Big Tobacco ploughing crooked furrow in African markets

Big Tobacco ploughing crooked furrow in African markets

Note: This article was updated on March 26, 2021 to include comments from Apollinaire Compaoré. Two troubling recent investigations from the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) have shone a fresh spotlight on the tobacco industry’s continued complicity in tobacco smuggling in Africa. The first highlighted how Philip Morris…

Big Tobacco accused of hypocrisy over South Africa ban

A consortium of tobacco companies has taken the South African government to court in a bid to overturn the administration’s decision to ban the sale of alcohol and tobacco products during the Covid-19 pandemic. Japan Tobacco International (JPI) and British American Tobacco South Africa (BATSA), together with The South Africa…

How South Africa struggles against Big Tobacco

South Africa, although hailed as one of the most prosperous economies on the African continent, remains a country of missed opportunities. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) once again made this clear in its consultations with the Treasury, urging the government to implement reforms to tackle weak growth as well as…

Nigeria welcomes tobacco control measures

Nigeria will enact strict tobacco control provisions that have been tabled for four years, according to its ministry of health, which publicly announced provisions on Friday in conjunction with World No Tobacco Day and the World Health Organization. The country’s national assembly ratified the 2015 National Tobacco Control Act provisions…

Kenya’s health ministry bans shisha smoking

Kenya on Thursday became the latest African nation to ban the use of shisha, an addictive and sweetly flavored tobacco smoked while using a water or hookah pipe. Dr. Cleopa Mailu of the country’s Ministry of Health issued the new control measures, which cover both the use and sale of…

Physician’s letter in Lancet casts new shadow on Tedros WHO bid

The physician who leads the Africa Tobacco-Free Initiative has spoken out against candidate Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus of Ethiopia, just as the final vote for World Health Organization Director-General (WHO DG) looms next week. Dr. Frank Ashall, in an open letter published online Friday in the well-regarded British medical journal The…