Wen Opens China Parliament

China’s Premier Wen Jiabao promised stable growth, anti-corruption efforts and better welfare provision as he opened an annual session of parliament.
Wen, whose work report traditionally begins the session, also called for more balanced development in a lengthy speech on both achievements and plans.
This National People’s Congress will see the final stage of the country’s once-in-a-decade leadership change.
Communist Party chief Xi Jinping will become president, replacing Hu Jintao.
The event will be keenly watched to see who secures other top government posts.
This work report - a 29-page consensus document approved by the leadership - is Wen’s last. He is expected to be replaced by Li Keqiang as premier later in the parliament session.
The report set a target of 7.5% for economic growth, unchanged from 2012, with an inflation target of 3.5%, and promised to create more than nine million new urban jobs. Wen said boosting domestic consumption was key, calling it a “long-term strategy for economic development”.
Noting that dramatic changes to Chinese society had led to a marked increase in social problems, Wen said livelihood issues should be addressed.
State media also reported that defense spending would rise by 10.7% to 720.2 billion yuan ($115.7bn, £76.5bn), a slight drop from the rise of 11.2% in 2012.

China, US Agree on N. Korea Sanctions

The United States and China have reached agreement on a new draft sanctions resolution to punish North Korea for its latest nuclear test, UN diplomats said late Monday.
The UN Security Council announced late Monday evening that it will hold closed consultations on North Korea and non-proliferation at 11 a.m. (1600 GMT) Tuesday. The diplomats, speaking on condition of anonymity because no official announcement has been made, said the United States is expected to circulate a draft resolution to the full council at the meeting. Council members are then expected to send the draft to their capitals for review, AP reported.
All 15 council members approved a press statement condemning Pyongyang’s nuclear test and pledging further action hours after North Korea carried out its third atomic blast on Feb. 12.
The swift and unanimous response from the UN’s most powerful body set the stage for a fourth round of sanctions against Pyongyang.
For the last three weeks, the United States, a close ally of South Korea and Japan, has been negotiating the text of a new resolution with China, the closest ally of North Korea. Russian UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin, whose country holds the council presidency this month, told a news conference Monday that a resolution on North Korea might be approved in March though the text had not yet been circulated.
Last month’s statement from the Security Council called the underground test in February a “grave violation” of three UN resolutions that ban North Korea from conducting nuclear or missile tests.

239 Flights CancelledDue to Spain’s Iberia Strike

A strike by workers at loss-making Spanish airline Iberia against mass job cuts forced the cancellation of 239 flights on Tuesday, the company said.
Iberia cancelled 76 flights on Tuesday, or 40 percent of the total number of flights that it had been scheduled to operate, because of the action, an Iberia spokesman said.
Three other carriers with whom Iberia shares services--Iberia Express, Air Nostrum and Vueling--cancelled another 163 flights because of the strike, AFP reported.
A minimum service operates during the strike under Spanish law.
All affected passengers were put on other flights or got a refund, the Iberia spokesman said.
The strike started on Monday, the second of three five-day stoppages scheduled by Iberia ground and flight staff.
The company and the three other carriers have cancelled a total of around 1,370 flights overall from March 4-8, mainly to destinations in Spain and Europe.
The airline’s staff carried out the first of three five-day strikes February 18-22 and plan another from March 18 to 22.
The first strike cost Iberia 3.0 million euros ($3.9 million) a day, the Iberia spokesman said. It was too soon to tell what the cost to the company will be from the second five-day strike, he added.

Argentina Dismisses Referendum On Malvinas Islands

A referendum on the fate of the Malvinas Islands is a publicity stunt with no legal status, Argentina’s ambassador to Britain said on Monday, warning that oil exploitation around the territory was impossible without better regional ties.
The inhabitants of the islands, 300 miles (480 km) off the Argentine coast, are due to take part in a referendum on March 10-11 to find if they want to remain British.
The vote comes as relations between Argentina and Britain worsen over the territory, where the two nations fought a 10-week war in 1982, Reuters reported.
“This referendum has no legal grounds. It’s not approved, nor will it be recognized by the United Nations or the international community,” Argentine envoy Alicia Castro told reporters at a briefing in London.
“So this referendum is little more than a public relations exercise,” she said.
Britain says the islanders have a right to self-determination, and insists they be present at any talks with Argentina over the future of the islands, but Buenos Aires says the matter should only be discussed by two sovereign states.
“The Argentine government has already dismissed the referendum before it has even taken place, a position that runs counter to the universal principles of democracy and self-determination,” a British Foreign Office spokesman said.
Argentina sees the Falklands’ roughly 3,000 inhabitants as foreign implants and has compared them to Israeli settlers on land Palestinians want for a future state.
The referendum is widely expected to confirm the islanders’ wish for the remote territory to remain under British control.
“We hope that the outcome of this referendum will demonstrate beyond doubt the views of the people of the Falklands and whether or not they wish to remain a British Overseas Territory,” the Foreign Office spokesman added. Argentina has ramped up its claims to the islands, where oil exploration firms are expected to produce their first oil in 2017, and last month Argentina’s foreign minister visited London but did not meet his British counterpart.
Castro said Latin American countries backed Argentina, and warned that oil exploration around the Malvinas Islands would be unfeasible without proper links to the South American continent.
Regional trading bloc Mercosur, which includes Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay, has banned Falklands-flagged ships from docking at their ports.
“Oil exploration is feasible, but oil exploitation is unfeasible ... Imagine if a spill happens there in some remote islands 8,000 miles from here ... with no proper link to the continent, without doctors, logistics, engineers,” Castro said.
Argentine hostility has not deterred oil companies. Rockhopper Exploration has formed a $1 billion partnership with Premier Oil to pump oil from its find north of the islands.

Malaysia Attacks Filipinos to End Borneo Siege

Malaysia launched airstrikes and mortar attacks against nearly 200 Filipinos occupying a Borneo coastal village Tuesday to end a bizarre three-week siege that turned into a security nightmare for both Malaysia and the Philippines.
The assault follows firefights this past week that killed eight Malaysian police officers and 19 Filipino gunmen, some of whom were members of a Muslim clan that shocked Malaysia and the neighboring Philippines by slipping by boat past naval patrols last month and storming an obscure village on Borneo’s eastern Sabah state, AP reported.
The crisis has sparked jitters about a spread of instability in Sabah, which is rich in timber and oil resources. Unknown numbers of other armed Filipinos are feared to have encroached on other districts in the area recently.
More than seven hours after fighter jets were deployed, Malaysian Home Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said no injuries occurred among Malaysian police and military personnel who went in to raid houses near palm oil plantations there.
“On the enemy’s side, we have to wait because the operation is ongoing. We have to be careful,” the minister said, refusing to elaborate on whether there were Filipino casualties or captives.
National police chief Ismail Omar said ground forces encountered resistance from gunmen firing at them. Police were slowly combing an area of about 4 square kilometers (1.5 square miles) to look for the Filipinos, he said.
The clansmen, armed with rifles and grenade launchers, had refused to leave the area, staking a long-dormant claim to Malaysia’s entire state of Sabah, which they insisted was their ancestral birthright. Prime Minister Najib Razak defended the offensive, saying Malaysia made every effort to resolve the siege peacefully since the presence of the group in Lahad Datu district became known on Feb. 12, including by holding talks to encourage the intruders to leave without facing any serious legal repercussions.
“For our sovereignty and stability, we will not allow even an inch of Malaysian territory to be threaten or taken by anyone,” Najib said.
The Filipinos who landed in Lahad Datu, a short boat ride from the southern Philippines, insisted Sabah belonged to their royal sultanate for more than a century. The group is led by a brother of Sultan Jamalul Kiram III of the southern Philippine province of Sulu.
Malaysian officials said they were taking no chances with public safety, sealing off areas within about 30 kilometers (20 miles) of the village and refusing to allow journalists past the road blocks.
The Philippine government had urged Malaysia to exercise maximum tolerance to avoid further bloodshed.
In Manila, presidential spokesman Ricky Carandang said Tuesday that Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario was in Kuala Lumpur meeting with his Malaysian counterpart.

Chavez Suffering From Severe Infection

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is suffering from a severe infection and his breathing has worsened during chemotherapy, putting him in a “very delicate” state, the government said late Monday.
The once omnipresent face of the Latin American left, now breathing with the aid of a tracheal tube, has neither emerged nor spoken in public in almost three months, leaving the oil-rich nation and the wider region on tenterhooks.
“Currently, he has a new and severe infection,” Information Minister Ernesto Villegas said in a statement read from the hospital, adding that there was a “worsening of respiratory function.”
The government statement came two weeks after Chavez, 58, checked into a Caracas military hospital following two months of treatment in Cuba, where he underwent his fourth round of cancer surgery since June 2011.
Saying Chavez continues to “cling to Christ and life,” Villegas reiterated that he was undergoing “intensive chemotherapy, as well as complementary treatments” and that his “condition continues to be very delicate.”
Chavez’s prolonged absence--which prevented him from being sworn into a third six-year term earlier this year--has angered the opposition, which accuses the government of lying about his condition.
Hundreds of people joined an opposition-led march Sunday demanding that the government reveal more details about the condition of the president of this South American nation, which sits atop the world’s largest proven oil reserves.
Officials have only released a set of photos showing him in his Havana hospital bed, smiling with two daughters, on February 15, three days before his homecoming. The scarcity of images has fueled rumors about his health.
Vice President Nicolas Maduro and other senior officials have lashed out at the opposition and rumors that Chavez may be dead or dying, saying it is all part of a campaign to destabilize the nation.
Villegas called on Venezuelans to be on guard in the face of a “psychological war deployed by foreign laboratories with spokespeople in the corrupt Venezuelan right who seek to generate violent scenarios as a pretext for a foreign intervention.”
The government, he added, “rejects the hypocritical attitude of Hugo Chavez’s historical enemies, who have always shown him hate, insults and contempt, and who are now using his health situation as an excuse to destabilize Venezuela.”

French Protest Over Labor Law Reforms

From Page1
Hard-left lawmakers also oppose the reform.
“This is a dangerous deal,” FO leader Jean-Claude Mailly told France Inter radio in a rare joint interview with CGT leader Bernard Thibault. “When we agree on something, we fight together.”
A CGT spokeswoman said the union opposed all the points in the labor accord that threatened job security.
The changes will also seek more flexibility from workers asked to relocate to match fluctuations in demand.
French media reported minimal delays to some flights out of Paris and no cancellations. There was minor disruption of some underground metro services in the capital. Action at power plants had no impact on electricity supply.
The bill, which Hollande wants to be enacted in May, will be presented at a cabinet meeting on Wednesday.

Mali War

Around 15 militants were killed by French and Chadian troops in fighting overnight in northern Mali’s Ametetai valley, French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said on Tuesday.