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| Farangis Najibullah, RFE/RL |
Farmers in Tajikistan"s Zarafshon Valley this year will reduce tobacco crops by one-third. The decision has nothing to do with the worldwide anti-tobacco campaign or worries about smokers" health. For these farmers, the issue is purely economic. For the past two years, they have watched the market dwindle and have been left with almost no income -- and in poor health. . .
Tobacco is the only source of income for thousands of farmers in Zarafshon Valley. For many years, families in the region have rented plots on the tobacco plantation from local authorities. They grow the plant, gather their leaves, and sell them to the state-run Food Corporation for export abroad.
But now farmers say that for the past two years they have been unable to find a customer for their products.
Russia is Tajikistan"s main tobacco importer. But many Russian companies have canceled their contracts with Tajikistan, saying the quality of the tobacco is not sufficiently high. |
| [05 September, Tuesday, 2006, 10:01:59] |
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| Myron Levin, Times Staff Writer |
| Los Angeles Times, 2004-02-15 |
The haul: nearly 140 million cigarettes, exceeding the largest seizures known to the World Customs Organization.
Follow-up investigations by Japan Tobacco revealed that hundreds of millions of knock-off Monte Carlos already were in the market. The mysterious JTI and its affiliates had procured cigarettes from factories in Greece, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Dubai, United Arab Emirates. They had obtained perfect copies of Monte Carlo packaging from a printer in Milan, Italy. . .
the people behind the JTI sound-alikes had persuaded the federal Intellectual Property Office in Belgrade to declare them owners of the Monte Carlo trademark. . . .
A legal battle quickly ensued. Some 20 lawsuits have been filed in at least four countries, and a criminal investigation of the circumstances surrounding the trademark ruling is underway in Belgrade.
If upheld, the Monte Carlo trademark ruling would give the sound-alikes control of a popular brand in the smokers" paradise of Serbia and Montenegro, as the former Yugoslavia now is called. These Monte Carlos also could leak across borders through exports, legal or otherwise, costing Japan Tobacco sales in other countries. |
| [05 September, Tuesday, 2006, 10:00:48] |
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