ZURICH (Reuters) – Face covered with dust, a tired miner scrambles through a tiny gap linking two parts of what will be the world’s longest rail tunnel, clutching a gold colored statuette of saint Barbara. Murders are down 18 percent this year over last year, Kelly said.Quinn said the mayor accepted another two of her small business boosting programs: creating a panel to winnow out outdated or unneeded agency rules and regulations that impede enterprises, and coordinating inspections of businesses by different agencies that will share information.(Reporting by Joan Gralla) U.S.. Quinn said Mayor Michael Bloomberg agreed to the program.In January, Bloomberg, who is seeking a third-term, focused on stamping out quality of life offenses to guard the city from revisiting the 1970s, when grafitti-scrawled subways symbolized the crime-ridden city.A mayoral spokesman was not immediately available to comment on whether Bloomberg’s crackdown or the recession has driven any spike in the late payments of fines.Separately, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said a 10 percent drop in violent crimes in the current school year defied pessimists’ projections that “in the face of economic turmoil” crime would rise throughout the city.”They were wrong then; they are wrong now,” Kelly said at a news conference with the mayor. NEW YORK (Reuters) – New York City will forgive late fees for so-called quality of life violations for a three-month period starting this autumn, provided small businesses and residents can show the problems are being fixed, the Council Speaker said on Thursday. U.S.The Environmental Control Board, an administrative body that rules on noncriminal offenses from potholes to graffiti, is owed about $200 million in such fines, Democratic Speaker Christine Quinn said in a statement.”These fines can drag a business down, while the City only sees pennies on the dollar,” she said.Default penalties and interest also will be waived under a bill that will soon be filed. — China Minsheng Banking Corp aims to raise HK$23.4 billion($3 billion) in an initial public offering of shares in Hong Kongin November and has hired UBS to handle the deal, sources said.

Reuters has notverified these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy. HONG KONG ECONOMIC JOURNAL China — Bank of China (3988.HK) has obtained approval fromshareholders for its plan to issue 10 billion yuan ($1.46billion) worth of yuan-denominated bonds in Hong Kong by the endof next year. The benchmark Hang Seng Index .HSI was up 159.67 points at17,936.33. The China Enterprises Index .HSCE of top mainland companieswas set to start up 1 percent at 10,530.06 (Reporting by Nerilyn Tenorio; Editing by Chris Lewis). HONG KONG, June 19 (Reuters) – Hong Kong shares were set tostart 0.9 percent higher on Friday, tracking Wall Street’srebound after the latest U.S data raised hopes for an economicturnaround. HONG KONG, June 19 (Reuters) – These are some of the leadingstories in Hong Kong newspapers on Friday. Southern Copper, a unit of Grupo Mexico GMEXICO.MX,expects to produce around 500,000 tonnes of copper this year,between its Mexican and Peruvian mines, said Gonzalez.(Reporting by Teresa Cespedes and Dana Ford; Editing byBernard Orr and Clarence Fernandez) Stocks Mexico.

“In the second half of this year, we will start withengineering details and if everything looks good … around themiddle of next year, we may begin construction,” Gonzalez toldreporters at a mining conference in Peru’s capital, Lima. He said the decision to restart expansion operations atToquepala followed the recent rise in copper prices, whichplummeted on the global economic slowdown, but have begun toclimb back. Construction work expected to lift the mine’s annual copperoutput to 100,000 tonnes from 60,000 tonnes now, could start inthe middle of 2010, Chief Executive Oscar Gonzalez said. (Adds quote, context) Stocks  |  Mexico LIMA, June 18 (Reuters) – Southern Copper PCU.N will moveahead with an expansion project of its Peruvian mine Toquepala,reversing an earlier decision to put it on hold, the company’schief executive said on Thursday. “In the 1960s, the Centaur was the first upper stage vehicle ever built withthe lifting power to reach the moon and was specifically developed for lunarand planetary surveying,” said Vernon Thorp, ULA NASA Program Manager.”Centaur was used to help scout the first Apollo landing sites.Using it nowto find water allowing astronauts to work on the moon for long periods of timein the future is adding another significant chapter to the Centaur’s historyof supporting NASA’s human spaceflight program.”The LRO/LCROSS mission was launched aboard an Atlas V 401 configuration and itused a single common core booster powered by the RD-180 engine.

Thenin the October timeframe, Centaur will crash into the crater near the lunarpole, creating a plume of debris rising above the surface.Four minuteslater, LCROSS will fly through the plume, collecting and relaying informationback to Earth before impacting the moon itself. We wish our NASA partners total success in the monthsahead in completing this exciting exploration mission for our nation.”The Atlas V’s upper stage, known as Centaur, is playing an unusual role in theLCROSS mission.The LCROSS mission objective is to confirm the presence orabsence of water ice in a permanently shadowed crater near a lunar pole.Following a unique role reversal after launch, the expended Centaur willbecome LCROSS’s payload.After five days of flight, both will enter into anelongated lunar orbit where LCROSS will eventually separate from Centaur. Bothmissions are components of the Lunar Precursor Robotic Program at NASA’sMarshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala.”ULA is extremely proud to be a part of NASA’s LRO mission team that willdemonstrate new technology, survey lunar resources and environments, andsupport American astronauts once again landing on the moon,” said MarkWilkins, ULA Vice President, Atlas Product Line.”Our Atlas vehicles stretchback to the beginning of the space race and the United States’ first humanspace program, Mercury. EDT today.The Atlas V successfully placed theLunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) and Lunar Crater Observation and SensingSatellite (LCROSS) missions on their proper trajectories to the moon.