In case no one's heard there's something of a political crisis in South Africa at the moment.
BBC article on today's developments here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-19305698Anyways, what's going on is going on because thirty four (regrettably your eyesight is fine) miners at the Marikana platinum mine in North West Province were murdered by police on Thursday during a messy industrial dispute that had already been characterised by an unusual level of violence and death. All kinds of issues have been raised by what's happened, including a lot of internal ANC stuff; one factor in the violent nature of the dispute (though not the massacre) has been conflict between the established miners union (which is very much part of the ANC power structure) and a militant breakaway union.
