Five arrests as striking Spanish miners block roads

Spanish police on Monday arrested five striking coal miners who used rocks, tires and rubbish bins to block roads to protest against cuts to government subsidies to the sector, officials said. The miners set up 16 different roadblocks across the northern coal mining region of Asturias, seriously disrupting traffic, the office of the central government's delegate in the region said in a statement. Police had to escort trucks and buses across Asturias because the miners would throw rocks at vehicles that tried to get around their blockades, it added. Police detained two men who were part of a group of about 50 people who were throwing objects from a highway overpass onto a highway near the town of Vega del Rey, police said in a statement. One officer was hurt in the face near the town of Vegalencia after miners threw rocks and other objects from a highway overpass at police, it added. Fourteen people, including nine policemen, were hurt on Thursday afer police charged a group of striking coal miners who protested outside the industry ministry. The miners began an open-ended strike last week week to press the government to reverse its decision to make sharp cuts to state coal subsidies which they say will destroy the sector. The strike affects about 8,000 workers in the roughly 40 coal mines that still remain open in the country, mostly in the north. Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy's conservative government's budget for 2012 reduces total subsidies to the coal sector to 111 million euros ($142 million) from 301 million euros last year. Without government aid, Spanish coal is more expensive than imported coal and other forms of energy and it would struggle to find buyers. The government subsidy cuts are part of austerity measures intended to slash Spain's public deficit to 5.3 percent of gross domestic product this year from 8.9 percent last year. Industry Minister Jose Manuel Soria has defended the subsidy cuts, arguing no sector could be exempt from austerity.