The 10th World Conference on Tobacco or Health, which was opened by the Chinese leader Jiang Zemin (photo), reported to an international congress in August in Beijing that smoking “will claim 10 million lives annually by the year 2025”

The audience was told that, together with AIDS, tobacco is the major growing cause of premature death, according to Judith Mackay of the Asian consultancy on tobacco control. She stated that tobacco’s share of all death and disability world-wide “will increase from the current 3 per cent to 9 per cent by 2025.” In her closing address, Ms Mackay painted a bleak future on smoking-related fatalities but said it was clear that, by the 21st century “many countries will have enacted unprecedented restrictions on tobacco use.”

The meeting drew 1500 delegates from all around the world; it urged governments to consider carefully the implications of any liability settlements reached with the tobacco industry, although its resolutions have no official character. Activists said the motion was aimed at the United States and the proposed US$ 368.5 billion settlement between the tobacco industry and anti-smoking forces. The meeting also focused on smoking by women and by children in the developing world.

The conference issued a resolution that calls governments to act against smoking; the document has no official character, however.