Just a few kilometers after passing a towering Marlboro Man ad, a second billboard off the highway promotes cigarettes with a new American face: Kelly Clarkson.
The former American Idol winner invites fans to buy tickets to her upcoming concert in Jakarta. The logo of her sponsor is splashed in huge type above her head — the popular Indonesian cigarette brand LA Lights. Similar ads also run on TV.
Such in-your-face tobacco advertising has been banned for years in many other countries, but in Indonesia, the world’s fourth-most populous nation, tobacco companies have virtual free rein to peddle their products, from movies to sports sponsorships and television shows. The country remains one of the last holdouts that have not signed the WHO’s tobacco treaty.
Smoking has risen in Indonesia, where about 63 percent of all men light up and one-third of the overall population smokes, an increase of 26 percent since 1995. Smoking-related illnesses kill at least 200,000 annually in a nation of 235 million.
“Indonesia is a big concern, a big epidemic, a big population and very little control,” said Prabhat Jha, a tobacco control expert at the University of Toronto’s Centre for Global Health Research. “They have a chaotic taxation and regulatory structure. They have made the mistake of letting the Marlboro Man into the country.”
In recent months, anti-tobacco forces have rallied. A new health law has declared smoking addictive and urged the government to hammer out tobacco regulations. An anti-smoking coalition is pushing for tighter restrictions on smoking in public places, advertising bans and bigger health warnings on cigarette packages.
Public debate also exploded last month after Muhammadiyah, Indonesia’s second-largest Islamic organization, issued a fatwa banning smoking. Though not legally binding, the religious ruling does put pressure on smokers in the world’s most populous Muslim nation.
About a quarter of Indonesian boys aged 13 to 15 are already hooked on cigarettes that sell for about US$1 a pack, the WHO said.
Smoking is embedded in Indonesia’s culture. Wafts of a pungent mixture of tobacco and cloves, called kreteks, can be smelled in houses rich and poor across the vast archipelago.
A 2008 study on tobacco revenue in Indonesia showed that smokers spend more than 10 percent of their household income on cigarettes — three times more than they spend on education expenses such as school fees and books.
Indonesia remains one of the last places in the world where cigarette TV commercials still run, featuring rugged men and beautiful women smoking. Billboards plastered above four-lane highways encourage motorists stuck in Jakarta’s notorious traffic jams to “Go Ahead” or “Become a Man.” Leggy women in short skirts and strappy heels promote cigarettes at events, sometimes even giving out discounted or free samples.
Indonesia’s tobacco industry employs millions in the world’s fifth-largest cigarette-producing market. About 6 percent of the government’s revenue comes from cigarette taxes and a powerful tobacco lobby has blocked past regulation attempts, including a move to ban TV ads.
Any move to limit tobacco promotion and use in the country will require strong political will, but critics point out that even Indonesia’s smoke-happy neighbors China and Vietnam have signed the WHO’s tobacco treaty and imposed stronger controls.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
RSS