South Africa's gold mines have been a significant source of income for the country for many years, but the profits from this resource are coming under pressure. The geology is such that the gold resources are getting harder to find and to extract, the costs of extracting the gold are increasing and the price is reducing.
This could be disasterous for a country that relies on its resource sector to make money and for the jobs that it creates (though there have been violent protests about pay and conditions in South African mines). It does pose some interesting questions about where we are going to find future reserves of gold to satisfy the demand we have for the dense untarnishable mineral.
BBC News story
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