DAP: The breaking news in Cambodia: “Australian parents tricked by sports star endorsements on food packaging: study” plus 9 more

SYDNEY, Feb. 15 (Xinhua) -- A new study shows endorsement by sports celebrities and selective nutrition claims on food packaging influence parents to buy energy-dense nutrient-poor food for their children, said an Australian group of leading public health agencies on Tuesday.
The Obesity Policy Coalition (OPC) senior policy adviser Jane Martin said the study by Cancer Council Victoria, which is part of the OPC, strengthened the case for a food labeling system that would help parents make informed and healthier food choices for their children at a glance.
The OPC is calling for traffic light labels -- showing a green, amber or red light for each of a product's salt, fat and sugar content -- as recommended by a recent Australian federal food labeling review.
The study, published in the journal Public Health Nutrition, asked parents to choose between an unhealthy food product and a comparable but healthier alternative, based on the packaging. Parents were also given the option of reading the nutrition information panel (NIP) yet less than half (44 percent) chose to do so.
Those parents who did not refer to panel were almost twice as likely to choose the less healthy product if it featured a nutrient claim, and almost two-and-a-half times more likely when it was endorsed by a sports celebrity, the study found.
"This study shows that endorsement by a sports star and selective nutrient claims are powerful promotional devices that can potentially mislead parents about the nutritional benefits of products," Martin said.
"I was surprised by just how powerful a nutritional content claim on its own was because they are incredibly common -- you know 'high in calcium, high in fibre, high in protein'," she said.
"When a sporting person was on it, people felt the product was healthier, it was higher quality and they are more likely to buy it," she added.
The research took in more than 1,500 parents who had children aged five to 12.

BANGKOK, Feb. 15 (Xinhua) -- Thailand never has ill intention against Cambodia and the country supports "permanent ceasefire" and peaceful means to tackle border issue with its neighbor, Thai Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya said early Tuesday morning.
Kasit made the phone call to give an interview with National Broadcasting of Thailand (NBT) at 6.30 a.m. (11.30 p.m. GMT) after he finished closed meeting with the UN Security Council (UNSC) in New York where he addressed Thailand's stand on bilateral negotiation in dealing with the border dispute between Thailand and Cambodia.  
Kasit said that Thailand would like to see development in Cambodia and the country has consistently invested in and traded with its neighboring country.
"Both Thailand and Cambodia are member countries of the Association of South East Asian Nation (ASEAN) who are bound to create ASEAN Community in 2015, so there is no reason to make problems between us," he said.  
Thai FM also insisted that contentious encryption of the ancient Preah Vihear temple as the UNESCO's World Heritage Site as well as development plan of the surrounding area must be halted until negotiation on border demarcation between Thailand and Cambodia could reach agreement.
"The listing of Preah Vihear temple was seen as the source of fresh tension and had frequently led to cross-border clashes," Kasit said.
He said Thailand supports "permanent ceasefire" agreement and the country could implement it soon after defense ministers of both countries hold talks. Thailand is ready to go back to negotiating table which both countries solve problems bilaterally.
"Thailand has proposed to hold Joint Boundary Commission (JBC) meeting on Feb 27 and Cambodia should express her sincerity to solve border issue by joining the talks," Thai FM said.
The UNSC called Monday for a "permanent ceasefire" between Thailand and Cambodian and expressed that the members would like to see both countries resort to bilateral negotiation in handling border conflict.
Border clashes between Thailand and Cambodia erupting on Feb. 4 and lasting until Feb 7 left many soldiers and civilians on both sides dead and injured. Both claimed the other side started attacking first.
Cambodia last week submitted petitions to UNSC calling for international intervention in handling the issue. The two countries finally decided to address the issue with UNSC in New York on Monday.
The International Court of Justice ruled in 1962 that the temple belonged to Cambodia but the problem of ownership of the stretch of 4.6-square-kilometre (1.8-square-mile) surrounding land has never been solved.

CANBERRA, Feb. 15 (Xinhua) -- Shoppers using Lush's online stores in Australia and New Zealand on Tuesday were urged to cancel their credit cards, after the site was hacked.
The popular handmade cosmetics business, Lush shut down its Australian and New Zealand websites on Tuesday, leaving only a statement warning customers to urgently contact their banks.
"We are sorry to announce that the Lush Australia and New Zealand websites have been hacked," the company said in the statement released on Tuesday.
"We have been alerted today to advise that entry has been gained and customer personal data may have been obtained by the hackers.
"We urgently advise customers who have placed an online order with Lush Australia and New Zealand to contact their bank to discuss if canceling their credit cards is advisable."
According to Lush Australasia director Mark Lincoln, the code that the website was written in was a very old version and it had not been updated. He admitted its out-of-date computer system has left thousands of its Australian customers vulnerable to hackers.
It follows a similar attack on Lush's United Kingdom parent company in January, when a security lapse left customers exposed to hackers for four months.   Lush said it was doing all it could to investigate the privacy breach and was working with the police, forensic investigators and banks.
It is not yet known how long Australian and New Zealand Lush customers' details were left exposed by the security breach.
However, RMIT Internet security expert Mark Gregory said Lush should have done more to protect its customers.
"Companies quite often use the same technology if they operate in more than one country," he told ABC News on Tuesday.
"So it would be very straightforward if a hacker was able to break into the website in one country to then target the website in our countries.
"The failure here, it appears, is the company hasn't reacted quickly. They should have either changed the security on their other websites or taken the websites down until security is improved.
"It's a very disappointing thing to see again."
Australian web developer Mark Fitzgerald purchased from the Lush online store about a year ago and was informed Monday morning that his credit card details may have been compromised.   His bank contacted him last week saying it had cancelled his credit card because it was used in a fraudulent transaction.
It has not been confirmed whether it is related to the Lush hacking, but Fitzgerald told ABC News that he is angry that Lush kept his credit card details for so long.

YANGON, Feb. 15 (Xinhua) -- The ongoing union parliament session will touch on setting up of a new union election commission Tuesday, which is believed to function for the next general election after five years, according to Tuesday's official daily New Light of Myanmar..
A number of seven members for forming the new union election commission, proposed by president-elect U Thein Sein, was submitted to the union parliament session on Monday for discussion on Tuesday by the union parliament representatives.
The last union election commission chaired by U Thein Soe for the 2010 general election was formed by the ruling State Peace and Development Council.
In Myanmar's presidential election on Feb. 4 after the general election on Nov. 7, 2010, Prime Minister U Thein Sein won the presidency, while U Tin Aung Myint Oo and Dr. Sai Mauk Kham were elected as the vice presidents.
The terms of office of the president and the vice presidents are five years, according to the new state constitution.
The union parliament is constituted with two level of parliaments -- house of representatives and house of nationalities which involves elected ones in the November 2010 general election and 25-percent military-nominated ones.

CANBERRA, Feb. 15 (Xinhua) -- Australia's business lobby group on Tuesday said small businesses are suffering and will be further hit by this summer's natural disasters.
According to the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry ( ACCI) small business survey, the index for business condition fell to 42.0 in 2010 December quarter from 44.6 in the previous three months, below the 50 level that indicated economic conditions among small businesses are in contraction.?
Expected Economic Performance fell to 47.4 from 48.9 in the previous quarter.
ACCI director of economics and industry policy Greg Evans said floods and cyclones were a prime cause of concern over recent quarters which dented small business confidence.
"The Australian small business sector is actually not in good shape at the moment," Evans told reporters in Canberra on Tuesday.
"It's lost a considerable amount of its economic momentum."
He said the natural disasters will further dampen small business confidence over the first half of 2011.
All components were below 50 in the quarter, apart from wage growth and non-wage labor costs.
He expressed his most concerns after the reading for profitability, which fell even further to a weak 38.2, one of its lowest levels ever, from 46.2 in September quarter.
"It shows the difficulty that small business have in overall retained earnings and the difficult task they will have in the period ahead in terms of gaining capital for expansion and future employment," he said.
Retail, hospitality and manufacturing businesses were particularly under pressure from rising interest rates and a high Australian dollar.
Evans urged governments to take fairly urgent action on tax reform that would reduce personal income tax and capital gains tax, because he said all these taxes add up to less confidence for business, and much more pressure in terms of profitability in the small business sector.

CANBERRA, Feb. 15 (Xinhua) -- Scientists on Tuesday said recent big rain and flooding across parts of eastern Australia is expected lead to an increase in the numbers of feral pigs, rabbits, wild dogs and cane toads.
According to Associate Professor Steve Lapidge from the Invasive Animals Cooperative Research Center, a decade of hard work in controlling feral animals and weeds could be about to come undone because of the recent rainfall and flooding in parts of Australia.
He said feral pigs, in particular, are likely to take advantage of the wet conditions to breed.
"Species like feral pigs thrive after floods go through," he told ABC News on Tuesday.
"It is an unfortunate fact that after the tsunami in Indonesia about the only species that benefitted from that tsunami was feral pigs."
According to Department of Environment, in Australia, feral animals typically have few natural predators or fatal diseases and some have high reproductive rates. As a result, their populations have not naturally diminished and they can multiply rapidly if conditions are favorable.
Feral animals impact on native species by predation, competition for food and shelter, destroying habitat, and by spreading diseases.
These animals are a major problem in Australia, causing around one billion U.S. dollars damage to the economy each year, as well as a huge amount of damage to our biodiversity.
Two weeks ago, Peter West, from Industry and Investment New South Wales said widespread rainfall across the country, particularly in the east, is going to cause a response in rabbits, feral pigs and a lot of other animals. He said now is a really good time to get on top of it before it gets our of control.

SEOUL, Feb. 15 (Xinhua) -- The on-again, off-again discussion is on again. With the next presidential election two years away, a major faction within South Korea's ruling Grand National Party is busy ginning up some support for revising the country's Constitution.
At the helm of the emerging debate is a clique consisting of lawmakers backing President Lee Myung-bak, especially Lee Jae-oh, a close confident to the president currently serving as minister without portfolio.
Lee, a four-term lawmaker, has vociferously called for ushering in a new era by amending the Constitution, last revised in 1987, which he says fails to reflect changes in political, economic and social reality made over the past decades.
"Whatever party holds power in the next election, it will be hard for the country to further advance under the current Constitution," the lawmaker said in a recent meeting with other members of the pro-president faction.
A legacy of a long authoritarian rule that preceded the latest revision three decades ago, the South Korean Constitution limits a president to a single five-year term in order to prevent potential abuse of power.
The revisionists want to change the presidential term of office to a U.S.-style four-year, two-term presidency, which they say would prevent a presidency from slipping into a lame-duck session where a president, with weakened political muscle, gets hardly anything done.
President Lee Myung-bak, who has occasionally touched upon the subject, renewed his support for constitutional changes in a recently televised interview, calling for a change in the current presidential system. "The timing is right. It'd be late if we do it next year," he said during the interview.
The president has claimed the task should be left in the hands of the parliament, an apparent response to the opposition criticism that political calculations lie behind the president's push for completing the revision before his five-year stint expires.
Spurred into action, the Grand Nationals held a two-day caucus last week and decided to establish an internal task force aimed at mapping out plans for revising the Constitution, a step forward to addressing the issue that never gathered enough steam.
Still, the goal of constitutional changes is far off for the pro-president clique, faced with what looks like feigned indifference from a rival faction and overtly hostile reaction from the opposition camp.
A rival faction within the ruling party supporting Park Geun- hye, a political archrival of the president and by far the strongest presidential contender for 2012, has largely snubbed Lee loyalists' moves to press for constitutional amendment.
Of the 171 in the ruling party, more than 60 are believed to be Park loyalists.
Observers here say pro-Park lawmakers do not want the issue of constitutional revision to dominate the political scene and in doing so overshadow Park's political rise, as they want the greatest publicity focused on Park in the lead up to the presidential election in 2012.
Though the president will still not be authorized to seek reelection even under the Constitution revised within his term, directing national attention to the very issue can give Lee a greater say throughout a usually inglorious lame-duck period, observers say.
The opposition camp exhibits a rare unity in standing against modifying the Constitution, calling the moves by Lee supporters a political stunt.
"When South Koreans are faced with a hard time, the so-called minister without portfolio is blabbering about revising the Constitution," chairman of the main opposition Democratic Party, Son Hak-kyu, said in a radio speech Thursday, accusing the revisionist of being "out of their mind."
The Democrats, whose attempts at revising the Constitution in the previous liberal administration were foiled by the conservative Grand Nationals, say it is time for the parliament to focus on more urgent issues at hand -- economy and restoring democratic values.
If a recent poll is any indication, the general public does not extend a helping hand to the Lee clique either.
A recent poll by Chosun Ilbo, a leading conservative daily newspaper, showed 53.7 percent of the respondents supported changing the presidential term while 46.3 percent of them were against the idea -- a sharp split.
Meanwhile, 48.6 percent of the supporters opted for a four-year, two-term presidency, and 47 percent of them agreed that the amendment should be made before Lee exits power.

TEHRAN, Feb. 15 (Xinhua) -- One person was killed and some others were wounded in protests in Iranian capital of Tehran on Monday, semi-official Mehr news agency quoted Iran's deputy police chief, Ahmad Reza Radan as saying on Tuesday.
The person was a bystander and was shot by "Monafeghin", said Radan, referring to the dissident Paris-based People's Mujahedeen of Iran (PMOI).
Some others were wounded including nine security force members, the police commander said, adding that one of the wounded people is in critical condition.
He said the police arrested some of the PMOI members and their case is under investigation.
Meanwhile, he blamed the United States, Britain and Israel for provoking unrest inside Iran.
The Iranian security forces on Monday fired tear gas to disperse protesters gathering in some parts of Tehran in support of demonstrations in Egypt and Tunisia, which was later turned into an anti-government demonstration.
Iran's opposition leaders, Mir-Hussein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, had asked for an official permission to demonstrate on Monday to back popular protests in Egypt and Tunisia, which was rejected by the government.
However, the opposition leaders insisted on their demand defying the government's rejection.

MANAMA, Feb. 15 (Xinhua) -- A Bahraini protester has died of wounds he sustained in clashes between police and scattered groups of young people in the village of Diya, east of the capital Manama, the interior ministry said in a statement on Tuesday.
The statement said the ministry would open an investigation into his death.
In an earlier statement, Interior Minister Sheikh Rashid bin Abdullah al-Khalifa expressed "his deep condolences to the family of the man who died of wounds he sustained in the events in Diya."
Doha-based Al-Jazeera TV, citing eyewitnesses, said fierce clashes have erupted between protesters and policemen in two Shiite-majority villages of Darraz and Sanabis, west of Manama.
The TV said policemen fired tear gas to disperse the protesters.
At least 14 people were injured in clashes between police and protesters on Monday which the opposition called as a "Day of Wrath" inspired by youth-generated protests in both Tunisia and Egypt which forced their presidents to quit.
Bahrain, a home to the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet, has been witnessing a mounting rise by tech-savvy young men via social network sites, such as Facebook, for staging protest to demand political and economic reforms.
Bahrain has embarked on a host of measures such as higher social spending and on Friday the Bahraini King handed out each Bahraini family a cash of 1,000 dinars (2,700 U.S. dollars).

BANGKOK, Feb. 15 (Xinhua) -- Thailand never has ill intention against Cambodia and the country supports "permanent ceasefire" and peaceful means to tackle border issue with its neighbor, Thai Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya said early Tuesday morning.

Kasit made the phone call to give an interview with National Broadcasting of Thailand (NBT) at 6.30 a.m. (11.30 p.m. GMT) after he finished closed meeting with the UN Security Council (UNSC) in New York where he addressed Thailand's stand on bilateral negotiation in dealing with the border dispute between Thailand and Cambodia.

Kasit said that Thailand would like to see development in Cambodia and the country has consistently invested in and traded with its neighboring country.

"Both Thailand and Cambodia are member countries of the Association of South East Asian Nation (ASEAN) who are bound to create ASEAN Community in 2015, so there is no reason to make problems between us," he said.

Thai FM also insisted that contentious encryption of the ancient Preah Vihear temple as the UNESCO's World Heritage Site as well as development plan of the surrounding area must be halted until negotiation on border demarcation between Thailand and Cambodia could reach agreement.

"The listing of Preah Vihear temple was seen as the source of fresh tension and had frequently led to cross-border clashes," Kasit said.

He said Thailand supports "permanent ceasefire" agreement and the country could implement it soon after defense ministers of both countries hold talks. Thailand is ready to go back to negotiating table which both countries solve problems bilaterally.

"Thailand has proposed to hold Joint Boundary Commission (JBC) meeting on Feb 27 and Cambodia should express her sincerity to solve border issue by joining the talks," Thai FM said.

The UNSC called Monday for a "permanent ceasefire" between Thailand and Cambodian and expressed that the members would like to see both countries resort to bilateral negotiation in handling border conflict.

Border clashes between Thailand and Cambodia erupting on Feb. 4 and lasting until Feb 7 left many soldiers and civilians on both sides dead and injured. Both claimed the other side started attacking first.

Cambodia last week submitted petitions to UNSC calling for international intervention in handling the issue. The two countries finally decided to address the issue with UNSC in New York on Monday.

The International Court of Justice ruled in 1962 that the temple belonged to Cambodia but the problem of ownership of the stretch of 4.6-square-kilometre (1.8-square-mile) surrounding land has never been solved.