Miners Protest Plans to Slash Subsidies

Angry miners blockaded a main road in Bonn to protest government plans to slash aid to the coal industry. About 1,000 miners took part in what was expected to be a 36-hour protest in a coordinated action with about 20,000 miners in Saarland state and thousands more in the Ruhr region, who occupied at least two city halls. Saarland and the Ruhr are Germany’s main coal-mining areas. German coal is expensive by world standards, so the government subsidizes the industry to keep it alive. The government announced last week that it would cut annual coal subsidies from $4.1 billion to $2.2 billion by 2005.