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Mahmud Abtahi, General Director of Iran Tobacco Company gives information about the cigarette mafia in Iran and interest of American producers to cooperate
- Does the general director of Iran tobacco company smoke?
- No, not at all. He is against smoking and strongly advises those who smoke to quit. Particularly ladies, who follow the new fashion of smoking recently.
- Then how do you fulfil your duties with this belief? Isn't there a contradiction?
- Iran Tobacco Company is a trading company with unlimited possibilities, a lot of money and production and employment opportunities. This is true that I am not a smoker and I am against smoking, but I have the responsibility of developing this company. So I differentiate my personal opinion and professional duties. I know that development of tobacco industry is to the benefit of Iran and can bring a lot of economic-export opportunities to the country. . . .
. In 2005 about 10.9 billion cigarettes were smuggled. In 2006 it decreased to 8.5. For 2008 we have planned to bring it down to 3.73 billion.
- What policies were implemented?
- Iran Tobacco Company is following Majlis decision to make the cigarette import tax lower to bring it in to the legal realm. . . . .
- When we speak of cigarette mafia, we should know that it's a world mafia linked to capitalists and Zionists. The world economy knows three spheres where dirty money exists. First is narcotics, second is weapons and the third is cigarette. This mafia is a world network that does any unclean thing to sell cigarette and get the market. It does not have a conscious. Sure, they also exist in Iran.
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Also, more puzzling:
Meantime, head of Iran's Tobacco Company rejected a recent report that the country has had direct cigarette imports from the United States.
"We import cigarettes through multinational firms, not directly from the US," Mahmoud Abtahi said on Saturday.
A lawmaker will seek a broad review of exports to Iran to see whether exemptions to U.S. trade sanctions are being abused. Cigarettes, bull semen and other goods have gone Iran's way as exports grew during President Bush's time in office.
Rep. David Scott, vice chairman of the House subcommittee on terrorism, nonproliferation and trade, said Friday that he will press for a congressional review of sanctions enforcement following an Associated Press investigation that found U.S. exports to Iran rose from about $8 million in 2001, Bush's first year in office, to nearly $150 million last year.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad-Ali Hosseini said here on Saturday U.S. Republican presidential candidate John McCain’s recent allegations against Iran are as “unethical and shameful”
Such remarks only indicate his spiteful thoughts that are used in U.S. foreign policy.
Denouncing these comments, Hosseini expressed regret over such illogical reasoning.
In a statement quoted by the website of Iran's state Press TV satellite station, Hosseini added:
"We condemn such jokes and believe them to be inappropriate for a U.S. presidential candidate. It is most evident that jokes about genocide will not be tolerated by Iranians or Americans."
The presumptive Republican presidential candidate made the statements after he was asked about reports that US exports to Iran - a big part of which were cigarettes - had risen tenfold during US President George W. Bush's presidency. He immediately added: "I meant that as a joke."
But Iranian officials were apparently unamused.
"McCain's crude remark on the indiscriminate killing of the Iranian nation not only testifies to his disturbed state of mind, but also to his warmongering approach to foreign policy," Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Mohammad-Ali Hosseini said in a statement Saturday.
"We condemn such jokes and believe them to be inappropriate for a US presidential candidate. It is most evident that jokes about genocide will not be tolerated by Iranians or Americans," he added.
Foreign Ministry Spokesman Mohammad-Ali Hosseini has criticized Senator John McCain for joking about killing Iranians with cigarettes.
“McCain's crude remark on the indiscriminate killing of the Iranian nation not only testifies to his disturbed state of mind, but also to his warmongering approach to foreign policy,” said Hosseini in a Saturday statement.
“We condemn such jokes and believe them to be inappropriate for a US presidential candidate. It is most evident that jokes about genocide will not be tolerated by Iranians or Americans,” he added.
Iran on Saturday condemned remarks by U.S. presidential candidate John McCain who said one way of killing Iranians was to export cigarettes to Iran, the country's official news agency IRNA reported.
"We condemn such remarks as ugly and immoral, especially for someone who intends to lead a country claiming civilization," Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad-Ali Husseini said.
"Maybe that’s a way of killing them,” McCain responded. He quickly followed up: “I meant that as a joke, as a person who hasn’t had a cigarette in 28 years.”
After his wife corrected him –- it’s actually been 29 years since the veteran's last smoke -- McCain said he’d like to look into the Iran export issue more thoroughly and might have a better answer later.
U.S. Republican presidential candidate John McCain, who once sang in jest about bombing Iran, on Tuesday reacted to a report of rising U.S. cigarette exports to the country by saying it may be "a way of killing 'em."
McCain, known for acerbic comments and for sometimes firing verbally from the hip, was responding to a report that U.S. exports to Iran rose tenfold during President George W. Bush's term in office despite hostility between the two states.
A rise in cigarette sales was a big part of that, according to an Associated Press analysis of seven years of U.S. trade figures. . . .
"Maybe that's a way of killing 'em," McCain said to reporters during a campaign stop in Pittsburgh. "I meant that as a joke, as a person who hasn't had a cigarette in 28 years, 29 years," he added, laughing.
Ban on smoking in public places and selling tobacco to people under 20 have cut sales of cigarettes in the GCC by 12 per cent, according to industry experts.
Total sales across the region are about 60 billion cigarettes a year and Saudi Arabia is the largest market with an annual total of 12 billion. Small- and medium-sized tobacco manufacturers expect their business volume to decline further due to increased taxes and restrictions in regional markets.
But global giants such as British American Tobacco and Philip Morris International (PMI), which dominate the market, recorded an increased sales in the first quarter of 2008 mainly due to higher turnover in East Europe, the Middle East and Africa (Eema).
Tobacco is the only addictive substance readily, cheaply, and legally available to Iranians from all walks of life, Hassan Azaripur of the Iranian Health Ministry’s Committee on Tobacco Control told the Mehr News Agency on the second day of Iran’s No Tobacco Week (May 25-31).
Unfortunately, there is an increase in the number of smokers aged between 16 and 25 in Iran, and 9 million of the country’s 70 million people smoke regularly, he lamented.
Some 25 percent of Iranians over the age of 15 are in danger of becoming smokers, Azaripur noted, adding, “14.1 percent of the country’s smokers are between 13 and 15 years old.” . . .
Unfortunately, the developing world is slow in taking measures in response to health threats like industrial pollution and bad diets, and we see the same thing in regard to smoking.
And in our country, the Iranian Anti-Tobacco Association (IATA), with the cooperation of the National Research Institute of Tuberculosis and Lung Disease (NRITLD), organizes No Tobacco Week each year from May 24 to 31.
The IATA organized a number programs for the anti-smoking week . . .
In addition, many people in Iran and the rest of the world are still unaware of the danger of passive smoking, but concerted efforts to convince people that smoking is harmful to their family members could help to reduce smoking or even encourage people to quit.
And since today is World No Tobacco Day, hopefully some smokers will be encouraged to take the first step in kicking the habit
For 30 years Christine Levinson took care of the house and seven children while her husband, Robert, went off to perform secret work for the FBI and then as a private investigator. She didn't ask what he was hunting; he didn't tell her.
Today Christine Levinson, 57, is doing the tracking.
Since Robert Levinson, 59, disappeared March 9, 2007, from a Persian Gulf island off Iran, his wife has traveled the world demanding action. In December she flew to Tehran to pass out fliers in Farsi with her husband's photo and ask for help. In February she hired an attorney there to file paperwork urging the government to start an official investigation. . . .
Today she is flying to Washington, D.C., to get an update from FBI and State Department officials on their joint investigation. And on Sunday, the eve of her husband's 60th birthday, her family is holding a "hope rally" at 1 p.m. in the Wings Plus restaurant in Coral Springs to mark one year since his disappearance.
Family, friends and supporters will sign petitions urging the Iranian president to investigate.
The wife of a missing former FBI agent said Tuesday she hired a lawyer in Iran to try to persuade authorities there to investigate her husband's disappearance almost a year ago.
Christine Levinson said she has received no information on the location of Robert Levinson, who turns 60 on Monday. He was last seen March 8 on the Iranian island of Kish, where he had gone to seek information on cigarette smuggling for a client of his security firm. . . .
"He had a lot of clients in the tobacco industry, but he was subcontractor."
On Sunday, the Levinsons will stage a rally to mark the first anniversary of his disappearance.
Iran has allowed water pipes to reappear in tea houses, whose owners complained a recent ban on health grounds was putting them out of business, press reports said on Tuesday.
"Tea houses with a business permit can offer water pipes to their costumers," the interior ministry said in directive to police published in the Tehran Emrouz newspaper.
However it said that only plain tobacco would be allowed in water pipes and popular fruit flavours like strawberry and apple would remain banned due to "health risks".