document. Our economy is sophisticated, involving contestation over complicated contracts, rights and responsibilities, both locally and internationally,” Bernstein said.
“Learned and skilled judges are needed to make judgments on these complex rules and relationships. We are a country grappling with state capture, with industrial scale corruption, and we need judges of experience and considerable legal expertise.”
In this context, the process of selecting judges was extremely important, she said. “Judges, who could fairly be assumed to have the most knowledge of what is required for judicial office, are vastly outnumbered [on the JSC].”
Newly appointed Chief Justice Mandisa Maya would need to lead in reforming the commission and strengthening the judiciary if attacks on the Constitution were to be withstood, said Bernstein.
Also on the panel was Mbekezeli Benjamin, a research and advocacy officer at Judges Matter. Referring to the 2021 JSC interview debacle, he said that then chief justice Mogoeng Mogoeng had failed in his leadership role.
When former chief justice Raymond Zondo took up the post after Mogoeng, he showed leadership when, prior to an October 2021 JSC sitting, he called the commissioners to a workshop and “thrashed out” how the commissioners behaved and how they should have behaved. There was a “slight improvement” after that workshop, he said.
As a constitutional body, the JSC should have proper systems, rules and procedures in place, said Benjamin, instead of “depending on whims”.
He said that for the past three years, Judges Matter had been advocating for the JSC to have written criteria that would guide how its interviews were conducted.
The commission should have a code of conduct for commissioners, he said, which would regulate who was appointed, and give guidance on the bodies that constitute the JSC.
The code of conduct should set the standards for how individuals behave as commissioners, “and if they don’t meet those standards, there should be an enforcement mechanism in the form of the power of recall”, he said.
The JSC should be able to write to the National Assembly to say that an assembly member had not behaved according to the standards that had been set, and the National Assembly should recall the commissioner.
To the JSC’s credit, he said, it had adopted written criteria that spoke to the qualities needed to be a judge — practical experience in courts, a good work ethic and commitment to integrity, among others.
“But those criteria are not self-executing, of course, and what we are now calling for is activity that should be enforced consistently in all the interviews, and even before [the interviews],” said Benjamin. The JSC should “start playing a strategic HR function”, he said, for which Judges Matter had been advocating.
Geoff Budlender SC spoke about the JSC “simply not having the experience, skills and competence to work out who will be able to do a good job and who won’t be able to do a good job”.
More judges needed to be appointed to the JSC, he said, because they spent every day observing and assessing the performances of lawyers.
“It seems to be absurd that we should think that [judges] could play only a small role in identifying who would make the most effective judges.”
There also needed to be more pressure applied to the bodies — the president, National Assembly, professional bodies and the NCOP — who nominate members of the JSC “to ensure that they do their job properly”.
“Appointing members of the JSC is not a matter of one for my chair and one for yours, one for me, and one for you and three for the other person. It’s a very, very serious task, and we need to look for ways in which we can discipline and structure the process of the appointment of the members of the JSC, because if you have a weak JSC, you’re going to have a weak judiciary,” he said.
The role of the chairperson of the JSC also had to come under scrutiny, said Budlender, “and I’m afraid that is where we have fallen very far short in many instances over the past 30 years”.
Chairing the JSC had “become a job of just directing the traffic … when it is much more fundamental than that”, he said.
“It’s the job of the chairperson to lead, to ensure that a properly focused and properly disciplined interview takes place. It’s the job of the chairperson to prevent irrelevant and improper questions being asked, to prevent candidates being ambushed.
“And it’s also the job of the chairperson to ensure that the candidates are treated with dignity and respect. It’s not a matter of showing deference to them.
“They’re all asking for a job. They’re applying for a job. They should be willing to stand up to firm and robust questioning. But insults, political insults and grandstanding directed at candidates who are unable to answer for themselves because they are candidates, really ought not to be tolerated. We’ve had too much of that.”
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