WORLD CUP PUNTERS SCORE ON-LINE WITH LG ELECTRONICS
TVs, MOBILE PHONES, DVDs & HOME THEATRE SYSTEMS TO BE NETTED IN PENALTY SHOOT-OUT GAMEJune 13, 2002
LG World Cup penalty challenge on www.lgegulf.com
Net surfers from the UAE, Oman, Bahrain and Qatar logging on to the LG Electronics Gulf web-site during the World Cup can net high technology prizes in a penalty shoot-out challenge. Competitors entering on-line via www.lgegulf.com get five penalty shots at goal with those scoring at least three times going into a weekly draw and a final grand draw.
Weekly winners can win a first prize of a 21" Flatron TV, a second prize of the award-winning 510 W mobile phone and a third prize of an LG DVD. The grand prize winner will take home a 29" Flatron TV and an LG Home Theatre System."Sports, and soccer in particular, have for numerous years been at the heart of LG's marketing strategy. And, with the World Cup games and finals being staged in Korea, our home base, we wanted to ensure our Gulf audience could be better part of the action," said P.C. Choi, Managing Director, LG Electronics Gulf FZE.
The competition is also available to sports fans visiting www.artsportstv.com, www.maktoob.com, www.itp.net, www.msnarabia.com from where they can register and access the LG Gulf web site.
AFRICA: US $140 billion lost to corruption
ADDIS ABABA, 13 June (IRIN) - Corruption has cost Africa at least US $140 billion, Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo revealed on Thursday. He said his country alone had spent millions of dollars trying to recover money illegally spirited away by corrupt former leaders. "Imagine what that can do for Africa today," he told a conference in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa. "That is a lot of money."
His comments related to the late former Nigerian leader, Sani Abacha, who plundered more than $2 billion from the West African country. Obasanjo argued that international conventions were needed to help stop the flow of illegal funds from African countries into foreign banks abroad. He said countries and banks where illegal funds had been hidden were just as guilty as the corrupt African leaders who had stolen the money.
The president, who has been in power for three years, also said the continent should aim to eradicate all wars and conflicts within 10 years. He said the targets should be achieved through the soon-to-be-launched African Union (AU) and the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (Nepad).
Obasanjo, a former general in the Nigerian army, also said poverty must be slashed, and life expectancy dramatically increased within a time scale of 10 years. "We talk of peace and absence of conflict as the foundations of whatever else we want to do. If 10 years from now the war that blights the Democratic Republic of Congo and Angola and Sudan is [over, leaving them] peaceful, then they will have achieved a major success," he added.
Obasanjo added that poverty must be reduced by 50 percent – although he said they could achieve more than that – and illiteracy in Africa be cut to less that 10 percent. "These are some of the key areas," he told a meeting at the United Nations Conference Centre. "That is how you will judge our success." He said for those targets to be met, there must be investment - both domestic and foreign. "They are obtainable. They are not impossible objectives."
He said Nepad, the AU and the Conference on Security, Stability, Development and Cooperation in Africa offered real hope to the continent’s 700 million people. The Nigerian leader, who was once jailed by the country’s former regime, was addressing the Organisation of African Unity and Civil Society Conference. He said civil society had enabled governments to feel the "pulse of the people", and that can bring about change in the continent.
"The success of the African Union with Nepad lies in the collective efforts of all Africans - governments, private sector, civil society and the ordinary people of Africa," he stressed.
He said although democratisation in Africa had been affected by the fall of communism and pressure from foreign donors, much of the initial push had come from civil society. "The reality, however, is that it was the resourcefulness, dedication and tenacity of the continent’s nascent civil society organisations that initiated and sustained the process of democratic opening and political liberalisation," he said. "There may have been encouragement and support from outside, but surely the spark came from inside."
He called on civil society organisations – made up of local pressure groups – to keep up the pressure until poverty, bad governance, disease and conflict had been stamped out. "Until that happens, their work and that of national governments remains incomplete," he warned.
ILO urges India to reduce Child labour
New Delhi; India has told the International Labour Organisation, ILO, that it is following a pro-active policy to eliminate child labour. Addressing the Plenary Session of the International Labour Conference of the ILO in Geneva today, the Leader of the Indian delegation to the Conference and the Minister of state for Labour and Employment Shri Muni Lall said New Delhi is of the view that child labour is closely inter-linked with poverty and illiteracy and is addressing both these issues with urgency. He said several poverty eradication programmes are in operation which have over the years considerably reduced poverty while education for all children upto the age of 14 years has been made a fundamental right this year. Shri Muni Lall said that the National Child Labour Projects in one hundred districts have so far rehabilitated more than 150,000 child labourers and brought them into the mainstream of formal education system. He informed the ILO that India spent US$ 50 million during the last plan for eradication of child labour and the allocation is proposed to be doubled for the current Plan.
Referring to Decent Work and Informal Economy, another major issue on ILC’s agenda, Shri Muni Lall said the subject matter should not be seen merely as a rights issue. He said that foremost need of the job seekers is employment, so we follow the ‘Job-first’ approach as Decent work can follow later. He said that globalisation and liberalisation would lead to increase in casualisation of workers in developing countries, thus, adding to the already large workforce in the informal sector. Citing the case of India where 90 percent of workers belong to informal sector, Shri Muni Lall said that we need to look at the strengths of the informal sector and the prevailing social and economic conditions. He said that developing countries have a huge task at hand of upgrading social infrastructure and skill upgradation of workers and look forward to developed countries for assistance in this regard.
Major financial support to states for export promotion
In a major initiative to ensure greater involvement of the States and Union Territories in the export effort with a view to achieving higher growth, the government has allocated a sum of Rs.330 crore for Assistance to States for Development of Infrastructure for Exports and other Allied Activities during the current year (2002-03) – representing a record 12-fold increase from a level of Rs.165 crore spent for this purpose during the last six years from 1996-97 to 2001-02. At a Conference on Export Promotion Efforts with the Chief Secretaries of States and Union Territories held under the Chairmanship of Shri Dipak Chatterjee, Commerce Secretary, here last evening, the importance of much greater involvement of the States in export promotion was underlined, especially in view of the fact that exports would contribute directly to the accelerated economic development of the States. Emphasising the Centre’s commitment to assist the States in overcoming the existing constraints faced by them in the export effort, the Department of Commerce, Government of India, has initiated a series of schemes in the recent past viz., the Scheme for Assistance to States for Development of Infrastructure for Exports (ASIDE) introduced from 2001-02, the setting up of Special Economic Zones (SEZs) announced in March 2001 and the setting up of Agri Export Zones. Out of the Rs.330 crore allocated for the current year, Rs.160 crore has been released already in the first quarter under the ASIDE Scheme which is the single most important initiative launched by the government to involve the States in exports. States were urged to speed up utilisation under the scheme and to designate a nodal agency for this purpose. Further, a Market Assistance Scheme has been initiated to give financial assistance for consultancy and identifying new markets for export of products from States and Union Territories with the primary objective of boosting India’s exports.
In order to implement the various schemes, the State governments have been requested to set up institutional mechanisms like Export Promotion Councils (EPCs) under the Chairmanship of the Chief Ministers of the States as also State level Export Promotion Committees under the Chairmanship of Chief Secretaries and Export Promotion Committees at the District level from where substantial exports take place. States have also been urged to put in place Export Policies based on export promotion plans for the major commodities exported by them in consultation with the concerned EPCs. Chief Secretaries of the major States participated in the meeting along with senior representatives of State governments and Union Territories and senior officials of the Government of India including Shri Atul Sinha, Secretary (North East); Shri Vinay Bansal, Additional Secretary & Financial Adviser; Shri D.K. Mittal, Joint Secretary in-charge of States Cell, Ministry of Commerce & Industry; Shri Anil Swarup, Chairman, Agriculture & Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA); Shri Anoop Pujari, Addl. DGFT and representatives of Central Board of Excise & Customs and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).
The government attaches the highest priority to greater involvement of States in its export strategy which aims at increasing India’s share in global exports from the present level of 0.6% to at least 1% over the next few years. The Conference noted that the States should assume leadership role in exports as increase in exports from the States and Union Territories would create additional employment, increased per capita income and new market opportunities in the States and it would, therefore, be in the interest of the States themselves to participate fully in the country’s overall export effort.
