Israel goes to polls, set to re-elect Netanyahu

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israelis voted on Tuesday in an election that is expected to see Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu win a third term in office, pushing the Jewish state further to the right, away from peace with the Palestinians and towards a showdown with Iran.

However, Netanyahu's own Likud party, running alongside the ultra-nationalist Yisrael Beitenu group, looks set to have fewer seats than in the previous parliament, with opinion polls showing a surge in support for the far-right Jewish Home party.

Political sources said Netanyahu, concerned by his apparent fall in popularity, might approach centre-left parties after the vote in an effort to broaden his coalition and present a more moderate face to Washington and other concerned allies.

"We want Israel to succeed, we vote Likud-Beitenu ... The bigger it is, the more Israel will succeed," Netanyahu said after casting his ballot alongside his wife and two sons.

Some 5.66 million Israelis are eligible to vote, with polling stations closing at 10 p.m. (2000 GMT). Full results are due by Wednesday morning, opening the way for coalition talks that could take several weeks.

The lackluster election campaign failed to focus on any single issue and with a Netanyahu victory predicted by every opinion poll, the two main political blocs seemed to spend more time on internal feuding than confronting each other.

"There is a king sitting on the throne in Israel and I wanted to dethrone him, but it looks like that won't happen," said Yehudit Shimshi, a retired teacher voting in central Israel, on a bright, hot mid-winter morning.

No Israeli party has ever secured an absolute majority, meaning that Netanyahu, who says that dealing with Iran's nuclear ambitions is his top priority, will have to bring various allies onboard to control the 120-seat Knesset.

The former commando has traditionally looked to religious, conservative parties for backing and is widely expected to seek out the surprise star of the campaign, self-made millionaire Naftali Bennett who heads the Jewish Home party.

Bennett has ruled out any peace pact with the Palestinians and calls for the annexation of much of the occupied West Bank.

His youthful dynamism has struck a chord amongst Israelis, most of whom no longer believe in the possibility of a Palestinian deal, and has eroded Netanyahu's support base.

The Likud has also shifted further right in recent months, with hardline candidates who reject the so-called two-state solution, dominating the top of the party list.

"TRENDY PARTIES"

Surveys suggest Bennett may take up to 14 seats, many at the expense of Likud-Beitenu, which was projected to win 32 in the last round of opinion polls published on Friday -- 10 less than the two parties won in 2009 when they ran separate lists.

Acknowledging the threat, Netanyahu's son Yair urged young Israelis not to abandon the old, established Likud.

"Even if there are more trendy parties, there is one party that has a proven record," he said on Tuesday.

Amongst the new parties standing for the first time in an election were Yesh Atid (There is a Future), a centrist group led by former television host Yair Lapid, seen winning 13 seats.

"All our lives we voted Likud, but today we voted for Lapid because we want a different coalition," said Ahuva Heled, 55, a retired teacher voting with her husband north of Tel Aviv.

Lapid has not ruled out joining a Netanyahu cabinet, but is pushing hard for ultra-Orthodox Jews to do military service -- a demand fiercely rejected by some allies of the prime minister.

Israel's main opposition party, Labour, which is seen capturing up to 17 seats, has already ruled out a repeat of 2009, when it initially hooked up with Netanyahu, promising to promote peace negotiations with the Palestinians.

U.S.-brokered talks collapsed just a month after they started in 2010 following a row over settlement building, and have laid in ruins ever since. Netanyahu blamed the Palestinians for the failure and says his door remains open to discussions.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas says he won't return to the table unless there is a halt to settlement construction.

That looks unlikely, with Netanyahu approving some 11,000 settler homes in December alone, causing further strains to his already notoriously difficult relations with U.S. President Barack Obama, who was sworn in for a second term on Monday.

IRAN THREAT

Tuesday's vote is the first in Israel since Arab uprisings swept the region two years ago, reshaping the Middle East.

Netanyahu has said the turbulence - which has brought Islamist governments to power in several countries long ruled by secularist autocrats, including neighboring Egypt - shows the importance of strengthening national security.

If he wins on Tuesday, he will seek to put Iran back to the top of the global agenda. Netanyahu has said he will not let Tehran enrich enough uranium to make a single nuclear bomb - a threshold Israeli experts say could arrive as early as mid-2013.

Iran denies it is planning to build the bomb, and says Israel, widely believed to have the only nuclear arsenal in the Middle East, is the biggest threat to the region.

The issue has barely registered during the election campaign, with a poll in Haaretz newspaper on Friday saying 47 percent of Israelis thought social and economic issues were the most pressing concern, against just 10 percent who cited Iran.

One of the first problems to face the next government, which is unlikely to take power before the middle of next month at the earliest, is the stuttering economy.

Data last week showed the budget deficit rose to 4.2 percent of gross domestic product in 2012, double the original estimate, meaning spending cuts and tax hikes look certain.

(Additional reporting by Ori Lewis, Jeffrey Heller and Tova Cohen; Editing by Giles Elgood)

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Taxi drivers in S. Korea threaten to go on strike

SEOUL : Taxi drivers in South Korea are threatening to go on a partial strike from January 30.

It is in protest against a government decision to block legislation that would give them subsidies for public transport.

The so-called "Taxi Bill" was passed in Parliament earlier this month, but was vetoed by President Lee Myung-bak and will go back to Parliament for another vote.

If Parliament fails to pass the bill, all taxis across the country will go on strike from February 20.

The question being asked in South Korea is whether taxis should be considered public transportation, the same way that buses, subways and trains are.

Most lawmakers in Parliament have said "yes", but President Lee's government disagrees.

Yim Jong Yong, Minister in the Prime Minister's Office, said: "Public transportation refers to mass transportation, operating along specific routes and fixed timetables, so taxis cannot be included in this category."

The taxi bill was passed in Parliament earlier this month, with overwhelming support from both the ruling and opposition parties.

Classifying taxis as part of the country's mass transportation system means they can get state subsidies on fuel, tax and other benefits, just like bus and subway operators do.

Reports say central and local governments spend about 1.2 trillion won - or about US$1.1 billion - subsidising the bus industry every year.

If taxis are included, critics say the government would have to more than double its spending on subsidies, costing it an additional 1.9 trillion won a year.

They point out that taxis account for only about 9 per cent of transportation, whereas buses make up over 30 per cent.

Subways and trains account for more than 20 per cent.

But taxi drivers argue that they should be considered part of the public transport system.

Koo Soo Young, head of the Taxi Drivers Union, said: "There is a reason why taxis should be classified as public transport. Buses carry about 13 million passengers in one day, while taxis carry about 11 million passengers. Also the number of trains and subways is only about half the number of taxis. This shows that a large number of people use taxis because the fares are so cheap."

Although the government has rejected the bill, it said it is willing to help the taxi industry.

It is planning to come up with a plan that would give some subsidies to taxi drivers and at the same time appease bus drivers, who worry they will have to share government subsidies with taxis.

Taxi drivers are threatening to go on strike over this bill. But experts have pointed out that subsidies in the Taxi Bill will likely only benefit taxi companies, and not the drivers themselves. So drivers will really need to think this through and see what the government has to offer first.

- CNA/ms

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Chidambaram in Hong Kong, seeks to reassure foreign investors

HONG KONG: India's economy will grow "no better than" 5.7% in the current fiscal year but will regain traction in 2013/2014, the finance minister said on Tuesday, as he sought to reassure international investors that the government remained committed to pro-growth policies and reforms.

P Chidambaram made the comments at a media briefing after meeting investors in Hong Kong as part of a four-city tour to try and boost capital flows into Asia's third-largest economy.

The minister also sought to allay fears that India was in danger of losing its investment-grade credit rating and being downgraded to "junk" status, as policymakers struggle to revive economic growth, rein in subsidies and hold down the fiscal deficit without triggering a backlash ahead of 2014 elections.

"I was not worried when I took over (as finance minister) in August 2012, and after so many steps that we have taken, I think I should be less worried. In fact, all of us should be less worried. There should no case whatsoever for anybody to downgrade India," he said.

"The silver lining is we are able to finance the current account deficit without reserves. Thankfully there are enough inflows of FDIs and FIIs (foreign institutional investment) and companies are able to raise money abroad under external commercial borrowing," he said.

Fitch and Standard and Poor's last year cut their ratings outlooks for India to "negative", citing its slowing growth and bloated deficit and putting it in danger of being the first of the BRICs grouping of fast-growing economies to be downgraded to sub-investment-grade status.

Chidambaram said he expected the economy to grow by no more than 5.7% in the current fiscal year ending in March, but predicted it would pick up momentum in the following year beginning in April, expanding by 6-7%.

India's economy extended its long slump in the July-September quarter and looked on track for its worst full-year performance in a decade, highlighting the urgency of politically difficult reforms to revive activity.

Since Chidambaram was appointed the government has opened up the retail sector and pushed reforms to allow more foreign investment in its insurance and pension sectors and simplify its tax laws.

Last week it allowed state fuel retailers to raise prices to gradually align them with market rates and help cut its fuel subsidy bill.

The finance minister said there was also room to sell off more state assets to ease fiscal strains. He forecast the government would raise $5 billion from such divestments in the current fiscal year and said he had approval for further sales in the next few years.

Chidambaram will also meet investors in Singapore, London and Frankfurt over the next week.

"The finance minister was both clear and confident of what needs to be done, how and when it will be done, and timelines," said a research note released by Citi, which hosted Chidambaram's meeting earlier in the day with more than 200 equity and fixed-income investors.

"The market has been cautious leading into what is seen as an 'election/populist' budget in February 2013. The finance minister was decidedly more positive. He suggests the fiscal deficit target will be met, taxes will not be raised and while policy will and should be biased towards the poor, the budget will offer a lot."

The minister assured investors that the government's top priority is curtailing spending in the short term, while in the medium-term it aims to cut the fiscal deficit by 60 basis points per year, reducing it to 3% in four years from an expected 5.3% this fiscal year, the note from Citi said.

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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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Algeria hostage toll rises with report of Japanese deaths

ALGIERS (Reuters) - Algerian forces have found the bodies of two Canadian Islamist fighters after a bloody siege at a desert gas plant, a security source said on Monday, as the death toll reached at least 80 after troops stormed the complex to end the hostage crisis.

Algerian Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal is expected to give details on Monday about the siege near the town of In Amenas, which left American, British, French, Japanese, Norwegian, Filipino and Romanian workers dead or missing.

Much remains unclear about events after the jihadists staged the attack last Wednesday. However, an Algerian newspaper said they had arrived in cars painted in the colors of state energy company Sonatrach but registered in neighboring Libya, a country awash with arms since Muammar Gaddafi's fall in 2011.

The Algerian security source told Reuters that documents found on the bodies of the two militants had identified them as Canadians, as special forces scoured the plant following Saturday's bloody end to the crisis.

Veteran Islamist fighter Mokhtar Belmokhtar claimed responsibility for the attack on behalf of al Qaeda, and an official Algerian source has said the militants included people from outside the African continent, as well as Arabs and Africans.

A security source said on Sunday that Algerian troops had found the bodies of 25 hostages, raising the number of hostages killed to 48 and the total number of deaths to at least 80. He said six militants were captured alive and troops were still searching for others.

A Japanese government source said the Algerian government had informed Tokyo that nine Japanese had been killed, the biggest toll so far among foreigners at the plant. Six Filipinos died and four were wounded, a government spokesman in Manila said.

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. The militants had used nine cars in Sonatrach colors and all with Libyan registration plates, it quoted unnamed security sources as saying.

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, also 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.

"We opened the door for negotiations with the Westerners and the Algerians, and granted them safety from the beginning of the operation, but one of the senior (Algerian) intelligence officials confirmed to us in a phone call that they will destroy the place with everyone in it," SITE quoted the statement as saying.

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.

Among other foreigners confirmed dead by their home countries were three Britons, one American and two Romanians. The missing include five Norwegians, three Britons and a British resident. An Algerian security source said at least one Frenchman was also among the dead.

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.

(Additional reporting by Anton Slodkowski in Tokyo, Balazs Koranyi in Oslo, William Maclean in Dubai, Estelle Shirbon and David Alexander in London, Brian Love in Paris and Daniel Flynn in Dakar; Writing by David Stamp; Editing by Giles Elgood)

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Parents-to-be welcome new pro-family incentives

SINGAPORE: From 1 May 2013, working fathers will be legally entitled to one week of paid paternity leave.

Parents welcome the move, but some pro-family organisations are calling for bolder measures.

Eileen Chan and Alvin Tan tied the knot two years ago. They are expecting their firstborn in April, and with that, the bumped-up Baby Bonus.

"I think the extra S$2,000 will come in handy, especially when it comes to immunisation for the kid," said Ms Chan. "In the first year, kids tend to fall sick more often."

For the Tans, the most welcome new measure is paternity leave. Mr Tan plans to take the week off right after his wife delivers.

He said: "Especially when the baby is new-born, as a father I'd like to spend more time at home with the kid, with my wife to help settle the kid in."

Alvin is optimistic his employer will grant his paternity leave, even though his child will be born just before the measure officially kicks in on 1 May 2013.

Employers are encouraged to offer paternity leave to all eligible employees with children born on or after 1 Jan 2013, and this will be reimbursable by the government.

Ms Chan can also share one week of her maternity leave with her husband.

It's a move the National Family Council welcomes, but its chairman Mr Lim Soon Hock is calling for a whole month of maternity leave to be made gender-neutral.

Mr Lim said: "If we were to have longer paternity leave, essentially what we are creating is an opportunity for our women to go back to work earlier. But fundamental to this thinking must be that we have to move away from the notion that men are more valuable in the workplace than women."

The slew of bonuses is good news, but it is not the reason why the Tans want to have two children.

Mr Tan said: "The baby itself is the bonus, so all these incentives, we're just happy to receive them!"

The new Marriage and Parenthood Package also makes adoption leave a legal entitlement.

Working, married women who adopt children under a year old will be entitled to four weeks of government-paid leave.

Previously, this was offered by employers on a voluntary basis.

- CNA/xq

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Hafiz Saeed seeks to exploit Shinde's Hindu terror remarks, BJP launches all-out attack

LAHORE/SILIGURI/JAMMU: Mumbai attacks mastermind and LeT founder Hafiz Saeed on Monday sought to exploit home minister Sushilkumar Shinde's jibe against RSS and BJP saying Indian "propaganda" against Pakistani organizations of spreading terror now stood "exposed".

A day after Shinde accused BJP and RSS of running terror camps and indulging in Hindu terror, he went to the extend of levelling an accusation that Indian organizations were "involved in all kinds of terrorism in Pakistan".

Saeed, for whom the US has announced a $10 million bounty, told a press conference in Lahore that India always resorted to propaganda against Pakistani organizations but it now stood "exposed".

He claimed: "India tried to involve us in the Mumbai attacks but after a passage of five years, nothing has been established against us in the courts".

Saeed, who now heads JuD, also made a ridiculous demand asking the Pakistan government to take steps to get India declared "a terrorist state" by the UN Security Council.

Shinde faces BJP ire

BJP slammed Union home minister Sushil Kumar Shinde on Monday for accusing it and RSS of running terror training camps and said he should either prove it or apologize.

"Shinde has to prove what he has said otherwise he has to withdraw the remark or apologize," leader of the opposition in Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley told reporters in Siliguri.

"Congress which withdrew POTA has always been soft towards terrorists and terrorism instead of taking a hard stand," Jaitley said.

"That was why Shinde's hand was trembling to sign (the order) on the person who launched the attack on Parliament and whose death sentence was upheld by Supreme court," Jaitley said.

He said that the entire country knew that BJP and RSS were symbols of nationalism. "BJP is a party which always stood against terrorism," he said.

Earlier, addressing a public meeting, Jaitley alleged that the UPA government was not interested in curbing terror and had no courage to respond strongly to Pakistan on the beheading of two Indian soldiers.

'Lost mental balance'

Lashing out at Sushilkumar Shinde for his controversial remarks during the Congress summit in Jaipur, the Jammu state president of BJP said it seems the home minister has lost his mental balance.

"Shinde seems to have lost his mental balance, otherwise he would not have been making such irresponsible statements," said BJP state president Jugal Kishore Sharma.

The party takes strong exception to Shinde's remarks on a nationalist party like BJP and a "thoroughly patriotic social organization" like RSS, Sharma said, accusing the Congress of playing divisive tactics.

He said both Shinde and his party should concentrate more on issues like corruption and price rise which are concerned to common man, instead of making "unproven allegations" against BJP.

Shinde had stoked a controversy on Sunday by accusing BJP and RSS of conducting terror training camps and promoting "Hindu terrorism", setting off an angry reaction from the saffron parties which demanded an apology from Sonia Gandhi.

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

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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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