The world is watching the stand-off between the Australian government and big tobacco over plain packaging with great interest. Late last year the Australian government passed a new law that will remove all branding from tobacco-product packaging, but big tobacco don'€™t want to budge and is now taking the Australian government to court over the new law.

Former president and Nobel laureate FW de Klerk, had a close brush with cancer in 2006 and is lending his support to Be Cancer Aware as they launch a campaign to increase public awareness of colorectal cancer.

In 2010, the tobacco industry made US$6 000 in profit for each death caused by the products they sell. This is according to The Tobacco Atlas, Fourth Edition, and its companion website TobaccoAtlas.org, which were recently unveiled by the American Cancer Society and World Lung Foundation at the 15th World Conference on Tobacco OR Health.

Musa Ernest Nkoko is a 52-year old ex-miner with multi-drug resistant (MDR) tuberculosis. He lives in KaShoba in the Lubombo region of Swaziland with his wife and five children aged between 9 and 27 years. Co-infected with HIV, Nkoko says he has been on treatment for MDR-TB for the last four years. The disease has diminished Nkoko'€™s lung capacity and rendered him too weak to do any work, and he and his family relies on his wife'€™s income as a part time cleaner.