The World is Talking About…

Paris is Talking About...Smoking

Comment: Well, this seems familiar. Here in Tokyo, where smoking is still very common, many of the wards have gone so far as to prohibit smoking on the public streets. This has led to the sight of "Smoking Rooms" -- sponsored by Japan Tobacco -- in some commercial areas, where smokers go inside a storefront or standalone bus-shelter-like structure on the sidewalk to smoke. Given the price and rents of commercial real estate in Tokyo, this cannot be cheap.

Smoking No Longer Très Chic in France

Today, nearly 80 percent of the French support the idea of a smoking ban in public places.

By Elaine Sciolino, New York Times

Paris, France - Jean-Paul Sartre smoked. So did Colette, Cocteau, Camus, and Coco Chanel.

One of the most memorable scenes in French films is Jean-Paul Belmondo lifting his head, dragging on a cigarette and rubbing his thumb back and forth across his lips in Breathless. (He smokes about two dozen times in the movie.)

There is something about smoking that seems very French.

But as in other European countries, smoking in public increasingly has fallen out of favor here. This week, after a five-month governmental inquiry, a parliamentary committee approved a proposal to ban smoking in public areas.

Under the measure, cafes, hotels, restaurants, discos and casinos could designate spaces for smoking only if they could be “hermetically sealed areas, furnished with air-extraction systems and subject to extremely rigorous health norms.”

Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin said he would decide quickly how to proceed on the matter. “The French people would not understand if we do not make a decision” in the face of the research, he told members of Parliament on Monday.

But not everyone here agrees. To diehard smokers and many tobacconists and bar and restaurant owners, the campaign reflects the loss of a core French value — the rights of the individual.

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Chennai is Talking About...Emerging Diseases

Modern Ways Open India’s Doors to Diabetes

Once the "rich man's burden," the disease is rapidly penetrating developing nations.

By N.R. Kleinfield, New York Times

Chennai (Madras), Tamil Nadu, India - There are many ways to understand diabetes in this choking city of automakers and software companies, where the disease seems as commonplace as saris. One way is through the story of P. Ganam, 50, a proper woman reduced to fake gold.

Her husband, K. Palayam, had diabetes do its corrosive job on him: ulcers bore into both feet and cost him a leg. To pay for his care in a country where health insurance is rare, P. Ganam sold all her cherished jewelry — gold, as she saw it, swapped for life.

She was asked about the necklaces and bracelets she was now wearing.

They were, as it happened, worthless impostors.

“Diabetes,” she said, “has the gold.”

And now, Ms. Ganam, the scaffolding of her hard-won middle-class existence already undone, has diabetes too." In its hushed but unrelenting manner, Type 2 diabetes is engulfing India, swallowing up the legs and jewels of those comfortable enough to put on weight in a country better known for famine. Here, juxtaposed alongside the stick-thin poverty, the malaria and the AIDS, the number of diabetics now totals around 35 million, and counting.

The future looks only more ominous as India hurtles into the present, modernizing and urbanizing at blinding speed. Even more of its 1.1 billion people seem destined to become heavier and more vulnerable to Type 2 diabetes, a disease of high blood sugar brought on by obesity, inactivity and genes, often culminating in blindness, amputations and heart failure. In 20 years, projections are that there may be a staggering 75 million Indian diabetics. A taste for sweets, like those in this bakery, and the growing popularity of fried and processed foods are contributing to diabetes in India.

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Zurich is Talking About...Assisted Suicide

Four More Britons Go to Zurich Clinic to Die

Clinic founder reportedly setting up clinics across Europe to offer information on suicide

By Jo Revill, The Observer

Zurich, Switzerland - Four Britons have traveled to Switzerland in the past six weeks to commit suicide, bringing the total of British people who have died there to 54.

The Dignitas clinic in Zurich has seen a sharp increase in patients who want to die with medical assistance. Twelve Britons have sought the clinic's help since the high-profile case of Dr. Anne Turner in January.

Dignitas's founder, Dr. Ludwig Minelli, is speaking at the Liberal Democrats' conference this week. He is reportedly setting up clinics across Europe to offer information on suicide.

Under British law it is illegal to help anyone to die. Some of those who traveled to Switzerland have been investigated by the police, but so far no charges have been brought. Dr. Turner's children were not charged, nor Stefan Sliwinski for helping his mother, who had multiple sclerosis, die. However, Swansea police continue to investigate the family of Paul Bennett, who died at the Zurich clinic in May.

Deborah Annetts, the chief executive of Dignity in Dying, said: "The British government is content for people to have help to die elsewhere, but not in their own country surrounded by their friends and family."

From This story.

Santiago is Talking About...Contraception

In Chile, Free Morning-after Pills to Teens

Critics say government undermines parents and is tantamount to abortion

By Jen Ross, Christian Science Monitor

Santiago, Chile - This month, Chile began to combat the problem of high teen-pregnancy rates by distributing free morning-after pills to girls as young as 14 years old.

Government support of emergency contraception is not unusual in Latin America or in Europe. Last month, the US Food and Drug Administration approved the over-the-counter sale of morning-after pills (known as Plan B), for women over 18. Girls age 17 and under must have a doctor's note.

But the Chilean government, by giving away the pills to such young girls, is igniting a storm of opposition from critics who say it undermines parents and is tantamount to abortion.

On Sept. 2, Chile's health minister, Maria Soledad Barria, announced the distribution of morning-after pills in public health clinics as part of a broader set of new regulations on fertility. Since then, the outcry has been building from religious groups, the political right, and even some of the government's own coalition partners in Congress. Many are up in arms about the measure, which they say encourages early sexual activity.

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Madrid is Talking About...Body Image

Models flunk BMI, get Spain fashion boot

Madrid fashion show bans over-thin models

By Daniel Woolls, Associated Press

Madrid , Spain - Spain's top fashion show has turned away models because they are too thin.

Organizers of the pageant, known as the Pasarela Cibeles, used a mathematical formula to calculate the models' body mass index — a measure of their weight in relation to their height — and 30 percent of the women flunked, said the Association of Fashion Designers of Spain.

The decision was made as part of a voluntary agreement with the Madrid regional government, Jesus del Pozo, a designer who is part of the association, said Thursday. The show runs from Sept. 18-22.

The association said in a statement it wanted models to project "an image of beauty and health" and shun a gaunt, emaciated look.

Last year's edition of the show, also called Madrid Fashion Week, drew protests from medical associations and women's advocacy groups because some of the models were positively bone-thin.

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See also

• "Skinniest models are banned from catwalk", Times of London, 9 Sept 2006