European Bulletin 21/12/98 (fwd)

[Robert Weissman <rob@essential.org>]

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!#  GLOBALink Tobacco - Weekly European News Bulletin
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           EUROPEAN NEWS BULLETIN - EU9848 21ST DECEMBER 1998
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CONTENTS:

EUROPE - SPECIFIC COUNTRIES

· FRANCE: Seita to acquire US cigar group for $530 million.
· HUNGARY: Legislation that would restrict public smoking.
· UK: Beauty adverts  show ugly side of smoking.
· UK: HEA £2.5 million drive to halt smoking.

INTERNATIONAL 

· AFRICA:  ITGA announces more bad news from Africa.
· ASIA: Asian bailout could aid tobacco giants.
· CANADA: RJR-Macdonald sues British Columbia government. 
· CHINA: BAT dealt blow as axe falls on Chinese F1 race.
· KENYA: Tough laws expected on Kenyan Tobacco firm.

EUROPE - SPECIFIC COUNTRIES

FRANCE: Seita to acquire US cigar group for $530 million.

Seita SA, the principal French tobacco company, is to buy Consolidated Cigar
Holdings, the US premium cigar maker for $530 million in a move it said
would make it the world’s leading cigar company.

Source: Financial Times 17/12/98  

HUNGARY: Legislation that would restrict public smoking.

Hungary is preparing to impose restrictions on smoking in public places and
on the sale of tobacco to minors. Legislation pending in the Hungarian
Parliament would require restaurants to create sections for non-smokers;
offices would have to create an assigned room for smokers. The sale of
tobacco to those under 18 would be banned. Cigarette packs would have to
carry warning labels of a prescribed size, and the Hungarian government is
also considering a 16 percent increase in tax on tobacco. “It’s an upward
struggle in this part of the world,” said Annette Andkjaer, a spokeswoman
for the World Health Organization’s European headquarters in Copenhagen.
“Smoking is related to numerous deaths in post-communist Europe, but the
reality is that the masses don’t see it that way yet,” she said. However,
the newly elected Prime Minister Viktor Orban is hoping to make the change
in Hungary.

Source: Boston Globe 27/11/98
  

UK: Beauty adverts  show ugly side of smoking.

A series of hard-hitting advertisements that show how cigarettes damage skin
and cause premature ageing have been created for the fashion press to
persuade young women to give up smoking. The advertisements, which will
appear in magazines such as Elle, Cosmopolitan and 19 next month, focus on
how the habit ages, thins and discolours the skin. The new approach is part
of a £2.5 million campaign by the Health Education Authority to tackle the
growing number of young women smokers. The authority is extremely concerned
that 29 percent of girls aged 16-24 are regular smokers, particularly as it
emerged that women are more susceptible to the most serious form of lung
cancer. Katie Aston, the authority’s smoking campaign manager, said: “By
looking at the very real effects that smoking has on a woman’s skin, we hope
to use vanity as a way of getting the message across.” One of the four
advertisements shows a blusher brush dipped into an ashtray. The text reads:
“Clinically proven to give you grottier looking skin...” 

Source: Sunday Telegraph, Mail on Sunday 13/12/98


UK: HEA £2.5 million drive to halt smoking.

A hard-hitting anti-smoking campaign featuring a mother who has since died
from her habit has been launched  to persuade younger people to give up
smoking. The £2.5 million Health Education Authority advertising campaign
features smokers in their thirties and forties who have contracted lung
cancer and oral cancer and is aimed at showing young people aged between 16
and 24 the reality behind the image of smoking. Katie Aston, HEA
anti-smoking campaign manger said: “These adverts make painful viewing. They
show ordinary people trying to come to terms with what smoking has done to
them. They are young and all of them thought it would never happen to them.”
The campaign will run from Boxing Day to No Smoking Day on March 10th 1999.

Source: The Independent, Daily Mail, The Sun 16/12/98

INTERNATIONAL 

AFRICA:  ITGA announces more bad news from Africa.

The International Tobacco Growers’ Association (ITGA) said in Johannesburg
that production in some areas of Africa is no longer economically viable
after an average of 40 percent fall in prices across the continent this
year. It said prices in Zimbabwe, the continent’s biggest producer at
165,000 tons, are 33 percent lower than last year. Prices are down 36
percent in Zambia, 19 percent in Malawi and 15 percent in Tanzania.

Source: Tobacco Reporter December, 1998 

ASIA: Asian bailout could aid tobacco giants.

Efforts to help the Asian economy are having a controversial side effect:
helping open markets in South Korea and Thailand to global tobacco
companies. The International Monetary Fund came into action last year to
bail out the struggling economies of these countries. As a condition of its
emergency assistance, the IMF is seeking the privatisation of state-owned
companies in various industries, including tobacco. That stands to open the
lucrative South Korean and Thai cigarette markets to Philip Morris  and
other  tobacco rivals.

Source: Wall Street Journal Europe 17/12/98

CANADA: RJR-Macdonald sues British Columbia government. 

RJR-Macdonald Inc. has filed a lawsuit against the British Columbia
provincial government in Canada, claiming its Tobacco Sales Amendment Act
was unconstitutional, intrusive and a threat to the company’s
competitiveness. On the same day that Canada’s third-largest tobacco
manufacturer filed the suit, Imperial Tobacco and Rothmans, Benson & Hedges
Inc. agreed to comply with the legislation. The RJR-Macdonald writ claimed
the province exceeded constitutional authority by requiring tobacco
companies to reveal trade secrets , such as the chemical ingredients in
cigarette smoke. It said RJR-Macdonald makes its cigarettes outside the
province and only the federal government has authority to regulate
inter-provincial trade. The legislation requires tobacco companies to reveal
the contents of  cigarettes and their smoke. It also requires the three
companies to help pay for an anti-smoking campaign.

Source: Tobacco Reporter December 1998 

CHINA: BAT dealt blow as axe falls on Chinese F1 race.

British American Tobacco’s Formula 1 sponsorship ambitions have been halted,
with the F1 establishment announcing it is cancelling next season’s Chinese
Grand Prix. BAT was planning to be the race and trackside sponsor for  the
first Grand Prix in China, a country which is the keystone of its global
expansion plans.

Source: Marketing 17/12/98


KENYA: Tough laws expected on Kenyan Tobacco firms.

New tobacco control legislation is being proposed in Kenya which may
regulate the presence of harmful constituents contained in tobacco products.
The Attorney General, Amos Wako was quoted by Sunday’s Daily Nation, saying:
“under the laws, the government intends to go beyond merely carrying the
warning that ‘Smoking is harmful to your health,’ it will now require
provision of a list of the harmful constituents contained or generated in
the smoke of the product and their respective quantities.” 
The forthcoming legislation will also regulate marketing and advertising of
tobacco products and prohibit smoking in cinemas, theatres, public
transport, hospitals and other specified buildings, he added. However, he
assured those in the tobacco industry that the laws are not meant to drive
them out of business, urging them to positively participate in the
legislation. He made the remarks at the British American Tobacco (BAT)
Kenya’s 1998 annual long service award-giving ceremony in Nairobi.  

Source: News Edge Corporation supplied by Paul Wangai  22/11/98

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