The use of children ensures maximum profits to the ruling elite in Uzbekistan, which benefits from the supply of cotton to western consumers.

A group of civil society activists has called for immediate boycott of Uzbek cotton produced by forced child labor.
Unlike other developing countries, they say, child labor in the cotton sector of Uzbekistan is not the result of poverty but of a coercion policy adopted by the central government.
“Under the Soviet Union, forced labor was accompanied by some care for the health of children, the quality of their nutrition, and development of the rural social infrastructure,“ Nadejda Atayeva, president of the Paris-based group Human Rights in Central Asia told Ipsnews.net. “Now forced labor is compensated neither by decent payment, nor through public funds.“
Every year, starting September, schools across the country are closed for more than two months. Students are forced to pick cotton by order of central and local authorities.
Children work at least eight hours daily on the cotton fields, sometimes without rest for days. They inhale dust, laden with residues of chemicals, pesticides and defoliants used in the fields before the cotton harvest.
“Children’s normal education is interrupted to serve the interest of the small elite who benefit grossly from the high profits from trading cotton on the world market,“ Surat Ikramov, chairman of the Initiative Group of Independent Human Rights Defenders of Uzbekistan told IPS from Tashkent.
Rights activists say that refusal to collect cotton can be punished by expulsion from the educational institution. There have been cases when students were beaten up by school staff for refusing to work for the cotton harvest. Child labor provides more than half of the cotton produced in Uzbekistan. Payment to the children is negligible.
Statistics on children employed in the cotton sector in Uzbekistan are difficult to obtain, but the London-based rights group Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF) says around 200,000 children work in the major cotton-producing region Ferghana. Ferghana is a city with a population of 185,000, about 420 km east of capital Tashkent.
“It is certainly reasonable to assume that there are many tens of thousands of children and students forced to work in the fields each year,“ program director at EJF Juliette Williams told IPS.
“Children are being used as cheap labor force by a government which imposes Soviet-style cotton quotas, and which is unwilling to pay a decent living wage to cotton farmers and laborers, thereby ensuring that children are used instead of adults,“ Williams said.
“The use of children ensures maximum profits to the ruling elite, which benefits from the supply of cotton to western consumers,“ Williams said. Just three trading companies controlled by President Islam Karimov’s family are licensed to export cotton.
EJF says this use of child labor violates international laws and conventions to which many governments of cotton-producing countries are signatories.
The practice violates the UN convention on the rights of a child. That convention provides that children have a right “to be protected from performing any work that is likely to be hazardous, or to interfere with the child’s education, or to be harmful to the child’s health or physical, mental, spiritual, moral or social development.“
“As forced labor on the cotton harvest prevents children from attending school oftentimes for over a third of the academic year, it clearly violates the children’s right to an education. Work on the harvest and exposure to pesticides and defoliants is also demonstrably detrimental to children’s health,“ Cassandra Cavanaugh, who was senior researcher for Human Rights Watch from 1998 to 2001 in central Asia told IPS.
Atayeva agrees that in order to break the existing system it is necessary to deprive those who control cotton export of their unfair profits.

The brand loyalty that German carmakers enjoy in their home market is disappearing, as customers are prepared to buy models made by Asian carmakers.

The sleek, mirrored facade of Kia Motor’s new 75m euro design center has carved out its own unique space in Frankfurt’s distinctive skyline.
In automotive circles, the city is famous for hosting Europe’s biggest motor show every other year. Now, with the arrival of Kia, the car industry’s presence has become permanent.
“The building and the location is quite a statement,“ head designer Peter Schreyer tells BBC as he looks out over the sprawling city. “It is part of our brand image positioning. It is a statement of our strong commitment to Europe.“
The Korean car maker is here to challenge the German automotive groups on their own turf, with models designed in Europe, by Europeans, for Europeans. Some of its cars are even produced in Europe, in a recently opened factory in Zilina, Slovakia.
But though Kia talks bold about the future, it is also painfully aware that reviving the marque’s image will be expensive, and it will not happen overnight. After all, it is only a decade since Kia went bankrupt, only to be rescued by Hyundai Motor, which still owns 39 percent of its shares.
At the time, Kia was producing cars that were vastly inferior to its current models. This created an image, which the car maker is struggling to shed.
But Schreyer is convinced it is possible, not least because he feels the brand loyalty that German carmakers enjoy in their home market is slowly disappearing as customers are increasingly prepared to buy models made by Asian carmakers.
One of the people who helped spearhead the arrival of Asian cars in Europe is Toyota Europe’s former commercial director, Jean-Charles Lievens. Now he is getting ready to do it again, only this time as head of Kia Motors Europe.
Kia is gunning for sales of 500,000 cars per year in Europe by 2010, Lievens says, a 60 percent faster sales growth than current trend.
Europe will thus make up a substantial part of Kia’s global growth as the company aims to raise sales from 1.6 million cars this year to 2.5 million cars in 2010, he explains.
In Europe, Kia is planning to build its brand gradually, initially focusing on quality to build trust amongst consumers. Its offer of a seven-year warranty and high scores in crash tests for its highly-acclaimed Ceed model are crucial in this regard, as are its plans to launch a new Ceed model with a more efficient engine that will produce 37 percent less emissions than current models.
Indeed, cost implications are becoming ever important for Kia--not least since it is running such a tight ship. A sign of this has been seen in Korea, where the car maker has been hit by wildcat strikes by flexible contract workers calling for better pay and conditions.
Thus the company is facing a dilemma, at a time when, in the words of Heungkuk Securities analyst Song Sang-hoon, “the problems in the US sub-prime mortgage sector and cut throat competition in China“ are holding back Kia’s and other Korean carmakers’ growth.
The car company is haemorrhaging cash, as its sponsorship of tennis and football tournaments continue, along with the costs associated with the building of new factories and the development of a string of new models.

Apple is successful because all of the elements of its ecosystem are in place and consistently meaningful and relevant to its target consumers.

Consumer electronics (CE) companies are cutting back their product lines. Gone are the days when manufacturers created a dozen in-line products to cover every price point.
As reported by Businessweek.com, rather than spreading chips across the table, CE brands like Sony (SNE) and Samsung are following Apple’s (AAPL) lead by stacking more chips on a few well-placed bets. Sony, for example, now offers just three models of ultra-slim point-and-shoot cameras in its CyberShot line.
It’s hard not to think of Apple as the innovator in the CE space. Apple is driving digital lifestyle on a global scale, and it’s doing so in the face of economic adversity.
To succeed like Apple, CE brands need to do more than create cool-looking products that are rich in features and intriguing behaviors. A cool object may be at the center of the experience, but as others have noted, surrounding a successful product like the iPod is a complete ecosystem that includes content and services, software and interfaces, retail experience, Web site experience, and an army of accessories.
Imagine competing with NASA by designing a better space shuttle--but ignoring the launch pad, ground control in Houston, or the facilities at Cape Canaveral. Apple is successful because all of the elements of its ecosystem are in place--and are consistently meaningful and relevant to its target consumers.
According to the latest NPD report, Apple has secured over 70 percent market share for MP3 players. What’s less well known, and more impressive, is the ratio of Apple’s investment in the iPod platform relative to its return. Since 2004, Apple has added just one item to the iPod range, the iPod touch, making four pieces of hardware in all. In the same period, the catalog of available content has increased 600 percent, to 4.1 million items.
Many companies have tried to replicate Apple’s success by imitating at the product level and focusing on the design of the object itself. Creative Technology has designed media players with simple geometric shapes, high-end details, and a polished look. Speaker docks from Altec, Logitech, JBL and Bose have tried to match the Apple color palette.
A number of accessory providers have mimicked the look of Apple’s fresh, uncluttered packaging. But none of this is enough.
Take Sony. In 2005 it outlined a strategy to reduce its SKU count by 20 percent by 2007, detailing a desire to focus on “champion“ products and avoid having to battle competition on many fronts. So while four years ago, Sony offered a dizzying array of digital cameras that recorded on all kinds of media (floppies, MemorySticks, DVDs), now it has just three lines (ultra-slim, compact, SLR).
That’s better for consumers, most of whom don’t care that Model 1 has a 2MB cache while Model 25 has 4MB.
In the hands of an artful company like Apple, however, design is the vehicle for driving meaningful, relevant experiences that are authentic to the brand. It’s not about paring product lines or making cool stuff.
Done right, design can add value to the bottom line and the brand.

Junk just ain’t what it used to be. Year-to-date through November 15, high-yield bonds returned 3 percent vs. a total return of 7.7 percent for US Treasuries. The relative outperformance of Treasuries can be attributed to many investors’ flight to safety in 2007. But in 2008, many market prognosticators are expecting a much better year for high-yield bonds, Standard and Poor’s weekly reported.
An intriguing analysis by T. Rowe Price and JP Morgan shows so-called problem industries--financial services, retailers, housing, and consumer products--represent only 13 percent of the high-yield asset class. The sectors that represent the most--energy, utilities, and health care--should be resilient even if the economy slows, says Mark Vaselkiv, manager of the T. Rowe Price High Yield fund.
What’s more, he’s very excited that “world-class companies like Alltel, Texas Utilities, and First Data Securities are entering the high-yield market.“
To be sure, the outlook for high-yield bonds will depend on the overall health of the US economy in 2008, he says. “We could see strong returns if the current financial-services crisis stabilizes [and there isn’t a recession],“ he states. “If the crisis continues and we head into a recession, however, spreads would widen further and performance would be more constrained.“
David Wyss, the chief economist for Standard & Poor’s, pegs the recession risk at 40 percent over the next 12 months. He acknowledges that US housing weakness and high energy prices, along with billions in writedowns at financial institutions, have sparked fears of slowing employment and wage growth among investors.
Although Wyss expects US gross domestic product growth to slow significantly over the next three quarters, he expects a recession to be avoided. He predicts growth will bottom at 0.7 percent in the first quarter of 2008.
But what happens if prognosticators are wrong? Vaselkiv doesn’t see a jump in default rates unless corporate credit quality significantly deteriorates. The yield advantage of high-yield bonds should provide a cushion in the event of a rise in defaults, he says. As of the end of November, the Merrill Lynch High Yield 100 index offered a yield of 8.5 percent. By contrast, the 10-year Treasury was yielding 4.0 percent.
S&P Ratings Services, which operates independently from S&P Equity Research, believes default rates will remain below historical levels.
“The US speculative-grade default rate remains suppressed and is likely to post a year-end, 25-year low of close to 1 percent,“ says Diane Vazza, a managing director for S&P Ratings Services.
“In the next several quarters, we expect the default rate to escalate based on the cumulative impact of the changes in the credit-pricing environment.“