Just a few kilometers after passing a towering Marlboro Man ad, a second billboard off the highway promotes cigarettes with a new American face: Kelly Clarkson.
The former American Idol winner invites fans to buy tickets to her upcoming concert in Jakarta. The logo of her sponsor is splashed in huge type above her head — the popular Indonesian cigarette brand LA Lights. Similar ads also run on TV.
Such in-your-face tobacco advertising has been banned for years in many other countries, but in Indonesia, the world’s fourth-most populous nation, tobacco companies have virtual free rein to peddle their products, from movies to sports sponsorships and television shows. The country remains one of the last holdouts that have not signed the WHO’s tobacco treaty.
Smoking has risen in Indonesia, where about 63 percent of all men light up and one-third of the overall population smokes, an increase of 26 percent since 1995. Smoking-related illnesses kill at least 200,000 annually in a nation of 235 million.
“Indonesia is a big concern, a big epidemic, a big population and very little control,” said Prabhat Jha, a tobacco control expert at the University of Toronto’s Centre for Global Health Research. “They have a chaotic taxation and regulatory structure. They have made the mistake of letting the Marlboro Man into the country.”
In recent months, anti-tobacco forces have rallied. A new health law has declared smoking addictive and urged the government to hammer out tobacco regulations. An anti-smoking coalition is pushing for tighter restrictions on smoking in public places, advertising bans and bigger health warnings on cigarette packages.
Public debate also exploded last month after Muhammadiyah, Indonesia’s second-largest Islamic organization, issued a fatwa banning smoking. Though not legally binding, the religious ruling does put pressure on smokers in the world’s most populous Muslim nation.
About a quarter of Indonesian boys aged 13 to 15 are already hooked on cigarettes that sell for about US$1 a pack, the WHO said.
Smoking is embedded in Indonesia’s culture. Wafts of a pungent mixture of tobacco and cloves, called kreteks, can be smelled in houses rich and poor across the vast archipelago.
A 2008 study on tobacco revenue in Indonesia showed that smokers spend more than 10 percent of their household income on cigarettes — three times more than they spend on education expenses such as school fees and books.
Indonesia remains one of the last places in the world where cigarette TV commercials still run, featuring rugged men and beautiful women smoking. Billboards plastered above four-lane highways encourage motorists stuck in Jakarta’s notorious traffic jams to “Go Ahead” or “Become a Man.” Leggy women in short skirts and strappy heels promote cigarettes at events, sometimes even giving out discounted or free samples.
Indonesia’s tobacco industry employs millions in the world’s fifth-largest cigarette-producing market. About 6 percent of the government’s revenue comes from cigarette taxes and a powerful tobacco lobby has blocked past regulation attempts, including a move to ban TV ads.
Any move to limit tobacco promotion and use in the country will require strong political will, but critics point out that even Indonesia’s smoke-happy neighbors China and Vietnam have signed the WHO’s tobacco treaty and imposed stronger controls.
With much pomp and circumstance, Cairo is today to inaugurate the long-awaited Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM), widely presented as the crowning jewel on authorities’ efforts to overhaul the country’s vital tourism industry. With a panoramic view of the Giza pyramids plateau, the museum houses thousands of artifacts spanning more than 5,000 years of Egyptian antiquity at a whopping cost of more than US$1 billion. More than two decades in the making, the ultra-modern museum anticipates 5 million visitors annually, with never-before-seen relics on display. In the run-up to the grand opening, Egyptian media and official statements have hailed the “historic moment,” describing the
‘CHILD PORNOGRAPHY’: The doll on Shein’s Web site measure about 80cm in height, and it was holding a teddy bear in a photo published by a daily newspaper France’s anti-fraud unit on Saturday said it had reported Asian e-commerce giant Shein (希音) for selling what it described as “sex dolls with a childlike appearance.” The French Directorate General for Competition, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Control (DGCCRF) said in a statement that the “description and categorization” of the items on Shein’s Web site “make it difficult to doubt the child pornography nature of the content.” Shortly after the statement, Shein announced that the dolls in question had been withdrawn from its platform and that it had launched an internal inquiry. On its Web site, Le Parisien daily published a
UNCERTAIN TOLLS: Images on social media showed small protests that escalated, with reports of police shooting live rounds as polling stations were targeted Tanzania yesterday was on lockdown with a communications blackout, a day after elections turned into violent chaos with unconfirmed reports of many dead. Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu Hassan had sought to solidify her position and silence criticism within her party in the virtually uncontested polls, with the main challengers either jailed or disqualified. In the run-up, rights groups condemned a “wave of terror” in the east African nation, which has seen a string of high-profile abductions that ramped up in the final days. A heavy security presence on Wednesday failed to deter hundreds protesting in economic hub Dar es Salaam and elsewhere, some
Flooding in Vietnam has killed at least 10 people this week as the water level of a major river near tourist landmarks reached a 60-year high, authorities said yesterday. Vietnam’s coastal provinces, home to UNESCO world heritage site Hoi An ancient town, have been pummeled by heavy rain since the weekend, with a record of up to 1.7m falling over 24 hours. At least 10 people have been killed, while eight others are missing, the Vietnamese Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment said. More than 128,000 houses in five central provinces have been inundated, with water 3m deep in some areas. People waded through
RSS