LONDON – The London Metropolitan Police have announced that they will be working with money transfer giant Western Union in order to stop fraudsters from using that service for nefarious purposes. This means that all Western Union customers will be required to sign a form stating that they are confident that they are not being defrauded.

The Met have also entered into a similar agreement with online auction company eBay Inc. “There are businesses that fear their reputation will be damaged through the publicity that the police are involved and that will have a negative impact on their share price,” said Detective Chief Superintendent Nigel Mawer, head of economic and specialist crime at the Metropolitan police. He added that all they would do is ensure that the banks as well as the customers are not taken for a ride.

It is estimated that such frauds cost the public something in the tune of 1 billion a year. US-based Western Union will also cooperate with the police in spreading awareness about the dangers of fraud. Peter Bucher, Western Union’s Financial Services vice-president for operations said that even though the fraud cases were a small volume of the firm’s overall transactions, they cost them a lot reputation-wise. “Education is one of the best tools we have in the fight against consumer fraud and the educated consumers are better able to protect themselves,” he added. “We are heavily engaged with eBay to get the same kind of partnership. We are optimistic we will get somewhere with it,” said Nigel Mawer.

As a part of the agreement, Western Union will encourage its staff to reject suspicious transactions. “Money transfer should never be used for sending money to a stranger, someone whose identity cannot be verified,” said Bucher. Staff will also issue forms to customers warning them about potential scamsters lurking in the shadows.

Scottish dentists have resoundingly rejected the £295 million package proposed by the Executive to lure them back onto the NHS. Talks between the government and dentists have ended in stalemate with both sides sticking to their respective stands.

The Executive had proposed the Dental Action Plan, which required dentists to pledge that they would treat a fixed number of patients on the NHS. The British Dental Association (BDA) was unhappy with this clause and decided to withdraw from the talks. The dental crisis on the NHS has only deepened after this latest twist. Already thousands of patients have been forced to re-register with private dentists after their NHS dentists shut their practices down.

“The Executive is putting Scotland’s dental health in jeopardy by removing the ability for dentists to see only children or those exempt from NHS charges. The levels of funding and investment available for NHS dentistry in Scotland are not sufficient to provide for a universal, comprehensive service for all,” said Andrew Lamb, the BDA director for Scotland.

The deputy health minister Lewis McDonald had launched the DAP in March this year and promised to recruit an extra 200 dentists by 2008. He was disappointed that any agreement had not been reached, “It is disappointing we haven’t been able to reach agreement with them, but our priority now is to deliver our action plan for NHS dentists,” he said. Shona Robison MSP, the SNP’s health spokeswoman echoed his views, but said that the Executive should ensure that there was adequate time to treat the patients.

Margaret Davidson, from the Scotland Patients’ Association, said, “The BDA is putting people’s lives at risk. Dental check-ups are vital for spotting serious health conditions, such as mouth cancer, and everyone should have the right to see a dentist.”

LONDON: Reckitt Benckiser Plc has won the bid finally. It is buying Boots Group’s non-prescription drugs business, Boots Healthcare International (BHI), for 1.9 billion pounds in cash. There will be synergies of sort, when the company’s Lemsip and Disprin cold remedies will be placed alongside of Boot’s Nurofen painkiller.

Boots, which is in the process of merging with Alliance Unichem Plc, is required to divest the healthcare business for the merger to secure the regulator’s approval. It is returning around 1.43 billion pounds to its shareholders through a special dividend.

Reckitt Benckiser’s chief executive Bart Becht admitted the price was a full price, but there are considerable synergies and the company is acquiring a high growth and high margin business with earning enhancing from year one. The company hopes to have cost savings of 75 million pounds and 130 million pounds of net working capital gains by 2008.

Becht said he is paying around 20 times earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) against recent similar deals which were priced at about 13 or 14 times, but contended that the Boots business had important brands and strong growth potential.

Apart from Nurofen, Reckitt Benckiser will add Clearasil skin products and Strepsils throat lozenges to its health and personal care division, which already has an array like Dettol antiseptic, Veet depilatories and heartburn treatment Gaviscon. The company is committed to continue operations at BHI’s three sites in Nottingham, England and in Germany and Thailand.

Reckitt Benckiser, the world’s largest consumer and household cleaning products group, which had been scouting for acquisitions since 1999, had lost two earlier chances — to buy Bayer’s household insecticide unit and Schick razors — mainly because of cautious bidding. In its bid for BHI, it was pitted against GlaxoSmithKline Plc.

The path is now clear for Boots to buy Alliance Unichem to create drug retailing major with pan-European footprint.

LONDON: T-Mobile UK, the British arm of Europe’s largest telecom operator Deutsche Telekom AG, threw a challenge at its fixed line rivals by announcing a mobile Internet service called “Web ‘n’ Walk”.

The new service, believed to be crucial for the company’s business in the UK, allows customers full Internet access for £9 a month. Customers will have 40 MB of data usage which equals around 2,500 emails or 500 web pages. They will be able to use the mobile in exactly the same way as they would a computer; such as making online purchases, browsing, etc. The service comes through a portal headed with the search engine Google.

The mobile operator’s managing director Brian McBride told journalists over a teleconference that the company aimed to displace fixed-line usage with their total Internet usage. He pointed out that Internet services on mobile devices had so far been slow, difficult to navigate and “bloody expensive”. But T-Mobile’s “Web ‘n’ Walk” would change all that.

The company despite losing market share had been busy planning high-speed broadband mobile data services to its customers by integrating its networks with upgraded technology. It has also planned a launch of the HSDPA next year, a technology which enables broadband Internet speed on 3G networks.

The company also announced five devices for the new service and promised three more by Christmas. These include the MDA Pro Smartphone handsets that make browsing the Net much easier than on conventional mobile phones. These handsets are designed for 3G and WiFi networks as well as the analogue spectrum.

McBride said he expected hundreds of thousands of people over the next two years to begin using the Internet through their mobile phones. The service had already been launched by its parent Deutsche in Germany. The UK launch will be marketed using a £10 million advertising campaign.

T-Mobile customers will have a choice of three tariffs that will include ‘Web ‘n’ Walk”: £30, £38 and £55 a month. Each would offer 40 Mb worth of data download but with differing voice minutes.

For most mobile operators, including Internet service as part of the services package is crucial for business in the current “overheated market” according to an analyst. It seems like the only way to increase data revenue.

LONDON: The government plans to snatch junk food, chocolates and crisps from 8 million school children. According to an announcement yesterday, the School Meals Advisory Panel is going to revise national school curriculum with the inclusion of cookery classes for boys and girls between 11 and 14. It will also ban junk food and sugary fizzy pop type drinks from school and canteen vending machines.

Under the enforced “healthy eating” plan, reconstituted meats will be replaced with at least two portions of fresh fruit and vegetables daily; oily fish will also become a regular 3-weekly feature; fried food will be limited to two dishes a week. And pupils will be barred from leaving the school gate; which means pupils have no choice but to eat what the school canteen provides.

The panel said it aimed to instill the concept of ‘healthy eating’ among pupils by phasing out all old unhealthy meal menus and eating habits. This may prove more difficult than is imagined. A separate study by the Foods Standards Agency showed that half of all students chose burgers and chips whereas barely 2 percent chose fruits.

Knowing that children are not going to welcome the food changes, the panel plans to implement the changes gradually – over the next two years for primary schools and until 2009 for secondary schools. By that time stringent nutrient-based standards will be in place at all schools across the UK. These will feature a total of 23 standards of which 14 will regulate the proportion of nutrients that children must get and the remaining nine will require children to get at least one portion of fruit and one of vegetables or salad every day. Pupils will have access to “unrestricted” quantities of bread and free, fresh, chilled drinking water.

Pupils would be made to understand what kind of food is good for them; they will also be taught practical cooking skills, especially how to prepare vegetables and other healthful dishes.

Education secretary Ruth Kelly supported the panel’s recommendations and said that even parents needed to be told what food is permitted in packed lunches. She also welcomed the suggestion that pupils be barred from leaving school grounds to buy fast food products.

The panel comprises teachers, public health organisations, caterers, unions, consumer groups and local authority representatives.

Until now pupils were required only to study food technology in design and technology classes. With the panel’s efforts a course in cooking is set to become a requisite of the new curriculum.

The panel pointed out that the government was expected to provide an additional Ł266 million to fund the programme for improving school meals. Ms Kelly had earlier allowed Ł220 million which would not be enough for the three year transition period to the new ‘healthy eating’ standards, the panel said.

LONDON – New laws to regulate gambling in the UK are all set to make it easier for gamblers to indulge in thier favorite activity even as charities and consumers’ organizations are voicing concerns that the new laws will give rise to a generation of ‘problem’ gamblers.

The government appears to have taken this point into consideration since a new regulator called the Gambling Commission will oversee all gambling activity to make sure that it is fair, safe and above all socially responsible. Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell assured consumers that the UK gambling industry will be heavily regulated and it would be near impossible to hoodwink people. The new commission will regulate online betting, a gray area in the UK scenario. It would also make sure that organized crime does not gain a backdoor entry into the society via gambling.

Meanwhile, a five-member Casino Advisory Panel is due to deliberate from Monday on the possible location of a Las Vegas style ‘super casino.’ The government had initially proposed to have 40 such casinos across the country, but under pressure from the Conservatives decided to scale down this number. Tessa Jowell will take advise from this panel to identify locations in England, Wales and Scotland for one “super casino” and 16 other smaller ones. Blackpool and Glasgow are being thought of as front-runners for the super casino, but nothing has been finalized yet.

However, concern has been running rife that the opening up of gambling in the country would not be a healthy sign, “Responsible providers of gambling want the cachet and the respectability that a license from the Gambling Commission will provide. And that will provide some assurance to those who go on those sites that the sites are properly run,” said Peter Dean, chairman of the Gambling Commission, defending the reforms.

Major Bill Cochrane, of the Salvation Army, said that the government should not hasten to introduce the super casinos all over the country, “The potential consequences do not offer an attractive proposition to any local community and that is why no more super casinos should even be considered until the impact of the first one has been measured,” he commented.

LONDON: Consumer confidence is at its lowest in a year, after a fall in September abetted by a bleak prospect for the economy, says a report by consultancy firm GfK Martin Humblin.

The firm, which maintains a confidence barometer, said the reading for September fell to -5 from -4 in August, the lowest reading since October 2004, when it was -6.

However, economists are not worried. In broad terms, they say, this is an indication of stability for the consumer’s sentiments. Even a decision by Bank of England to keep the interest rates at 4.5 per cent will not alter this situation, they feel.

The survey, however, indicated that when it came to major spending, people were not unduly worried. The index measuring whether it was a good time to make major buys rose to +9 from +8.

According to the firm, the decline in the main index was essentially on account of a fall in the sub-index measuring optimism over the future course of the economy — it fell to -16 from -13. The respondents to the survey were also concerned about their personal financial situation as the concerned sub-index fell to +10 from +12.

The findings are almost in line with those earlier this week of Confederation of British Industry, which said retail sales in September reached the lowest in 22 years.

The Office of National Statistics too had revised down annual GDP growth to just 1.5 per cent in the second quarter, the lowest level in 12 years.