South African police open fire on striking miners armed with machetes and sticks at Lonmin's Marikana platinum mine, killing 34 people in the deadliest episode of a week of union violence. Another 78 people were injured in the shooting near a squatter camp close to the mine, which occurred when police laying out barricades of barbed wire were outflanked by some of an estimated 3,000 miners massed on a rocky outcrop near the mine, northwest of Johannesburg. Police later said they fired in self-defense. Some 259 people were arrested. (August 16, 2012)