LatinNews Daily Report - 18 July 2013

POLITICS | Miners defy Santos. On 17 July Colombian miners, as planned, staged the first day of an indefinite national strike in which they erected various road blockades around the country. The miners’ decision to go ahead with the strike and to cut off main roads came despite a firm warning from Colombia’s President Juan Manuel Santos against their use of road blockades and violence. According to the authorities there were demonstrations in the departments of Chocó, Valle del Cauca, Atioquia, Caldas, Quindio, Risaralda, Huila and Boyacá. The largest demonstrations took place in Quinchía, Risaralda, where hundreds of miners marched down the road linking Antioquia’s capital, Medellín, and the city of Manizales in Caldas department effectively blocking all access; and in Buenaventura, Valle del Cauca, where thousands of protestors set up a road block closing off access to the port of Buenaventura, Colombia’s main port.