In addition, a transport union announced a new strike to demand security to cope with the current wave of extortion and murders unleashed by hired assassins.
Press reports confirmed that roadblocks are still active in the southern regions of Arequipa, Ica and Ayacucho, with the former acquiescing to a 90-minute truce to let a few hundred trucks and buses continue traveling.
The miners, many of them unemployed in cities where mining is the main source of income, are still protesting in tents on a four-block area facing the Parliament. Protesters are demanding a two-year extension for an official registration that allows them to work informally.
The protest coincided with the virtual failure of a bill forwarded by Minister of Energy and Mines, Rómulo Mucho, seeking recognition of informal miners. But the bill was rejected by Congress, currently considering a non-confidence vote against Mucho.
Though, on the one hand, miners manage to sell their products to companies, on the other they usually find what they describe leonine conditions when attempting to sign contracts.
The mothers integrated into the Network of Common Pots, who cook for needy families in poor neighborhoods, protested today in front of Parliament against a reduction to only two soles (54 cents) per day per user of the state subsidy they receive .
During the protest, the women harshly criticized President Dina Boluarte for having said last week that poor women can cook soup, a main course and even dessert with only two soles (0.54 cents of a dollar).
Still one more protest has been programmed by the National Trasnport Association, as announced by Julio Campos, one of the leaders of the three-day mobilization of last October and of the previous two successful strikes in Lima
“We cannot continue with this wave of contract killings and extortions,” said Campos and pointed out that the new teamsters’ strike will possibly be staged from December 10 to 12, to rebke the Government for its idle position in the face
of crime.
Pending now is a strike by unions of public health professionals, to demand compliance with a law that contemplates periodic wage increases linked to seniority.
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