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A commercial for Apoliva, an assortment of personal care products for Apotoket, featuring Swedish supermodel Adina Fohlin has made a major splash, although not quite the one that the Swedish pharmacy chain was hoping for. Rather than running out to purchase Apoliva products, viewers are running scared. The 30-second ad spot, set to the haunting tones of a Swedish folk song, depicts a close-up of a rather sullen and emaciated Fohlin standing in the snow, rain and sun. The clip ends with the tagline, “Apoliva – for Swedish conditions”. Almost 100,000 Swedes, many of whom viewed the clip on YouTube,...

NEW YORK — In a season that inspires earnest letters about toys, one notable batch is being sent not by kids to Santa's workshop but by parents to the executive suites of real-world toy makers. The message: Please, in these days of economic angst, cut back on marketing your products directly to our children. The letter-writing initiative was launched by the Boston-based Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, which says roughly 1,400 of its members and supporters have contacted 24 leading toy companies and retailers to express concern about ads aimed at kids.

US troops 'made Aristide leave'From correspondents in Paris March 1, 2004 HAITIAN leader Jean Bertrand Aristide was taken away from his home by US soldiers, it was claimed today. A man who said he was a caretaker for the now exiled president told France's RTL radio station the troops forced Aristide out. "The American army came to take him away at two in the morning," the man said. "The Americans forced him out with weapons. "It was American soldiers. They came with a helicopter and they took the security guards. "(Aristide) was not happy. He did not want to be...

PRESIDENT Bush continues to tell the world that he has not made up his mind about attacking Iraq. But in the Kuwaiti desert, the US Army is busy preparing for war. At their huge military base on the outskirts of Kuwait City, hundreds of American army tanks are being prepared to roll northwards towards Baghdad. As US military hardware piles up at Camp Doha, the locals have given it a suitably gung-ho nickname - "Camp F*** Iraq". As the US army’s Abrams tanks and Apache gunships venture out into the desert, ostensibly for "training exercises", they look ready to roll...

In the last six months we have witnessed an unprecedented level of hostility voiced toward America by an array of European intellectuals, EU officials, and those in the media from London to Rome. At a time of war we expect such enmity from our enemies in the Middle East. Americans are accustomed to such opportunistic broadsides from Cuba and China — and of course venom from the lunatic states of North Korea, Libya, Iran, and the like. Yet it is unnerving to hear constant European recriminations over everything from Guantanamo Bay and our injunction of the word "Axis" to plans ...

Almost unnoticed in the wave of economic pessimism accompanying the war against terrorism is the precipitous plunge of oil prices. Since shortly after the Sept.11 bombing, oil has dropped about 25% from $30 a barrel to nearly $22. Gasoline prices at the pump have slipped $0.20 to $1.30. Just as negative oil shocks act on the economy like tax hikes, this tax-cut like decline will surely boost next year's economic growth rate, a big plus for recovery. Take consumer spending, where it is estimated that each $0.10 drop in gas prices adds $13 billion to disposable income. That means we've ...

Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal, by Eric Schlosser (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2001), 356 pp. On page nine of Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation, Schlosser writes the truth, and the truth does not set him free: "During the two years spent researching this book, I ate an enormous amount of fast food. Most of it tasted pretty good. …It's also inexpensive and convenient." What else is there to say? Fast Food Nation is the chronicle of a reporter shocked —shocked! — to learn that fast food is unhealthy; that big businesses extort favors from local ...