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A global campaign aimed at reducing the marketing of unhealthy food to children has been launched.



More than 50 consumer groups are backing a voluntary code of practice which includes tight restrictions on television and internet advertising.

It also calls for a ban on unhealthy food promotion in schools and an end to the use of celebrities and cartoon characters.

UK food manufacturers said removing adverts was no "silver bullet".

World Health Organization figures suggest that up to 177m children worldwide are threatened by obesity-related diseases, and it is predicted that 2.3 billion people over 15 years old will be overweight by 2015.

The new measures have the backing of the London-based International Obesity Task Force, which says that the several billion pounds spent each year advertising food or soft drinks is partly to blame.

Its chairman, Professor Philip James, said: "It is vital that, as well as governments, food industry leaders support the new standards we propose.

"We challenge the giants of the food and beverage industry to throw their weight behind this and demonstrate they really do want to be part of the solution, not part of the problem."

The code concentrates on foods high in fat, sugar and salt, and, in addition to a ban on advertising between 6am and 9pm, asks for a complete halt to internet and new media advertising, and no use of celebrities or cartoon characters, competitions or free gifts.

Sue Davies, the chief policy officer of Which?, one of the 50 groups, said: "With rising rates of obesity and diet-related disease escalating globally, food companies need to take a more responsible approach to the way they market their foods to children, whichever part of the world they are trading in."

UK rules

In some parts of the world, including the European Union, there are some restrictions on marketing.

The UK television regulator Ofcom introduced a ban on marketing unhealthy foods in adverts during shows aimed at children. This came into force in January.

A spokesman for the Food and Drink Federation, which represents the UK industry, said: "As far as marketing in the UK is concerned, we are now one of the most heavily-regulated markets in Europe.

"As a result the marketing landscape has dramatically changed recently - for example in addition to the new regulations, many of our leading member companies are developing new codes of practice or strengthening their existing ones.

"These codes of practice apply to products popular with children, and the codes are implemented globally.

"Restricting advertising of food and drinks to children is not the silver bullet to solve the complex issue of obesity."

BBC News

[OMEN]

Chinese officials have declared a "people's war" of security and propaganda against support for the Dalai Lama in Tibet after riots racked the regional capital Lhasa, and some sources claimed the turmoil killed dozens.
Residents of the remote city high in the Himalayas said on Sunday that anti-riot troops controlled the streets and were closely checking Tibetan homes after protests and looting shook the heavily Buddhist region.

Two days ago Tibetan protesters, some in Buddhist monks' robes and some yelling pro-independence slogans, trashed shops, attacked banks and government offices and wielded stones and knives against police.

China has said at least 10 "innocent civilians" died, mostly in fires lit by rioters.

But an outside Tibetan source with close ties in Lhasa said that number was far too low. He cited a contact who claimed to have counted many more corpses of people killed in the riots or subsequent crackdown.

"He said there were 67 bodies in one morgue alone," the source told Reuters. "He saw it with his own eyes."

The self-proclaimed Tibetan government-in-exile in northern India has said some 30 people were killed in clashes with Chinese authorities. Beijing bans foreign reporters from freely reporting in Tibet, so the conflicting claims cannot be easily checked.

The convulsion of Tibetan anger at the Chinese presence in the region came after days of peaceful protests by monks and was a sharp blow to Beijing's preparations for the Olympic Games in August, when China wants to showcase prosperity and unity.

The monks took to the streets on Monday to mark the 49th anniversary of an earlier uprising.

The protest later spread to Chinese areas inhabited by Tibetans. Xiahe in Gansu province saw hundreds of monks and lay residents march in peaceful defiance, to judge from pictures sent to reporters.

Chinese authorities have now signalled a sweeping campaign to redouble security in the region and attack public support for the Dalai Lama, who fled into exile in 1959 after that year's failed uprising.

"This grave incident of fighting, wrecking, looting and burning was meticulously planned by reactionary separatist forces here and abroad, and its goal was Tibetan independence," a Saturday meeting of senior regional and security officials announced, according to the official Tibet Daily on Sunday.

"Fight a people's war to oppose separatism and protect stability ... expose and condemn the malicious actions of these forces and expose the hideous face of the Dalai clique to broad daylight."

The meeting was attended by Tibet's hardline Communist Party boss, Zhang Qingli, and senior central government security officials, and it strengthens signs that China has no patience with international calls for a lenient response to the riots.

Authorities have already set an ultimatum to rioters, urging them to hand themselves in to police by Monday midnight and gain possible clemency, or face harsh punishment.

The government has mobilised officially favoured Buddhist monks to denounce the protests and the Dalai Lama, the Tibet Daily reported.

"The Party's policies on religious freedom have been very well observed," one said, according to the paper.

"But monks in a few monasteries don't study the scriptures well ... and co-ordinate from afar with the Dalai clique."

International pressure has mounted on China to show restraint. Australia, the United States and Europe have urged China to find a peaceful outcome, and Japan has expressed concern.

Lhasa residents contacted by telephone, including some who spoke relatively freely a day or two ago, were frightened and reluctant to say much even anonymously.

"There are police checking our homes and handing out warnings," said a shopkeeper who lives near the old Tibetan part of Lhasa that saw torrid rioting. "Now is not the time to talk."

The Dalai Lama earlier released a statement urging China not to use "brute force" against protests, and his representatives have said the charge that they organised the violent protests was ridiculous.

The Dalai Lama, who won the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize, has said he only wants greater autonomy for Tibet. To the great majority of Buddhist Tibetans, he remains a powerful and venerated figure.

Reuters

[OMEN]

Bombs have killed two men and wounded 18 other people in two separate attacks in Thailand's troubled Muslim deep south, police said.

A 20-kg remote-controlled bomb, hidden in a car near the entrance of a hotel in the city of Pattani, killed one man and wounded 13 others on Saturday, police said.

Three were injured seriously in the blast which destroyed more than a dozen cars and damaged the front of the CS Pattani hotel where officials visiting from Bangkok often stay.

Pattani is one of three far south provinces where more than 2500 people have been killed in mostly gun and bomb attacks since a separatist insurgency erupted in January 2004.

Hours after the hotel bombing, suspected militants used a mobile phone to detonate a 5kg bomb at a Pattani school, killing one firefighter and wounding five others. The firefighters were trying to put out a fire at the school when the bomb went off.

As security forces rushed the wounded to hospital, they were ambushed by insurgents. One soldier was wounded seriously, police said.

Security personnel along with Buddhist monks and government school teachers are prime targets for militants in the region, an independent sultanate until annexed by Thailand a century ago.

Nobody has claimed responsibility for attacks in the deep south, where most people speak a Malay dialect and where the government has stationed several thousand troops in a so far unsuccessful attempt to quell the unrest.

Reuters

[OMEN]

Pro-Tibetan demonstrators hurled eggs and water bottles at China's consulate in Melbourne today in protest against China's rule over the Himalayan kingdom.

More than 100 Tibetans and their supporters began demonstrating outside the consulate, in leafy Toorak in Melbourne's east, at 10am (AEDT), following a similar event outside Chinese consular offices in Sydney yesterday.

What began as a peaceful affair turned rowdy as a handful of demonstrators repeatedly surged towards the consulate's gates, before being pushed back by federal, Victorian and mounted police officers.

At one point, a car driven by an unidentified Chinese man was pelted with eggs and battered with flagpoles as it swept into the consulate compound.

A female protester who sneaked past the police line and followed the car inside was chased by police and frogmarched back outside before being cautioned.

Australia Tibet Council campaigns coordinator Simon Bradshaw said that despite the Tibetans' proud history of non-violence and peaceful dissent, the protesters were releasing decades of pent-up frustration at China's occupation of their homeland.

"One of the frustrating things for the Tibetans at the moment is that the dialogue process between Tibet and China has stalled, so there's a lot of frustration around, here in Melbourne, in Sydney yesterday, in Tibet and around the world," Mr Bradshaw told AAP.

"Everyone's now aware of the way things have escalated in Lhasa. I think it's made it very clear that China's rule in Tibet isn't working and there's a need more than ever for them to engage in constructive dialogue with the Tibetan government in exile."

The demonstrations in Melbourne and Sydney follow deadly clashes on Friday between Chinese authorities and protesters in the Tibetan capital Lhasa which, Tibet's exiled government said, left as many as 30 dead.

Four pro-Tibet activists were arrested following yesterday's protest outside the Chinese consulate in Sydney's inner west suburb of Camperdown.

Kesang Wangmo, one of the demonstrators at the Melbourne protest, said China's oppression was hurting her homeland.

"The Chinese say they come to liberate us, to make our life better, but they didn't. It's time the world stands up," an emotional Ms Wangmo said.

"Tibet has lots to offer to the world. I appeal to the Australian public, I know they have good hearts, please be aware of what's happening in Tibet."

Police said one woman was cautioned after breaching the consulate compound but no arrests were made.

AAP

[OMEN]

MY DAUGHTER'S BACK: Karen Matthews, Shannon's mum, smiles outside her Dewsbury home after she was reunited with her daughter.
The mother of nine-year-old Shannon Matthews says she was overwhelmed at being reunited with her daughter and "just couldn't stop crying."

Detectives are trying to find out what happened to the girl between her disappearance from the gates of her school in Dewsbury and her dramatic rescue 24 days later.

She was discovered in the base of a bed at a flat in the area after police smashed their way in on Friday. A 39-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of abduction.

Police said the schoolgirl had spent a "comfortable and settled night and is starting on the road to recovery following her ordeal".

She spent the night watching DVDs and has been playing with a kitten.

Her mother Karen Matthews said "When I first saw Shannon again I was overwhelmed. I just couldn't stop crying, knowing she's back where she belongs and she's safe."

"I never gave up hope and now she'll be able to come home and sleep in her room again. We've got her new pink bedding which she will love," she added.

Shannon's father Leon Rose was equally overjoyed, saying "I am buzzing over it, especially since Shannon has been found alive. I'm over the moon."

Matthews had been missing for nearly four weeks, sparking a massive police search which involved about 10 percent of the West Yorkshire police force.

Detectives said they will begin to talk to Matthews, who is the subject of an emergency police protection order, following medical checks.

"The interviews may be a long process but throughout this enquiry our main focus has been and continues to be Shannon's welfare," police said in a statement.

The order will remain in place until police have "had time to establish the full facts of what happened in the time since her disappearance".

Matthews was found after detectives broke down the door of the house a mile from her family home in Dewsbury.

Neighbours said the girl appeared "quite calm" when she emerged from the house in Batley Carr.

Locals later ripped up "Missing Shannon" posters and threw them in the air like confetti in celebration of her safe return.

Matthews had gone missing on February 19 after a swimming trip, prompting one of the biggest investigations in the area since the Yorkshire Ripper inquiry of the late 1970s.

Reuters

[OMEN]

A US warplane has fired missiles at a house in a Pakistani region known as a haven for al Qaeda and Taliban fighters, killing at least 9 militants and wounding nine.
Latest Pakistan bomb shows move to 'soft targets'

Four missiles were fired at the house in Shahnawaz Kheil Dhoog, a village near the town of Wana in the South Waziristan region on the Afghan border, just after 3pm, the intelligence official said.

"It was apparently an American plane that fired precision guided missiles at the house," the official, who requested not to be identified, told Reuters.

Three foreigners, an Arab and two Turkmen, were among those killed, according to the intelligence official.

Villagers put the death toll at 18.

"Except the boundary walls, the house has been destroyed," said a senior district government official who declined to be identified.

"The place has been used for some time as a militant hideout," he said.

The attack came a day after a Turkish woman was killed and five Americans were among 11 people wounded in a bomb attack at a restaurant popular with foreigners in the capital, Islamabad.

A spokesman for Pakistani Taliban militants claimed responsibility for the Islamabad bomb, the latest in a surge of attacks that began in July after troops stormed a radical mosque complex in Islamabad.

Hundreds of people, including former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, have been killed in bomb attacks since then, raising fears for stability in the nuclear-armed US ally.

US forces have used pilotless drone aircraft to fire missiles at militants on the Pakistani side of the border several times in recent years.

The intelligence official said Sunday's attack was not carried out by a drone, although villagers believed they recognised the engine noise.

A missile believed fired by a US drone killed 13 suspected militants in South Waziristan in late February. On Jan. 28, one of Osama bin Laden's top lieutenants, Abu Laith al-Libi, was killed in a strike in North Waziristan.

Pakistani military spokesman Major General Athar Abbas said there were reports of blasts and some casualties in the area and the military was checking.

He said Pakistani forces had not conducted any operation in the area and he did not know who carried out the strike or what type of weapon was used.

Neither US nor Pakistani authorities officially confirm US missile attacks on Pakistani territory, which would be an infringement of Pakistani sovereignty.

There is widespread public opposition in Pakistan to the US-led campaign against al Qaeda and the Taliban. Pakistan says it would not allow foreign military operations on its soil.

Many al Qaeda members, including Uzbeks and Arabs, and Taliban militants took refuge in North and South Waziristan, as well as in other areas on the Pakistani side of the border after US-led forces ousted the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2001.

From sanctuaries in the lawless border belt, the Taliban have orchestrated their insurgency against the Afghan government and the US and Nato forces supporting it.

Increasingly, so-called Pakistani Taliban have been mounting attacks in Pakistani towns and cities, many aimed at security forces and other government targets.

Maulvi Omar, a spokesman for an umbrella organisation of Pakistani militant groups, said the Pakistani Taliban were responsible for the blast in Islamabad on Saturday and twin blasts in the city of Lahore on Tuesday that killed 24 people.

"These attacks were a reaction to operations being carried out by the military against our people. We will continue this if they don't stop killing our people," Omar said by telephone.

Reuters

[OMEN]

A grouping of the world's top greenhouse gas emitters have backed UN-led efforts to forge a global pact to fight climate change but disagree on a sectoral approach to curb emissions from industry.

G20 nations ranging from top carbon emitters the United States and China to big developing economies Brazil, Indonesia and South Africa held three days of talks near Tokyo to discuss ways to tackle rapidly rising emissions.

"It's not so much these two groups are at loggerheads with each other, they are also thinking of how they can co-operate collectively," Halldor Thorgeirsson of the UN Climate Change Secretariat told Reuters.

The developing world is demanding rich states do more to curb their own emissions and help poorer countries pay for clean technology.

Both sides managed to bridge differences in Bali last December to launch two years of talks on a pact that binds all nations to emissions curbs to replace the Kyoto Protocol.

"The whole debate on climate change is moving away from just being an issue of targets to being an issue of how to reduce emissions," said Thorgeirsson, who was pleased with the G20 talks that were billed as a dialogue, not a negotiation.

"This is a very good sign that the good spirit of Bali will prevail in Bangkok as well," he said, referring to the March 31-April 4 meeting in the Thai capital, the first UN-led climate meeting of nations that backed the "Bali roadmap".

But some G20 members and delegates voiced concern over Japan's proposal for sectoral caps for polluting industries.

Japan wants top greenhouse gas emitting nations to assign near-term emissions targets for each industrial sector which, added up, would then form a national target.

But it was unclear if this target was mandatory or voluntary and developing nations said the scheme needed to take into account their individual circumstances.

"It is clear that developed and developing countries are still far apart on sectoral approaches," South African Environment Minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk told Reuters.

Slovenia, which holds the rotating presidency of the European Union, was more guarded.

"We all agree that a sectoral approach is needed," said Andrej Kranjc of Solvenia's Ministry of the Environment and Spatial Planning.

"Only this Japanese proposal is a little different from the understanding of others, including the European Union. Let's say it has potential, we all agree on that."

Indonesia called for more funding and the transfer of clean energy technology. Otherwise a sectoral approach would not work.

"The goal is the same for developed and developing countries, but there are big differences in thinking," said Japanese Trade Minister Akira Amari.

The talks in Chiba, near Tokyo, also sparked a row over big developing nations being labelled "major emitters", a term US officials used at the gathering.

South Africa, Indonesia, India and Brazil told the meeting they objected to the label since on a per-capita basis, their carbon emissions were a fraction of the roughly 24 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent produced by the average American.

Developing nations also called for more clarity on the funding and management of schemes to pay for clean energy technology projects in their countries.

Van Schalkwyk said on Saturday it was crucial developing nations had greater involvement in the management of clean technology funds, particularly recently announced funds to be managed by the World Bank with money from Japan, the United States and Britain.

About 190 nations agreed in Bali to try to find a replacement for the Kyoto Protocol by the end of 2009. Under the Bali roadmap, all nations would be obligated to curb carbon emissions under Kyoto's successor from 2013.

Kyoto first phase ends in 2012 and binds only rich nations to emissions curbs.

But rapidly rising emissions from developing nations means the pact is no longer effective in trying to limit dangerous climate change that scientists say will cause rising sea levels and greater extremes of droughts and floods.

Reuters

[OMEN]

Dozens of right-wing Jewish activists have stormed the Arab neighbourhood in East Jerusalem of a Palestinian gunman who killed eight Israelis at a Jewish seminary earlier this month, police and witnesses said.

Dozens of protesters broke through police barriers and hurled stones at cars and houses in the neighbourhood of Jabal Mukaber, where the family of the seminary attacker lives.

About 200 people had gathered outside the village and a number of the protesters broke through the police barrier, said police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld.

"Stones were thrown and 13 people were arrested," Rosenfeld said. No one was injured in the violence, police said.

The attacker, Ala Abu Dhaim, was buried at night on Thursday after about a week's delay because police feared a public funeral might trigger protests and violence.

The attack on the Jewish seminary earlier this month was the deadliest Palestinian attack on Israelis in two years and the first major attack in Jerusalem in four years.

Reuters

[JohnCenaFan28]

Thanks for this story.