227,000 new jobs but rate stays at 8.3
WASHINGTON, March 9 (UPI) -- The U.S. economy added 227,000 jobs in February, but the unemployment rate held stubbornly at 8.3 percent, the Labor Department said Friday.
It is still the lowest jobless rate since February of 2009.
Economists, however, are concerned that the improving unemployment rate of the past six months has been heavily influenced by the number of people aging out of the workforce or giving up their hunt for a job out of sheer frustration.
There are 12.8 million people listed as unemployed.
Statistics show the percentage of adults employed is 58.5 percent and that number has not moved despite the falling unemployment rate, University of Maryland economics Professor Peter Morici said.
That means the unemployment rate has dropped for the past two years mostly because of people falling out of the statistics pool, not because of people finding jobs, Morici said.
Friday's report shows the number of people listed as long-term unemployed, defined as those unemployed for 27 weeks or more, was also "little changed" in February, holding steady at 5.4 million.
Netanyahu: Iran attack possible in months
JERUSALEM, March 9 (UPI) -- Israel could attack Iranian nuclear facilities within months, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said, adding he hopes "there won't be a war."
"We're not standing with a stopwatch in hand," he said in an Israeli TV interview, one of three he gave after returning from the United States and a White House meeting in which President Barack Obama urged him to give diplomacy and economic sanctions a chance to work before resorting to military action.
"It's not a matter of days or weeks, but also not of years," Netanyahu said.
U.S., Israeli and European officials, supported by U.N. weapons inspectors, maintain Iran plans to build nuclear weapons. Tehran insists its nuclear program is for peaceful civilian uses only.
Israel has repeatedly said it would not let Iran reach nuclear-weapons capacity and has declared it has an option to launch a military strike against Iran's nuclear facilities as a last resort.
White House spokesman Jay Carney said in Washington Thursday, "The Israelis, as I understand it, made clear [to the Obama administration] that they have not made a decision about taking that kind of action."
"I hope there won't be a war at all, and that the pressure on Iran will succeed," Netanyahu said, affirming to a TV station he would prefer for Iran to halt its nuclear program and dismantle a uranium-enrichment facility located in an underground site near Qom, about 90 miles southwest of Tehran.
2 Syrian army generals and colonel flee
CAIRO, March 9 (UPI) -- Two Syrian army generals and a colonel said they fled across the border into Turkey because they disagree with what's happening in their country.
The officers were among 236 people who entered Turkey to escape fighting between the government and anti-government protesters in Syria, Trend.az reported Friday.
Statistics compiled by the United Nations indicate more than 7,500 Syrians have died in the year-long conflict.
Kofi Annan, U.N.-Arab League envoy to Syria, has cautioned that military intervention in he country would be a mistake.
"We have to be careful that we don't introduce a medicine that is worse than the disease," Annan told reporters Thursday at the Arab League's headquarters in Cairo. He planned to be in Syria's capital of Damascus Saturday.
Annan said he intended to press the Assad regime "for the cessation of hostilities and an end to the killing and violence -- but of course the ultimate solution lies in a political settlement."
The United Nations and Arab League have appealed to Syrian President Bashar Assad to step aside in an orchestrated power transfer.
Putin opposition to continue protests
MOSCOW, March 9 (UPI) -- Russian activists say they will keep protesting the country's presidential election until the inauguration of Vladimir Putin in May.
Leftist leader Sergei Udaltsov said activists have permission to to rally Saturday on Novy Arbat Street in downtown Moscow to protest the results of the Sunday election, in which Putin, who has been prime minister, was elected president.
Critics allege the results were marred by vote-rigging.
"We want new fair elections to be carried out in Russia so that people could choose power for the country without censorship, violations and frauds," Udaltsov told RIA Novosti.
He said the opposition may go on strike or set up tents to increase visibility.
Putin served as Russia's president between 2000 and 2008 but was unable to run for a third consecutive term due to constitutional restrictions. He than ran again after a four-year interval.
Multiple personalities alleged in slaying
MILWAUKEE, March 9 (UPI) -- A Wisconsin woman accused of cutting a fetus from the womb of a pregnant 23-year-old suffers from multiple personality disorder, defense attorneys said.
Attorneys for Annette Morales-Rodriguez, 34, have asked a judge to accept a 57-page draft report on a new mental exam given to Morales-Rodriguez that said the defendant suffered sexual abuse and abandonment as a child, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reported Friday.
In order to block out the abuse, Morales-Rodriguez developed a second personality, the report by Anne Speckhard, an adjunct professor Georgetown University Medical School, said.
Morales-Rodriguez is on trial in Milwaukee County Circuit Court on two counts of first-degree intentional homicide for the deaths in October of Maritza Ramirez-Cruz and her unborn son. She has claimed insanity, the newspaper said.
