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• North Korean Cigarette Production: Chinese Cigarettes Disappear 

The market share of North Korean cigarette manufacturers has been increasing because North Korean cigarette factories have turned their gaze on domestic low-priced brands instead of counterfeit products.

A source from North Korea explained on the 8th that “There are lately dozens of cigarette brands which are being produced in North Korea, from low-priced ones to expensive ones made for high officials. Now, we rarely see people looking for foreign-made cigarettes in the markets.”

He added that “We can see 500 won per pack cigarettes and also cheap brands, like 300 won cigarettes which are made by individuals. When compared to rice prices, cigarette prices have sharply declined, as well as their quality having advanced when compared to the pack price.”

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DPRK launches non-smoking campaign  

A non-smoking campaign was formally launched in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), said Saturday the official news agency KCNA.

Various activities were conducted in the DPRK on the "World No-Tobacco Day" on May 31 this year, the KCNA said.

The country has banned all forms of advertisement, support and promotion of tobacco goods which may encourage smoking, it said.

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• China-DPRK tobacco joint venture set up in Pyongyang 

With four million euros (6.36 million U.S. dollars) of investment, a tobacco joint venture by China and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) was setup here Wednesday.

The joint venture, Pyongyang Paeksan Tobacco Ltd., a fruit of the increasing China-DPRK friendship and economic cooperation, would meet the needs of the DPRK people, DPRK's Vice Minister of Light Industry Cho Chong Ung said.

Chinese Ambassador to the DPRK Liu Xiaoming said cooperation with DPRK enterprises will benefit the people of both countries and the Chinese government will continue to support its enterprises to "go abroad."

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• Antismoking Goods Exhibition Hall 

The antismoking goods exhibition hall has been built in Sangsin-dong, Sosong District, Pyongyang, as one of the measures for the execution of the key agreement for tobacco control of the World Health Organization.

The hall is visited by persons who desire to give up smoking and other relevant people.

It consists of a medical consultation room, a study room and a saleroom. . . .

The posters “Give up smoking harmful to health!” and “If athletes smoke tobacco, they will lose both their health and honour.

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• 'No-smoking center' opens in Pyongyang 

An entity aimed at encouraging people to quit smoking by giving medical advice and selling products to help them to do so opened recently in Pyongyang, as North Korea continues its campaign to reduce smoking.

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Most seized cigarettes are fake Japanese brands 

Most of the 6.1 million packs of smuggled cigarettes seized in Taiwan as of Nov. 18 and worth about NT$336 million (US$10.4 million) are fake Japanese brands, according to statistics released Monday by the Ministry of Finance (MOF).

The figures were unveiled after a report published a day earlier in Japan's Sankei Shimbun that in order to gain foreign currency reserves, North Korea has 10 factories manufacturing counterfeit Japanese cigarettes and is smuggling them into Taiwan.

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• North Korea Making Counterfeit Japan Cigarettes, Sankei Says 

North Korea is making counterfeit Japanese cigarettes to earn cash to support Kim Jong Il's regime, the Sankei newspaper reported.

The communist state is producing counterfeit cigarettes, such as Japan Tobacco Inc.'s ``Mild Seven'' brand, at ten factories, the newspaper said, citing an investigation by Japanese police.

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North Korea's Kim Jong-il bans smoking  

In most cities, smoking bans are intended to protect the non-smoking majority from the minority who insist on lighting up.

Kim Jong-il's health has deteriorated recently

In Pyongyang, the latest and most unlikely international capital to be subject to a ban, it is the other way round.

The ban is to protect one man from the effects of his puffing compatriots, but since that man is the reclusive North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il, it is still likely to be vigorously implemented.

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NKorea said to impose smoking ban for Dear Leader  

North Korea has imposed a smoking ban at all venues used by its leader Kim Jong-Il after doctors advised him to stop smoking and drinking, a former South Korean lawmaker said Tuesday.

The doctors urged Kim to quit after he underwent a heart operation, said Jang Sung-Min, an associate of former South Korean president Kim Dae-Jung who held a historic summit with Kim Jong-Il in 2000.

"A Chinese diplomat who has close relations with the North Koreans told me by telephone that doctors had asked Chairman Kim Jong-Il to quit smoking and drinking," Jang told AFP. . . .

"The Chinese diplomat said Kim looked thin mainly because he could not smoke and drink," Jang said.

Several accounts portray Kim as a former chain-smoker and a cognac-guzzling playboy with an appetite for fine dining.

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• N Korea 'bans smoking for leader' 

The North Korean capital, Pyongyang, has reportedly become the latest city to impose a smoking ban.

However, rather than being for the good of the general public, it is all about the country's leader Kim Jong-il.

The move comes after doctors advised Mr Kim to stop smoking and drinking after a recent heart operation, reports say.

"Kim's home, office and all other places he goes to have been designated as non-smoking areas," a former South Korean lawmaker said.

"A Chinese diplomat who has close relations with the North Koreans told me by telephone that doctors had asked Chairman Kim Jong-il to quit smoking and drinking," Jang Sung-Min, an associate of former South Korean president Kim Dae-Jung, told the French news agency AFP.

"Even the highest-ranking officials are going outdoors to smoke," he said.

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• North Korea's "Dear Leader" Kim Slims Down 

North Korean leader Kim Jong-il's trademark paunch presses a little less snugly against his jumpsuits these days, but is that due to a healthier lifestyle or is he recovering from illness?

Two South Korean dailies ran pictures on Thursday of a slimmer Kim, 65, at a meeting this week with China's foreign minister, alongside photos taken about a year ago, in which he seemed plumper and with more hair in his famed bouffant coiffure. . . .

"Although Kim suffers from chronic diseases such as diabetes and heart problems, his health has not deteriorated enough to affect his public activities," the report said, according to a copy obtained by Yonhap news agency. . . .

Intelligence sources said it appeared he had tried to adopt a healthier lifestyle in recent years, and might have quit smoking.

The North's official media, which treat Kim with god-like reverence, have also made a shift in their coverage of one health issue. Several stories since 2003 spoke of efforts to cut down on the number of smokers, where they published almost none before.

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Difficult to Recover British Funds Caught in BDA North Korea Accounts 

In amongst the North Korean accounts that were frozen from Macao¡¯s Banco Delta Bank (BDA) was joint funds from a British tobacco company which has been deemed difficult to recover.

The U.K. Financial Times reported on the 18th that the $7mn of the $24mn in North Korea funds frozen in BDA accounts is from Korean trusts and banks of which half the funds is estimated to from a joint account by British American Tobacco (BAT) and a tobacco company trading by North Korea.

BAT¡¯s spokesperson Catherine Armstrong revealed in an interview with Radio Free Asia (RFA) on the 18th ¡°The money has been certified as legal so we¡¯re very keen to get the money out of the frozen account.¡±

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U.S. Official Sees No Concession on NKorea Assets  

The United States is prepared for serious discussion on the financial assets dispute with North Korea but will not make concessions just to encourage success in six-party talks on Pyongyang's nuclear program, a senior U.S. official said on Tuesday. . . .

Some experts have argued that the United States could show progress on the financial issues by agreeing to support an unfreezing of North Korean Banco Delta Asia accounts that relate to legitimate pursuits, like cigarette production.

But U.S. officials say the accounts are impossible to disentangle, partly because Pyongyang's entire economy is driven by criminal activity and hence all accounts are somehow tainted.

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• Traffickers switch from fake notes to fake smokes ($$) 

North Korea has reduced drug trafficking and currency counterfeiting in the face of a US-inspired crackdown but has increased production of counterfeit cigarettes, a US Congress researcher has said.

Raphael Perl, of the Congressional Research Service, said in Washington on Thursday that it had become more difficult for North Korea to trade in drugs and illegal cash.

"We have no evidence of any seizures of either illicit narcotics or counterfeit currency in the last six months," Mr Perl said.

"But at the same time, there are indications that the production of counterfeit cigarettes is increasing."

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U.S. Defector in N. Korea Subject of Documentary  

An ailing U.S. Army soldier who fled to North Korea in 1962 will soon get to watch ''Crossing the Line,'' a British documentary of his life in the world's newest nuclear state.

James Joseph Dresnok, a Virginia-born orphan who for years starred as an American villain in Pyongyang propaganda films, has long suffered from a heart condition due to heavy drinking and smoking in his chosen home, an isolated and poverty-stricken capital cut off from the rest of the world.

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