CHICAGO, Oct 19 (Reuters) - The National Basketball Association started on Monday a bigger push to attract Hispanic fans, launching a multimillion-dollar marketing campaign as well as a new Hispanic website.
The U.S. sports league said the marketing campaign -- called ene-be-a -- will include television, Internet and radio advertising, as well as special events and consumer products, plus a new website with more dedicated content (www.nba.com/enebea) aimed at Spanish-heritage fans, who currently make up 15 percent of its fan base.
"This new campaign will enable us to further engage current fans and develop new fans by being inclusive and culturally relevant, and by delivering the ... game in a way that celebrates their community and the diversity of our sport," Saskia Sorrosa, the NBA's senior director of U.S. Hispanic marketing, said in a statement.
Sports leagues like the NBA, with more than $4 billion in annual revenue, are looking to attract more American Hispanic fans because of their growing numbers, financial clout and youth. Their collective buying power in 2013 could reach almost $1.4 trillion, according to the Selig Center for Economic Growth at the University of Georgia.
The NBA campaign was developed with Bromley Communications, a U.S. ad agency that focuses on the Hispanic market and is 49 percent owned by giant French ad company Publicis Groupe SA, the NBA said.
Six U.S. born Latino players and 19 from Spain and Latin America are on 2009-2010 NBA preseason rosters. The league has played 25 preseason games and one regular-season game in Latin America.


THE entire government of the Central Asian country of Kyrgyzstan has resigned after President Kurmanbek Bakiyev announced a sweeping reform plan of the state apparatus, officials say.

The wholesale resignation of the government overnight, including the prime minister, was the latest political upheaval to hit ex-Soviet Central Asia's most volatile state since an uprising overthrew its former rulers in 2005.

"Today the full cabinet submitted its resignation in connection with President Bakiyev's government reform announced today," government spokesman Marat Kadyraliyev said.

Mr Bakiyev gave a speech earlier calling for a major restructuring of the Kyrgyz government.

The outgoing government, led by Prime Minister Igor Chudinov, had been in place since December 2007.

Mr Bakiyev said he was satisfied with the work of Mr Chudinov and his ministers but that they had to step down in connection with his reform plan.

The plan alters the cabinet's structure and redefines the roles of various ministries and agencies, including the GKNB security service, the Kyrgyz successor to the Soviet KGB, which will lose its cabinet-level status.

"The country needs a contemporary, compact and effective secret service with socially necessary functions, and not a law-enforcement agency with the functions of a secret service," Mr Bakiyev said.

He accepted the government's resignation.

The ruling Ak-Zhol party said it would discuss the candidacy of the ex-head of the presidential administration and former mayor of the capital Bishkek Daniar Usenov as the new prime minister.

Parliament is expected to debate the candidacy tomorrow. Mr Usenov was known as Bishkek mayor for clamping down on demonstrations in the capital.

The Kyrgyz parliament is overwhelmingly controlled by Bakiyev allies and is likely to approve any nominee put forward by the president's party.

Kyrgyzstan, an impoverished former Soviet republic, hosts an air base used by the United States military to supply international operations in Afghanistan, as well as a Russian military base.

In July, Mr Bakiyev was re-elected in a vote that Kyrgyz opposition parties and Western election monitors said was marred by widespread fraud.

Kyrgyzstan is the most politically volatile state in ex-Soviet Central Asia and Mr Bakiyev himself came to power in a popular uprising, the so-called "Tulip Revolution" of 2005, which overthrew his predecessor.


BANGKOK - Rice-exporter Thailand threatened to delay an Asean free trade agreement unless it can get a "fair deal" on tariffs from the Philippines, the world’s biggest buyer of the food staple, Thai officials said on Monday.

The 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations -- of which Thailand and the Philippines are members -- are due to ratify an Asean Trade in Goods Agreement (ATIGA) at their summit in Thailand this week. The trade pact is among the steps that Asean, with a combined population of 540 million, is taking towards becoming an EU-style grouping.

"Thailand will make its final proposal at the Asean summit meeting this weekend that it would not ratify the ATIGA pact if it cannot get fair deals from the Philippines on the rice issue," a senior Commerce Ministry official told Reuters.

Thai Commerce Minister Porntiva Nakasai was quoted as saying in a local newspaper that Thailand could not accept the Philippines’ offer to compensate for its delay in cutting tariffs on rice imports by giving Thailand an annual tariff-free rice import quota, saying the amount was too small.

According to the Asean free trade pact, Philippine rice import tariffs should be cut to 20 percent from 40 percent by Jan. 1, 2010.

But Manila is insisting that rice is classified under a "highly sensitive list" that allows import tariffs to stay at 35 percent.

The Philippines is proposing to give Thailand a quota of 50,000 tons of tariff-free rice annually to compensate for not meeting the tariff target, while Thailand has demanded 360,000 tons, another senior Commerce Ministry official said.

Trade ministers from the two countries need to try to resolve the dispute during the Asean summit this weekend at Thailand’s beach town of Hua Hin, the official said.

"It depends on the policy-makers whether they want Asean to move on, or to be such a less progressive trade cooperation," he said.

Thailand, the world’s biggest rice exporter, exported 10 million tons of rice in 2008 of which 599,677 tons went to the Philippines, the world’s biggest rice importer, according to Thailand’s Commerce Ministry data.

From January to August 2009, Manila bought 116,322 tons of rice from Thailand, mostly premium grade for high-end restaurants. Vietnam has mainly snatched the market for lower quality rice grades by offering better prices, traders said.

THE WHITE House was engaged in a dangerous and unpredictable stand-off with Afghan president Hamid Karzai yesterday after a UN commission offered damning evidence of fraud in the presidential election, increasing pressure for a second round of voting.

The Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC) found that almost one in three of Mr Karzai’s votes would have to be disqualified, cutting his total by 954,526 votes and reducing his percentage of the vote from 55 per cent to 48.3 per cent.

Anything less than 50 per cent should trigger a run-off, but Mr Karzai was resisting such a move.

The findings were a blow to the Afghan president, who has long maintained that the extent of electoral fraud was exaggerated by the international media. Diplomats in Kabul warned of a potential “car crash” between Mr Karzai and the international community.

Any delay beyond the next fortnight will see the onset of winter, making another election impractical in the country’s remote districts and possibly leaving Afghans in political limbo until the spring.

Fears of an impasse rose when an Afghan body packed with Mr Karzai’s appointees, the Independent Election Commission (IEC), said yesterday that it, not the ECC, had the right to decide whether to hold a run-off against Mr Karzai’s nearest challenger, Abdullah Abdullah, a former foreign minister.

Washington fears that the Taliban, who are expanding their influence across Afghanistan, could exploit any political vacuum.

US president Barack Obama led western leaders in stepping up pressure on Mr Karzai to hold a second round to confer legitimacy on the Kabul government.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs made it clear that Mr Obama wanted the Afghans to hold a run-off. “It is now up to the Afghans to make this legitimate,” he said.

While Mr Gibbs has previously said removing all US troops from Afghanistan was not a viable option, he issued a veiled threat to Mr Karzai, saying that regardless of whether 40,000 extra troops were sent, the almost 68,000 US troops already there needed a credible partner in Kabul.

Other international leaders including British prime minister Gordon Brown also pressed Mr Karzai to accept the UN findings.

Mr Brown made his third call to Mr Karzai within a week, telling the Afghan president he should accept a run-off because he was likely to win.

Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the Nato secretary general, said in Brussels that no extra troops would be sent to Afghanistan until the political crisis was resolved, including the 500 extra British troops announced last week.

“I hope that we will have a clarification of the political situation in Afghanistan, because time is not on our side,” Mr Rasmussen said.

The documents published by the ECC showed many of the ballot boxes inspected by officials had voting papers all marked in a uniform way or voting forms not folded in half, suggesting that they were not posted through the slot at the top of the ballot box.

Among the evidence uncovered by the ECC were:

More than 30 polling stations where 100 per cent of the valid votes went to one candidate.

A polling station where all the votes showed identical markings, none of the ballots were folded and all 600 votes went to one candidate, but they were recorded as votes for another candidate.

In almost a third of the sample (92 polling stations), 100 per cent of the papers had uniform markings. Another 69 stations recorded 75 per cent of the ballots showing uniform markings.

In 41 polling stations all of the ballot papers were not folded.

It was on the basis of those discoveries that the ECC ordered the IEC to invalidate percentages of each candidate’s vote, a complex method that has not previously been used in an election where it might have a decisive impact.

But one UN official said the amount of votes disqualified was only a “subset” of actual fraud which would have been discovered had the ECC widened its inquiry.

“We will never know the full extent of the fraud,” the official said.




KABUL (Reuters) - President Hamid Karzai agreed to face a second round of voting in Afghanistan's disputed election on Tuesday after a U.N.-led fraud inquiry tossed out enough of his votes to trigger a run-off.

Election workers audit and recount ballots, at a warehouse in Kabul October 5, 2009. President Hamid Karzai agreed to face a second round of voting in Afghanistan's disputed election on Tuesday after a U.N.-led fraud inquiry tossed out enough of his votes to trigger a run-off. (REUTERS/Ahmad Masood/Files)

The dispute around the Aug. 20 vote has stoked tension between Karzai and the West and complicated U.S. President Barack Obama's decision on whether to send thousands more U.S. troops to Afghanistan to fight a resurgent Taliban.

Obama, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon all welcomed Karzai's decision to accept the run-off.

"It is now vital that all elements of Afghan society continue to come together to advance democracy, peace and justice," Obama said in a statement.

"We look forward to a second round of voting, and the completion of the process to choose the president of Afghanistan."

The White House said the president had taken no decision on whether to wait for the new poll before announcing a new strategy for Afghanistan. A decision would be taken "in the coming weeks".

The Nov. 7 election will pit Karzai once again against his main election rival, former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah.

After hours of closed-door talks with Western diplomats, Karzai appeared tense as he welcomed the ruling by the Afghan Independent Election Commission (IEC). The ruling cut his tally to 49.7 percent from the preliminary first-round result of 54.6 percent -- below the 50 percent needed for an outright win.

"We believe that this decision of the IEC is legitimate, legal and constitutional and that it strengthens the path towards democracy," said Karzai, U.S. Senator John Kerry by his side and U.N. Afghanistan envoy Kai Eide standing between them.

The IEC made its ruling after a separate U.N.-backed fraud panel invalidated tens of thousands of votes for Karzai this week. Karzai had earlier said the extent of fraud was exaggerated and expressed confidence in his first-round victory.

Abdullah's camp said they were prepared for the run-off.

"We had hoped the president would accept the second round," said his spokesman, Fazel Sangcharaki.

MOUNTING CASUALTIES

Karzai, who is a Pashtun, Afghanistan's largest ethnic group, is almost certain to win the run-off but the level of mass fraud alleged in the first round will inevitably cast a shadow over the new vote.

Security issues are also of concern at a time when the insurgency is at its strongest and winter approaches.

"The Taliban no doubt will try their best to disrupt it," said Waheed Mozhdah, an Afghan analyst. "It (run-off) will be difficult if our intention is for a better and transparent election compared to the first round."

Kerry said holding the second round would be tough in the present environment. But the West, he said, was committed to assisting Afghanistan.

"We know it will be difficult and require sacrifice," he said. "But we are committed to this effort."

The uncertainty, however, has added to pressure on Washington and Afghanistan's other allies, Britain in particular, which face mounting casualties as violence this year reached its worst levels since the Taliban were overthrown in 2001.

In Washington, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said it was not certain Obama would announce a new strategy before the run-off.

"Whether or not the president makes a decision before that I don't think has been determined," he told reporters. "I continue to say that the decision will be made in the coming weeks as the president goes through an examination of our policy."

Earlier, U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said the United States could not wait for problems surrounding the Afghan government's legitimacy to be resolved before making a decision on whether to send more troops.

(Additional reporting by Golnar Motevalli, Maria Golovnina and Sayed Salahuddin in KABUL, Ross Colvin in Washington, and Louis Charbonneau at the United Nations; Writing by Golnar Motevalli and Maria Golovnina)

Liverpool's woeful form continued as Lyon came from behind to beat Rafa Benitez's under-fire side 2-1 in their Champions League Group E clash at Anfield.

Lyon's Maxime Gonalons celebrates after scoring against Liverpool during their Champions League match - 0

Yossi Benayoun put the hosts in front just before half-time but substitute Maxime Gonalons equalised in the 72nd minute and fellow replacement Cesar Delgado struck in injury time to further deepen Liverpool's woes.

Benitez must be wondering if things can get any worse for his beleaguered side, who slumped to their fourth straight defeat and now face an uphill struggle to qualify from the group stage of the competition for a sixth straight year. It is the club's worst run of results for 22 years.


To make matters worse captain Steven Gerrard - who missed the weekend defeat at Sunderland with a groin strain - was forced off after just 25 minutes, casting doubt over his participation in the weekend's Premier League clash with Manchester United.

Liverpool now occupy third place in Group E, six points off leaders Lyon and three behind Fiorentina, who beat Debrecen 4-3.

Lyon's 100 per cent record in this season's competition showed as they confidently took the game to Liverpool from the kick-off. No sitting back and looking to hit on the break for the seven-times French champions.

Liverpool, on the other hand, started tentatively and took their time to settle, hardly surprising given their form heading into the game.

The French side came close to taking full advantage early on, at a time when a further body blow may have been catastrophic for the English team.

Aly Cissokho, who so impressed for Porto in last season's campaign, delivered an excellent back-post cross for Lisandro Lopez, another former Porto player, to direct a header on target. Pepe Reina had to be at his best to repel the effort.

Suitably warned as to the visitors' attacking prowess, Liverpool upped their game and even had the ball in the back of the Lyon net soon after. Only Dirk Kuyt's effort from Gerrard's pinpoint cross was quickly chalked off for a push in the back of his marker.

It was to be Gerrard's last meaningful contribution, the Reds skipper replaced on 25 minutes by Fabio Aurelio. As he trudged off the pitch, the dip in mood around Anfield was tangible as the home faithful feared the worse.

Yet strangely his departure initially served to focus the hosts' concentration, although they were aided by a serious injury to one of Lyon's own kingpins shortly after.

Away captain Cris slipped and somehow managed to upend Kuyt, who was in full flow, with his head. It was a sickening injury, and one which would eventually lead to his substitution just before the break, although there was no sympathy from the referee, who brandished a yellow card once the Brazilian had come to.

With Cris momentarily off the pitch to receive treatment, Liverpool nearly took advantage as Kuyt struck a goalbound shot that Cissokho did well to block and David Ngog saw his follow-up saved by Hugo Lloris.

Sidney Govou then had a chance to volley Lyon ahead as the game ebbed and flowed before Benayoun made his telling contribution on 41 minutes. The Israeli swooped to settle home nerves after Aurelio's fierce drive had caused confusion in the Lyon box.

The hosts could, and perhaps should, have gone in at the break two goals to the good after Aurelio got on the end of an excellent cross from the impressive Martin Kelly, preferred at right-back to Jamie Carragher with Martin Skrtel dropped to the bench, only to see his header kept out by Lloris.

Liverpool continued to press after the break and Benayoun started a move on 56 minutes that he nearly finished, heading Kuyt's clipped centre wide of the mark when he should have at least found the target.

Ngog, starting up front on his own, displayed a series of neat first touches, but ultimately failed to do what he was put in the team for - score a goal. The nearest he came was in the 58th minute but his neat control was not followed by a matching finish.

Lloris made a sharp save to deny Kuyt a header before Liverpool had a scare at the other end, the ball appearing to hit the back of the net when in fact it hit the side netting.

The hosts failed to heed the warning and Lyon levelled when Gonalons, who had replaced the unfortunate Cris, headed home after Reina had made a heroic double save to keep out first Jeremie Toulalan and then Govou.

The goal gave Lyon real hope of finding a winner, and despite substitute Skrtel's blazed effort over the bar with five minutes remaining, if any side was going to find a winner, it looked likely to be that of Claude Puel.

Sure enough, the decisive goal came at the Liverpool end, in front of the Kop; Delgado tapped home at the far post to convert Govou's cross and send the Reds further towards crisis.

"A disproportionate use of civil defamation suits by any government has the chilling effect of silencing a political life that for progress must thrive. While Singapore is an economic success, Cambodia is far from it and is yet to be considered an attractive destination for foreign direct investment. A decoupling of defamation from criminal law must coincide with a government taking lessons in constructive criticism. Without this, it is the Cambodia people who continue to lose out with a legislature, executive and judiciary, neither of which are accountable to those they rule."
New criminal libel laws put a serious dent in press freedom

After escorting United Nations officials out of the National Assembly, Cambodia's ruling party last week pushed through a draft criminal code that is regarded as yet another barrier to freedom of speech in a country becoming infamous for silencing opposition members and journalists.

Cambodia is thus in danger of going down the same road as other Southeast Asian countries in making it easier to file bring criminal libel charges designed to stifle dissent, both from the opposition and the press although its English-language newspapers remain relatively free today.

None of the members of the UN Human Rights team were allowed back into the Assembly during the debate on the code, and the television feed conveniently broke down during discussions on the code's most contentious issues regarding defamation. Ruling party members blamed the UN altercation on a change in visiting procedure paperwork and the television interruption on external feed problems.

"We did not throw them out," said Chheang Vun, Cambodia's former ambassador to Geneva. "The secretary-general for the National Assembly banned them from getting in." He warned that the situation should not be used for political gain by opposition lawmakers.

Since April 2009 the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights has noted that Cambodia's government has lodged eight separate criminal defamation and disinformation complaints against opposition lawmakers, protesting civilians and newspaper editors. Two Khmer language newspapers have been forced to close after their editors were sued, and separately a student was arrested for spraying anti-government slogans on his house.

Under the new draft criminal code, media defamation cannot be considered a criminal offense and will instead be covered by Cambodia's press law. Anyone other than journalists may face fines of between $25 and $2,500 for public defamation, which the code describes as "all exaggerated declarations, or those that intentionally put the blame for any actions, which affect the dignity or reputation of a person or an institution."

Individual interpretation of these words could well lead to further curtailing of critics' remarks.

"It is a shame that the authorities did not take advantage of the drafting of the new Penal Code to remove defamation," said Brittis Edman, Amnesty International's Cambodian Researcher. "We have long called for a decriminalization of defamation; the criminal justice system is not the appropriate channel for resolving defamation cases; they are better settled under civil law and should not violate the freedom of expression."

"[The code] currently includes a number of provisions which unduly restrict freedom of expression," said the British human rights group Article 19, which lobbies for freedom of speech. It also pointed out that the broad defamation statute also appears to leave out truth as a defense against defamation charges.

"These rules should apply only to incorrect factual statements made without reasonable grounds. It should not be an offence to make a defamatory statement which is true or which is a reasonable opinion," it said.

The Washington, DC-based Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission convened a meeting last month in Phnom Penh to discuss Cambodia's situation regarding freedom of expression. Testimony by three prominent Cambodians — opposition SRP lawmaker Mu Sochua, labour advocate Moeun Tola and Kek Pung, founder of Licadho, a domestic NGO — detailed a litany of lawsuits filed by members of the ruling party curbing free speech similar to the methodology of Malaysia and Singapore's previous use of defamation.

Hun Sen's ruling CPP party rejected any accusation put forth at the hearing regarding the abuse of human rights in the country, condemning Sochua particularly for giving ‘false testimony' in a biased and misleading manner. They also highlighted Cambodia's free press.

Sochua was convicted for defaming Prime Minister Hun Sen in a ‘he said, she said' battle of lawsuits, which she faced without a lawyer after her representative was threatened with the loss of his career. Hun Sen famously insulted a strong and prominent woman widely believed to have been Sochua with the colloquial insult "cheung klang" — strong leg — in a nationally broadcast speech on April 4 2009.

She filed a defamation suit soon after. Hun Sen however, countersued on the basis that her filing against him was itself defamation and countersued. Her case was dismissed and she lost her defense, leaving her to appeal against the conviction fine of 16.5 million riels (US$3,971).

Sochua has embarked upon a battle for freedom of speech with considerable fire and PR savvy more often seen in the West. Such has been her success in bringing attention to what she calls Cambodia's "sham democracy" that delegations from the EU, a new and more forthright UN human rights rapporteur and countless damnations from NGOs and human rights groups have questioned her treatment. The US embassy in Phnom Penh has been ordered to monitor her safety and report back. But will it make a difference? History says not.

While Cambodia's Asean neighbors Singapore and Malaysia have a long history of using similar methodologies to curtail criticism and Indonesia's criminal defamation laws have the potential to bring editors to bear, according to Human Rights Watch, compared to their Asean neighbors governmental critics in Cambodia face greater penalties and actual fear of violence.

Brad Adams, HRW's Asia Director said: "Sadly, democracy is not a term I would apply to Cambodia. Aside from having elections every five years, almost all the other elements are missing. The trend is negative and with the continuing consolidation of power by Hun Sen, not least in the military, it is hard to see the trend reversing. Hun Sen has shown little ability to change over the years, to become more tolerant of criticism, less autocratic and work to create enduring, competent and independent institutions. Massive corruption and greed among those in power is at the heart of the problem, yet no steps are being taken to address it. It is depressingly similar to what has happened in Malaysia and Singapore over the years."

In an Amnesty International report concerning the actions of the Singaporean government during the period, the NGO highlighted the very same concerns that are repeated in Cambodia today. "The intended [and expected] effect of these suits, it is believed, has been to inhibit the public activities of opposition politicians."

There is very little difference between this and the ongoing actions in Cambodia, Mu Sochua says. "When [the] government of a non or semi-democratic regime is in control of the judiciary, their opponents will continue to be victims of such a lack of independence in the judiciary. However, by continuing to pursue this practice, the leaders in power will discredit themselves at the end. I believe that there will be a break point but it has to be worse before it can be better." She added that while total judicial forms were unlikely without a change in leadership, she hoped aid donors would only provide further help on a conditional basis tied to freedom of speech.

A disproportionate use of civil defamation suits by any government has the chilling effect of silencing a political life that for progress must thrive. While Singapore is an economic success, Cambodia is far from it and is yet to be considered an attractive destination for foreign direct investment. A decoupling of defamation from criminal law must coincide with a government taking lessons in constructive criticism. Without this, it is the Cambodia people who continue to lose out with a legislature, executive and judiciary, neither of which are accountable to those they rule.

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