New Zealand to ban cigarettes for future generations - BBC News

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New Zealand will ban the sale of tobacco to its next generation, in a bid to eventually phase out smoking.

Anyone born after 2008 will not be able to buy cigarettes or tobacco products in their lifetime, under a law expected to be enacted next year.

"We want to make sure young people never start smoking," Health Minister Dr Ayesha Verall said.

The move is part of a sweeping crackdown on smoking announced by New Zealand's health ministry on Thursday.

Doctors and other health experts in the country have welcomed the "world-leading" reforms, which will reduce access to tobacco and restrict nicotine levels in cigarettes.

"It will help people quit or switch to less harmful products, and make it much less likely that young people get addicted to nicotine," said Prof Janet Hook from the University of Otago.

However, others have warned that the move may create a black market for tobacco - something the health ministry's official impact statement does acknowledge, noting "customs will need more resource to enforce border control".

New Zealand is determined to achieve a national goal of reducing its national smoking rate to 5% by 2025, with the aim of eventually eliminating it altogether.

At the moment, 13% of New Zealand's adults smoke, with the rate much higher among the indigenous Maori population, where it soars to almost a third. Maori also suffer a higher rate of disease and death.

• Dog sniffs out hole in a wall cigarette stash
• Smoking surge in young during Covid lockdown

New Zealand's health ministry says smoking causes one in four cancers and remains the leading cause of preventable death for its five million strong population. The industry has been the target of legislators for more than a decade now.

As part of the crackdown announced on Thursday, the government also introduced major tobacco controls, including significantly restricting where cigarettes can be sold to remove them from supermarkets and corner stores.

The number of shops authorised to sell cigarettes will be drastically reduced to under 500 from about 8,000 now, officials say.

In recent years, vaping - smoking e-cigarettes which produce a vapour that also delivers nicotine - has become far more popular among younger generations than cigarettes.

New Zealand health authorities warn however, that vaping is not harmless. Researchers have found hazardous, cancer-causing agents in e-cigarette liquids as well.

But in 2017 the country adopted vaping as a pathway to help smokers quit tobacco.

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2021-12-09 09:52:23Z
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New Zealand to ban cigarettes for future generations - BBC News

Getty Images

New Zealand will ban the sale of tobacco to its next generation, in a bid to eventually phase out smoking.

Anyone born after 2008 will not be able to buy cigarettes or tobacco products in their lifetime, under a law expected to be enacted next year.

"We want to make sure young people never start smoking," Health Minister Dr Ayesha Verall said.

The move is part of a sweeping crackdown on smoking announced by New Zealand's health ministry on Thursday.

Doctors and other health experts in the country have welcomed the "world-leading" reforms which will reduce access to tobacco and restrict nicotine levels in cigarettes.

"It will help people quit or switch to less harmful products, and make it much less likely that young people get addicted to nicotine," said Prof Janet Hook from the University of Otago.

New Zealand is determined to achieve a national goal of reducing its national smoking rate to 5% by 2025, with the aim of eventually eliminating it altogether.

Currently, about 13% of New Zealand adults smoke, down from 18% about a decade ago. But the rate is much higher - about 31%- among the indigenous Maori population who also suffer a higher rate of disease and death.

• Dog sniffs out hole in a wall cigarette stash
• Smoking surge in young during Covid lockdown

New Zealand's health ministry says smoking causes one in four cancers and remains the leading cause of preventable death for its five million strong population. The industry has been the target of legislators for more than a decade now.

As part of the crackdown announced on Thursday, the government also introduced major tobacco controls, including significantly restricting where cigarettes can be sold to remove them from supermarkets and corner stores.

The number of shops authorised to sell cigarettes will be drastically reduced to under 500 from about 8,000 now, officials say.

In recent years, vaping - smoking e-cigarettes which produce a vapour that also delivers nicotine - has become far more popular among younger generations than cigarettes.

New Zealand health authorities warn however, that vaping is not harmless. Researchers have found hazardous, cancer-causing agents in e-cigarette liquids as well.

But in 2017 the country adopted vaping as a pathway to help smokers quit tobacco.

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2021-12-09 04:32:02Z
1196315745

Joe Biden makes diplomatic concession to Russia with Nato talks plan - Financial Times

Joe Biden has made a significant diplomatic concession to Moscow designed to prevent an invasion of Ukraine, signalling he wants to convene meetings between Nato allies and Russia to discuss Vladimir Putin’s grievances with the transatlantic security pact.

Speaking on Wednesday, a day after he held a bilateral call with Russia’s leader, the US president said he hoped to announce high-level talks by Friday “to discuss the future of Russia’s concerns relative to Nato writ large”.

The talks would explore “whether or not we can work out any accommodation as it relates to bringing down the temperature along the eastern front”, Biden added.

The US president said he hoped the participants would include not just Washington and Moscow but also “at least four of our major Nato allies”, although he declined to name the specific countries.

Moscow wants Nato to commit to halting any eastward expansion and to refrain from deploying troops and equipment that could be used to attack Russia from neighbouring countries.

But Biden’s reference to finding a potential “accommodation” with Moscow in eastern Europe will startle many eastern Nato members and US allies, who fear Putin is using the threat of military force to win concessions on the US security presence in Europe.

Putin on Wednesday reiterated his fear that Ukraine will join Nato, which he said would “undoubtedly be followed by the placement of relevant military contingents, bases, and weapons threatening us”.

“We are working on the assumption that our concerns will be heard at least this time,” he added.

Though Putin has periodically demanded similar talks for more than a decade, Moscow’s “red lines” have come to the fore in the past month after the US warned allies Russia was massing up to 175,000 troops at its borders in preparation for a possible invasion of Ukraine early next year.

Putin said talk of an invasion was “provocative” but did not explicitly rule out any military activity, saying that Russia “has the right to ensure its security . . . in the medium and long term”.

One senior official from an eastern Nato state told the Financial Times that “under no circumstances should the debate on guarantees in the context of European security be allowed to unfold”.

Any talk of compromise with Moscow “must be immediately cut at the root”, they said, adding that this view was held by at least half a dozen EU members.

Putin said Russia would send a draft security agreement “in the next few days” to the US after agreeing to have “substantive” discussions with Biden during the call. The two leaders agreed to “form a structure that would deal with it in a detailed and thorough way”, Putin added.

Although a senior Biden administration official earlier in the week dismissed talk of red lines as unhelpful, the White House is keen to pursue a diplomatic route to dissuade Putin from invading Ukraine.

Biden ruled out the unilateral use of force to confront Russia on Wednesday, instead focusing on spelling out what he said would be “severe consequences” were Putin to escalate the conflict in Ukraine.

These included boosting military support to Ukraine, bolstering the US presence in Nato countries to reassure those on the eastern flank and assembling a punishing economic sanctions package.

The sanctions would target debt and banking transactions and attempt to scupper the Nord Stream 2 pipeline that links Russia and Germany, which has been built but is not yet pumping gas, according to officials briefed on the plans.

“I made it very clear [in the call with Putin] if in fact, he invades Ukraine, there will be severe consequences . . . economic consequences like none he’s ever seen,” Biden told reporters on Wednesday.

“I am absolutely confident he got the message.”

Additional reporting by Lauren Fedor in Washington

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2021-12-08 18:54:29Z
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Olaf Scholz elected German chancellor by Bundestag - Financial Times

Germany’s Bundestag has elected Olaf Scholz of the left-of-centre Social Democrats as chancellor, bringing the curtain down on 16 years of conservative rule under Angela Merkel.

Scholz will lead an unprecedented three-way coalition between the SPD, Greens and liberals that has pledged to modernise Germany, tackle climate change and pursue a slate of progressive social policies.

But his immediate task will be to try to stem a fourth wave of Covid-19 that is putting unprecedented strain on Germany’s hospitals and to raise the country’s stubbornly low vaccination rate.

MPs voted 395-303 with 6 abstentions to elect Scholz. Though a comfortable majority, the result fell 21 votes short of the 416 seats that the three parties in his coalition command in the Bundestag.

Scholz, who has no religious affiliation, omitted the optional phrase “so help me God” from his oath of office, just like the last SPD chancellor, Gerhard Schröder who governed from 1998-2005. The Green co-leaders Robert Habeck and Annalena Baerbock, who will serve as economy minister and foreign minister respectively, did the same.

A taciturn former labour lawyer, Scholz is only the fourth SPD chancellor since the second world war. He led the party to victory in September’s election by portraying himself as a safe pair of hands in uncertain times and therefore Merkel’s natural successor.

Scholz will undertake his first foreign trip on Friday — to Paris, for talks with Emmanuel Macron, and to Brussels, where he will meet EU and Nato leaders.

Merkel, who watched Scholz’s election from the Bundestag’s public gallery and who is retiring from politics, was given a standing ovation by MPs.

The new government has agreed an ambitious plan to fight climate change by vastly expanding Germany’s renewables capacity, speeding up its exit from coal power and putting 15m electric cars on the roads by 2030. It also plans to raise the minimum wage and build 400,000 flats a year, a quarter of them subsidised by the state.

In addition, the coalition parties want to legalise cannabis and liberalise immigration rules to ease the path to German citizenship.

Scholz’s elevation to the chancellery caps a long career in politics. He was federal labour minister during the global financial crisis and mayor of Hamburg, one of Germany’s largest cities, from 2011-18.

But he has often been mistrusted by leftwingers in his own party who never forgave his support of Schröder’s reforms to the German labour market and welfare system in the early 2000s.

He lost the contest for the leadership of the SPD in 2019, but a year later, was chosen as the party‘s candidate for chancellor and oversaw a remarkable resurgence in its poll ratings. That culminated in a narrow victory over Merkel’s CDU/CSU in the September election.

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2021-12-08 16:59:50Z
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Germany's Olaf Scholz takes over from Merkel as chancellor - BBC News

EPA

Olaf Scholz has been been sworn in as Germany's new chancellor, formally taking power after Angela Merkel's historic 16 years as leader.

He promised he would do all he could to work towards a new start for Germany.

As she left the chancellery in Berlin, ending a 31-year political career, Mrs Merkel told her former vice-chancellor to approach the task "with joy".

His centre-left Social Democrats will govern alongside the Greens and the business-friendly Free Democrats.

Mr Scholz, a soft-spoken 63-year-old, steered the Social Democrats to election victory in late September, positioning himself as the continuity candidate because he played a key role in the Merkel government as vice-chancellor.

The German parliament, the Bundestag, backed him as chancellor by 395 votes to 303, and he was then formally appointed as the ninth federal chancellor by President Frank-Walter Steinmeier.

After the vote in parliament, he was asked by Bundestag President Bärbel Bas whether he accepted the appointment and said "yes". He later took the oath of office but - unlike his predecessor - left out the religious reference "so help me God".

Since the election, Mr Scholz's party has worked with the Greens and the Free Democrats on a coalition deal, which was finally signed on Tuesday. All 16 ministers took the oath of office on Wednesday, becoming Germany's first cabinet to include as many women as men.

EPA

The new government has ambitious plans to fight climate change by phasing out coal early and focusing on renewable energy, but their initial priority will be tackling the coronavirus pandemic.

Health authorities have recorded another 69,601 cases in the past 24 hours and a further 527 deaths - the highest number since last winter.

• Ready for power: Team Scholz promises a new Germany
• What Olaf Scholz means for the world economy
• Olaf Scholz takes on top job as German chancellor

A known face but not Merkel No.2

"I said 'yes'," tweeted Olaf Scholz drily, moments after the Bundestag elected him chancellor.

This is the moment the career politician has long been waiting for. After 16 years of Angela Merkel, it's a case of out with the old and in with the new-ish.

Ich habe „Ja“ gesagt. pic.twitter.com/vt6oP3KlNa

— Olaf Scholz (@OlafScholz) December 8, 2021

The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.View original tweet on Twitter

Mr Scholz is already a known and trusted face in Berlin and Brussels. He marketed himself to voters as sort of Merkel Mark Two, despite hailing from a different political party.

But it's not all about continuity, and friends and trade partners of this rich and powerful nation will be watching closely.

Mr Scholz's coalition government is a never-before-seen marriage of convenience. What unites them, they claim, is a determination to modernise Germany, while preserving the country's treasured stability.

Immediate challenges for them are:

• Covid - Germany is in the midst of a pernicious fourth wave and considering mandatory vaccination
• The threat of a Russian invasion of Ukraine
• Angela Merkel was accused of putting trade before politics. Team Scholz is expected to be somewhat tougher on Moscow and Beijing despite the potential economic hit to German business.

Relations with Washington may improve as a result, though, and that is a declared priority of Olaf Scholz's fledgling coalition.

Read more from Katya Adler here.

Mr Scholz's first foreign trip as chancellor will be to Paris and Brussels on Friday. He and Greens joint leader Annalena Baerbock, who becomes foreign minister, will have to respond to fears surrounding Russia's military build-up near the border with Ukraine.

Although Russia has denied plans to invade its neighbour, Angela Merkel agreed with US President Joe Biden and the leaders of the UK, France and Italy late on Tuesday that they would adopt a joint strategy to respond by imposing "significant and severe harm on the Russian economy".

One obvious economic measure would be to threaten Russia's Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline to Germany, which has been completed but is still awaiting approval from the German energy regulator.

US officials say they have reached an understanding with Germany that the pipeline would be shut down, which would be a significant intervention.

In a message of congratulations to Mr Scholz, Russian President Vladimir Putin said he looked forward to constructive dialogue, and hoped that Germany continued to recognise "there's no alternative to dialogue".

Leaving the chancellery on Wednesday afternoon, Mrs Merkel was applauded by staff as she told her successor to take over and work for the good of Germany. In turn, he spoke of the crises that had brought them together and of the "deeply trusting collaboration" they had developed.

First elected in December 1990, Angela Merkel was immediately given a ministerial job by then Chancellor Helmut Kohl.

But she then helped oust him and became Christian Democrat leader in 2000, before becoming chancellor herself in November 2005.

She will still have an office close to the Bundestag, in a flat that was once used by Margot Honecker, once dubbed the most powerful woman in communist East Germany.

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2021-12-08 15:31:05Z
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Winter Olympics 2022: Australia joins US in diplomatic boycott of Beijing Games - Sky News

Australia's prime minister has said his country will join the US in a diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Winter Olympics due to human rights concerns.

"I'm doing it because it's in Australia's national interest. It's the right thing to do," said Scott Morrison.

Mr Morrison said the decision should not be a surprise as relations between the countries had soured in recent years.

As well as human rights worries, he said China had criticised Australian defence efforts "particularly in relation, most recently, to our decision to acquire nuclear-powered submarines".

Image: The Games - set in and around Beijing - start on 4 February

The country's athletes will still be able to compete in February's games.

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Australia's prime minister said he was open to efforts to repairing the relationship with China.

"There's been no obstacle to that occurring on our side, but the Chinese government has consistently not accepted those opportunities for us to meet," Mr Morrison said.

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The move comes a few days after the US decided to hold back its own diplomats and officials from the Olympics due to "egregious human rights abuses and atrocities in Xinjiang".

China's foreign ministry warned of "firm countermeasures" and said the US was "grandstanding".

China has been accused of abuses against Xinjiang's Muslim Uyghur population, with some alleging torture and deaths inside re-education centres. It denies the claims.

The case of tennis player Peng Shuai, who made sexual assault claims against a former senior Chinese official, has brought added focus to the country's human rights.

Image: Olympic rings lead to venues in Zhangjiakou, Hebei province

With about two months before the Olympics begin, more countries could join the boycott.

The Times reported the UK could be a part of the protest, while a Canadian foreign affairs spokesperson has said the country is discussing the matter "with our closest partners".

The Winter Olympics will be held in and around Beijing and locations in neighbouring Hebei province from 4 to 20 February.

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2021-12-08 07:52:30Z
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Germany's Olaf Scholz takes over from Merkel as chancellor - BBC News

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Olaf Scholz has been confirmed as Germany's new chancellor, leading a three-party government that takes over from Angela Merkel after 16 years in office.

He was voted in by the German parliament, where his coalition has a substantial majority.

His centre left Social Democrats will govern alongside the Greens and the business-friendly Free Democrats.

The handover of power marks an end to Mrs Merkel's 31-year political career.

Mr Scholz, a soft-spoken 63-year-old, steered the Social Democrats to election victory in late September, positioning himself as continuity candidate because he played a key role in the Merkel government as vice-chancellor.

He was given a standing ovation after the German parliament, the Bundestag, backed him by 395 votes to 303. He will now go to see President Frank-Walter Steinmeier before returning at midday (11:00 GMT) to be sworn in.

Since the election, his party has worked with the Greens and the Free Democrats on a coalition deal, which was finally signed on Tuesday. He is set to take over from Mrs Merkel at 15:00.

• Ready for power: Team Scholz promises a new Germany
• Olaf Scholz takes on top job as German chancellor
• Adler: Sweeping away 16 years of Merkel

The new government has ambitious plans to fight climate change by phasing out coal early and focusing on renewable energy, but their initial priority will be on tackling the coronavirus pandemic. Health authorities have recorded another 69,601 cases in the past 24 hours and a further 527 deaths - the highest number since last winter.

He and Greens leader Annalena Baerbock, who becomes foreign minister, will also have to respond to fears surrounding Russia's military build-up near the border with Ukraine.

Although Russia has denied plans to invade its neighbour, Angela Merkel agreed with President Joe Biden and the leaders of the UK, France and Italy late on Tuesday that they would adopt a joint strategy to respond by imposing "significant and severe harm on the Russian economy".

One obvious economic measure would be to threaten Russia's Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline to Germany, which has been completed but is still awaiting approval from the German energy regulator. US officials say they have reached an understanding with Germany that the pipeline would be shut down, which would be a significant intervention.

First elected in December 1990, Angela Merkel was immediately given a ministerial job by then Chancellor Helmut Kohl.

But she then helped oust him and became Christian Democrat leader in 2000, before becoming chancellor herself in November 2005.

She will still have an office close to the Bundestag, in a flat that was once used by Margot Honecker, once dubbed the most powerful woman in communist East Germany.

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2021-12-08 09:34:51Z
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