Flu season fuels debate over paid sick time laws

NEW YORK (AP) — Sniffling, groggy and afraid she had caught the flu, Diana Zavala dragged herself in to work anyway for a day she felt she couldn't afford to miss.

A school speech therapist who works as an independent contractor, she doesn't have paid sick days. So the mother of two reported to work and hoped for the best — and was aching, shivering and coughing by the end of the day. She stayed home the next day, then loaded up on medicine and returned to work.

"It's a balancing act" between physical health and financial well-being, she said.

An unusually early and vigorous flu season is drawing attention to a cause that has scored victories but also hit roadblocks in recent years: mandatory paid sick leave for a third of civilian workers — more than 40 million people — who don't have it.

Supporters and opponents are particularly watching New York City, where lawmakers are weighing a sick leave proposal amid a competitive mayoral race.

Pointing to a flu outbreak that the governor has called a public health emergency, dozens of doctors, nurses, lawmakers and activists — some in surgical masks — rallied Friday on the City Hall steps to call for passage of the measure, which has awaited a City Council vote for nearly three years. Two likely mayoral contenders have also pressed the point.

The flu spike is making people more aware of the argument for sick pay, said Ellen Bravo, executive director of Family Values at Work, which promotes paid sick time initiatives around the country. "There's people who say, 'OK, I get it — you don't want your server coughing on your food,'" she said.

Advocates have cast paid sick time as both a workforce issue akin to parental leave and "living wage" laws, and a public health priority.

But to some business owners, paid sick leave is an impractical and unfair burden for small operations. Critics also say the timing is bad, given the choppy economy and the hardships inflicted by Superstorm Sandy.

Michael Sinensky, an owner of seven bars and restaurants around the city, was against the sick time proposal before Sandy. And after the storm shut down four of his restaurants for days or weeks, costing hundreds of thousands of dollars that his insurers have yet to pay, "we're in survival mode."

"We're at the point, right now, where we cannot afford additional social initiatives," said Sinensky, whose roughly 500 employees switch shifts if they can't work, an arrangement that some restaurateurs say benefits workers because paid sick time wouldn't include tips.

Employees without sick days are more likely to go to work with a contagious illness, send an ill child to school or day care and use hospital emergency rooms for care, according to a 2010 survey by the University of Chicago's National Opinion Research Center. A 2011 study in the American Journal of Public Health estimated that a lack of sick time helped spread 5 million cases of flu-like illness during the 2009 swine flu outbreak.

To be sure, many employees entitled to sick time go to work ill anyway, out of dedication or at least a desire to project it. But the work-through-it ethic is shifting somewhat amid growing awareness about spreading sickness.

"Right now, where companies' incentives lie is butting right up against this concern over people coming into the workplace, infecting others and bringing productivity of a whole company down," said John A. Challenger, CEO of employer consulting firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

Paid sick day requirements are often popular in polls, but only four places have them: San Francisco, Seattle, Washington, D.C., and the state of Connecticut. The specific provisions vary.

Milwaukee voters approved a sick time requirement in 2008, but the state Legislature passed a law blocking it. Philadelphia's mayor vetoed a sick leave measure in 2011; lawmakers have since instituted a sick time requirement for businesses with city contracts. Voters rejected a paid sick day measure in Denver in 2011.

In New York, City Councilwoman Gale Brewer's proposal would require up to five paid sick days a year at businesses with at least five employees. It wouldn't include independent contractors, such as Zavala, who supports the idea nonetheless.

The idea boasts such supporters as feminist Gloria Steinem and "Sex and the City" actress Cynthia Nixon, as well as a majority of City Council members and a coalition of unions, women's groups and public health advocates. But it also faces influential opponents, including business groups, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who has virtually complete control over what matters come to a vote.

Quinn, who is expected to run for mayor, said she considers paid sick leave a worthy goal but doesn't think it would be wise to implement it in a sluggish economy. Two of her likely opponents, Public Advocate Bill de Blasio and Comptroller John Liu, have reiterated calls for paid sick leave in light of the flu season.

While the debate plays out, Emilio Palaguachi is recovering from the flu and looking for a job. The father of four was abruptly fired without explanation earlier this month from his job at a deli after taking a day off to go to a doctor, he said. His former employer couldn't be reached by telephone.

"I needed work," Palaguachi said after Friday's City Hall rally, but "I needed to see the doctor because I'm sick."

___

Associated Press writer Susan Haigh in Hartford, Conn., contributed to this report.

___

Follow Jennifer Peltz at http://twitter.com/jennpeltz

Read More..

Lone Star College Evacuated After Shots Fired

A shooting on the campus of Lone Star College in Houston, Texas, this afternoon caused the school to be locked down and evacuated while police searched for suspects.

The college said today that shots were fired on the campus and at least two people were shot. Two individuals with multiple gunshot wounds are in serious condition at Ben Taub Hospital, according to ABC News affiliate KTRK.

Oakland, Calif., Shooting at Christian School Watch Video

Maryland School Shooting: 15-Year-Old Suspect in Custody Watch Video

Connecticut School Shooting: 1 Gunman Confirmed Dead Watch Video

Police have a suspect in custody and are searching for a man about 6-foot-2 wearing an Atlanta Falcons hat.

Emergency reponders are currently on campus.

The shooting comes only a month after the massacre at Sandy Hook elementary school in Newtown, Conn., in which 20 students and six staff members were shot, sparking a wave of attempted copycat crimes in states like California and Indiana.

The Connecticut shooting inspired calls from government officials including President Obama for stricter gun control laws.

Read More..

Algeria says 37 foreigners died in siege led by Canadian

ALGIERS (Reuters) - A total of 37 foreigners and an Algerian died at a desert gas plant and five are still missing after a four-day hostage-taking coordinated by a Canadian gunman, Algerian Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal said on Monday.

Sellal also told a news conference that 29 Islamists had been killed in the siege, which Algerian forces ended by storming the plant on Saturday, and three were taken alive. Most of the gunmen were from various states of north and west Africa.

With some bodies burned beyond recognition and Algerian forces still combing the sprawling site, some details were still unclear or at odds with figures from other governments.

The siege has shaken confidence in the security of Algeria's vital energy industry and drawn attention to Islamist militancy across the Sahara, where France has sent troops to neighboring Mali to fight rebels who have obtained weaponry from Libya.

Of the 38 dead captives, out of a total workforce of some 800 at the In Amenas gas facility, seven were still unidentified but assumed to be foreigners, Algerian premier Sellal said.

Citizens of nine countries died, he said, among them seven Japanese, six Filipinos, two Romanians, an American, a Frenchman and four Britons. Britain said three Britons were dead and three plus a London-based Colombian were missing and believed dead.

Norway said the fate of five of its citizens was unclear; in addition to seven Japanese dead, Tokyo said three were missing.

An Algerian security source had earlier told Reuters that documents found on the bodies of two militants had identified them as Canadians: "A Canadian was among the militants. He was coordinating the attack," Sellal said, adding that the raiders had threatened to blow up the gas installation.

That Canadian's name was given only as Chedad. Algerian officials have also named other militants in recent days as having leadership roles among the attackers. Veteran Islamist Mokhtar Belmokhtar claimed responsibility on behalf of al Qaeda.

In Ottawa, Canada's foreign affairs department said it was seeking information, but referred to the possible involvement of only one Canadian.

The jihadists had planned the attack two months ago in neighboring Mali, Sellal added. During the siege, from which he said they had hoped to take foreign hostages to Mali, the kidnappers had demanded France end its military operation.

Sellal said that initially the raiders in Algeria had tried to hijack a bus carrying foreign workers to a nearby airport and take them hostage. "They started firing at the bus and received a severe response from the soldiers guarding the bus," he said. "They failed to achieve their objective, which was to kidnap foreign workers from the bus."

He said special forces and army units were deployed against the militants, who had planted explosives in the gas plant with a view to blowing up the facility. Normally producing 10 percent of Algeria's natural gas, it was shut down during the incident.

The government now aims to reopen it this week.

One group of militants had tried to escape in some vehicles, each of which also was carrying three or four foreign workers, some of whom had explosives attached to their bodies.

After what he called a "fierce response from the armed forces", the raiders' vehicles crashed or exploded and one of their leaders was among those killed.

LIBYAN NUMBER PLATES

Sellal said the jihadists who staged the attack last Wednesday had crossed into the country from neighboring Libya, after arriving there from Islamist-held northern Mali via Niger.

An Algerian newspaper said they had arrived in cars painted in the colors of state energy company Sonatrach but registered in Libya, a country awash with arms since Western powers backed a revolt to bring down Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.

The raid has exposed the vulnerability of multinational-run oil and gas installations in an important producing region and pushed the growing threat from Islamist militant groups in the Sahara to a prominent position in the West's security agenda.

Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika has ordered an investigation into how security forces failed to prevent the attack, the daily El Khabar said.

Algerian Tahar Ben Cheneb - leader of a group called the Movement of Islamic Youth in the South who was killed on the first day of the assault - had been based in Libya where he married a local woman two months ago, it said.

ONE-EYED JIHADIST

Belmokhtar - a one-eyed jihadist who fought in Afghanistan and Algeria's civil war of the 1990s when the secular government fought Islamists - tied the desert attack to France's intervention across the Sahara against Islamist rebels in Mali.

"We in al Qaeda announce this blessed operation," he said in a video, according to Sahara Media, a regional website. About 40 attackers participated in the raid, he said, roughly matching the government's figures for fighters killed and captured.

Belmokhtar demanded an end to French air strikes against Islamist fighters in neighboring Mali. These began five days before the fighters swooped before dawn and seized a plant that produces 10 percent of Algeria's natural gas exports.

U.S. and European officials doubt such a complex raid could have been organized quickly enough to have been conceived as a direct response to the French military intervention. However, the French action could have triggered an operation that had already been planned.

The group behind the raid, the Mulathameen Brigade, threatened to carry out more such attacks if Western powers did not end what it called an assault on Muslims in Mali, according to the SITE service, which monitors militant statements.

In a statement published by the Mauritania-based Nouakchott News Agency, the hostage takers said they had offered talks about freeing the captives, but the Algerian authorities had been determined to use military force. Sellal blamed the raiders for the collapse of negotiations.

BLOODY SIEGE

The siege turned bloody on Thursday when the Algerian army opened fire, saying fighters were trying to escape with their prisoners. Survivors said Algerian forces blasted several trucks in a convoy carrying both hostages and their captors.

Nearly 700 Algerian workers and more than 100 foreigners escaped, mainly on Thursday when the fighters were driven from the residential barracks. Some captors remained holed up in the industrial complex until Saturday when they were overrun.

The bloodshed has strained Algeria's relations with its Western allies, some of which have complained about being left in the dark while the decision to storm the compound was being taken.

Nevertheless, Britain and France both defended the military action by Algeria, the strongest military power in the Sahara and an ally the West needs in combating the militants.

"This would have been a most demanding task for security forces anywhere in the world and we should acknowledge the resolve shown by the Algerians in undertaking it," British Prime Minister David Cameron told parliament on Monday.

The raid on the plant, which was home to expatriate workers from Britain's BP, Norway's Statoil, Japanese engineering firm BGC Corp and others, exposed the vulnerability of multinational oil operations in the Sahara.

However, Algeria is determined to press on with its energy industry. Oil Minister Youcef Yousfi visited the site and said physical damage was minor, state news service APSE reported. The plant would start up again in two days, he said.

Algeria, scarred by the civil war with Islamist insurgents in the 1990s which claimed 200,000 lives, insisted from the start of the crisis there would be no negotiation in the face of terrorism. France especially needs close cooperation from Algeria to crush Islamist rebels in northern Mali.

In a reference to Western concerns that the Sahara and the dry grasslands of the Sahel to its south may become a haven for its Islamist enemies as Afghanistan was under the Taliban before 2001, Sellal said Algeria would not become "Sahelistan".

Cameron said Islamist threats to Britain from Afghanistan and Pakistan had diminished, compared with four years ago: "But at the same time," he said, "Al Qaeda franchises have grown in Yemen, Somalia and parts of North Africa."

(Additional reporting by Balazs Koranyi in Oslo, William Maclean in Dubai, d Daniel Flynn in Dakar, David Ljunggren in Ottawa and Ed Klamann in Tokyo; Writing by David Stamp; Editing by Giles Elgood and Alastair Macdonald)

Read More..

Pakistan suspends PM graft probe after investigator's death

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan's anti-corruption watchdog Monday said it had suspended a probe into a graft scandal involving the prime minister pending an inquiry into the death of an officer investigating the case.

Kamran Faisal was found dead on Friday in the government hostel where he lived in Islamabad with colleagues from anti-corruption watchdog the National Accountability Bureau (NAB).

According to the initial findings of an autopsy, he committed suicide. He was reportedly found hanging from a ceiling fan, but Faisal's family say he had marks on his wrists and dispute that he killed himself.

"The proceedings in RPPs (Rental Power Plants) case would remain pending till the conclusion of the inquiry in Kamran case," said a statement by the watchdog attributed to its chairman Fasih Bokhari.

The long-running probe involving Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf and other officials relates to allegations of kickbacks during Ashraf's tenure as minister for water and power.

"In the event that any inquiry is concluded unsatisfactorily, NAB can, and will, institute its own inquiry/investigation," added the statement.

The Pakistani government earlier appointed a retired judge to probe the death. The retired Supreme Court judge will head the commission and submit a report in two weeks, Interior Minister Rehman Malik told reporters late Sunday.

The watchdog said Faisal was a junior investigations officer working on the case against Ashraf, whose arrest was ordered by the Supreme Court last week in a move that sparked panicked rumours of a "soft coup" against the government.

The court has since adjourned the case to January 23 and a further perceived threat to the government, a rally of tens of thousands led by a cleric outside parliament, has dispersed.

The prime minister on Monday withdrew a petition asking the Supreme Court to review its orders from March 30, 2010 for action against all officials involved in the alleged scam, including himself.

According to NAB, Faisal suffered from "mental stress" and "psychological issues". He had asked to be taken off the case, but the Supreme Court refused a written request on January 7 and ordered he be reinstated.

Suicide is frowned upon under Islam and Faisal's father, Abdul Hameed, told AFP on Monday that he believed his son was murdered.

"I have seen marks on his wrist. His hands were apparently tied before his death. He is a martyr," he said by telephone from his home in Punjab province.

The retired civil servant said he wanted justice for his son but was doubtful that a judicial commission would get to the bottom of his death.

"I want a fair investigation so that culprits be exposed," he said.

Employees in the eastern city of Lahore on Monday observed a "pen down" strike -- turning up to work but refusing to work -- demanding an independent and transparent investigation, and compensation for the family, said NAB official Atiqur Rehman.

Doctor Shaukat Kiyani at the Services General Hospital in Islamabad where the autopsy was performed, said the initial conclusion was suicide but that a final verdict was expected in a week or 10 days' time.

- AFP/ac

Read More..

Over 40 lakh pending cheque bouncing cases very serious: Supreme Court

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Monday sought suggestions from the Centre and state governments to resolve the grave problem of over 40 lakh pending cheque bouncing cases, which slowed down the justice delivery system already over burdened by more than 2.7 crore cases.

Entertaining a PIL filed by Indian Banks' Association (IBA), a bench of Justices K S Radhakrishnan and Dipak Misra said: "It is a very serious issue, but how to solve it? Just highlighting the problem will not do. Tell us a solution without seeking setting up of special courts." The IBA said amount involved in such cases relating to its member banks exceeded Rs 1,200 crore.

Appearing for IBA, senior advocate Shyam Divan said time has come for the Supreme Court to issue effective guidelines to streamline the procedure for hastening disposal of cases of cheque bouncing instituted under Section 138 of the Negotiable Instruments Act. "This will not only render speedy justice in cheque dishonour cases but improve functioning of the justice delivery system as a whole," he added.

"Despite categorical findings of the Supreme Court to the contrary, magistrates continue to summon complainant's witnesses to depose in examination in chief with respect to matters stated in complainant's affidavit. This is resulting in enormous delays and inconvenience apart from defeating the summary procedure prescribed by Parliament," he said.

Moreover, this also provided an opportunity to the accused to approach the high courts further delaying the trial, the IBA said and drew court's attention to guidelines laid down by the Delhi High Court and few other HCs for speedy adjudication of cheque dishonour cases. "We need a guideline for streamlining adjudication of these cases across the country," Divan said.

In a 2010 judgment, the SC had laid down guidelines for early settlement in cheque dishonour cases under Section 138 of the Negotiable Instrument Act. It had ruled that defaulters going for early settlement before the trial court would have to pay just the principal amount with applicable interest.

But if they approached the district court for settlement after being convicted by the trial court, they would have to pay an additional 10% of the cheque amount to avoid going to jail. So if a cheque amount is for Rs 1 lakh, then to compound the offence before the district court, the defaulter has to pay an additional Rs 10,000 to avoid going to jail.

Similarly, if the defaulter agrees for settlement and compounding of the offence at the HC stage, then he would have to pay 15% of the cheque amount. The amount so collected would be given to Legal Aid Authorities of the respective states which provide free legal assistance to poor litigants in various forums, the SC had said.

dhananjay.mahapatra@timesgroup.com

Read More..

Flu season fuels debate over paid sick time laws

NEW YORK (AP) — Sniffling, groggy and afraid she had caught the flu, Diana Zavala dragged herself in to work anyway for a day she felt she couldn't afford to miss.

A school speech therapist who works as an independent contractor, she doesn't have paid sick days. So the mother of two reported to work and hoped for the best — and was aching, shivering and coughing by the end of the day. She stayed home the next day, then loaded up on medicine and returned to work.

"It's a balancing act" between physical health and financial well-being, she said.

An unusually early and vigorous flu season is drawing attention to a cause that has scored victories but also hit roadblocks in recent years: mandatory paid sick leave for a third of civilian workers — more than 40 million people — who don't have it.

Supporters and opponents are particularly watching New York City, where lawmakers are weighing a sick leave proposal amid a competitive mayoral race.

Pointing to a flu outbreak that the governor has called a public health emergency, dozens of doctors, nurses, lawmakers and activists — some in surgical masks — rallied Friday on the City Hall steps to call for passage of the measure, which has awaited a City Council vote for nearly three years. Two likely mayoral contenders have also pressed the point.

The flu spike is making people more aware of the argument for sick pay, said Ellen Bravo, executive director of Family Values at Work, which promotes paid sick time initiatives around the country. "There's people who say, 'OK, I get it — you don't want your server coughing on your food,'" she said.

Advocates have cast paid sick time as both a workforce issue akin to parental leave and "living wage" laws, and a public health priority.

But to some business owners, paid sick leave is an impractical and unfair burden for small operations. Critics also say the timing is bad, given the choppy economy and the hardships inflicted by Superstorm Sandy.

Michael Sinensky, an owner of seven bars and restaurants around the city, was against the sick time proposal before Sandy. And after the storm shut down four of his restaurants for days or weeks, costing hundreds of thousands of dollars that his insurers have yet to pay, "we're in survival mode."

"We're at the point, right now, where we cannot afford additional social initiatives," said Sinensky, whose roughly 500 employees switch shifts if they can't work, an arrangement that some restaurateurs say benefits workers because paid sick time wouldn't include tips.

Employees without sick days are more likely to go to work with a contagious illness, send an ill child to school or day care and use hospital emergency rooms for care, according to a 2010 survey by the University of Chicago's National Opinion Research Center. A 2011 study in the American Journal of Public Health estimated that a lack of sick time helped spread 5 million cases of flu-like illness during the 2009 swine flu outbreak.

To be sure, many employees entitled to sick time go to work ill anyway, out of dedication or at least a desire to project it. But the work-through-it ethic is shifting somewhat amid growing awareness about spreading sickness.

"Right now, where companies' incentives lie is butting right up against this concern over people coming into the workplace, infecting others and bringing productivity of a whole company down," said John A. Challenger, CEO of employer consulting firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

Paid sick day requirements are often popular in polls, but only four places have them: San Francisco, Seattle, Washington, D.C., and the state of Connecticut. The specific provisions vary.

Milwaukee voters approved a sick time requirement in 2008, but the state Legislature passed a law blocking it. Philadelphia's mayor vetoed a sick leave measure in 2011; lawmakers have since instituted a sick time requirement for businesses with city contracts. Voters rejected a paid sick day measure in Denver in 2011.

In New York, City Councilwoman Gale Brewer's proposal would require up to five paid sick days a year at businesses with at least five employees. It wouldn't include independent contractors, such as Zavala, who supports the idea nonetheless.

The idea boasts such supporters as feminist Gloria Steinem and "Sex and the City" actress Cynthia Nixon, as well as a majority of City Council members and a coalition of unions, women's groups and public health advocates. But it also faces influential opponents, including business groups, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who has virtually complete control over what matters come to a vote.

Quinn, who is expected to run for mayor, said she considers paid sick leave a worthy goal but doesn't think it would be wise to implement it in a sluggish economy. Two of her likely opponents, Public Advocate Bill de Blasio and Comptroller John Liu, have reiterated calls for paid sick leave in light of the flu season.

While the debate plays out, Emilio Palaguachi is recovering from the flu and looking for a job. The father of four was abruptly fired without explanation earlier this month from his job at a deli after taking a day off to go to a doctor, he said. His former employer couldn't be reached by telephone.

"I needed work," Palaguachi said after Friday's City Hall rally, but "I needed to see the doctor because I'm sick."

___

Associated Press writer Susan Haigh in Hartford, Conn., contributed to this report.

___

Follow Jennifer Peltz at http://twitter.com/jennpeltz

Read More..

President Obama Calls for 'Collective Action'

Invoking the nation's founding values, President Obama marked the start of his second term today with a sweeping call for "collective action" to confront the economic and social challenges of America's present and future.

"That is our generation's task, to make these words, these rights, these values -- of life, and liberty, and the pursuit of happiness -- real for every American," Obama said in an inaugural address delivered from the west front of the U.S. Capitol.

"Being true to our founding documents does not require us to agree on every contour of life; it does not mean we will all define liberty in exactly the same way, or follow the same precise path to happiness. Progress does not compel us to settle centuries-long debates about the role of government for all time," he said, giving nod to the yawning partisan divide.

"But it does require us to act in our time."

The call to action, on the eve of what's shaping up to be another contentious term with Republicans and Congress, aimed to reset the tone of debate in Washington and turn the page on the political battles of the past.

"For now decisions are upon us, and we cannot afford delay. We cannot mistake absolutism for principle, or substitute spectacle for politics, or treat name-calling as reasoned debate," Obama said. "We must act, knowing that our work will be imperfect."

Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP Photo

Vice President Joe Biden Sworn In to Second Term Watch Video

Beyonce Sings National Anthem at Inaugural Ceremony Watch Video

The address, lasting a little less than 20 minutes, laid out in broad terms Obama's vision for the next four years, alluding to looming policy debates on the war in Afghanistan, deficit reduction, immigration, and overhaul of Social Security and Medicare.

Obama also became the first president, at least in recent inaugural history, to make explicit mention of equality for gay and lesbian Americans. He made repeated mentions of "climate change," something no president has said from such a platform before.

The president stuck closely to his campaign themes, offering few new details of his policy proposals, however. Those are expected to come next month in the State of the Union address Feb. 12.

"A decade of war is now ending. An economic recovery has begun. America's possibilities are limitless, for we possess all the qualities that this world without boundaries demands: youth and drive; diversity and openness; an endless capacity for risk and a gift for reinvention," Obama said, sounding optimistic tones.

"We are made for this moment, and we will seize it," he said, "so long as we seize it together."

Hundreds of thousands packed the National Mall in chilly 40-degree temperatures and brisk wind to hear Obama's remarks and witness the ceremonial swearing-in. While the crowds were smaller than four years ago, the U.S. Park Police said the Mall reached capacity and was closed shortly before Obama took the podium.

Shortly before the address, Obama placed his left hand on the stacked personal Bibles belonging to President Abraham Lincoln and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and raised his right to repeat the oath administered by Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts.

"I, Barack Hussein Obama, do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of president of the United States," he said, "and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

Obama and Biden were both officially sworn in during private ceremonies Sunday, Jan. 20, the date mandated by the Constitution for presidents to begin their terms.

Read More..

Veteran jihadist claims bloody Algeria siege for al Qaeda

ALGIERS/IN AMENAS, Algeria (Reuters) - A veteran Islamist fighter claimed responsibility on behalf of al Qaeda for the Algerian hostage crisis, a regional website reported on Sunday, tying the bloody desert siege to France's intervention across the Sahara in Mali.

Algeria said it expected to raise its preliminary death tolls of 23 hostages and 32 militants killed in the four-day siege at a gas plant deep in the Sahara. It said on Sunday it had captured five militants alive.

Western governments whose citizens died or are missing have held back from criticizing tactics used by their ally in the struggle with Islamists across the vast desert.

"We in al Qaeda announce this blessed operation," one-eyed guerrilla Mokhtar Belmokhtar said in a video, according to the Sahara Media website, which quoted from the recording but did not immediately show it.

"We are ready to negotiate with the West and the Algerian government provided they stop their bombing of Mali's Muslims," said Belmokhtar, a veteran of two decades of war in Afghanistan and the Sahara.

Belmokhtar's fighters launched their attack on the In Amenas gas plant before dawn on Wednesday, just five days after French warplanes unexpectedly began strikes to halt advances by Islamists in neighboring northern Mali.

European and U.S. officials say the raid was almost certainly too elaborate to have been planned since the start of the French campaign, although the military action by Paris could have provided a trigger for an assault prepared in advance.

"We had around 40 jihadists, most of them from Muslim countries and some even from the West," Sahara Media quoted Belmokhtar as saying. Algerian officials say Belmokhtar's group was behind the attack but he was not present himself.

Some Western governments have expressed frustration at not being informed in advance of the Algerian authorities' decision to storm the complex on Thursday.

Survivors have said many hostages were killed when Algerian government forces blasted a convoy of trucks on Thursday morning. Algerian officials said they stormed the compound because the militants were trying to escape with their captives.

Britain and France both defended the Algerian action.

"It's easy to say that this or that should have been done. The Algerian authorities took a decision and the toll is very high but I am a bit bothered ... when the impression is given that the Algerians are open to question. They had to deal with terrorists," French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said.

British Prime Minister David Cameron said in a televised statement: "Of course people will ask questions about the Algerian response to these events, but I would just say that the responsibility for these deaths lies squarely with the terrorists who launched this vicious and cowardly attack.

"We should recognize all that the Algerians have done to work with us and to help and coordinate with us. I'd like to thank them for that. We should also recognize that the Algerians too have seen lives lost among their soldiers."

With so much still unknown about the fates of foreigners held at the site, some countries that have faced casualties have yet to issue full counts of their dead.

Scores of foreigners lived alongside the hundreds of Algerians at the plant, which was run by Britain's BP and Norway's Statoil and also housed workers from a Japanese engineering firm and a French catering company.

Cameron said three British nationals were confirmed killed and another three plus a British resident were also feared dead. One American has been confirmed killed. Statoil said it was searching for five missing Norwegians. Japanese and French citizens are also among those missing or presumed dead.

Algeria's Interior Ministry, which gave the figure on Saturday of 23 hostages killed, said 107 foreign hostages and 685 Algerians had been freed.

"I am afraid unfortunately to say that the death toll will go up," Minister of Communication Mohamed Said was quoted as saying on Sunday by the official APS news agency. Private Algerian television station Ennahar said on Sunday 25 bodies had been discovered. Clearing the base would take 48 hours, it said.

Survivors have given harrowing accounts. Alan Wright, now safe at home in Scotland, told Sky News he had escaped with a group of Algerian and foreign workers who hid for a day and a night and then cut their way through a fence to run to freedom.

While hiding inside the compound the first night, he managed briefly to call his wife who was at home with their two daughters desperately waiting for news.

"She asked if I wanted to speak to Imogen and Esme, and I couldn't because I thought, I don't want my last ever words to be in a crackly satellite phone, telling a lie, saying you're OK when you're far from OK," he recalled.

Algeria's oil minister, Youcef Yousfi, visited the site and said the physical damage was minor, state news service APS reported. The plant, which produces 10 percent of Algeria's natural gas, would start back up in two days, he said.

OIL VULNERABILITIES EXPOSED

The Islamists' assault has tested Algeria's relations with the outside world and exposed the vulnerability of multinational oil operations in the Sahara.

Algeria, scarred by the civil war with Islamist insurgents in the 1990s which claimed 200,000 lives, has insisted there would be no negotiation in the face of terrorism.

France especially needs close cooperation from Algeria to have a chance of crushing Islamist rebels in northern Mali. Algiers has promised to shut its porous 1,000-km border with Mali to prevent al Qaeda-linked insurgents simply melting away into its empty desert expanses and rugged mountains.

Algeria's permission for France to use its airspace, confirmed by Fabius last week, also makes it much easier to establish direct supply lines for its troops which are trying to stop the Islamist rebels from taking the whole of Mali.

French troops in Mali advanced slowly on Sunday towards the town of Diably, a militant stronghold the fighters abandoned on Saturday after punishing French attacks.

According to Communications Minister Said, the militants were of six different nationalities. Believed to be among the dead was their leader, Abdul Rahman al-Nigeri, a fighter from Niger who is seen as close to Belmokhtar.

The apparent ease with which guerrillas swooped in from the desert to take control of an important energy facility has raised questions over the country's outwardly tough security measures. Yousfi said Algeria would not allow foreign security firms to guard its oil facilities.

Algerian officials said the attackers may have had inside help from among the hundreds of Algerians employed at the site.

Security in the half-dozen countries around the Sahara desert has long been a preoccupation of the West. Smugglers and militants have earned millions in ransom from kidnappings.

The most powerful Islamist groups operating in the Sahara were severely weakened by Algeria's secularist military in the civil war in the 1990s. But in the past two years the regional wing of al Qaeda has gained fighters and arms as a result of the civil war in Libya, when arsenals were looted from Muammar Gaddafi's army.

(Additional reporting by Balazs Koranyi in Oslo, Estelle Shirbon and David Alexander in London, Brian Love in Paris, Daniel Flynn in Dakar; Writing by David Stamp and Peter Graff; Editing by Sonya Hepinstall)

Read More..

Cliffhanger result in state test run for German election

BERLIN: German Chancellor Angela Merkel's party was in the lead Sunday after the first state poll in a general election year, initial results showed, but the race for a ruling coalition rested on a knife-edge.

Preliminary results from Lower Saxony on public television showed Merkel's Christian Democrats ahead with around 36 percent and their coalition partners for the last decade, the Free Democrats, with about 10 percent.

The Social Democrats had about 32 percent and their favoured allies the Greens nearly 14 percent, leaving the two sides neck and neck with 46 percent.

The cliffhanger was due to develop throughout the night as results trickle in, determining which coalition will come out on top eight months before a national election that will decide if Merkel wins a third four-year term.

The Christian Democrats (CDU) were down from their 42.5 percent score at the last election in 2008 but appeared to capitalise on the popularity of state premier David McAllister, a half-Scot seen as a potential Merkel successor.

"What a heart-stopping night," McAllister told reporters. "We have every reason to hope that we will be able to continue our successful coalition in Hanover," the state capital.

The big winners of the night, however, were the pro-business Free Democrats (FDP), who looked set to tally their best result in Lower Saxony in post-war history.

Polls had indicated they risked slipping below the five-percent hurdle required for seats in the state parliament, but they seemed to get a lift from conservative voters splitting their ballots under Germany's two-vote system in a bid to rescue the coalition.

ARD television said around 101,000 voters who cast ballots for the conservatives in 2008 had plumped for the FDP this time.

If the FDP failed to win representation, its embattled leader Philipp Roesler, who is also Merkel's vice-chancellor and who hails from Lower Saxony, was seen as likely to step down -- possibly as soon as Sunday night.

The outcome seemed to give him a reprieve, if perhaps only brief.

"It is a great day for the FDP in Lower Saxony but it is also a great day for the FDP and liberals in Germany as a whole," a beaming Roesler told reporters in Berlin.

Around 6.2 million people were called to the polls in Lower Saxony, home to European auto giant Volkswagen.

If the centre-right coalition holds on to power, analysts say it will give Merkel, who already enjoys a robust lead in national polls due to her fierce defence of German interests in the eurozone crisis, a strong boost heading into the September election.

But if the Social Democrats (SPD) and Greens manage to eke out a victory -- still a distinct possibility -- pundits say it could help shore up the battered campaign of Merkel's gaffe-prone challenger Peer Steinbrueck.

Steinbrueck, a former finance minister from Merkel's 2005-09 "grand coalition" government, was anointed by the SPD as its chancellor candidate late last year.

But he has run into trouble of late with revelations that he made around 1.25 million euros ($1.66 million) over the last three years in speaking fees, and with comments that Merkel owed much of her popularity to her gender.

The SPD's candidate in Lower Saxony, Stephan Weil, hinted that he had been forced to campaign in the face of headwinds out of Berlin.

"The SPD made gains, which is remarkable considering the not exactly easy conditions under which we fought for voters' support in recent weeks," he said.

The website of news weekly Der Spiegel said the stakes remained high for the opposition.

"A victory in Hanover would be a great relief for the Social Democrats," it wrote.

"It would let the party dream of a turnaround at the national level. If it doesn't make it, there's the threat of resignation in the SPD about its chances this autumn."

After Lower Saxony, only the southern state of Bavaria is expected to vote before the September general election.

-AFP/ac

Read More..

Muslim groups warn Jaipur Literature Festival against 4 authors

JAIPUR: Muslims groups have warned the organizers of Jaipur Literature Festival against allowing four authors - who read out passages from the banned book 'Satanic Verses' by Salman Rushdie - to participate in this year's Jaipur Lit Fest. The statement was released by a panel of Islamic clerics and scholars during a national conference on "Azmat -E-Namoos -E-Rasool" (Respect and Honour of Prophet Muhammad) held at Ravindra Manch, Jaipur on Sunday in the presence of approximately 20,000 attendees from across the state.

JLF-2013 will take place from January 24 to 28 at Diggi Palace in Jaipur. TOI sought a response from one of the founder directors of JLF, Namita Gokhala on this statement but got no response. Authors - Jeet Thayil, Ruchir Sharma, Amitva Kumar and Hari Kunzru - created a furor last year when they read out passages from the controversial book in public to express their support to Rushdie, whose visit to JLF-2012 had been opposed by the Muslim hardliners.

Interestingly, names of two of the four authors - Jeet Thayil and Ruchir Sharma - are part of the speakers list of JLF-2013 on its website and has irked the Muslim leaders.

Justifying their stand, Sajid Sehrai, an Islamic scholor and organizer of the event said, "These authors have violated Indian law by reading out passages from a banned book. It calls for legal action against them," adding that already half-a-dozen court cases were pending against them under IPC.

The speakers also contended that law should treat everyone as equal. "The hate speech by All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen's MLA Akbaruddin Owaisi was vociferously condemned by us. He was arrested for the same but why does the same law not apply to these writers. Both have hurt the sentiments, but why is one penalized while the others enjoy support from a section on the pretext of 'right to express their views'? Reading most controversial passages of that book has defamed Prophet Mohammad and it is unacceptable," said Mujahid Naqvi of Milli Council.

A series of complaints have been filed in separate courts, including five at Jaipur and one at Ajmer against the authors and organizers. In most of these cases, the court has sought evidence from the petitioners. Muzaffer Bharti, president of Maulana Azad Lok Kalyan Sansthan, who filed a case against them in Ajmer Court said, "We are ready with evidence and will ask the police to arrest them for hurting the sentiments of Muslims." His views were echoed by Naqvi who also had filed a complaint in a Jaipur court.

Read More..