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©AFP / Saul Loeb

US President Barack Obama signs the HIRE Act, a 17.6 billion dollar jobs bill that encourages businesses to hire workers

WASHINGTON (AFP) - President Barack Obama offered hope Thursday that a growing US economy may soon bring more jobs, as indicators pointed to a still-fragile recovery from the "great recession."

Signing into law a 17.6-billion-dollar measure designed to boost hiring, Obama said the economy was "beginning to move in the right direction," but admitted ordinary Americans were still bearing too great a burden from the economic crisis.

"Our economy is growing again and we may soon be adding jobs instead of losing them, the jobs bill I’m signing today is intended to help accelerate this process," Obama said in a signing ceremony in the White House Rose Garden.

Addressing employers who have been slow to create jobs amid continued economic uncertainty, Obama said: "If you hire a worker who’s unemployed, you won't have to pay payroll taxes on that worker for the rest of the year."

The legislation also includes infrastructure investments for items like highway construction and help for states to build schools.

As US unemployment levels hover near double digits, the White House has struggled to claw back some of the estimated eight million jobs that have been lost since the economy entered recession in December 2007.

On Thursday the Labor Department reported new claims for unemployment insurance benefits dipped only marginally last week, with 457,000 Americans beginning to ask the government for help, down 5,000 from the previous week.

According to Ryan Sweet, a senior economist with Moody's Economy.com, employment trend is in the right direction, but the slow speed of change is "dashing any expectation that jobs will roar back."

For the Obama administration, speeding that recovery has become all the more urgent as the country faces midterm elections in November that will decide whether the president's Democratic Party keeps control of Congress.

©AFP/Getty Images/File / David Mcnew

Job seekers talk to a recruiter at a career fair

But with the unemployment rate not expected to ease quickly, Obama and his treasury secretary, Timothy Geithner, have begun to focus on more modest indications of recovery -- pointing to increased hours put in by workers and firms shifting employees to a full-time schedule.

Geithner earlier this week said more than 100,000 new jobs would need to be created each month in order to dent the unemployment rate.

"It's about explaining to people that you are not going to take unemployment from 10.1 percent back to the good old days of five percent quickly," said Ted Gayer, co-director of economic studies at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank.

The midterm elections are also making it more difficult for Obama to pass more sweeping measures to spur employment.

Thursday's jobs bill that emerged from the poisoned political atmosphere in Congress is much smaller than some advocates had hoped, and Obama is pushing for more packages to spur job creation in the private sector.

"I hope it is a prelude to further cooperation in the days and months to come, as we continue the work of digging out of this recession and rebuilding our economy in a way that works for all Americans," Obama said.

©AFP/File / Mohammed Abed

A Palestinian Hamas militant carrying a fake rocket

JERUSALEM (AFP) - A flurry of Middle East diplomacy was marred on Thursday as a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip killed a civilian in Israel as the EU foreign policy chief was visiting the Palestinian enclave.

A Thai agricultural worker was killed when the rocket slammed into a kibbutz just a few kilometres (couple of miles) from the Gaza border.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon condemned the attack. "All such acts of terror and violence against civilians are totally unacceptable and contrary to international law," his office said.

The attack, claimed by the Al-Qaeda-inspired Ansar al-Sunna Brigade, came just as EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton was visiting the impoverished coastal strip which is still struggling with the aftermath of the 22-day offensive Israel launched in December 2008 in a bid to halt rocket fire.

©AFP / Menahem Kahana

Catherine Ashton has refused to meet any officials from Hamas

"I'm extremely shocked by the rocket attack ... and the tragic loss of life," Ashton told journalists. "We need to move forward to get the peace process to move toward a successful resolution."

Qaeda-inspired group claims deadly rocket attack

Ashton was to fly later on Thursday to Moscow for a meeting of the Middle East diplomatic Quartet also attended by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and the UN chief.

Ban himself also plans to visit the Middle East, including Gaza, over the weekend amid mounting tension in the region as well as between Israel and the United States.

US Middle East envoy George Mitchell, who brokered a now troubled deal for indirect talks between Israel and the Palestinians on a previous visit, is due back in the region on Sunday, a senior Palestinian official said.

US-Israel ties 'unassailably solid': ambassador

The trip, initially scheduled for last Tuesday, was postponed amid a major row between Washington and the Jewish state over Israel's announcement of 1,600 new homes for settlers in annexed mainly Arab east Jerusalem.

©AFP / Saul Loeb

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Washington was all the more angered as the announcement was made while Vice President Joe Biden was in Jerusalem promoting the talks, but President Barack Obama has insisted there is no crisis.

UN chief slams rocket attack on Israel

"We and the Israeli people have a special bond that's not going to go away," he said in an interview with Fox News on Wednesday night.

He called on both Israelis and Palestinians to "take steps to make sure that we can rebuild trust."

Hawkish Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's security cabinet held a late night session on Wednesday to discuss its answer to the US administration's criticism amid concern that delaying the keenly awaited response would further exacerbate the rift between the two allies.

Peace with Israeli government 'impossible': Assad

But the prospects for a swift resumption of peace negotiations, halted when Israel launched its devastating Gaza offensive in December 2008, appeared dim.

The thorny issue of settlement construction, which has long been a major hurdle in peace efforts, was certain to come up at the Quartet meeting on Friday.

©AFP / Gali Tibbon

Lieberman said demands for a halt to building settler homes "unreasonable"

The diplomatic activity comes at a time of heightened religious and political tension that saw several days of clashes between Palestinians and police in east Jerusalem.

An already charged atmosphere intensified over the opening this week of a rebuilt 17th century synagogue in the Jewish quarter of the Old City, a few hundred metres (yards) from the Al-Aqsa mosque compound.

The Ansar al-Sunna Brigade said Thursday's rocket attack was "an answer to Zionist aggression against the Al-Aqsa mosque and holy sites and our people in Jerusalem."

On Wednesday, Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman sharply criticised international demands for a freeze of Jewish settlement construction in east Jerusalem, which Israel seized and annexed in 1967 in a move never recognised by the international community.

But Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas insisted Israel must abide by its "obligations" and "freeze settlement activity in all Palestinian territories, including Jerusalem."