HARBIN (AP) – Rescuers worked in frigid cold to reach 21 miners trapped underground Sunday as the death toll from a huge gas explosion in a northern Chinese coal mine jumped to 87. The pre-dawn blast Saturday at the state-run Xinxing mine in Heilongjiang (pronounced HAY-long-jeeahng) province near the border with Russia was the latest to hit China's mining industry – the world's deadliest. Authorities say parlous safety was improving, but hundreds still die in major accidents each year.

The death toll Sunday was more than double the figure reported overnight by state television, said a man who answered the phone at the office of the mine. Ventilation and power were restored in the mine, said the man, who refused to give his name because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

The mine's director, deputy director and chief engineer were fired Saturday, the man said. A total of 528 people were working in the Xinxing mine at the time of the 2:30 a.m. explosion, the State Administration of Work Safety said in a statement. It said 418 workers escaped. Television footage showed smoke billowing out of the mine after the blast that resulted from a gas build-up.

Chavez says Venezuela in recession

CARACAS (Reuters) – Oil-exporting Venezuela is in recession, its socialist President Hugo Chavez said on Saturday, adding that the capitalist system of measuring economic growth was established in the United States.

“When an economy shrinks instead of grows, according to the norms established by international capitalism, then it enters into recession” he said during a five-hour speech to inaugurate a party congress. “GDP fell in the third quarter, and so we entered a recession, according to the patterns elaborated in the United States,” he said.

Venezuela's economy contracted an unexpected 4.5 percent in the third quarter, a second consecutive three-month contraction that most economists' define as a recession. Until now, the government avoided using the word.

Chavez says the normal method of measuring a country's gross domestic product does not sufficiently weigh social services and publicly owned enterprises. He has called for the measurement to be revised in Venezuela.

Obama to roll our red carpet for India premier

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was due Sunday to start the first US state visit under President Barack Obama, who hopes to show his dedication to the emerging power even as his attention lies elsewhere.

The prime minister was scheduled to fly into Andrews Air Force Base near Washington, two days before Obama rolls out the red carpet and toasts Singh at his White House's first black-tie dinner. The state visit is a sign of the rapidly warming relationship between the world's two largest democracies, which had uneasy ties during the Cold War but which Obama has vowed to treat as a first-rate partner.

“India is a rising global power,” said Robert Blake, the assistant secretary of state for South Asia. “We think that India has an increasingly significant role to play on virtually all of the major challenges that we face in this century.” While issues from counter-terrorism to trade to climate change were expected on the agenda, experts said the state visit likely had a broader intention -- for Obama to show India he did not take it for granted.

Romanians vote for president amid crisis

BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) – Romanians vote for a new president on Sunday in an election that could open the door to an international loan aimed at ending the country's deep recession. President Traian Basescu, who represents Romania's political center, is running for a second five-year term.

His main rival is former Foreign Minister Mircea Geoana, who heads the leftist Social Democrats and is head of the Senate. More than 18 million Romanians are eligible to vote, but none of the dozen candidates is expected to get more than 50 percent of the vote in the first round.

That means a runoff election is likely on Dec. 6. Romania slipped into political crisis when Parliament dismissed the two-party government of Emil Boc on Oct. 13 after a dispute between the coalition partners over control of the Interior Ministry, which oversees the presidential vote.