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."

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

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Obama Second Inaugural: A Déjà vu Moment

At the height of the "fiscal cliff" showdown, the final political battle of his first term, President Barack Obama lamented the bitter persistence of Washington partisanship as "déjà vu all over again."

Today, as Obama delivers his second inaugural address on the west front of the Capitol, he could say the same thing about the looming political battles of his new term.

Four years ago, Obama took office amidst what he then described as "gathering clouds and raging storms," an economic crisis that resulted from "our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age."

The nation was in the throes of a financial collapse, decades in the making, whose breadth and depth were only starting to be known. It would become a devastating recession, the worst since the Great Depression.

Now, even as the economy continues a gradual climb back from the brink, many of those "hard choices" still remain, with climbing deficits and debt and a yawning partisan gap over how to deal with them.

On the horizon is a cascade of fresh fiscal crises, these politically self-imposed, over the nation's debt ceiling, spending cuts and a federal budget, all of which economists say threaten another recession and could further downgrade of the nation's credit rating.

Obama will use the first major speech of his second term to try to reset the tone of debate and turn the page on the political battles of the past, hoping for something of a fresh start.

Obama Sworn In for Second Term, Kicks off Inaugural Festivities Watch Video

Getting the Parties Started: Memorable Inaugural Balls Watch Video

He will "talk about the challenges that face us and what unites us as Americans," Obama campaign manager Jim Messina told ABC News.

"Monday is an American moment: the swearing-in of the President of the United States -- everyone's president," Messina said. "You're going to see a president who wants to work across party lines to get things done, that's what the country wants."

He will acknowledge that we won't "settle every debate or resolve every difference" but that we "have an obligation to work together," said a senior administration official, who asked to remain anonymous in order to speak freely about the speech.

Obama will not discuss specific policy prescriptions in his address, though he may broadly allude to issues of war, immigration, climate change and environment, and gun control, officials said. The details will be saved for the State of the Union address on Feb. 12.

But the president will make clear that his re-election -- the first Democrat to win two elections with more than 50 percent of the vote since FDR -- reflects momentum for his agenda, said top White House aides.

"He's going to find every way he can to compromise. But he's going to be pretty clear, and we're also going to bring the American people more into the debate than we did in the first term," senior Obama adviser David Plouffe said on ABC's "This Week."

Polls show Obama begins his second term with soaring popularity -- the highest job approval rating in years -- and strong backing on some of his top legislative priorities.

Fifty-five percent of Americans in the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll approve of Obama's job performance overall, the most since November 2009, with a small exception for the 56 percent spike shortly after the death of Osama bin Laden in 2011.

That rating compares with 19 percent approval for Congress -- matching its lowest at or near the start of a new session in polls by ABC News and the Washington Post since 1975.

Majorities in the survey also broadly favor Obama's position on the debt ceiling, gun control measures, and reforms for the immigration system.

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Hostage toll to rise after Algeria ends desert siege

ALGIERS/IN AMENAS, Algeria (Reuters) - Algeria warned on Sunday that the hostage death toll from a siege at a desert gas plant would rise, after its troops staged a final assault which killed all the remaining Islamist gunmen.

Britain said at least three of its citizens had been killed in the crisis, ended when Algerian special forces stormed the In Amenas plant on Saturday. France acknowledged the death toll would be high but cautioned against criticizing Algeria's military response, saying it had faced an intolerable situation.

Algeria's Interior Ministry had reported on Saturday that 23 hostages and 32 militants were killed during assaults launched by Algerian special forces to end the crisis, with 107 foreign hostages and 685 Algerian hostages freed.

However, Minister of Communication Mohamed Said said this would rise when final numbers were issued in the next few hours. "I am afraid unfortunately to say that the death toll will go up," Said was quoted as saying by the official APS news agency.

Details are only slowly emerging on what happened during the siege, which marked a serious escalation of unrest in northwestern Africa, where French forces are battling Islamist militants across the Sahara desert in Mali.

In London, Prime Minister David Cameron said that British citizens were among the dead. "Tragically we now know that three British nationals have been killed and a further three are believed to be dead and also a further British resident is also believed to be dead," Cameron said in a televised statement.

One Briton had already was confirmed killed when the gunmen seized the hostages before dawn on Wednesday at the plant, run by Norway's Statoil along with Britain's BP and Algeria's state oil company.

The Islamists' attack has tested Algeria's relations with the outside world, exposed the vulnerability of multinational oil operations in the Sahara and pushed Islamist radicalism in northern Africa to centre stage.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius defended Algeria's handling of the crisis, after some governments expressed frustration that they had been kept in the dark.

"What everyone needs to know is that these terrorists who attacked this gas plant are killers who pillage, rape, plunder and kill. The situation was unbearable," Fabius said.

"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," he told Europe 1 radio in an interview.

MULTINATIONAL HOSTAGE-TAKERS

The Islamist militants seized the remote compound near the Libyan border, taking a large number of hostages. Said reported that the militants had six different nationalities and the operation to clear the plant of mines laid by the hostage-takers was still under way.

Believed to be among the 32 dead militants was their leader, Abdul Rahman al-Nigeri, a Nigerien close to al Qaeda-linked commander Mokhtar Belmokhtar, presumed mastermind of the raid.

One American has also been confirmed dead. Statoil said five of its workers, all Norwegian nationals, were still missing. Japanese and American workers are also unaccounted for.

Some Western governments expressed frustration at not being informed of the Algerian authorities' plans to storm the complex. Algeria, scarred by a civil war with Islamist insurgents in the 1990s which claimed 200,000 lives, had insisted there would be no negotiation in the face of terrorism.

President Barack Obama said on Saturday the United States was seeking from Algerian authorities a fuller understanding of what took place, but said "the blame for this tragedy rests with the terrorists who carried it out".

British Foreign Secretary William Hague declined to confirm newspaper reports that some hostages had been executed in cold blood. "We don't know that definitively. That sort of thing is quite likely to have happened," he said, noting "the nature of the terrorists involved".

BP's chief executive Bob Dudley said on Saturday four of its 18 workers at the site were missing. The remaining 14 were safe.

PLANNED BEFORE FRENCH LANDED IN MALI

The militant attack was one of the most audacious in recent years and almost certainly planned before French troops launched the operation in Mali this month to stem an advance by Islamist fighters.

Hundreds of hostages escaped on Thursday when the army launched a rescue operation, but many hostages were killed.

Before the Interior Ministry released its provisional death toll, an Algerian security source said eight Algerians and at least seven foreigners were among the victims, including two Japanese, two Britons and a French national.

The U.S. State Department said on Friday one American, Frederick Buttaccio, had died but gave no further details.

Mauritanian news agencies identified the field commander of the group that attacked the plant as Nigeri, a fighter from one of the Arab tribes in Niger who had joined the Algerian Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) in early-2005.

That group eventually joined up with al Qaeda to become Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). It and allied groups are the targets of the French military operation in Mali.

The news agencies described him as "one of the closest people" to Belmokhtar, who fought in Afghanistan and then in Algeria's civil war of the 1990s. Nigeri was known as a man for "difficult missions", having carried out attacks in Mauritania, Mali and Niger.

The apparent ease with which the fighters swooped in from the dunes to take control of an important energy facility, which produces some 10 percent of the natural gas on which Algeria depends for its export income, has raised questions over the country's outwardly tough security measures.

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 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; Writing by Giles Elgood, Myra MacDonald and David Stamp; Editing by Alison Williams)

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Football: Clubs may be demoted over racism: Blatter

SAINT-PETERSBURG, Russia: FIFA president Sepp Blatter said in St Petersburg on Sunday that clubs where racist incidents occurred could face punishments of anything from points deduction or even demotion.

The 76-year-old Swiss added that without heavy punishment racism would remain within the sport.

"The entire world fights against racism and discrimination," Blatter told a press conference.

"Football is part of the world's society. We unite more than 300 million people around the world and should set an example. Without serious sanctions nothing will ever change."

Blatter's remarks come in the light of Ghanaian midfielder Kevin-Prince Boateng leading his AC Milan team-mates off the pitch in a club friendly earlier this month after being racially abused.

While Blatter had criticised Boateng's actions saying it was the wrong solution, he added that there was zero tolerance for racist abuse.

Blatter also announced on Sunday that he did not agree with the idea of re-establishing the post-Soviet football league by grouping together the best teams of the former USSR.

The ambitious plan was mooted last month by Alexei Miller, the chief of Gazprom, owner and main sponsor of Russian champions Zenit St Petersburg, and has picked up support from many top clubs of the former Soviet Republics.

"The creation of the CIS league goes against FIFA principles," the world football supremo told a news conference.

"The head of Russia's football Union (RFU) Nikolai Tolstykh should continue holding the country's championships and forget about the project of revival of the Soviet-type CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States) league."

Blatter added that FIFA has a clear structure of tournaments, where club competitions were held within the national federations or continental associations like UEFA's Champions League or the Libertadores Cup.

"The new league can break the existing FIFA structure and bring disarray into it," Blatter said. "FIFA will never give its approval to such a project. Russian football officials should forget about this idea."

Tolstykh expressed his support by saying: "The RFU has a clear position - football life in the country should be subordinate to FIFA, UEFA and RFU regulations."

- AFP/fa

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Shinde's Hindu terror remarks 'oxygen' to Pakistan-sponsored terrorism: BJP

NEW DELHI: BJP on Sunday attacked home minister Sushilkumar Shinde for accusing it and RSS of running terror training camps and demanded an apology from Congress chief Sonia Gandhi for it.

"Their (Congress's) destructive mindset is reflected in the statement of the home minister. The statement he has given at the chintan shivir (brainstorming camp) is very objectionable. It's not only unacceptable but also dangerous," BJP spokesperson Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi told reporters here.

He said Shinde's statement was aimed at disrupting peace and harmony in the country.

Terming RSS as a "nationalist organization", the BJP leader said, "Sonia Gandhi should apologize. Rahul Gandhi and home minister should also apologize, otherwise there will be serious consequences. This is not accepted. Such baseless things when said by home minister amounts to giving clean chit to real terrorists."

The BJP spokesperson also said that Shinde's statement has given "oxygen" to Pakistan-sponsored terrorism.

"You have also strengthened the anti-India terrorist groups," he added.

"Sometimes I feel that Congress has become a group of cowards (kayaron ki jamaat). I am saying because terror strikes are repeatedly happening in the country, terrorists are mushrooming here," he said.

"Pakistani army troops are beheading our jawans and our Prime Minister takes too long to respond to that. Our government thinks repeatedly before giving any reaction to such incidents. It gives warning to Pakistan only when the nation is agitated, but that warning too is nothing but an empty warning, leading to a ridicule," Naqvi said.

Addressing the Congress chintan shivir earlier on Sunday in Jaipur, Shinde had accused BJP and RSS of conducting "terror training" camps to spread saffron terrorism in the country.

"Reports have come during investigation that BJP and RSS conduct terror training camps to spread terrorism ... Bombs were planted in Samjhauta express, Mecca Masjid and also a blast was carried out in Malegaon," Shinde had said.

Later Shinde also added, "This is saffron terrorism that I have talked about. It is the same thing and nothing new. It has come in the media several times."

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More than 140 nations adopt treaty to cut mercury

GENEVA (AP) — A new and legally binding international treaty to reduce harmful emissions of mercury was adopted Saturday by more than 140 nations, capping four years of difficult negotiations but stopping short of some of the tougher measures that proponents had envisioned.

The new accord aims to cut mercury pollution from mining, utility plants and a host of products and industrial processes, by setting enforceable limits and encouraging shifts to alternatives in which mercury is not used, released or emitted.

Mercury, known to be a poison for centuries, is natural element that cannot be created or destroyed. It is released into the air, water and land from small-scale artisanal gold mining, coal-powered plants, and from discarded electronic or consumer products such as electrical switches, thermostats and dental amalgam fillings. Mercury compound goes into batteries, paints and skin-lightening creams.

Because it concentrates and accumulates in fish and goes up the food chain, mercury poses the greatest risk of nerve damage to pregnant women, women of child-bearing age and young children. The World Health Organization has said there are no safe limits for the consumption of mercury and its compounds, which can also cause brain and kidney damage, memory loss and language impairment.

A decade ago, Switzerland and Norway began pushing for an international treaty to limit mercury emissions, a process that culminated in the adoption of an accord Saturday after an all-night session that capped a weeklong conference in Geneva and previous such sessions over the past four years.

"It will help us to protect human health and the environment all over the world," Swiss environment ambassador Franz Perrez told a news conference.

But the treaty only requires that nations with artisanal and small-scale gold mining operations, one of the biggest sources of mercury releases, draw up national plans within three years of the treaty entering force to reduce and — if possible — eliminate the use of mercury in such operations. Governments also approved exceptions for some uses such as large measuring devices for which there are no mercury-free alternatives; vaccines where mercury is used as a preservative; and products used in religious or traditional activities.

Switzerland, Norway and Japan each contributed $1 million to get the treaty started, but U.N. officials say tens of millions more will be needed each year to help developing countries comply. The money would be distributed through the Global Environment Facility, an international funding mechanism.

The U.N. Environment Program said the treaty will be signed later this year in the southern Japanese city of Minamata, for which it is to be named. After that, 50 nations must ratify it before it comes into force, which officials predicted would happen in three to four years.

So-called Minimata disease, a severe neurological disorder caused by mercury poisoning, was discovered in the late 1950s because of methylmercury escaping from the city's industrial wastewater. The illness, which sickened people who ate contaminated fish, killed hundreds and left many more badly crippled. Some 12,000 people have demanded compensation from Japan's government.

"To agree on global targets is not easy to do," Achim Steiner, the executive director of the U.N. Environment Program, told reporters. "There was no delegation here that wished to leave Geneva without drafting a treaty."

Over the past 100 years, mercury found in the top 100 meters (yards) of the world's oceans has doubled, and concentrations in waters deeper than that have gone up by 25 percent, the U.N. environment agency says, while rivers and lakes contain an estimated 260 metric tons of mercury that was previously held in soils.

The treaty was originally blocked by powers such as the United States, but President Barack Obama's reversal of the U.S. position in early 2009 helped propel momentum for its adoption. China and India also played key roles in ensuring its passage; Asia accounts for just under half of all global releases of mercury.

"We have closed a chapter on a journey that has taken four years of often intense, but ultimately successful, negotiations and opened a new chapter toward a sustainable future," said Fernando Lugris, the Uruguayan diplomat who chaired the negotiations.

Some supporters of a new mercury treaty said they were not satisfied with the agreement.

Joe DiGangi, a science adviser with advocacy group IPEN, said that while the treaty is "a first step," it is not tough enough to achieve its aim of reducing overall emissions. For example, he said, there is no requirement that each country create a national plan for how it will reduce mercury emissions.

His group and some of the residents of Minamata have opposed naming the treaty for their city because they feel it does not do enough to fix the problem.

"This treaty should be called the 'Mercury Convention,' not the 'Minamata Convention," said Takeshi Yasuma, a Japanese activist. "Water pollution resulting in contaminated sediment and fish caused the Minamata tragedy, but the treaty contains no obligations to reduce mercury releases to water and no obligations to clean up contaminated sites."

Treaty proponents called it a good first step, however, and Steiner said the document would evolve over time and hopefully become a stronger instrument.

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Obama to Be Sworn in for 2nd Term at White House

Formally embarking on his second term, President Barack Obama was set to take the oath of office Sunday surrounded by family in an intimate inauguration at the White House, 24 hours before re-enacting the ceremony in front of hundreds of thousands outside the Capitol.

The subdued swearing-in at the White House Blue Room is a function of the calendar and the Constitution, which says presidents automatically begin their new terms at noon on Jan. 20. Because that date fell this year on a Sunday, a day on which inauguration ceremonies historically are not held, organizers scheduled a second, public swearing-in for Monday.

A crowd of up to 800,000 people is expected to gather on the National Mall to witness that event, which will take place on the Capitol's red, white and blue bunting-draped west front. Chief Justice John Roberts, who famously flubbed the oath of office that Obama took in 2009, was on tap to swear the president in both days.

Vice President Joe Biden was to be sworn in earlier Sunday at the Naval Observatory, his official residence. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who was appointed by Obama during his first term, was to administer the oath of office.

Before the ceremony, Biden was celebrating an early morning Mass with friends and family. About 120 people were expected to be on hand to watch him place his hand on a Bible his family has used since 1893 as he takes the oath.

Brendan Hoffman/Getty Images

Biden was then to join Obama at Arlington National Cemetery for a wreath-laying ceremony.

Once the celebrations are over, Obama will plunge into a second-term agenda still dominated by the economy, which slowly churned out of recession during his first four years in office. The president will try to cement his legacy with sweeping domestic changes, pledging to achieve both an immigration overhaul and stricter gun laws despite opposition from a divided Congress.

But for one weekend at least, Washington was putting politics aside. Obama called the nation's inaugural traditions "a symbol of how our democracy works and how we peacefully transfer power."

"But it should also be an affirmation that we're all in this together," he said Saturday as he opened a weekend of activities at a Washington elementary school.

Only a small group of family members was expected to attend Obama's Sunday swearing-in, including first lady Michelle Obama and daughters Malia and Sasha. A few reporters were to witness the event.

Roberts was to administer the oath shortly before noon in the Blue Room, an oval space with majestic views of the South Lawn and the Washington Monument.

Named for the color of the drapes, upholstery and carpet, the Blue Room is not typically used for ceremonies. It primarily has been a reception room as well as the site of the only presidential wedding held in the White House, when President Grover Cleveland married Frances Folsum in 1886.

Later Sunday, Obama and Biden were to speak at a reception attended by supporters.

The president planned to save his most expansive remarks for Monday, when he delivers his second inaugural address to the crowd on the Mall and millions more watching across the country and the world. Obama started working on the speech in early December and was still tinkering with it into the weekend, aides said.

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Burned bodies found at besieged Algeria gas plant

ALGIERS/IN AMENAS, Algeria (Reuters) - Algerian special forces on Saturday found 15 burned bodies at a desert gas plant raided by al Qaeda-linked fighters, two days after the army launched an assault to free hostages being held there by the Islamists, a source familiar with the crisis said.

Efforts were underway to identify the bodies, the source told Reuters. It was not clear how they had died.

More than 20 foreigners were still captive or missing inside the plant as a standoff between the army and the Islamist gunmen - one of the biggest international hostage crises in decades - entered its fourth day, having thrust Saharan militancy to the top of the global agenda.

The number and fate of those involved - hostages alive or dead as well as fighters - has yet to be confirmed, with the Algerian government keeping officials from Western countries far from the site where their countrymen were in peril.

Reports have put the number of hostages killed at between 12 to 30, with possibly dozens of foreigners still unaccounted for, among them Norwegians, Japanese, Britons, Americans and others.

The U.S. State Department said on Friday one American, Frederick Buttaccio, had died but gave no further details. The French defense minister said he understood there were no more French workers among the hostages.

Two Norwegians were released overnight, leaving six unaccounted for, while Romania said three of its nationals had been freed. A number of Japanese engineering workers were still unaccounted for.

On Saturday, the Algerian military was holding the vast residential barracks at the In Amenas gas processing plant, while gunmen were holed up in the industrial plant itself with an undisclosed number of hostages, making it difficult for Algerian special forces to intervene.

The field commander of the Islamist group that attacked the plant is a veteran fighter from Niger called Abdul Rahman al-Nigeri, Mauritanian news agencies reported.

ARMY CORDON

The army is surrounding the plant, and helicopters are monitoring the area, Reuters reporters near the scene said. A cordon appeared to have been thrown around the plant at a distance of about 10 km (6 miles). Ambulances were on hand.

Scores of Westerners and hundreds of Algerian workers were inside the heavily fortified compound when it was seized before dawn on Wednesday by Islamist fighters who said they wanted a halt to a French military operation in neighboring Mali.

Hundreds escaped on Thursday when the army launched its operation, but many hostages were killed in the assault. Algerian forces destroyed four trucks holding hostages, according to the family of a Northern Irish engineer who escaped from a fifth truck and survived.

The Northern Irishman, Stephen McFaul, told his family the attackers had strapped Semtex plastic explosive to his neck, bound his hands and taped his mouth.

Leaders of Britain, Japan and other countries have expressed frustration that the assault was ordered without consultation and officials have grumbled at the lack of information. Many countries also withheld details about their missing citizens to avoid releasing information that might aid the captors.

France's defense minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian, declined to criticize the Algerian response to the crisis, however.

"The Algerian authorities are on their own soil and responding in the fashion they can. The overriding mission is to tackle the terrorists," he told France 3 television.

SECURITY SOURCE

An Algerian security source said 30 hostages, including at least seven Westerners, had been killed during Thursday's assault, along with at least 18 of their captors. Eight of the dead hostages were Algerian, with the nationalities of the rest of the dead still unclear, he said.

Two Japanese, two Britons and a French national were among the seven foreigners confirmed dead, the security source told Reuters. One British citizen was killed when the gunmen seized the hostages on Wednesday.

"(The army) is still trying to achieve a ‘peaceful outcome' before neutralizing the terrorist group that is holed up in the (facility) and freeing a group of hostages that is still being held," Algeria's state news agency APS said on Friday, quoting a security source.

APS put the total number of dead hostages at 12, including both foreigners and locals.

The base was home to foreign workers from Britain's BP, Norway's Statoil, Japanese engineering firm JGC Corp and others.

Norway says eight Norwegians are still missing. JGC said it was missing 10 staff. Britain and the United States have said they have citizens unaccounted for but have not said how many.

The Algerian security source said 100 foreigners had been freed but 32 were still unaccounted for.

Norway's Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide said that based on information from Algerian authorities, "there is hope that the operation could be nearing the end."

A U.S. official said on Friday a U.S. flight carrying wounded people from many countries had left Algeria, without giving further details. Norway said it was sending a specially equipped medevac plane to the area.

The attack has plunged international capitals into crisis mode and is a serious escalation of unrest in northwestern Africa, where French forces have been in Mali since last week fighting an Islamist takeover of Timbuktu and other towns.

MULTINATIONAL INSURGENCY

Algerian commanders said they moved in on Thursday about 30 hours after the siege began, because the gunmen had demanded to be allowed to take their captives abroad.

A French hostage employed by a French catering company said he had hidden in his room for 40 hours under the bed before he was rescued by Algerian troops, relying on Algerian employees to smuggle him food with a password.

"I put boards up pretty much all round," Alexandre Berceaux told Europe 1 radio. "I didn't know how long I was going to stay there ... I was afraid. I could see myself already ending up in a pine box."

The captors said their attack was a response to the French military offensive in neighboring Mali. However, some U.S. and European officials say the elaborate raid probably required too much planning to have been organized from scratch in the single week since France first launched its strikes.

Paris says the incident proves its decision to fight Islamists in neighboring Mali was necessary.

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 a civil war in the 1990s. But in the past two years the regional wing of Al Qaeda gained fighters and arms as a result of the civil war in Libya, when arsenals were looted from Muammar Gaddafi's army.

Al Qaeda-linked fighters, many with roots in Algeria and Libya, took control of northern Mali last year.

The apparent ease with which the fighters swooped in from the dunes to take control of an important energy facility, which produces some 10 percent of the natural gas on which Algeria depends for its export income, has raised questions over the value of outwardly tough Algerian security measures.

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

U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said those responsible would be hunted down: "Terrorists should be on notice that they will find no sanctuary, no refuge, not in Algeria, not in North Africa, not anywhere. ... Those who would wantonly attack our country and our people will have no place to hide."

(Additional reporting by Ali Abdelatti in Cairo, Eamonn Mallie in Belfast, Gwladys Fouche in Oslo, Mohammed Abbas in London, Padraic Halpin and Conor Humphries in Dublin, Andrew Quinn and David Alexander in Washington, Brian Love in Paris; Editing by Giles Elgood and Sonya Hepinstall)

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Migrant Workers' Centre urges flexibility in Change of Employer policy

SINGAPORE: The Migrant Workers' Centre has urged the government to be more flexible in allowing foreign workers to change employers.

The centre's Chairman Yeo Guat Kwang told Channel NewsAsia that he is working with the Manpower Ministry to try and amend the policy.

The Migrant Workers' Centre said last year it received about 1,500 complaints from foreign workers, mostly for salary arrears cases.

Workers helping the Manpower Ministry with investigations are given a special pass to stay in Singapore under the Temporary Job Scheme.

Under the scheme, workers serving as prosecution witnesses may be allowed to find temporary employment while their cases are being investigated.

Migrant workers groups want the Temporary Job Scheme to be expanded to allow workers to remain in Singapore beyond the completion of their cases.

Mr Yeo said workers who are waiting for their workplace injury compensation should also be allowed to stay.

This, he said, could lead the way for a new transitional employment system for foreign workers.

Mr Yeo said: "If you say the only way for the workers is to go back, for some cases, it's not fair because they've only been here for a few months. I think we should amend this to make it easier for workers who unfortunately fall victim to one of these disputes, will be able to find employment with another employer.

"To me, I think it's good for the employer to employ these workers who are already here, rather than to go to the source country, and do a fresh recruitment, and these are workers who have already been here, we know how good their skills are."

Mr Yeo explained that making the Change of Employers policy more flexible is also in line with the MWC's call to improve the quality of foreign workers.

"At the end of the day, for us to be able to enable them to change employer and get re-employed, definitely this is a person that must have the right skill to work here," said Mr Yeo.

In addition, the Humanitarian Organisation for Migration Economics believes the restrictions of the Change of Employer policy do not favour these workers.

The organisation's president Bridget Tan explained: "This is called the sponsorship system. A work permit holder is tied to the employer. The work permit holder if once he or she leaves the employer unless with the approval of the employer this work permit holder will have to go home, repatriated.

"They find it difficult to enforce their rights under work permit conditions because they are so afraid and often threatened. Going home for many migrant workers whether domestic workers or foreign workers is not a choice for them because most of them are in debt to agents back home, money lenders back home.

"And going back with nothing, with no hope and promise of another job and the chance to change employers, sometimes they allow themselves to be exploited."

Ms Tan added workers are not allowed to change the industry they work in.

She said: "For example, if you come in as a construction worker, you can only find a job as a construction worker even though you have qualification that can allow you to work for example, as a waiter but you cannot because you come in as a construction worker, you have to be a construction worker. There are restrictions."

President of the Association of Employment Agencies, K Jayaprema said employers have concerns with a more flexible policy.

Mr Jayaprema said: "When such transfers kick in, if the employees are not very responsible, the employer might be stranded without a workforce because employees do have a tendency to be working in one company, train themselves up there and when there's opportunities in another company with a little bit of better salary, they move."

Employers have to send their foreign workers back within seven days of the cancellation of their work permits or they could lose the S$5,000 security bond with the Manpower Ministry.

Advocacy groups for migrant workers argue a more flexible change of employer policy would create greater mobility for workers.

With this mobility, migrant workers will no longer be at the mercy of employers.

There will be more incentive for employers to retain these workers, and treat them fairly.

MPs are expected to raise questions on how the government can address the grievances of foreign workers at the next sitting of Parliament.

- CNA/fa

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Chintan Shivir: Congress leaders pitch for Rahul Gandhi as PM candidate

JAIPUR: Amid talk that Rahul Gandhi will be given a larger responsibility, clamour for declaring him as the Congress prime ministerial candidate grew louder at the party's Chintan Shivir on Saturday.

Union ministers Jyotiraditya Scindia, Rajiv Shukla, Jitin Prasada, senior leader Manishankar Aiyar batted for larger responsibility for Rahul as the party recognised the need to respond to the demands of "new changing India peopled by a more younger" generation.

Young leader Milind Deora said, "It is a consensus and feeling in the Shivir that youths should be empowered.

On the first day also, a number of leaders including Raj Babbar and Avtar Singh Badhana had demanded that Rahul should be declared Congress PM candidate before the party goes to next Lok Sabha polls.

"Rahul will lead the party during 2014 general elections and would be the prime ministerial candidate," party leader Sanjay Nirupam said before the discussions began on Day-2.

Uttar Pradesh leader Jitin Prasada said, "Things are being discussed as to how we can ensure participation of youths. Rahul is certainly our leader and he will lead 2014 general elections of Congress and the country as well."

Union minister Veeprappa Moily said, "Rahul is already a leader.We have stable leaders we are proud of them. Congress has always enjoyed great leadership. If there is any disconnect we are discussing these concerns and will ensure that there is proper connect."

About the demand for larger role to Rahul, Union minister Rajiv Shukla said, "It is to be decided by Sonia and Rahul, we can only demand and we are demanding.

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