20120719 China Daily_WHO urges China to tax smokers

Cigarette tax should be increased to combat nicotine addiction in the world's largest tobacco consumer and producer, WHO Director-General Margaret Chan said.


"There is still plenty of room for China to raise its tobacco tax and the government should take more action regarding this to help curb smoking," she told China Daily.

"Evidence shows that higher taxes deter people, especially the young, from smoking,'' she said.

International studies indicate that for every 1 percent rise in the price of a packet of cigarettes,the number of smokers falls by about 0.4 percent, she said.

There is a huge financial cost in treating tobacco-related diseases, Chan said.

China has 350 million smokers, more than one-third of the world's total, and at least 1 million people die from smoking-related diseases each year, according to the ministry. By 2020, thefigure for fatalities is expected to reach 2 million without effective intervention.

Government agencies, like the ministries of health and education, have introduced policies such as smoke-free hospitals and schools, as well as smoking bans at most public indoorplaces. Tobacco products have also been targeted with tax hikes.

In 2009, authorities increased tobacco tax by at least 6 percent, mostly on the more expensive brands.

"But that had little effect on curbing tobacco use, particularly the low-end brands," said YangGonghuan, former director of the tobacco control office under the Chinese Center for DiseaseControl and Prevention.

Tobacco tax, even after the hike, remained very low on a global scale.

20120719 BBC_Iceberg breaks off from Greenland's Petermann Glacier

The Petermann Glacier in northern Greenland has calved an iceberg twice the size of Manhattan, scientists say.

Images from a Nasa satellite show the island breaking off a tongue of ice that extends at the end of the glacier.

In 2010 an ice island measuring 250 square km (100 square miles) broke off the same glacier.

Glaciers do calve icebergs naturally, but the extent of the changes to the Petermann Glacier in recent years has taken many experts by surprise.

However, the calving is not expected have an impact on sea levels as the ice was already floating.

Icebergs from the Petermann Glacier sometimes reach the coast off Newfoundland in Canada, posing a danger to shipping and navigation, according to the Canadian Ice Service.

Scientists have also raised concerns in recent years about the Greenland ice shelf, saying that it is thinning extensively amid warm temperatures.