West Virginia mine blast kills 12 with 10 missing

MONTCOAL: Rescuers raced to find 10 coal miners missing deep underground after an explosion killed 12 of their colleagues on Monday at a West Virginia mine owned by Massey Energy.

The accident at the Upper Big Branch Mine in Montcoal, also known as Whitesville, was one of the deadliest at a U.S. coal mine in recent years. The mine, owned by Massey”s Performance Coal subsidiary, is about 30 miles south of the state capital, Charleston.

Mine officials said the death toll rose to 12 after rescuers discovered five bodies more underground in addition to seven dead reported earlier.

“There are 10 men that we”re looking for right now,” Kevin Striklin of the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration told a news conference at the mine. “We are focused on getting in there as quickly as possible.

Mine officials said there were two underground emergency centers stocked with food, water and enough air to survive for four days. Rescuers are heading toward these shelters and hope to reach them within a few hours.

“We want to assure the families of all the miners we are taking every action possible to locate and rescue those still missing,” said Massey”s CEO Don Blankenship.

Rescuers included officials from state and federal mine safety agencies and first responders from all levels of government, said Leslie Fitzwater, a spokeswoman for the West Virginia Department of Commerce.

West Virginia Governor Joe Manchin called the news “devastating” and offered support to the miners” relatives.

“For those families who are still waiting for news on their missing loved ones, I want them to know that we are doing everything possible in cooperation with federal officials and the company to get our miners out as quickly and safely as possible,” Manchin said on his website.

Manchin, who said he had spoken with President Barack Obama about the disaster, was headed to the mine site was due to meet with the miners” families.

Massey, headquartered in Richmond, Virginia, is the largest coal producer in Central Appalachia with operations in West Virginia, Kentucky and Virginia.

In after-hours trading, Massey shares were at $51.90, down 5.1 percent from the closing price of $54.69 on the New York Stock Exchange.

Massey said on its website its accident rate fell to an all-time low for the company in 2009. It said its safety record last year was stronger than the industry average for the sixth consecutive year.

But, according to federal records, the Upper Big Branch Mine has had three fatalities since 1998 and has a worse than average injury rate over the last 10 years. Two of the miners died in roof collapses in 1998 and 2001, while a third was electrocuted in 2003 when repairing an underground car.

Ellen Smith, the editor of Mine Safety and Health News, said the Upper Big Branch mine had been repeatedly cited for safety violations going back years.

The mine, which employs just over 200 people, extracts coal using the “longwall mining” method in which a rotating shearer tears coal from a lengthy face, leading the ground behind it to collapse. Critics say the method may cause surface subsidence and damage to buildings.

In the worst coal mine disaster in U.S. history, 362 miners died in an explosion in 1906 in the Monongah mine, also in West Virginia.

In January 2006, 12 miners died after an explosion in the Sago Mine, run by International Mines Corp in Tallsmansville, West Virginia, according to the U.S. Mine Rescue Association. In 2007, nine miners died in a collapse of the Crandall Canyon Mine in Utah.

The federal Mine Safety and Health Administration said it was notified of the explosion at the Upper Big Branch mine at about 3:30 p.m. EDT (1930 GMT) on Monday and that rescue efforts were underway.

CJP Summons SC Judges Meeting Today

Islamabad, Pakistan News: Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry has convened a meeting of all the judges of the apex court in Islamabad today.
The judges’ meeting has been called by CJ to deliberate upon some prevailing issue. Meanwhile, the usual cause lists issued by the branch registries have been cancelled besides forming of five new benches in the apex court, with the orders to the judges to work on these benches during the next week.

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CJP Summons SC Judges Meeting Today was first posted on February 14, 2010 at 12:41 pm.

New In Town Movie Review

Urbanites often find it difficult to get out of their comfort zone which happens to be the city they live in. A city sucks peace out of your life and compensates for it by offering you with better infrastructure facilities and availability of technology. Work rate quickens and money flows in faster. But the professionalism of a bustling city leaves no room in your life to actually live it to the fullest. Humanity, unconditional love, innocence are words that seem apt only in a fairy tale… unless, you get to experience it yourself.

Lucy Hill (Renee Zellweger) is an ambitious woman who lives in Miami and works for a food processing giant. She loves her city life but wants to climb the corporate ladder. She thus grabs an opportunity of handling her company’s underperforming branch in New Ulm, Minnesota hoping a promotion sooner.

Once she shifts to her new town, her down-to-earth Minnesotan staff helps her regain humanity. Promotion is no longer the only goal which motivates her to make her branch excel in the business. She even launches a new product on her own when her company plans to shut the branch owing to its continuous bad returns.

New in Town has a sweet story to tell but unfortunately the execution isn’t great enough. Characters and their affection for each other just don’t come across, nor the romantic relationship that Lucy shares with Ted (Harry Connick Jr). Ted happens to be the union leader of the branch, is a widower and lives with his 13 year old girl in New Ulm.

The film evokes a few laughs in few scenes but that’s it. There is nothing extremely comic or romantic or even emotional in this film as is intended by the director.

Renee Zellweger disappoints as she is anything but the charming actress we have seen in Jerry McGuire, Bridget Jones’ Diary and many such beautiful movies. She seems uninvolved and detached from her character. We wonder if its bad make-up or actual signs of ageing but Renee looks haggard! Harry Connick Jr plays his part well but his character itself being poorly sketched he doesn’t have much scope anyways.

The story should ideally make you feel warm and mushy inside but you don’t feel anything when it ends.

How Lucy goes about single-handedly launching the new product and thus saving jobs in the new town – the process itself is missing thus making the film shallow and mediocre.

You can safely give this film a miss…

Cast: Renee Zellweger, Harry Connick Jr

Direction: Jonas Elmer

Genre: Romantic Comedy

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New In Town Movie Review was first posted on December 12, 2009 at 12:34 pm.
©2009 “India News“.

Oil rises above $78 as US dollar slides

SINGAPORE: Oil prices rose above $78 a barrel Monday in Asia as a weaker U.S. dollar offset signs of slumping consumer demand

SINGAPORE: Oil prices rose above $78 a barrel Monday in Asia as a weaker U.S. dollar offset signs of slumping consumer demand.

Benchmark crude for December delivery was up 94 cents to $78.37 a barrel at midday Singapore time in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Crude has traded inversely to the dollar for months as investors buy commodities such as oil as a hedge against inflation and a weaker U.S. currency. Oil rose to $82 last month, its 2009 high, from $32 in December.

The euro rose to $1.4929 in Asian trading Monday from $1.4885 on Friday while the dollar was steady near 90 yen.

Crude fell $2.19 to settle at $77.43 on Friday after the Labor Department said the unemployment rate jumped more than expected in October to 10.2 percent, the highest since 1983.

The dismal jobless data stirred concerns that U.S. consumer demand will remain sluggish despite an overall economic recovery. Investors will be eyeing third-quarter earnings reports this week from retailers such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Abercrombie Fitch Co., Macy’’s Inc. and JC Penney Co. for clues about the strength of consumer spending.

In other Nymex trading, heating oil rose 1.95 cents to $2.02 a gallon. Gasoline for December delivery gained 2.03 cents to $1.94 a gallon. Natural gas for December delivery jumped 3.6 cents to $4.63 per 1,000 cubic feet.

In London, Brent crude for December delivery rose 89 cents to $76.76 on the ICE Futures exchange.

Obc Recruitment

Oriental Bank of Commerce 2009 Recruitment Notification Oriental Bank of Commerce , a leading Pan-India listed public sector bank, with head office in Delhi, invites applications for recruitment to fill in 916 vacancies in the clerical cadre OBC Clerical Recruitment 2009 – Important Dates Candidates are requested to apply on-line between 10/10/2009 and 10.11.2009 only through Bank’s website www.obcindia.co.in after payment of fee (as mentioned at column No. 7) in any of the Branch of Our Bank only. No other means/mode of application/Payment will be accepted

Oriental Bank of Commerce

2009 Recruitment Notification

Oriental Bank of Commerce , a leading Pan-India listed public sector bank, with head office in Delhi, invites applications for recruitment to fill in 916 vacancies in the clerical cadre

OBC Clerical Recruitment 2009 – Important Dates

Candidates are requested to apply on-line between 10/10/2009 and 10.11.2009 only through Bank’s website www.obcindia.co.in after payment of fee (as mentioned at column No. 7) in any of the Branch of Our Bank only. No other means/mode of application/Payment will be accepted.

more info:http://www.successcds.net/Bank-PO/Oriental-Bank-Commerce-OBC-Clerical-Recruitment.html