Watches this Rescue workers near their goal as Chile awaits

Rescue workers near their goal as Chile awaits


Copiapo, Chile (CNN) -- There may be light at the end of a nearly completed tunnel for the 33 men trapped since August 5 almost half a mile below ground, with rescuers expected to reach them within a day, Chile's mining minister said Friday afternoon.
"Hopefully before that," Mining Minister Laurence Golborne told reporters about the time when a rescue drill is expected to pierce the roof of the mine. As of Friday afternoon, it was 40 meters (about 130 feet) away. "Maybe tomorrow morning, early Saturday. We have to wait and see."
Once the mine has been reached, the rescue process could begin within three to four days, Golborne told reporters. But mine engineers must decide first whether they need to encase the shaft with steel tubing to prevent rockfalls and further collapses during the extraction process. "If we do a full casing of the hole, those three to four days could go to eight to 10 days," Golborne told reporters.
One of the rescue coordinators, Rene Aguilar, an engineer for state copper company Codelco, said this week they may encase just the first 100 meters (328 feet) of the shaft, a process that could take just 10 hours.
Before anyone can be rescued, the hole must be widened so that the rescue capsule -- dubbed the Phoenix -- can land cleanly inside the tunnel without getting hung up on obstructions, Golborne said. To accomplish that, explosives will be lowered to the miners for use in widening the shaft, said Golborne, who expressed little concern that the subterranean pyrotechnics would pose any danger to the men.
"We have to take into consideration that we are talking here about miners that have experience, many of them are licensed to use explosives, they know how to manipulate them, they have already made the holes that they need to set the right quantities of explosives. ... So it will be a very controlled explosion that will be made after we break into the tunnel."
Then, authorities will lower a doctor and a rescuer into the chamber, Health Minister Jaime Manalich said. Medical and rescue personnel will be in place to start extracting and treating the miners Monday night, he said.
Once the miners have been extracted, they will undergo about two hours of health checks at a field hospital set up at the mine.
Barring complications, it will take about 24 to 36 hours to remove all the miners through the 2,300-foot hole, Manalich said. They will then be flown by helicopter to a hospital in the town of Copiapo -- approximately a 15-minute flight.
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Woods and former wife break silence about their divorce

Watch Woods and former wife break silence about their divorce

LARA MARLOWE in Washington

TIGER WOODS and his former wife, Elin Nordegren, have broken their silence about their divorce, he in a press conference at a golf tournament in New Jersey, she in an exclusive interview with People magazine.

Ms Nordegren said she has been on an “emotional roller coaster” since the scandal broke last Thanksgiving Day weekend.

“I have been through the stages of disbelief and shock, to anger and ultimately grief over the loss of the family I so badly wanted for my children,” she said in excerpts from the interview released by People before the magazine reaches newsstands tomorrow.

In 19 hours of interviews over four days in Windermere, Florida, where she has rented a home, Nordegren said she had lost weight, could not sleep and her hair fell out due to the stress of the break- up of her six-year marriage to Woods. She said speculation that she attacked Woods with a golf club on the night of the car crash that made the scandal known was truly ridiculous.

The 30-year-old former au pair said she felt stupid as more and more of Woods’s infidelities were revealed. “How could I have not known anything? The word betrayal isn’t strong enough. I felt my whole world had fallen apart.”

At The Barclays in Paramus, New Jersey yesterday, where he practised for the FedEx Cup play- off yesterday, Woods bumped fists with fans and signed autographs. He stopped smiling, however, during a news conference where he again assumed responsibility for the break-up of his marriage.

“My actions certainly led us to this decision and I have made a lot of errors in my life and that is something I’m going to have to live with.”

Woods twice failed to answer when reporters asked whether he still loved his ex-wife.

“I wish her the best in everything. You know, it’s a sad time in our lives and we’re looking forward to [rebuilding] our lives and how we can help our kids the best way we possibly can. And that’s the most important thing.”

Woods now stands 112th on the FedEx Cup points list and must make a decent finish this week if he is to advance to the next stage in the championship.

He acknowledged that his game was affected by the break-up. “At times it was difficult [to focus]. Certainly you try and block it out as best you can and focus on a shot. But at times it certainly was, yes.”

Nordegren is reported to have received between $100 million and $750 million in the still-undisclosed divorce settlement, which became final on Monday.

“She is very unselfconscious about the fact that yes, she is going to be a very wealthy woman,” said Sandra Sobieraj Westfall, the journalist who interviewed Nordegren for People . “It will make it easier for her to get through this, because she can stay home with her children. She doesn’t have to go right out and get a job and she can travel, to take her children back to Sweden.”

Nordegren also said though that “money can’t buy happiness or put my family back together”.

She is studying for a university degree in psychology and says that despite her ex-husband’s infidelity, “I also feel stronger than I ever have. I have confidence in my beliefs, my decisions and myself.”
Coppied by http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2010/0826/1224277610097.html

South African police fire rubber bullets, water cannons at strikers

Watches this enjoy South African police fire rubber bullets, water cannons at strikers

JOHANNESBURG: Police fired water cannons and rubber bullets Thursday to block scores of striking workers from a Johannesburg hospital, on the second day of a stay-away by public sector staff.

About 1.3 million workers began an open-ended strike on Wednesday to demand higher wages, but protests have been limited to small groups picketing outside schools and hospitals.

But about 150 health workers protesting outside the 3,000-bed Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital, which serves the sprawling township of Soweto, tried to enter the building.

Police used water cannons and rubber bullets to push back protesters, a scene local media said was repeated at a second hospital across the city.

Striking teachers say they plan to blockade a major highway later in the day. Police were already lining nearby roads ahead of the protest.

Health workers, like police and immigration agents, are considered essential services and not allowed to strike. But support staff at hospitals have joined the stayaway.

“Some people were hit in their legs, some in their bodies. Some of the people were hurt” by the rubber bullets, said Hamilton Maswanganyi, a hospital gardener.

He said strikers were upset that their colleagues were still working inside.

“We wanted to talk to them but the police [didn’t] allow us,” he said.

Cabinet spokesman Themba Maseko denounced the few such incidents of violence, and said military doctors were on standby in case they are needed at public hospitals.

“Cabinet condemns unreservedly the violence, intimidation and the acts bordering on thuggery and criminality, that have characterized the strike in parts of the country,” he told reporters. “The defense force will be on stand-by to provide assistance in emergency and life-threatening situations such as providing urgently needed medical care.”



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(The Daily Star :: Lebanon News :: http://www.dailystar.com.lb)
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