Tuesday, December 27, 2011
Monday, December 26, 2011
Beauty out of hidingl
When we reached the Shan village, high up in the mountains overlooking Lake Inle in central Myanmar, a scrum of boys took our shoes for washing, and then showed us to the upper floor of a thatched hut. Young men smoking cigars made from the local tobacco produced lunch: tomato salad with peanuts, peppermint, and lemongrass vinegar; fried potatoes; and Shan noodles with garlic and vegetables. My guide set out two bottles of Myanmar Beer (its slogan: Lucky Future).
While we ate lunch on the floor by the hut’s open side, the sun burst through, burning off the cloud cover. Suddenly, a mountainside of rolling tobacco fields came into focus, and then, farther down, the sun revealed the lake, a 23-square-mile body of water nestled among a fluorescent green patchwork of small farms and floating tomato plantations.
I asked my guide about the November 2010 elections, the first in 20 years in the country known before 1989 as Burma. He just shrugged. “Same wine, different bottle,’’ he said, popping the caps on the beer. “Is that how you say it?’’
I had come to Southeast Asia last year on a six-week trip. Having never been, I imagined, naively, that I would find some kind of old-world authenticity in Thailand or Cambodia or Vietnam. But somewhere along the way I began to feel like a walking dollar sign in a Western arcade of canned exotica: “Try the best Pad Thai in Ko Phi Phi,’’ “Lay down your towel on the same island where Leo made ‘The Beach.’ ’’
So my ears perked up when, three weeks into the trip, a fellow traveler told me that Myanmar “is like what Vietnam was 50 years ago.’’ Shaped like a giant diamond, Myanmar is lodged among Thailand, Laos, China, India, and Bangladesh. It is the largest country in mainland Southeast Asia and has been accused of being among the most corrupt, ruled by a military regime that presides over abundant reserves of oil and gas, teak and gemstones.
The country had been visited by a US secretary of state only once before, in 1955, when John Foster Dulles tried to persuade Burma into a regional alliance against China. Clinton’s visit took place at a time when the United States is trying to assert itself in the region, in part to counter the rise of China.
A short flight from Bangkok put me in Yangon (formerly the capital Rangoon), Myanmar’s largest and gateway city in the south. Immediately I found travel difficult: No travelers’ checks or credit cards accepted, and no ATMs (though that has since changed). And, the kicker: US dollars, the only foreign currency accepted, must be pristine.
In the Yangon airport, I presented a crisp $50 bill to pay for my $30 visa. The customs official examined the money, then handed it back. He pointed to a pinhead-sized smudge on the face of Ulysses Grant, as if the blemish constituted clear evidence of counterfeit. I fished out my best-looking fifty, and then continued through to an empty baggage claim area. From Yangon I caught a flight north to Nyaungshwe, a one-hour drive from Lake Inle. On my second day in Inle, after the mountain climb, my guide picked me up from the guesthouse and led me through town to the mouth of the lake, where his friend waited with a long-tail boat.
The princes of Lake Inle are the fishermen, who perch on the sterns of dugout canoes, stand on one leg, wrap the other leg around the oar’s neck, and propel the canoe with a swooping motion of the leg that holds the oar, as if skating on one foot, a technique that leaves both hands free to work the nets. Teak canoes piled high with taro and chilies shuttle past them. On the lake’s reedy perimeter, near the market, we drifted through a village of stilted houses and floating tomato plantations. Children hang out their windows and fly kites cobbled together from bamboo sticks and Shan paper.
China is one of the only countries to do business with Myanmar. The world’s embargo mentality has trickled down to tourism: Many Asia travelers avoid Myanmar. They argue that going there supports the regime’s repressive rule.
We docked our boat at a teak house where women weave scarves with thread made from the stalk of the lotus flower. Painstakingly, the fibers, thin as spider silk, are extracted from the stalks and rolled into thread that looks like hemp and retains a pleasant wooly smell. The manager of the store said each scarf takes three months to make. I was happy to pay the asking price of $60. When I looked in my wallet, however, I had only the $300 that was rejected by the money-changer in Yangon. I had $30 worth of kyat, the local currency, but I needed it for the next day’s journey back to Bangkok.
Sure enough, the manager determined that none of the dollars was passable. She expressed little regret, which seemed dignified. I promised to get more money and return. But that was impossible. In Myanmar, you have only the cash you come with.
We pushed away from the dock and waved goodbye to the lotus weavers. I saw the manager return my scarf to the pile of scarves. This was the price of authenticity. I hoped the next customer would bring clean notes.
Myanmar’s main religion is Theravada Buddhism, which began to flourish more than a millennium ago on a vast plain in central Myanmar called Bagan. Bagan is a 40-minute flight (or a 12-hour bus ride) west from Lake Inle. Situated on the eastern bank of the Irrawaddy River, Bagan was once a rich cosmopolis of Buddhist study and the capital of the first Burmese kingdom. What remains today are more than 4,000 temples spread across a 26-square-mile savannah of grassy knolls and leafy banyan trees. It looks like Buddhism brought to the Old West, a set piece worthy of Sergio Leone or Ridley Scott. The temples, taken individually, may not stagger the mind like those giants of Cambodia’s Angkor Wat, but then neither do Bagan’s crowds.
For cyclists, a 12-mile paved road circles the plain and connects the three towns of Bagan. The temples are also accessible by horse-drawn carts that clop down the dirt roads.
On my last day in Bagan, just before sunset, a horse cart took me to Buledi Paya, a temple in the central plain that provides a popular end-of-day vista. I asked the driver about Myanmar’s clean-cash fetish. He believed the government was afraid of getting fake money. But when I suggested that a crisp bill, with no marks, was perhaps more likely to have come off a counterfeiter’s printer, he shrugged, laughed ruefully, and said he had no idea why the rule existed. “Our leaders no good! No writing! No talking! No freedom! Everything control! Everywhere spies!’’
Myanmar’s last bid to attract tourism and win international legitimacy came in 1996, when the regime inaugurated Visit Myanmar Year. According to a United Nations report, forced labor was used to restore the temples of Bagan. The regime’s opponents urged a boycott, arguing that tourist dollars would benefit the regime. Others argued that tourism revenue amounted to peanuts for the generals. Still others complained that unskilled laborers - caring nothing for archeological fidelity - dressed the temples indiscriminately in identical spires and red-brick walls made with modern commercial masonry.
At Buledi Paya I climbed to the temple’s upper ledge, where I encountered Myanmar’s version of a tourist throng: three people. Together we watched the sun decline beyond a phalanx of a thousand golden domes. The domes’ corncob spires stabbed through the haze.
As for Clinton’s November visit, it would not cause much excitement. The New Light of Myanmar, a government mouthpiece, reported her trip in a two-paragraph article on Page 2. On its front page, meanwhile, the newspaper printed the entire resume of Mikhail V. Myasnikovich, the prime minister of Belarus, another autocratic nation whose relations with the United States are also strained. Myasnikovich was scheduled to arrive the next day.
Monday, December 19, 2011
WHO warns Chinese public of misleading tobacco industry research
Research indicating that some cigarettes are less harmful is tobacco industry hype meant to mislead the public, a World Health Organization official warned on Monday as a heated debate rages in China over the credibility of tobacco science.
"Low-tar cigarettes, for example, don't reduce the harm at all," said Sarah England, a technical officer on tobacco control with the WHO Representative Office in China.
She said tar, nicotine and other smoke emission yields derived from smoking-machine testing do not provide valid estimates of human exposure and there is no conclusive epidemiological or scientific evidence that cigarettes with lower machine-generated smoke yields are less harmful.
The debate on tobacco science flared up in China after Xie Jianping, a researcher known for his studies on low-tar cigarettes, was honored with a seat in the elite Chinese Academy of Engineering earlier this month.
Xie's accreditation was challenged by Chinese health experts, but some scientists and smokers also came out to defend the 52-year-old researcher, who has spent decades working with a tobacco research institute under the China National Tobacco Corporation (China Tobacco) -- the world's largest cigarette company.
Neither Xie nor authorities with the Chinese Academy of Engineering have publicly commented since the controversy heated up.
"The marketing of cigarettes with stated tar and nicotine yields has resulted in the mistaken belief that those cigarettes are less harmful. It is just a tobacco industry tactic. It is very misleading," England said.
The WHO official compared low-tar cigarettes to a green bullet and cigarettes with standard tar levels to a red one, and said, "It is meaningless to say which is better, to be killed by a red or green bullet."
"I recommend not going near the bullets. Quit smoking instead," she added.
Yang Gonghuan, head of the China Tobacco Control Office under the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (China CDC), had previously blamed the tobacco companies' low-tar promotion strategy for the 41.15 percent growth in cigarette sales in China from 2000 to 2010.
China is the world's largest consumer of cigarettes. The country has 300 million smokers, and more than 740 million non-smokers are regularly exposed to second-hand smoke, according to experts' estimates. About 1.2 million people die each year in China from smoking-related illnesses ranging from lung cancer to heart disease.
China is a signatory of the World Health Organization-initiated tobacco control treaty, the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), but implementation has been slow mainly due to interference from the country's powerful tobacco industry, health experts have said. The FCTC requires nations to ban deceptive and misleading descriptions such as "low-tar" labels, they said.
Jonathan Samet, who chairs the Tobacco Products Scientific Advisory Committee of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), told reporters in Beijing that he found Xie's accreditation unusual.
"No one has made a conventional cigarette product safer," Samet said. "A cigarette typically contains 7,000 dangerous chemicals and it is hard to say taking out one or two chemicals will make any difference."
"And how do you know any cigarette is low risk without watching people use it for 20 years?" he said.
"Low-tar cigarettes, for example, don't reduce the harm at all," said Sarah England, a technical officer on tobacco control with the WHO Representative Office in China.
She said tar, nicotine and other smoke emission yields derived from smoking-machine testing do not provide valid estimates of human exposure and there is no conclusive epidemiological or scientific evidence that cigarettes with lower machine-generated smoke yields are less harmful.
The debate on tobacco science flared up in China after Xie Jianping, a researcher known for his studies on low-tar cigarettes, was honored with a seat in the elite Chinese Academy of Engineering earlier this month.
Xie's accreditation was challenged by Chinese health experts, but some scientists and smokers also came out to defend the 52-year-old researcher, who has spent decades working with a tobacco research institute under the China National Tobacco Corporation (China Tobacco) -- the world's largest cigarette company.
Neither Xie nor authorities with the Chinese Academy of Engineering have publicly commented since the controversy heated up.
"The marketing of cigarettes with stated tar and nicotine yields has resulted in the mistaken belief that those cigarettes are less harmful. It is just a tobacco industry tactic. It is very misleading," England said.
The WHO official compared low-tar cigarettes to a green bullet and cigarettes with standard tar levels to a red one, and said, "It is meaningless to say which is better, to be killed by a red or green bullet."
"I recommend not going near the bullets. Quit smoking instead," she added.
Yang Gonghuan, head of the China Tobacco Control Office under the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (China CDC), had previously blamed the tobacco companies' low-tar promotion strategy for the 41.15 percent growth in cigarette sales in China from 2000 to 2010.
China is the world's largest consumer of cigarettes. The country has 300 million smokers, and more than 740 million non-smokers are regularly exposed to second-hand smoke, according to experts' estimates. About 1.2 million people die each year in China from smoking-related illnesses ranging from lung cancer to heart disease.
China is a signatory of the World Health Organization-initiated tobacco control treaty, the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), but implementation has been slow mainly due to interference from the country's powerful tobacco industry, health experts have said. The FCTC requires nations to ban deceptive and misleading descriptions such as "low-tar" labels, they said.
Jonathan Samet, who chairs the Tobacco Products Scientific Advisory Committee of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), told reporters in Beijing that he found Xie's accreditation unusual.
"No one has made a conventional cigarette product safer," Samet said. "A cigarette typically contains 7,000 dangerous chemicals and it is hard to say taking out one or two chemicals will make any difference."
"And how do you know any cigarette is low risk without watching people use it for 20 years?" he said.
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Contraband cigarettes found in car
RCMP members stopped and seized a car containing 87,400 contraband cigarettes on Highway 1A near Middleton, P.E.I., Sunday.
Two men were arrested at the scene and later released with court appearance dates set for Feb. 9. The cigarettes destined for sale in the Charlottetown area, the police said.
Cpl. Stephen MacDonald said the sale of contraband cigarettes is a major problem on Prince Edward Island.
A dozen people will be appearing in a Summerside courtroom this week to answer to contraband tobacco charges, he noted.
"We did a project this summer in Summerside and we've charged 12 people all with bringing cigarettes into P.E.I. So, It's a huge problem."
Police said the selling and buying of contraband cigarettes is illegal and
aids in promoting and fortifying larger crime activities both here in Prince Edward Island and beyond. In addition, the underground activity of these activities undermines the hard work and dedication of Island businesses and being part of these activities is being part of crime.
The sale of contraband cigarettes also cuts into of tax revenues.
"These are the taxes that don't go into healthcare to pay for the people who have been smoking all of their lives," MacDonald said.
MacDonald said the illegal cigarettes come from reserves near Cornwall, Ont., and Montreal.
"A lot of the time they're manufactured on the New York side of the border and they bring them over the river either by boat of in the wintertime by snowmobiles," he said. "Now they're being manufactured on the Canadian side, too. They have their own cigarette making machines, they bag them, box them up and then people go on the reserve and buy them."
The public is encouraged to call police with information regarding the sale and transport of illegal cigarettes into P.E.I. Anyone believing they have encountered illegal cigarettes or have information regarding the distribution.
Two men were arrested at the scene and later released with court appearance dates set for Feb. 9. The cigarettes destined for sale in the Charlottetown area, the police said.
Cpl. Stephen MacDonald said the sale of contraband cigarettes is a major problem on Prince Edward Island.
"We did a project this summer in Summerside and we've charged 12 people all with bringing cigarettes into P.E.I. So, It's a huge problem."
Police said the selling and buying of contraband cigarettes is illegal and
aids in promoting and fortifying larger crime activities both here in Prince Edward Island and beyond. In addition, the underground activity of these activities undermines the hard work and dedication of Island businesses and being part of these activities is being part of crime.
The sale of contraband cigarettes also cuts into of tax revenues.
"These are the taxes that don't go into healthcare to pay for the people who have been smoking all of their lives," MacDonald said.
MacDonald said the illegal cigarettes come from reserves near Cornwall, Ont., and Montreal.
"A lot of the time they're manufactured on the New York side of the border and they bring them over the river either by boat of in the wintertime by snowmobiles," he said. "Now they're being manufactured on the Canadian side, too. They have their own cigarette making machines, they bag them, box them up and then people go on the reserve and buy them."
The public is encouraged to call police with information regarding the sale and transport of illegal cigarettes into P.E.I. Anyone believing they have encountered illegal cigarettes or have information regarding the distribution.
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
Smoking is not cool
Here are some reasons why smoking is not cool. It will never be cool, it will only look more stupid as time goes on. It's a terrible, awful drug. Don't be fooled!
1) YOU LOOK WEAK - To others, they think you can't accomplish anything, that you can't reach your goals. Perhaps your somebody that quit for a long period of time and then started up again. Your friends probably think you're addicted for life. That's what my friends thought. They laughed at me when I relapsed. It was almost like they expected me to. How awful is that?
2) YOU'RE STUCK DATING PEOPLE WHO SMOKE - People who don't smoke, which accounts for 80% of the population, don't want to date smokers. That's just the way it is. If you were a non-smoker, would you want to date a smoker and potentially go back to smoking? I would think the answer would be NO. So, you're stuck dating people who smoke. Is that what you want? That's a pretty narrow field. If you quit smoking, you've opened up your world to many more potential people. Think about it.
3) YOU SMELL LIKE CIGARETTES - Yes you do. Smokers don't smell themselves, so they don't understand how much they smell. But non-smokers do. They can smell everything. They can smell you when you come inside from having smoked outside. Perhaps you're one of those who smokes inside their house or apartment. Then you really smell like cigarettes! They might not even want to come over because of it. It's something to think about. Smoking is not cool because it makes you stink.
4) YOU'RE CONSTANTLY GOING OUTSIDE TO SMOKE - You're missing out on life. Perhaps you are out with friends. You're probably going outside once every half an hour. They probably expect you to go outside. But you might be missing out on great conversation. You never know. You never know because you are too busy going outside to smoke.
5) YOU PAY MORE IN HEALTH INSURANCE - If you smoke, expect to pay more for health insurance. Insurance companies don't want to pay for all your medical bills. Therefore, they charge you more per month if you're a smoker. To the health industry, it's definitely NOT cool to smoke. You are a liability. You could cost them money and they know that. That's why you're charged more to be a smoker.
6) YOU'RE NOT KISSABLE - Nobody wants to kiss a smoker. It's like kissing an ashtray. You ask any non-smoker and they will tell you the same thing. It's gross! I've been a non-smoker many times and kissed a smoker and it almost made me gag. It tasted dirty. If it's with a smoker, then that's fine. But you're stuck with dating smokers. Non-smokers won't want to kiss you. They think smoking is not cool.
6) IT DESTROYS YOUR LIFE - In every way possible. It takes OVER your life. Your life will revolve around cigarettes 24/7. They will mean more to you than a lot of things. They'll either be your best friend or your worst enemy, but they will definitely control you. After a while, you will be known notoriously as a smoker. Smoking will keep you from reaching your goals. Smoking will allow you to do negative things in excess. Cigarettes will make you lazy. You won't be as active as you could be. Catch my drift?
7) YOUR TEETH TURN YELLOW - After years and years of smoking, your teeth will begin to have a yellowish tone to them. It's something that toothpaste will not be able to get off entirely. You'll be stuck with it. The only way to remove it is to either go to the dentist and have your teeth cleaned, or quit smoking. Eventually, after stopping, your teeth will whiten-up, and they won't be as gross as before. The dentist will always call you out on smoking if he recognizes a mouth that smokes. What does he see? He sees how black the BACK of your teeth are. The smoke when you exhale hits the back of your teeth, turning them darker than the front. But you can't tell because you can't see it. Smoking is not cool if it gives you yellow teeth.
1) YOU LOOK WEAK - To others, they think you can't accomplish anything, that you can't reach your goals. Perhaps your somebody that quit for a long period of time and then started up again. Your friends probably think you're addicted for life. That's what my friends thought. They laughed at me when I relapsed. It was almost like they expected me to. How awful is that?
2) YOU'RE STUCK DATING PEOPLE WHO SMOKE - People who don't smoke, which accounts for 80% of the population, don't want to date smokers. That's just the way it is. If you were a non-smoker, would you want to date a smoker and potentially go back to smoking? I would think the answer would be NO. So, you're stuck dating people who smoke. Is that what you want? That's a pretty narrow field. If you quit smoking, you've opened up your world to many more potential people. Think about it.
3) YOU SMELL LIKE CIGARETTES - Yes you do. Smokers don't smell themselves, so they don't understand how much they smell. But non-smokers do. They can smell everything. They can smell you when you come inside from having smoked outside. Perhaps you're one of those who smokes inside their house or apartment. Then you really smell like cigarettes! They might not even want to come over because of it. It's something to think about. Smoking is not cool because it makes you stink.
4) YOU'RE CONSTANTLY GOING OUTSIDE TO SMOKE - You're missing out on life. Perhaps you are out with friends. You're probably going outside once every half an hour. They probably expect you to go outside. But you might be missing out on great conversation. You never know. You never know because you are too busy going outside to smoke.
5) YOU PAY MORE IN HEALTH INSURANCE - If you smoke, expect to pay more for health insurance. Insurance companies don't want to pay for all your medical bills. Therefore, they charge you more per month if you're a smoker. To the health industry, it's definitely NOT cool to smoke. You are a liability. You could cost them money and they know that. That's why you're charged more to be a smoker.
6) YOU'RE NOT KISSABLE - Nobody wants to kiss a smoker. It's like kissing an ashtray. You ask any non-smoker and they will tell you the same thing. It's gross! I've been a non-smoker many times and kissed a smoker and it almost made me gag. It tasted dirty. If it's with a smoker, then that's fine. But you're stuck with dating smokers. Non-smokers won't want to kiss you. They think smoking is not cool.
6) IT DESTROYS YOUR LIFE - In every way possible. It takes OVER your life. Your life will revolve around cigarettes 24/7. They will mean more to you than a lot of things. They'll either be your best friend or your worst enemy, but they will definitely control you. After a while, you will be known notoriously as a smoker. Smoking will keep you from reaching your goals. Smoking will allow you to do negative things in excess. Cigarettes will make you lazy. You won't be as active as you could be. Catch my drift?
7) YOUR TEETH TURN YELLOW - After years and years of smoking, your teeth will begin to have a yellowish tone to them. It's something that toothpaste will not be able to get off entirely. You'll be stuck with it. The only way to remove it is to either go to the dentist and have your teeth cleaned, or quit smoking. Eventually, after stopping, your teeth will whiten-up, and they won't be as gross as before. The dentist will always call you out on smoking if he recognizes a mouth that smokes. What does he see? He sees how black the BACK of your teeth are. The smoke when you exhale hits the back of your teeth, turning them darker than the front. But you can't tell because you can't see it. Smoking is not cool if it gives you yellow teeth.
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