Category: News This Week

The Imperial Tobacco Group has donated more than 300 computer monitors and a number of laser printers to a charity that helps schools in Africa.

IT Schools Africa took the equipment away following Imperial’s move from its former head office in Bristol, U.K., and has distributed it to schools in Zimbabwe.

Imperial’s new global head office has been equipped with new IT equipment, which meant that some of the existing technology was no longer needed.

“Knowing we’d have a large number of monitors available, we wanted to ensure they were put to good use,” said Tony Rickard, corporate center IT manager.

“The charity was running an appeal for flat screens for use in schools, which we considered a very valuable re-use of the redundant equipment.

“It is great to know that rather than being disposed of, the equipment is being used for a good cause.”

Ron Pearce, of IT Schools Africa, said his charity was very grateful for Imperial’s generous support.

Muslims in Malaysia have been told that shisha or water-pipe smoking is forbidden, according to a story in The Star.
The Fatwa (edicts) Committee of the National Council for Islamic Affairs declared on Friday that shisha smoking was “haram” (forbidden) for Muslims.

And the committee chairman, Tan Sri Dr Abdul Shukor Husin, added that Muslims were prohibited from providing shisha-smoking services or any activity associated with shisha.

The latest edict follows a reminder issued last month by the Muzakarah Committee of the National Fatwa Council for Islamic Religious Affairs of a 1995 prohibition on smoking in general.

It was not clear why it was thought necessary to issue a separate edict against shisha.

“After listening to the experts from the Health Ministry and scrutinising medical and scientific evidence from the country and abroad on the ill-effects of shisha, the committee decided to prohibit shisha,” Abdul Shukor said in a statement announcing the latest edict.

“Shisha is clearly harmful to health; it is a wasteful activity that is categorized as a bad or despicable thing that all Muslims should avoid,” said Abdul Shukor.

The U.K.’s tobacco smoking prevalence is expected to drop below 20 percent this year—the first time it has been that low for 100 years, according to numerous local reports.

The figure is based on the Smoking Toolkit Study, which is being conducted by University College, London.

Professor Robert West, who is the co-head of the study, was quoted in a story in the Guernsey Press as saying that 20 percent was a psychologically significant marker.

“2013 is going to be, almost without doubt, the first year for a hundred years where we’re solidly below 20 percent smoking prevalence in England,” he said. “It’s going to be a big year. We are making progress. It’s slow, and we’d like it to be quicker, but things are going in the right direction.”

The study is apparently not complete, but the preliminary information is being used by some people to support the case for the introduction of standardized tobacco packaging.

The argument seems to be that while progress is being made in reducing the prevalence of smoking, further progress is contingent on standardized packaging.

Impulsiveness is strongly associated with addiction to drugs and, for example, to smoking, according to a Science Codex story.

In particular, impulsiveness is associated with an early onset of smoking and frequent relapses of smokers who try to quit.

Furthermore, impulsiveness is known to promote drug craving, a key feature of addiction and one of the best predictors of relapse.

“In the first study on the neural pathways that underlie the relationship between impulsivity and cigarette craving, Josiane Bourque and colleagues from the University of Montreal, Canada, found that impulsive people (who experienced the most intense cravings in response to images of cigarettes) showed diminished activity in the posterior cingulate cortex of the brain,” the story said.

“Bourque and colleagues conclude that a lower activity in this region makes it more difficult for impulsive people to control their cravings for cigarettes and other drugs.”

Five NGOs have called on Malaysia to exclude medical and tobacco interests from continuing free trade talks under the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA), according to a story in The Star.

The groups said the inclusion of medical interests in the free trade deal would not lead to cheaper medicines, while tobacco companies should not be allowed to benefit from trade deals in the first place.

The NGOs are the Malaysian AIDS Council, the Breast Cancer Welfare Association, the Malaysian PT Foundation, the Malaysian Council for Tobacco Control, and the South East Asia Tobacco Control Alliance (SEATCA).

SEATCA senior policy adviser Mary Assunta said tobacco companies should not benefit from such trade deals.

There were cases, she added, where countries were being sued for enforcing laws to discourage smoking and tobacco companies were claiming breaches in trade agreements.

The TPPA negotiations involve Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the U.S. and Vietnam. Japan is scheduled to join the negotiations later.

Philip Morris International’s cigarette shipment volume during the second quarter to the end of June, at 228,899 million, was down by 3.9 percent on that of the second quarter of 2012.

Volume was down in all of the company’s regions: by 3.5 percent to 80,588 million in Asia; by 3.6 percent to 76,298 million in Eastern Europe, Middle East & Africa (EEMEA); by 5.9 percent to 48,723 million in the EU; and by 2.4 percent to 23,290 million in Latin America & Canada (LAC).

Without what PMI described at the disruptive January 2013 tax increase in the Philippines, overall, the company’s volume decline would have been 2.6 percent rather than 3.9 percent.

Total cigarette shipments of Marlboro were down by 5.9 percent to 72.7 billion, while those of L&M increased by 6.1 percent to 25.1 billion.

Cigarette shipments of Bond Street decreased by 8.9 percent to 11.6 billion; those of Philip Morris decreased by 8.5 percent to 8.8 billion; those of Parliament increased by 4.0 percent to 11.5 billion; those of Chesterfield fell by 7.9 percent to 8.9 billion; and those of Lark decreased by 7.9 percent to 7.9 billion.

PMI’s shipment volume of OTP (other tobacco products), in cigarette equivalent units, increased by 3.0 percent, while shipment volume for cigarettes and OTP in cigarette equivalents decreased by 3.7 percent.

Reported diluted earnings per share during the second quarter, at $1.30, were down by 4.4 percent on those of the second quarter of 2012.

Reported net revenues, excluding excise taxes, were down by 2.5 percent to $7.9 billion and reported operating income was down by 7.5 percent to $3.3 billion.

“As expected, despite strong pricing and a robust share performance, our second-quarter results were primarily impacted by lower industry volume in several key markets, as well as the timing of inventory movements in Japan, higher costs—predominantly in Asia—and stiffer currency headwinds,” said CEO André Calantzopoulos.

“For the second half of the year, we expect volume/mix to improve, pricing to remain strong and our total cost variance, excluding currency, to be flat. While industry volume remains a challenge, our underlying business performance is such that we continue to expect to meet our mid- to long-term currency-neutral adjusted diluted EPS growth rate target of 10–12 percent in 2013.”

Meanwhile, PMI’s cigarette volume shipments during the six months to the end of June, at 433,846 million, were down by 5.1 percent on those of the first six months of 2012.

Shipments were down by 6.9 percent to 153,207 million in Asia; by 1.3 percent to 143,132 million in EEMEA; by 7.9 percent to 91,690 million in the EU; and by 5.0 percent to 45,817 million in LAC.

Swedish Match’s sales during the second quarter to the end of June, at SEK3,220 million, were up by 3 percent on those of the second quarter of 2012.

But operating profit (including SM’s share of net profit from the Scandinavian Tobacco Group and larger one-off items) fell by 11 percent to SEK1,082 million, while basic earnings per share, excluding larger one-off items, was down by 6.7 percent to SEK3.33.