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CIGARETTE brands in China used to be endorsed by athletes, including by the heroic Olympic and world champion hurdler Liu Xiang, who carries the same weight of expectation at the Beijing Olympics as Cathy Freeman did in Sydney in 2000.
So not surprisingly, China is a world champion at smoking, with cigarettes as cheap as 30c for a pack of 20.
About 57 per cent of Chinese men smoke regularly. Last year China smoked about 2.1trillion cigarettes.
But that world supremacy is going to be challenged at the Beijing Olympics, which start on August 8. These Games will not be as green or as human-rights promoting as they set out to be. But they are going to deal China's powerful tobacco industry a serious setback and provide another nail in the coffin of big tobacco . . .
When health professionals urge higher taxes, Yang says the tobacco industry responded by presenting findings from so-called experts that an increased price would lead to increased sales, on the grounds that smoking would be reinforced as a more valuable pastime.
Xu Guihua, another formidable anti-smoking campaigner, is secretary general of the China Tobacco Control Association, a non-government organisation that receives much of its income from conducting campaigns on behalf of the Health Ministry. She operates from an office with an energetic team of volunteers. . . .
"The fight against tobacco is just getting going in China," Xu says. And she's counting on the Olympic spirit to play its part.
Liu Xiang is being a good sport. He said recently he regrets being part of the cigarette industry. But whether his many millions of fans follow his lead remains to be seen.
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BEIJING is imposing an unprecedented smoking ban during the Olympics in a bid to help rid the city of its legendary pollution.
All 37 Olympic sites, schools, hospitals, government buildings and Beijing's 66,000 taxis will all be no-smoking zones.
The smoking ban follows previously announced moves to close heavy industry in and around Beijing and to keep half the city's cars off the grid-locked roads during the Games.
Beijing police detained seven people for producing and selling counterfeit cigarettes bearing the Beijing Olympic Games logo on the packaging, Xinhua news agency said on Wednesday.
Police confiscated 258 cartons of cigarettes and a large amount of packaging materials in a May 28 raid on a house in Chongwen district, in the southeast of the city.
More than 80 cartons had the brand names "Olympic Zhonghua" -- meaning "Olympic China" -- or "Olympic Beijing" and carried the Beijing Olympic logo
Beijing Tobacco, the capital's tobacco market watchdog, destroys fake cigarettes worth over 900 million yuan in Changping district on Wednesday, June 4, 2008.
The organizers of this summer's Beijing Olympics on Monday reminded foreigners coming to China for the Games to behave, warning them that everything from protesting without permission to sleeping outdoors was banned.
The extensive list, written only in Chinese and put on the organizers' official website (www.beijing2008.cn), also said that purchase of Olympics' tickets did not guarantee the holder would automatically get a Chinese visa. . . .
The handbook also outlines six activities which are illegal at cultural or sporting events, which include waving "insulting banners," attacking referees or players and smoking or lighting fireworks in venues.
Walkers in the Olympic Green Zone, where industrial pollutants have abated but desert dust remains.
. . .
The authorities have announced an asthmatic's dream of bold measures: closing coal-burning power plants and factories, halting major construction projects, mandating European Union auto-emissions levels, instituting an odd-even license plate rationing system to halve the number of vehicles on the road during the Games. Smoking is banned in Olympic venues and even in taxis, a measure enjoying astonishing compliance in this smoker's paradise.
Beijing's heavily polluted air became a touch cleaner yesterday as China, which boasts 350 million nicotine addicts, brought its first public smoking ban into force.
Ever nervous of popular unrest, Beijing had already toned down the measure, which had been long touted as one of many improvements to public life to be introduced before this summer's Olympics.
Following protests from managers and owners, restaurants and bars were excluded at the last minute.
The government also timed the introduction for the national May Day holiday, when government offices would be empty. In China, bureaucrats' desks often feature little more than a handful of documents - and a heavily loaded ash-tray.
Morning Edition, April 30, 2008 ยท Beijing is pledging a tobacco-free Olympics, and as part of that promise, the city will expand its existing smoking ban in certain public areas Thursday. But past government smoking bans have been widely ignored.
Two waitresses stand as a "non-smoking area" sign is seen on the wall in a restaurant in Bejing, capital of China, on May 1, 2008.
China has imposed a partial ban on smoking in public places in line with its aim to hold a smoke-free Olympic Games. Melissa Chan reports from Beijing.
Beijing's battle to ban smoking in most public areas began in earnest Thursday as part of the government's commitment to hold a smoke-free Olympics.
The measures, which took effect May 1, completely ban smoking in schools, hospitals and government offices, as well as at all Olympic venues including indoor and outdoor stadiums. Hotels, restaurants and bars face a partial ban, with smoking and no-smoking areas required. . . .
"I'm completely addicted to smoking and I cannot quit. With all the millions of Chinese who smoke, this law doesn't seem to be fair," he said as he lit up a cigarette on a Beijing street corner.
If you ask for a non-smoking table at the Cheerful Fish Town restaurant in Beijing, you'll be led to a tiny room upstairs at the back.Of the 200 tables at the popular Sichuan-style eatery, only six are reserved for non-smokers. "This room is mostly for pregnant women or children," explains the service manager, Xu Juan. "We don't get many requests for it.
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BEIJING plans to deploy more than 100,000 people to enforce a smoking-ban that was issued by the city's government yesterday for the Beijing Games in August, the city's health and legal authority told a press conference yesterday, China News Service has reported.
More than 1,000 people have been trained on the new rule, while another 100,000 people would be appointed as "inspectors," the report said, citing Sun Xianli, deputy director of the Beijing Patriotic Health Committee.
The supervision team has "full capability" to enforce the rule, Sun said.
BEIJING - It's called the "Patriotic Health Campaign Committee." This is the Beijing municipal body charged with enforcing the city's beefed up no-smoking rules, and it's sure to be popular with the 500,000 foreigners expected to visit the Beijing Olympics.
It'll be a different story for Beijing's 5 million smokers.
New smoking restrictions begin May 1, part of a commitment officials made for a smoke-free Olympics. That date will also send officials scrambling, trying to figure out how to enforce new rules in a city famous for incorrigible smokers _ and a country with 350 million of them _ who flagrantly ignore no-smoking bans in public places.
More than 100,000 Beijingers would be appointed to check the enforcement of a smoking ban at public facilities, which would take effect on May 1 in the Olympic host city of Beijing, a health official said.
More than 1,000 people have been trained on the enforcement of the ban, while another 100,000 people would be appointed as inspectors by all the city's enterprises and institutions, XINHUA quoted Deng Xiaohong, spokeswoman of the Beijing Health Bureau, as saying.