Thank you for your reply.
Here is the result of the suggested command:
sudo apt-get -s dist-upgrade
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Calculating upgrade... Done
The following packages will be upgraded:
iceweasel libjasper1
2 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Inst libjasper1 [1.900.1-13] (1.900.1-13+deb7u1 Debian-Security:7.0/stable [amd64])
Inst iceweasel [31.2.0esr-3~deb7u1] (31.3.0esr-1~deb7u1 Debian-Security:7.0/stable [amd64])
Conf libjasper1 (1.900.1-13+deb7u1 Debian-Security:7.0/stable [amd64])
Conf iceweasel (31.3.0esr-1~deb7u1 Debian-Security:7.0/stable [amd64])
Unlike the post you referred there was no "kept back" package, but two updates.
So I isssued "sudo apt-get upgrade" and it upgraded iceweasel and libjasper1.
The UM applet stills showed that "Updates are available". So I add my dinner and when I returned about an hour later the applet now indicates "Your system is up to date"! However, when I run the UM again, it still shows the previous page with the pre upgrade info despite the fact that the UM show as check mark.