Two more hurt in Spain mine clashes: authorities

Angry coal miners caused burns to two policemen by firing home-made rockets and six people were arrested Friday, authorities said, as violent clashes over cuts to pit subsidies intensified. On Thursday a woman and a child of five were injured by stray missiles in similar clashes, the latest in months of violence in northern Spain between protestors wielding home-made rocket launchers and police with rubber bullets. The two policemen were hurt on Friday at the Santiago pit near Oviedo as they broke up a road block set up by protestors, a day after the other injuries in nearby Pola de Lena. "Two civil guards were hurt by burns as a result of rockets exploding and six members of a picket were detained during the intervention," national government officials in the region said in a statement. On Thursday, "a five-year-old girl suffered injuries from glass when a rubber bullet broke a window pane in her house, and the woman was hit by a projectile from the miners," a government spokesman told AFP earlier. "During the road block that took place last night in Pola de Lena, the evacuation of a person who had suffered a heart attack was delayed by more than two hours, endangering the person's life," the statement added. Elsewhere in the northern mining region, in the town of Caborana, hooded miners blocked roads and burned tires on Friday, an AFP photographer saw. Miners want to reverse the Spanish government's decision to slash subsidies to the coal pits on which many northern towns rely by nearly two thirds to 111 million euros this year ($137 million) from 301 million euros last year. Unions say the subsidy cuts will destroy coal mining, which relies on state aid to compete with cheaper imports, and threaten the jobs of around 8,000 coal miners and up to 30,000 other people indirectly employed by the sector. Scores of miners from the two northern regions of Asturias and Castile and Leon are marching in protest to Madrid, where they plan to stage a demonstration on July 11.