Tobacco.org

• Experts slam tobacco-sponsored event 

criticized a tobacco company's move to sponsor a sports event, calling it a "bold promotion of their product rather than charity".

The Beijing Tobacco Factory, which manufactures the Zhongnanhai brand of cigarettes, is sponsoring a national five-city parkour event in collaboration with the Beijing donation center of the Hope Project, a major charitable organization in China.

Parkour is the physical discipline of overcoming any obstacle within one's path by adapting one's movements to the environment.

Named after the factory's cigarette product, the parkour rally kicked off in Beijing on July 31 and will conclude on Aug 26 in the Diqing Tibet autonomous region . . .

"It is an activity in the name of charity, but actually it is a bold tobacco promotion," said Wu Yiqun, a Beijing-based anti-tobacco advocate at a symposium on Thursday.

Through the event, images of cigarette packets, the brand names, and words like "lights", are visible on the participants' clothing and hoardings, said Wu, who is also the deputy director of the Beijing-based NGO Think Tank Research Center for Health Development. . . .

China ratified the World Health Organization (WHO) Framework Convention on Tobacco Control in 2005, and has banned tobacco advertising on TV, radio, in local magazines and newspapers.

"The parkour event is the tobacco company's way to go around the convention guidelines,"

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西藏明年创建20家无烟医疗卫生机构 

昨日，记者从自治区卫生厅了解到，中央财政将安排58万元专项资金，用于提高西藏控烟履约能力和项目地区公民健康素养水平。

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• Could the Tibetan 'miracle' go up in smoke? 

the builders of the world's highest railway are facing a new threat: cigarette smokers.

On the inaugural 48-hour voyage of the Beijing-Tibet train yesterday, Chinese officials were gearing up for the danger of banned cigarettes in the Canadian-built railway cars, where oxygen will be pumped into the sealed cars as they reach high altitudes today.

Officials refused to say what kind of combustion could occur if someone lights a cigarette once the cars are oxygenated -- a definite risk in a country where two-thirds of men are addicted to smoking. But they urged passengers to blow the whistle on any clandestine smokers. . . .

Mr. Hoyt, who is teaching English at a university in Jilin province, said he disagreed with the protesters. "I don't think Tibet will lose from this. I think it will open a lot of doors. I don't care about people protesting to protect old cultures."

As he spoke, he puffed away on a cigarette. But he said he was planning to switch to nicotine gum when the train reached high altitude.

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Tibet Proposes New Measure to Manage Fake-Proof Sprayed Code for Cigarette 

Tibetan Autonomous Region has recently put in force a new Measure on Management over Fake-Proof Sprayed Code for Cigarettes, while local tobacco companies will adjust the cigarette price to a lower level so as to benefit consumers and retailers. . .

The new Measure is aimed to fight against illegal cigarette traders who are using Qinghai-Tibet Road, Sichuan-Tibet Road and Yunnan-Tibet Road to buy in and sell cigarettes at a profit in Tibet, seriously disturbing the tobacco market in Tibet.

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• National Tobacco System Donates 9.4 Million Yuan to Support Tibet 

On August 12, the national tobacco system held a second work seminar to aid Tibet and donation ceremony at the Tibet Hotel. Present at the seminar were Jiang Chengkang, deputy director of the State Tobacco Monopoly Administration, Xu Zuoyang, vice-chairman of the government of the Tibet Autonomous Region and leading members and representatives of related departments and direct organizations under the administration, a number of provincial tobacco bureaus (companies) and enterprises.

A letter to the seminar by Ni Yijin, director of the State Tobacco Monopoly Administration, was read at the meeting. In the letter, the director called to do a good job to promote Tibet's tobacco industrial development. "This is not only the concrete action to implement the central government's decision policy to develop the west and accelerate the development of ethnic minority areas, but also the common responsibility and duty of us officials and workers of the tobacco industry", he said.

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