John McCain was on a tour of "forgotten places," and had come to Inez to let the coal miners and town notables know that he will be the President of all Americans.
He could also arrange the transfer of bodies to the miners' home towns.
On the Peruvian side, along the 600 miles of rocks, dirt and mud that begins in Iñapari and ends at Cuzco, 11,150 feet in the Andes, live loggers, gold miners, small-town merchants and nut farmers.
In the south-eastern province of Vaupes, miners in the town of Taraira say troops stormed the unlicensed mine of El Silencio last February and destroyed its machinery.
Days before Mr. Zuma went to speak to miners in the town of Marikana, where the strike occurred, the populist youth leader Julius Malema, who was expelled from the A.N.C. amid a fierce battle with Mr. Zuma, stood up to address them.
The most unsettling recent reminder that South African liberation is far from fully delivered was a wildcat strike in August that ended with the massacre of platinum miners in a town called Marikana.
A27 Deadly Landslide in Colombia Dozens of people were killed and dozens more trapped when a landslide swept over gold miners in the town of Filadelfia in central Colombia, rescue officials and survivors said.
South Africa's mines have been aflame since Aug. 16, when police officers fired on platinum miners in the town of Marikana who were engaged in a wildcat strike demanding higher wages from the London-based company Lonmin, which owns the mine.
In 1935, when local politicians beholden to mine owners blocked Labor Secretary Frances Perkins from addressing coal miners in the town hall, and even a public park, in Homestead, Pa., she was stymied until she spotted a U.S. flag fluttering in the distance.
The U.S. EPA had knowledge that could have begun a reduction in exposure, for miners and the town, 15 20 years sooner.
