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

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Algeria vows to fight Qaeda after 38 workers killed

ALGIERS (Reuters) - Algeria's prime minister accused a Canadian of coordinating last week's raid on a desert gas plant and, praising the storming of the complex where 38 mostly foreign hostages were killed, he pledged to resist the rise of Islamists in the Sahara.

Algeria will never succumb to terrorism or allow al Qaeda to establish "Sahelistan", an Afghan-style power base in arid northwest Africa, Abdelmalek Sellal told a news conference in Algiers where he also said at least 37 foreign hostages died.

"There is clear political will," the prime minister said.

Claimed by an Algerian al Qaeda leader as a riposte to France's attack on his allies in neighboring Mali the previous week, the four-day siege drew global attention to Islamists in the Sahara and Sahel regions and brought promises of support to African governments from Western powers whose toppling of Libya's Muammar Gaddafi helped flood the region with weapons.

The attack on a valuable part of its vital energy industry raised questions about the security capacity of an establishment that took power from French colonists 50 years ago, held off a bloody Islamist insurgency in the 1990s and has avoided the democratic upheavals the Arab Spring brought to North Africa.

Sellal said a Canadian citizen whom he named only as Chedad, a surname found among Arabs in the region, was among 29 gunmen killed and added that he had "coordinated" the attack. Another three militants were taken alive and were in custody.

Among hostages confirmed dead by their own governments were three Americans, seven Japanese, six Filipinos and three Britons; others from Britain, Norway and elsewhere were listed as unaccounted for. Sellal said seven of the 37 foreign dead were unidentified, while a further five foreigners were missing.

Nearly 700 Algerians and 100 other foreigners survived.

An Algerian security source said investigators pursuing the possibility that the attackers had inside help to map the complex and gain entry were questioning at least two employees.

Prime Minister David Cameron told parliament in London that Britain would increase its help to Algeria's intelligence and security forces and might do more for France in Mali, though he ruled out sending many of its stretched armed forces to Africa.

Noting a shift in the source of threats to British interests from Afghanistan to Africa, he also noted Sellal's rundown of a multinational group of gunmen from across north and west Africa and said the region was becoming "a magnet for jihadists".

Alongside a "strong security response", however, he called for efforts to address long-standing grievances, such as poverty and political exclusion, which foster support for violence. Some militants in Algeria want autonomy for the south and complain of domination by an unchanging establishment in Algiers.

DEATH AND SURVIVAL

As Algerian forces combed the Tigantourine plant near the town of In Amenas for explosives and the missing, survivors and the bereaved told tales of terror, narrow escapes and of death.

"The terrorists lined up four hostages and assassinated them ... shot them in the head," a brother of Kenneth Whiteside told Sky News, in an account of the Briton's death given to the family by an Algerian colleague who witnessed it. "Kenny just smiled the whole way through. He'd accepted his fate."

Filipino survivor Joseph Balmaceda said gunmen used him for cover: "Whenever government troops tried to use a helicopter to shoot at the enemy, we were used as human shields."

Another Briton, Garry Barlow, called his wife from within the site before he was killed and said: "I'm sat here at my desk with Semtex strapped to my chest."

Several hostages died on Thursday when Algerian helicopters blasted jeeps in which the militants were trying to move them.

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.

In Ottawa, Canada's foreign affairs department said it was seeking information. Security experts noted that some Canadian citizens had been involved with international militants before.

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 a video distributed on the Internet, the one-eyed veteran of Afghan wars of the 1980s, of Algeria's civil war and of the lucrative trans-Sahara cigarette smuggling trade, said: "We in al Qaeda announce this blessed operation."

Dressed in combat fatigues, Belmokhtar demanded an end to French attacks on Islamist fighters in Mali.

The jihadists had planned the attack two months ago in neighboring Mali, Sellal added. They had traveled from there through Niger and Libya, hence evading Algeria's strong security services, until close to In Amenas. Their aim, he said, had been to take foreign hostages to Mali, and they made a first attempt to take captives from a bus near the site early on Wednesday.

Normally producing 10 percent of Algeria's natural gas, the facility was shut down during the incident. The government said it aimed to reopen it this week, although officials at Britain's BP and Norway's Statoil, which operate the plant with Algeria's state energy firm, said the plans were not clear.

MALI CONFLICT

An Algerian newspaper said the jihadists had arrived in cars painted in the colors of Algerian state energy firm Sonatrach but registered in Libya, a country awash with weaponry since Western powers backed a revolt to oust Gaddafi in 2011.

Using his oil wealth, the Libyan dictator exercised a degree of influence in the region and the consequences of his death are still unfolding.

In a sign of the complexities wrought by the Arab Spring revolts, Egypt, a former military dictatorship now led by one of the generals' Islamist foes, criticized France's intervention in Mali on Monday. President Mohamed Mursi called instead for more spending to address rebels' grievances and warned that the military moves would "inflame the conflict in this region".

The bloodshed also increased the strains in Algeria's long fraught relations with Western powers, where some complained about being left in the dark while the decision to storm the compound was being taken.

But this week, 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.

Chafik Mesbah, a former Algerian presidential security adviser, said: "The West did not criticize Algeria because it knows an assault was inevitable in the circumstances ... The victims were a minimum price to pay to solve the crisis."

(Writing by Alastair Macdonald; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

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Football: Sundram to be interim Lions coach for Jordan game

SINGAPORE: V Sundramoorthy has been named the caretaker coach for the Lions for their opening Asian Cup group qualifying match against Jordan in Amman next month, while the Football Association of Singapore (FAS) continues its search for Radojko Avramovic's successor.

In a media statement, FAS president Zainudin Nordin said that the LionsXII head coach was appointed because of his experience.

"Having worked with Raddy (Avramovic) and the national age-group squads in recent years, Sundram has the relevant experience and I am confident that the Lions will be in good hands.

"The FAS will support Sundram and his team to the best of our abilities as they strive to put up a strong performance against a strong Jordan side."

This will be the second time that Sundram will be handling the national team as caretaker coach. He had filled in for a World Cup qualifier two years ago when Avramovic was serving a touchline ban.

TODAY understands that the 47-year-old former international was initially hesitant when approached earlier because he felt that the two Asian Cup qualifiers - against Jordan on Feb 6, and against Oman on March 22 - would clash with his coaching duties with the LionsXII.

However, the FAS have been notified since that the Oman has been postponed to Aug 14. The Oman FA had made the request to the Asian Football Confederation as they will be facing Australia in a World Cup fourth-round qualifier on March 26.

Sundram described his appointment as "a great honour" in the media statement and added: "I am now discussing with the backroom team and staff the composition of the squad for the Jordan game and I hope to finalise the names before the end of the week."

Meanwhile, Zainudin said that the FAS have received "an overwhelming response from interested parties" for the national coach position since announcing its availability in December.

"We will draw up an initial list of about 15 candidates... before trimming it to a final shortlist of between five and seven candidates," he said.

"While we hope to finalise the appointment soon, we will not rush into making any decision. We are determined to appoint the right person for the job."

- TODAY

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Tasar spins new work for tribals

PATNA: From soil to silk, tribals engaged in tasar sericulture now tread the full spectrum towards building sustainable livelihoods in Bihar's Banka and Jamui districts, hotbeds of naxal activity. The Central Silk Board (CSB) has been working with marginalized communities in these regions to draw women and young people into silk production, helping them make a better life for themselves.

Non-profit Pradhan was the agency that rolled out the programme, Swaranajayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana (SGSY). CSB, set up in 1948, promotes tasar silk and works through micro-entrepreneurial models. Tasar silk is produced in Bihar, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, Andhra and Maharashtra, and supports 2.5 lakh families in rural and semi-urban areas.

CSB's idea was to increase tribals' income, improve their lives and thereby help check migration to urban areas. CSB mooted the use of private wastelands to raise the plants that host silkworms. The project covered all stages of making silk: pre-cocoon, seed and post-cocoon. Kisan nurseries were set up to raise the host plants. Then block plantations of host plants were raised on 987 ha of private wastelands.

Rearer groups within Tasar Vikas Samitis then formed district-level cooperatives. Women reeler-spinners were grouped into Masuta Producers Company, an all-women tasar-yarn producers' collective. In the process, 3,526 people formed 57 activity groups, 24 producer organizations, one cooperative with 2,000 stakeholders and a producer company. Today, CSB's project has supported 11,000 beneficiaries since it began in 2003-04.

CSB also pitched in with technology to boost production. Traditionally, women used earthen pots (matka yarn) and wooden charkha to spin cocoons, a tedious process. Motored reeling-cum-twisting and spinning machines were distributed. But there was a problem. The CSB's machine ran on a 75-watt motor and most of the villages in Bihar's Banka district are power-starved. So, a 'modified' charkha was used to spin the tasar yarn and solar-powered reeling machines were developed.

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Obama's 2nd Term: Whose Time Is 'Our Time'?

Jan 21, 2013 12:50pm

Jewel Samad/AFP/Getty Images

ANALYSIS By RICK KLEIN

President Obama used a brief pause in the partisan warfare that’s scarred his time in office to return to the ideals of the Declaration of Independence, with his own declaration of urgency and a call to action that reflects shared sacrifice and responsibility.

This was no centrist conciliator. It was the speech of a committed, unapologetic progressive, an Obama doctrine for domestic policy that included concrete commitments in areas he made little progress on over his first four years. Above all, he was speaking to a changing America – the nation that propelled him to a second term, and whose voices he will need to channel to be effective over the next four years.

“My fellow Americans, we are made for this moment, and we will seize it – so long as we seize it together,” the president declared.

That word “together” appeared seven times in the president’s speech. He used the phrase, “we, the people” five times. Notably, the president said “our time” five times. It was a clear signal that Obama is not satisfied with the frustrations that marked his first term, and that he is cognizant of his opportunity at this moment.

And he sees those opportunities mainly to his left. Obama made a firm commitment to pursue climate-change legislation, in addition to immigration reform and gun control. In an era of budget-cutting, he delivered a rousing endorsement of the social safety net, including Medicare and Social Security.

Obama cited the civil-rights movement and listed Stonewall – the 1960s demonstrations over a police raid of a New York City gay bar that galvanized the gay-rights movement – alongside Seneca Falls and Selma. He also promised equality for “our gay brothers and sisters,” apparently becoming the first president to use the word “gay” in an inaugural address.

Obama’s defining challenge as president has been to deliver on the hope and promise he rode into office on in 2008. He may never hope to fulfill the expectations that surrounded his elevation. But speaking to the largest crowd he’s likely to ever appear before again, the president sounded both more optimistic and more committed to progress on his priorities than anything in our current political system would suggest is warranted.

“Progress does not compel us to settle centuries-long debates about the role of government for all time, but it does require us to act in our time,” the president said.

For a president whose very inauguration speaks to the promise of America, but whose first term ended with so much frustration, it was a return to his roots. President Obama is cognizant of his role in history, though clearly not content with leaving it at that.

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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."

___

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

___

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

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Algeria toll rises as attack claimed for al Qaeda

ALGIERS, Algeria (Reuters) - The death toll has risen to at least 48 hostages killed during a four-day siege at a gas plant deep in the Sahara as a veteran Islamist fighter claimed responsibility on behalf of al Qaeda for the attack.

Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal is expected to give details at a Monday news conference about one of the worst international hostage crises in decades, which left American, British, French, Japanese, Norwegian and Romanian workers dead or missing.

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

One-eyed veteran Islamist fighter Mokhtar Belmokhtar claimed responsibility on Sunday for the attack on behalf of al Qaeda.

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

The fighters swooped out of the desert and seized the base on Wednesday, capturing a plant that produces 10 percent of Algeria's natural gas exports, as well as a nearby residential barracks.

They demanded an end to French air strikes against Islamist fighters in neighboring Mali that had begun five days earlier. However, 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.

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 whom 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 Algerian military 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," said French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius. "They had to deal with terrorists."

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."

Algeria had given a preliminary death toll of 55 people killed - 23 hostages and 32 militants - on Saturday and said it would rise as more bodies were found.

The security source said that toll did not include the bodies of 25 hostages found on Sunday, which meant the total number of captives killed - foreign and local - was at least 48. The search was not over, and more could yet be found, he said.

Among foreigners confirmed dead by their home countries were three Britons, one American and two Romanians. The missing include at least 10 Japanese, five Norwegians, three other Britons, and a British resident. The security source said at least one Frenchman was also among the dead.

LAST WORDS?

Alan Wright, now safe at home in Scotland, said he had escaped with a group of Algerian and foreign workers after hiding for a day and a night. While hiding inside the compound, he managed to call his wife at home with their two daughters.

"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 to Sky News.

Despite the incident, 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 APS reported. The plant would start back up in two days, he said.

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, 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 Balazs Koranyi in Oslo, Estelle Shirbon and David Alexander in London, Brian Love in Paris and Daniel Flynn in Dakar; Writing by Peter Graff; Editing by Sophie Hares and Myra MacDonald)

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Chavez getting stronger, entering "new phase": VP

CARACAS: Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is "gaining strength" and entering a "new phase" of cancer treatment in Cuba, his anointed political heir said Sunday, as doubts about his health mount in Caracas.

Vice President Nicolas Maduro said in a statement that the absent leader's "vital signs and organ function are stabilizing, he is conscious and gaining strength for the next stage."

But Maduro's remarks did not go far to address speculation among Venezuela's political foes that Chavez -- who has not spoken publicly since December 10 though he usually is ubiquitous in state media -- is unable to speak or dead.

Chavez designated Maduro as his deputy before flying to Cuba for a fourth round of cancer surgery on December 11. Opposition members have demanded Chavez speak to the Venezuelan people in state media if he is able, but he has not.

The last thing anyone who knows Chavez would believe him capable of is a long silence, his opponents contend.

The Venezuelan government has been releasing only minimal information on the condition of Chavez, a 58-year-old former paratrooper who first came to power in the oil-rich country in 1999 and won another six-year term last October.

Maduro said that Chavez is "finishing the post-operative period and will enter a new phase of treatment," following his surgery, but like his previous statements it lacked any specific prognosis from doctors.

The charismatic and bombastic figurehead of the region's anti-American left could not attend his scheduled inauguration on January 10 because of his poor health, and his swearing-in ceremony has been postponed indefinitely.

The Venezuelan government has only admitted Chavez suffered complications, including a severe pulmonary infection that led to "respiratory insufficiency."

Aides and family members have had to tamp down speculation that Chavez might not make a full recovery. Almost six weeks after he left Venezuela, he is yet to be seen in public and remains, presumably, in a Havana hospital.

Speaking to private Venezuelan television network Televen, Maduro said he had spoken with Chavez on several occasions, including a hospital visit on January 14 when the president "was very interested in oil prices."

Venezuela has the largest proven oil reserves in the world, which have allowed Chavez to project power across the region.

"We're always optimistic in the sense that sooner rather than later we will have the president here with us," Maduro said, adding that El Comandante was in good spirits and focused on his treatment.

Tensions are running high in Venezuela amid uncertainty over the future of Chavez, but for now the decision by the Supreme Court to allow the indefinite postponement of the inauguration is being respected.

Venezuela's opposition on Friday canceled a march planned for January 23. They said they feared Chavez's ruling party would "incite violence" with its own parallel mass demonstration.

Last week, the opposition seized on just a few words -- Chavez's stamped signature on a decree -- to demand he clarify how sick he is and what he can and cannot do.

The official government gazette published a decree dated Caracas and carrying the stamped signature of Chavez in which Elias Jaua was named as Venezuela's new foreign minister.

Henrique Capriles, a state governor whom Chavez beat in Venezuela's October presidential election, said it was puzzling that the decree carried the absent leader's name.

"If the president of the republic can sign decrees, I call on him to appear, and to speak to Venezuela and tell us what is happening in this government," Capriles said.

Officials have never disclosed the type or severity of Chavez's cancer, saying only that he has had a tumor removed from his pelvic region.

Before leaving Caracas, he urged his armed forces to be on the lookout for any attempt, "from outside or from within," to destabilize the OPEC member.

-AFP/ac

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Congress to widen the use of social media

JAIPUR: Civil flash protests on the streets and the internet over social issues in the recent times has made the Congress talk in its "Jaipur declaration" about the special emphasis the party would now on lay on the use of information technology.

At the AICC session held here on Sunday, the Congress senior leaders clandestinely admitted the party has lost link with the urban middle class. The Jaipur declaration had a separate mention about how the party required to adapt to changing conditions by harnessing the latest IT to "communicate effectively" with the people.

"The party will deepen and widen the use of IT in the organisation by setting up IT cells right up to the block level," the declaration reads, while emphasising that social media could give the party useful feedback on how the people perceive the government and what they expect from it. The party would also engage the regional and the local media in its efforts.

At discussions during the two-day Chintan Shivir that ended on Saturday, partymen pointed out how the BJP was using social sites like Facebook and Twitter to hit out at the Congress every day. Others brought to Rahul Gandhi's notice how people flooded the internet with comments on Congress president Sonia Gandhi's speech within minutes on the Shivir's inaugural day. Among the organisational issues concerning the party, the leaders recognised the need for increasing its presence on social media to bridge its gap with the country's youth.

"We will launch, at different levels, a mass contact programme to share our achievements and gather feedback on the people's aspirations and priorities," says the party's Jaipur declaration released on Sunday.

The Chintan Shivir saw demands for separate media cell to be set up at the AICC headquarters to fight its rivals' propaganda. A committee under senior leaders Digvijay Singh has been busy putting up a counter to BJP's "Sanchar Kendra" (communication centres) that have come up in Gujarat. Technocrat Sam Pitroda is also being involved in the party effort to use IT as an effective tool to take the youth and the urban residents into the Congress fold.

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Sasha's View: 'Good Job, Daddy. You Didn't Mess Up'

President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden today officially embarked on their second term, taking the Constitutionally mandated oath of office in two separate private ceremonies inside their homes.

Shortly before noon in the Blue Room of the White House, Obama raised his right hand, with his left on a family Bible, reciting the oath administrated by Chief Justice John Roberts. He was surrounded by immediate family members, including first lady Michelle Obama and daughters, Malia and Sasha.

As he hugged his wife and daughters, Sasha said, "Good job, Daddy."

"I did it," he said.

"You didn't mess up," she answered.

Biden was sworn in earlier today by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the first Hispanic to administer a presidential oath, in a ceremony at his official residence at the U.S. Naval Observatory. He was joined by more than 120 guests, including cabinet members, extended family and his wife, Dr. Jill Biden.

Because Jan. 20 -- the official date for a new presidential term -- falls on a Sunday this year, organizers delayed by one day the traditional public inauguration ceremony and parade down Pennsylvania Avenue.

Vice President Joe Biden Sworn in for 2nd Term Watch Video

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Obama and Biden will each repeat the oath on Monday on the west front of the Capitol, surrounded by hundreds of dignitaries and members of Congress. An estimated 800,000 people are expected to gather on the National Mall to witness the moment and inaugural parade to follow.

The dual ceremonies in 2013 means Obama will become the second president in U.S. history to take the presidential oath four times. He was sworn in twice in 2008 out of an abundance of caution after Roberts flubbed the oath of office during the public administration. This year Roberts read from a script.

Franklin Roosevelt was also sworn in four times but, unlike Obama, he was elected four times.

This year will mark the seventh time a president has taken the oath on a Sunday and then again on Monday for ceremonial purposes. Reagan last took the oath on a Sunday in 1985.

Both Obama and Biden took the oath using a special family Bible. Obama used a text that belonged to Michelle Obama's grandmother LaVaughn Delores Robinson. Biden placed his hand on a 120-year-old book with a Celtic cross on the cover that has been passed down through Biden clan.

The official inaugural activities today also included moments of prayer and remembrance that marked the solemnity of the day.

Obama and Biden met at Arlington National Cemetery for a brief morning ceremony to place a wreath on the Tomb of the Unknowns, honoring military service members who served and sacrificed. The men stood shoulder to shoulder, bowing their heads as a bugler played "Taps."

Biden, who is Catholic, began the day with a private family mass at his residence. The president and first family attended church services at Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church, a historically black church and site of two pre-inaugural prayer services for former President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore and their families.

The Obamas and Bidens plan to participate in a church service on Monday morning at St. John's Episcopal, across Lafayette Park from the White House. They will also attend a National Prayer Service on Tuesday at the National Cathedral.

Later on Sunday evening, the newly-inaugurated leaders will attend a candlelight reception at the National Building Museum. The president and vice president are expected to deliver brief remarks to their supporters.

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