CHILE: Deal Ends Punta Arenas Blockades, Freeing 3,000 Tourists.

BBC/

   The sometimes violent demonstrations and road blocks that kept 3,000 tourists as virtual hostages after the government proposed a 17% increase in the cost of nat gas and outraged residents of the Magallanes region of Patagonia...has apparently ended.
     The government reached a deal to end the week of protests by cutting the increase to just 3%...and increasing subsidies for 15,000 poor families.
    The demonstrations have been President Pinera's biggest challenge since massive earthquakes shook his nation in 2010.

CHILE: 18 Jan. UPDATE: Strike Talk Hardens Despite Negotiations; Resistence To Any Nat Gas Price Hike; Tourists Protest Conditions And Roadblocks.

  

LINK CHANGE/ GUARDIAN /


     Tourists have staged their own protest to complain about conditions while trying to escape to the regional airport as roadblocks paralyze alol transport in a dispute with the government over fuel subsidies.
     After a brief break in strike activity and lifting of roadblocks that allowed some of the 3,000 tourists to leave the area, talks have broken down again and strikers have begun to mobilize.

     The government has threatened to prosecute strikers under new repressive legislation.

   A government spokesperson  revised a natural gas price hike of 16.8 percent after two died protesting the increase and 34 were arrested.

    The general strike began in Punta Arenas where two women died and a 2-year-old child was seriously injured after being run over by a pickup truck whose driver fled and remains a fugitive.

    Magallenes is the only region that produces natural gas. Chile must import about 93% of its nat. gas.