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Israel, Gaza fighting rages on as Egypt seeks truce
Obama visits Thailand on first leg of Asia tour
World’s 1st experiment to battle the bulge with ‘fat tax’ fails
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Israel, Gaza fighting rages on as Egypt seeks truce Gaza/Jerusalem, November 18 Palestinian fire into Israel subsided during the night but resumed in the morning, with rockets targeting the country's commercial capital Tel Aviv for a fourth day. The two missiles were shot down by Israel's Iron Dome air shield. Speaking shortly after the attack, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel was ready to widen its offensive. "We are exacting a heavy price from Hamas and the terrorist organisations and the Israel Defence Forces are prepared for a significant expansion of the operation," he said at a cabinet meeting, giving no further details. Some 51 Palestinians, about half of them civilians, including 14 children, have been killed since the Israeli offensive began, Palestinian officials said, with hundreds wounded. More than 500 rockets fired from Gaza have hit Israel, killing three civilians and wounding dozens. Israel unleashed intensive air strikes on Wednesday, killing the military commander of the Islamist Hamas movement that governs Gaza and spurns peace with the Jewish state. Israel's declared goal is to deplete Gaza arsenals and press Hamas into stopping cross-border rocket fire that has bedeviled Israeli border towns for years and is now displaying greater range, putting Tel Aviv and Jerusalem in the crosshairs. Air raids continued past midnight into Sunday, with warships shelling from the sea. Two Gaza City media buildings were hit, witnesses said, wounding six journalists and damaging facilities belonging to Hamas's Al-Aqsa TV as well as Britain's Sky News. Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi said in Cairo, as his security deputies sought to broker a truce with Hamas leaders, that "there are some indications that there is a possibility of a ceasefire soon, but we do not yet have firm guarantees". Egypt has mediated previous ceasefire deals between Israel and Hamas, the latest of which unravelled with recent violence. A Palestinian official told Reuters the truce discussions would continue in Cairo on Sunday, saying "there is hope", but that it was too early to say whether the efforts would succeed. — Reuters
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Obama visits Thailand on first leg of Asia tour
Bangkok, November 18 Obama, who was re-elected as US President early this month, arrived here on the first leg of his historic trip to Asia, calling alliances with Thailand as cornerstones of his administration's deeper commitment to the region under the so-called pivot to the Asia-Pacific region. His three-day tour to southeast Asia will also take him to Myanmar, the first by a US president, a hitherto closed country which is slowly opening up to the world. Obama called on Thai King Bhumibol Adulyadej and held a bilateral meeting with Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra. The President was greeted by 40 saluting military guards who flanked both sides of a red carpet. Obama and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited the Wat Pho Royal Monastery, which houses a gigantic reclining Buddha and a towering seated Buddha. It is Obama's first trip abroad after winning his second term. On Tuesday Obama will visit Cambodia to attend the summit. Thailand is a major non-NATO ally. — PTI
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World’s 1st experiment to battle the bulge with ‘fat tax’ fails
Hailed as progressive by researchers who have shown how smoking rates declined over the past 10 years due to 50 pc raise in the prices of taxed cigarettes globally, the fat tax of Denmark envisaged that for every kilo of saturated fat a consumer purchased in shops, the state got EUR 2.15. Denmark had also announced another unusual tax on sugar to be applicable from 2013 on all foods from ice creams and cakes to yoghurt and pickled cucumbers. But both these innovative taxes the world was talking about are set to go following mass agitations from grocery shop owners who said the tax was causing huge administrative burdens besides boosting Danish border trade with Germany where the Danes were rushing to buy fatty foods. "German stores were making quick bucks due to taxes at home and we were losing on business," a representative of the Danish Groceries Association told this correspondent on her recent visit to Denmark. The decision of the Social Democratic Party-led government to scrap both the fat and the sugar tax comes at a time when a host of other countries are going the Dane way to curb obesity. That apart, the Danish Government has decided to promote other ways of fostering national health with unique initiatives such as organic lunch schemes, employer paid fruit and vegetables (office tables in the country are supposed to be prettily decked up with loaded fruit trays at all times), jogging clubs and offers to receive massages during work hours. Studies show this strategy has worked and the consumption of cakes and sweets in Denmark has dropped with more fruit and vegetables being eaten. The consumption of sweets has decreased so much that the average citizen in neighbouring Sweden consumes almost twice as many sweets (8.2 kg per year) as the average Dane (4.8 kg). As for the fat tax, Denmark had introduced it with an eye on its obese population. The Danish National Health and Medicine Authority says 13 pc Danes are obese. Contrarily, in India one in three persons is obese and another 23 pc healthy population is on the verge of becoming obese with their body mass index set to cross the threshold of 22.9. A study published in The Lancet in 2010 had argued that one in five Indian men and one in six Indian women were obese and the rates of obesity in urban India were 40 pc. After Denmark rolled out its innovative fat tax, Hungary followed suit last year by implementing 50 US cent as tax on foods containing saturated fats. Israel is debating one such tax and British Prime Minister David Cameron has also hinted at it.
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The first global experiment to battle the bulge with taxes on fatty foods failed earlier this week with the Danish Government repealing the world's maiden cess imposed only last year on all forms of food containing saturated fats including butter, milk and ready to serve pizzas.
