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.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not