News.Scotland.Org

February, 2

It was announced yesterday that the US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will be in the UK next week. Her visit is said to be an official visit which includes talks with Foreign Secretary David Miliband, it was known that the top agendas in the talk will be relating to Afghanistan, Iran and Iraq. The spokesman Sean McCormack also confirmed that the main issues will be Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan.

Meanwhile it was known that the visit also came due to the raging controversy over the role of multinational troops in Afghanistan and the president Hamid Karzai hoisting doubts over the effectiveness of their presence. There are also doubts for an insurgency and it may be possible that military effort would be called to control the situation. Acting to this growing concern US has already planed to send 3200 marines to join the troops in Afghanistan. It also looks forward to its European allies to come forward with its initiative and step up their military commitments.

It was later learnt that US has written a strongly worded letter to Nato members asking to send the combat troops to the sensitive areas in the south of the country. Mr Cormack clearly told that we need to end the violent extremists in Afghanistan no matter its al Qaida or the Taliban. This visit of US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will be a crucial one for both the countries.

February, 1

It seems the people of Britain have found a healthy supplement to quench their thirst. It is found that slowly people are switching over to water and fruit juices rather than going for those sugary carbonated drinks to beat the heat. It was learnt that with the growing concern of health and the ill-effects of these sugary carbonated drinks, it is predicted that the sales of these fizzy drinks in coming years is going to scale down. People are becoming more aware and conscious about their health and also what to eat and drink and what not.

This new trend to some extent has raised a concern for the soft drinks giants, while on the other hand has brought a smile on the faces of many health experts who believes it a healthy move. At present these fizzy drinks accounts to about 61 percent of the total UK soft drink market. And the market analysts have predicted that by 2011 this current rate will drop to about 50 percent in UK itself. On the contrary the sales of bottled water will go up to 24 percent from the current 19 percent in coming years. Along with that it is also forecasted that the demand for fruit juices will rise, and they will become the favourites for all those people, who were relying on fizzy drinks to beat their thirst. This change in choice among people highlights that slowly they are moving towards a healthy way.

The research conducted by Datamonitor, on the market study which brought this new fact in light has raised many eyebrows. It was also known that even the schools in US and Europe are looking to stop the sale of these sugary carbonated drinks in school and are planning to look out for some product which is healthy for students and also contain lower sugar levels. This sudden change in preference in market is making the fizzy drink manufacturers restless and forcing them to come out with a solution to balance the situation.

Few of these manufacturers have rolled out a new range of drinks which contains fruit juices and other supplements making up a good energy drink. These fizzy drinks manufacturers are also using different sales strategies to make their product more attractive and catchy. But with more and more awareness of what damage these fizzy drinks can do to one’s health, people are losing interest in these fizzy drinks slowly.