Going to BAT for North Korea

"The world's second largest cigarette company British American Tobacco has been operating a secret factory in North Korea for the last four years, the U.K.’s Guardian daily reported Monday. The paper said BAT in September 2001 set up a joint operation called BAT-Taesong with the state-run Korea Sogyong Trading Corporation, which had until then been exporting carpets. Early on, the company produced the low-priced Kumgangsan cigarettes and is now known to be producing the evocatively named Viceroy and Craven A brands, ostensibly for the North Korean market. With an initial investment of $7.1 million, BAT owns 60 percent of the joint venture. BAT-Taesong employs around 200 North Koreans." http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200510/200510170012.html

"The anti-smoking group ASH said: "It seems that there is no regime so awful and no country so repressive that BAT does not want to do business there." The company says it has worked to improve the working conditions of its employees in Pyongyang, that it provides workers with free meals, and that they are "well paid". In launching its North Korean enterprise, however, BAT is doing business in a country regarded by some as having the worst human rights record in the world. Even one of BAT's own public relations officers, in Japan, was astonished when asked about the joint venture. "Business with North Korea?" he asked. "Where there are no human rights?"
http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/tobacco-giant-capitalises-on-north-korean-regime/2005/10/17/1129401197225.html

The KOREAN CENTRAL NEWS AGENCY of DPRK (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) reports
"Bill Richardson, governor of New Mexico State of the United States, and his party arrived here Monday.",
and "Foreign forces are alien ones and the forces for division. What the foreign forces have done since their occupation of a half of Korea is nothing but acts against the reconciliation and unity of the nation, peace and peaceful reunification. It is due to the foreign forces that the Korean nation still remains divided and has undergone misfortune and pain and a tense situation is prevailing on the Korean Peninsula and it is exposed to the danger of a new war. Even at this time the U.S. imperialists are running amuck to provoke a new war, chilling the desire of the Koreans for reconciliation and unity and persisting in their moves against the north in a bid to block independent reunification."
and "The All-People Committee for Proper Settlement of the Past History, the People's Solidarity for Inheriting the Spirit of the Movement for Democracy and other civic and public organizations of south Korea reportedly held a press conference on Oct. 10 at which they demanded an amendment to the law on the past history. Speakers at the conference referred to the deplorable situation where victims of the "Security Law" are subject to reinvestigation under the existing law on the past history. Charging that the law is obstructive to the probe into the past history, they called for scrapping the poisonous articles of the law as soon as possible. They declared that they would tour all parts of south Korea in demand of the revision of the law on the past history, a tattered one, and hold meetings to hear testimonies of its victims and, at the same time, stage actions to have the amendment to the law placed on the agenda of the "National Assembly."
But makes no mention of Craven cigarettes.

You might want to light up and enjoy a read of the history, so far, of tobacco:
http://www.tobacco.org/resources/history/tobacco_history.html
http://smokingsides.com/docs/hist.html
http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~vpeters/tobac.htm
as well as the US North Korean trade sanctions: http://www.treas.gov/offices/enforcement/ofac/sanctions/t11korea.pdf



Related topic:
http://www.china.org.cn/english/2003/Nov/79828.htm

Religion by the numbers

If "social indicators such as murder rates, abortion, suicide and teenage pregnancy" are any useful evidence of the moral character of a country, and if we believe that a healthy dose of religion can make the country a better place, we may need to parse some of the data coming from a recent survey/study/observation that has been doing the rounds of late. I mention it because it got an op/ed piece in the SMH today (http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/correlation-of-christian-ethics-social-ills-knocks-advocates-fromknees-to-backside/2005/10/03/1128191653994.html).

The study is "Cross-National Correlations of Quantifiable Societal Health with Popular Religiosity and Secularism in the Prosperous Democracies, A First Look" by Gregory S. Paul, published in The Journal of Religion & Society, "a cross-disciplinary, electronic journal published by the Rabbi Myer and Dorothy Kripke Center for the Study of Religion and Society at Creighton University". http://moses.creighton.edu/JRS/2005/2005-11.html

I'm skeptical of statistics and any study which attempts to take on and simply synthesise a topic of such immense proportions. I was, though, intriqued by the conclusions drawn in the opinion piece. It said the study "found there is an inverse relationship between religiosity and public health and social stability." While "No one is suggesting that religious faith is harmful, and, anecdotally, it seems it may even be beneficial on a personal level...." nevertheless, "Those who claim religion is a way out of our social troubles should heed the one firm conclusion of this report: that societies which have largely discarded religion are not hotbeds of sin and iniquity, but are often highly functional, safe and prosperous. Consequently, relying on religion to fix social problems is irrational."

This doesn't lend a lot of support to the notion that faith-based groups are better at providing social services than government. I doubt this little controversy will be laid to rest in my lifetime, so I will give it no more than passing interest. And not a little satisfaction, none the same. (And pity the attention this author will attrack; he'll end up wishing he could trade places with Salmon Rushdie, I'd wager.)

Cue radar screens, ...

As if on cue: Epidemic a reality as bird flu cases escalate http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/epidemic-a-reality-as-bird-flu-cases-escalate/2005/09/21/1126982124521.html

Coming soon to a radar screen near you

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
"Something approaching panic seems to be taking hold across the country as the perception emerges that the bird flu outbreak is steadily getting out of control. As the number of people being treated for suspected bird flu infections rose to six on Tuesday, the government admitted to a lack of coordination and money in its efforts to tackle the virus.
Biosecurity measures intended to quarantine infected areas have proved to be ineffective as poultry producing areas here are widely dispersed, making it difficult for the government to fully apply the necessary steps, a minister said.
"We admit that the outbreak is difficult to contain as its source is still unclear," said Minister of Agriculture Anton Apriyantono after a meeting with President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono." (http://www.thejakartapost.com/detailheadlines.asp?fileid=20050921.@01&irec=0)

Bangkok: "Thailand wants to increase its stockpile of vaccines against the deadly bird flu virus, but supplies are hard to get, Public Health Minister Suchai Charoenratanakul said yesterday. ``...if there's a pandemic, then yes, we would be short,'' Dr Suchai said. ``We want to order more but producers are finding it tough to meet global demand for the vaccines.'' Thailand and some Southeast Asian countries have been at the centre of the outbreak of the virus, which took the world by surprise. Countries such as the United Kingdom and the US have a stockpile capable of treating at least 17% of their population. But some countries in this region have not stockpiled even a single dose. US President George W. Bush last week announced an ``International Partnership on Avian and Pandemic Influenza'' which would see 15 countries -Zealand, Nigeria, Russia, Singapore, Vietnam, the United States and Thailand - join the fight through the establishment of a quick response team to tackle any viral outbreak." (http://www.bangkokpost.com/News/19Sep2005_news14.php)

"ROME, Sept. 18 - As World Health Organization officials repeat warnings about the potential for a deadly bird flu pandemic, wealthier countries are redoubling efforts to buy an experimental vaccine and antiviral drugs in the hopes of protecting their citizens from infection.
At the United Nations on Wednesday, President Bush proposed an "international partnership" to combat the disease, and the United States announced last week that it had placed orders for $100 million worth of a promising but technically unlicensed vaccine that is under development by the French drug maker Sanofi-Aventis.
But as countries spend tens of millions of dollars to prepare for bird flu, they are investing in uncertain and untested strategies, WHO officials acknowledge.
The basic problem is that the A(H5N1) virus has not changed in a way that would allow for widespread human infection. What is more, health officials said they would not know precisely how to combat the virus until after it mutated, when they would be able to study its composition and how deadly it was.
"We know we're overdue for an influenza pandemic strain, and we know it will occur, but we don't know when or even exactly what virus will cause it," said Dick Thompson, a WHO spokesman. "It is possible that the virus won't be H5N1 at all or that this virus will change in a way so that the vaccine under development doesn't work against it."
He said the health agency would not comment on whether it was rational for countries to spend so much on medicine orders. But, he added, "We think it is wise because it encourages the companies to do the research and development on this very difficult problem." (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/19/health/19flu.html)

"In assessing the potential economic impact of avian flu, a
number of assumptions need to be envisaged. First, it is imperative
to distinguish the scenario of the flu remaining an animal epidemic,
from that of the virus mutating to a human virus. The outcomes, as
will be shown, will be radically different.
If the epidemic remains confined to animals, as has been the
case up to now, it is likely that the aggregate impact on the
economies of the region will be relatively limited and hardly perceptible....
This scenario [spread of flu to humans] would probably lead to a major economic crisis, as the avian influenza virus appears to be highly contagious, much more so than the SARS virus. Since this is highly speculative, the Asian Development Bank did not simulate such a scenario. However, if a reference can be made, it is to the impact of the 2003 SARS epidemic. The Asian Development Bank estimated that the impact of the SARS epidemic lasting one quarter was of a magnitude of about $18 billion in terms of GDP (0.8 percent) or $59 billion in terms of business losses (measured as total final expenditures). It is clear that
if the avian influenza mutates to a human virus, these estimates would provide a floor for expected losses."
(http://www.adb.org/Documents/EDRC/Policy_Briefs/PB024.pdf)