Said Dr Ramsey: "Rates of obesity and diabetes are continuing to increase at alarming rates and pose one of the most serious health challenges of this time. In response to this situation, diabetes experts from across the UK have come together to call on the Scottish and UK governments to demonstrate greater leadership in tackling this crisis.

"In particular we believe that ... this should involve tighter regulation of the food and drink industry and the extension of restrictions on 'less healthy' food and drink advertising in children's television programmes to all forms of advertising aimed at children."

According to the experts, preventing an increase in the number of youngsters who are obese would also cut the risk of more people developing Type 2 diabetes.

Factual data only is sourced from the original attributed article. The data is then enhanced by additional research and comment.

... a new EU-sponsored  agency to rate the credit standing of member governments. This would challenge the global muscle of the global credit rating triopoly which, say critics, is so powerful that its judgements become self-fulfilling prophecies.

According to these critics, a downgrade by one or all the Big Three can push fund managers either into selling government bonds, or refusing to buy newly issued bonds.

Such negative gradings depress the value of the bonds and raise future borrowing costs - a sequence of events that puts further strain on a government's finances and could - theoretically - lead to further downgrades.

It's precisely that kind of vicious circle Greece has been fighting in recent months - a syndrome that irks M. Barmnier and his fellow officials in Brussels.

Accordingly the Eurocrats are considering how best to exercise their power to control the activities of  the rating agencies.

In 2009 the Triad was accused of failing to assess the size and risk of the US housing market's bad debt  - debt that was subsequently repackaged and resold around the world, triggering multi-billion pound losses.

The threesome later admitted their assessment of securities backed by sub-prime mortgages was incorrect. And how!
 

Factual data only is sourced from the original attributed article. The data is then enhanced by additional research and comment.

Vodafone last week formally launched a recording service for clients in Western Europe following year-long trials with selected financial services clients. The Orange network launched a kindred service earlier this month.

Both services utilize an application on the handset that channels all inbound and outbound mobile calls via a central server, which records and stores all voice and keystroke content.

The devices are designed to comply with expected new Financial Services Authority regulations which would require banks and other financial operations to record all mobile communications relating to sales orders and transaction negotiations.

The requirement already applies to such communications on fixed lines and recordings must be retained for six months. The FSA is now considering extending the requirement to cellphones, strating from the end of 2010 followed by a twelve months transition period.

Factual data only is sourced from the original attributed article. The data is then enhanced by additional research and comment.

Heading the defiant tensome are NBC Universal, NewsCorporation’s Fox, Ion Media and Gannett Broadcasting - all of which have covertly planned over the past three years to exploit the spectrum to launch mobile digital television services .

Other members of the group are Belo, Cox, E W Scripps, Hearst, Media General, Meredith, Post Newsweek and Raycom.

Between them the companies can currently tap an estimated audience of 150 million.

Meantime, early mobile TV tests of  have been launched in the Washington DC area and the pilot scheme is scheduled to roll-out from the conceptual stage to become viable businesses that will include free, live and on-demand TV, print services and paid offerings.

The particpants will will not only finance the venture but also contribute content, spectrum and marketing services.

Each company's financial contribution will determine the allocation of equity, indicating that the major shareholders will be NBC and News Corporation.

 

Factual data only is sourced from the original attributed article. The data is then enhanced by additional research and comment.

The ASA's Committee of Advertising Practice, along with BCAP, the body governing broadcast ads, has simplified the current code from four sets of rules into a single document which contains a new provision for “social responsibility” - an amorphous term intended to prevent advertisers' exploitation of loopholes in the Code.

The most crucial changes attempt to stifle “greenwash”, where advertisers or agencies exaggerate a brand's environmental benefits.

According to the CAP, the claimed benefits “must be supported by a high level of substantiation”.  Failure to do so means that advertisers could be penalised for omitting “significant information”.

Any “green” claims must cover the full “life cycle” of a product, CAP says, and also acknowledge areas where scientists’ opinions are divided.

The Advertising Standards Authority has the notional power to ban advertisements it judges to be 'misleading', usually after complaints from the public.

The new guidelines will come into effect in September2010, although they do not have the force of law and depend on the voluntary cooperation of the UK advertising and media industries.

Factual data only is sourced from the original attributed article. The data is then enhanced by additional research and comment.

 ... segment-targeted advertising and product placement in popular programmes, now possible thanks to tecnological advances. Also the expansion of other sponsorship activities.

Says RTL ceo Gerhard Zeiler: “I am pretty much convinced regulators are more open to gradually allowing more liberalisation in terms of the advertising forms, which we will have in TV.”

He also makes the point that the internet - unlike European TV - is not inhibited by any restrictions.on growth in advertising time.

Factual data only is sourced from the original attributed article. The data is then enhanced by additional research and comment.

• Legislating to enshrine the freedom of government data and create a powerful new Right to Government Data, enabling the public to request – and receive – government datasets. This will radically increase the amount of government data released – and will provide a multi-billion pound boost to the UK economy. President Obama’s administration has already implemented a ‘Right to Data’ policy.
   
• Extending superfast 100 mbps broadband across most of the population. This is 50 times faster than Labour’s planned broadband network and would make the UK a hub for the creative industries
   
• Publishing online every item of central government and Quango spending over £25,000 – including every contract in full. This will create new jobs by opening up government procurement to more SMEs. We will also publish online every item of local government spending over £500 – including every contract in full. In addition, detailed information on the salaries of senior civil servants and local council officials will be published online.
   
• Creating a level playing field for open source IT in government procurement and open up government IT
  contracts to SMEs by breaking up large IT projects into smaller components.
   
• We will also create a small IT development team in government – a ‘government skunkworks’ - that can develop low cost IT applications in-house and advise on the procurement of large projects.

According to Shadow Cabinet Minister, Francis Maude: "It is incredibly important that we get our economy moving again to get us out of Gordon Brown's recession. For too long we have endured a closed shop government - which keeps information from the public, fails to stimulate innovative industries and wastes money on bloated, unnecessary and gold plated IT projects."

"Our proposals will make the UK the most technology friendly Government in the world, introducing a right to government data, extending superfast broadband and creating a much more level playing field for SMEs."

Ads, created in-house, have been placed across sites including The Register, Mumsnet and CityAM to highlight core areas of the manifesto to key voters who might not understand how it affects them. 

Factual data only is sourced from the original attributed article. The data is then enhanced by additional research and comment.

The latest move follows agreement by the Agency's board that a single approach to front-of-pack nutrition labelling is esential. Moreover, it insists that only 'traffic light' colours - red amber, green – should be used to avoid consumer confusion”.

Says FSA board chairman Jeff Rooker: "The board was clear that it wanted a single approach to front of pack labelling that works. Tremendous progress has been made by industry in taking up front-of-pack labelling but different schemes are causing confusion to consumers”.

The FSA will “encourage” businesses to use both elements alongside text to help “consumers interpret nutritional information”. It also wants food-makers to ensure information is presented “in a way that is clearly visible and prominent”.

Additionally: “information on portion size should be realistic and not mislead” and that labels should be used on a wider range of processed packaged foods.

The FSA gave a thumbs-down to labels that express Guideline Daily Allowances in percentages - a preference expressed by a number of food industry dissidents.

Following acceptance of its recomendations by government ministers, the FSA will undertake a four to six week consultation on the technical guidance needed to implement the board's recommendations.

Factual data only is sourced from the original attributed article. The data is then enhanced by additional research and comment.

The European Commission - the executive as opposed to political - wing of the economic bloc, sees the current regulations as outdated and in need of expansion to allow for broadband access.

The EC is currently soliciting input from stakeholders and other interestyed parties as to how the law should be amended to provide for the financing of the project. The consultation closes 7 May 2010.

Legislative proposals will follow before the end of the year.

Factual data only is sourced from the original attributed article. The data is then enhanced by additional research and comment.

Britain's Culture, Media and Sport secretary, politician Ben Bradshaw, hailed the move as an “important departure” and said on Tuesday that the Brown administration will legislate to allow TV product placement. It will do this by enacting a European directive from 2007 which the European parliament originally said should have been implemented by the end of last year.

Clearly reluctant to admit to pressure from the politically unpopular EU, Bradshaw claimed: “Not to do so [legalise PP] would jeopardise the competitiveness of UK programme makers as against the rest of the EU, and this is something which we cannot afford to do.”

The concessions do not extend to the publicly-funded BBC; whilst commercial channels' current affairs, consumer and religious programmes will also be exempt from product placement. As will news bulletins and shows targeting children.

As predicted, the government will also forbid placement of products such as alcoholic drinks, foods that have high levels of fat, salt or sugar, OTC medicines, baby milk, gambling and smoking.

Estimates of the annual revenues generated by PP range between £25m and £100m, and will compensate to some extent for the ongoing decline of the £3bn market in TV advertising - forecast to continue until 2012.

According to Bradshaw, continuation of the longstanding ban would deny the ailing TV companies a new income stream “at a time when this crucial part of our creative industries needs all the support we can give it”.

Denmark is now the sole EU member-state to resist introducing product placement.

Factual data only is sourced from the original attributed article. The data is then enhanced by additional research and comment.