USA: ALTRIA, CYCLING'S LATEST DRUG STAIN

Altria is boasting on its website that it is a founding partner of the Richmond Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) Road World Championships, held in September 2015. The sponsorship is highlighted in an upbeat video that makes no mention at all of the company's main line of business.

Pascal Fernandez, senior vice president, Consumer and Marketplace Insights at Altria Client Services talks about growing up in France watching Tour de France “I did bike racing myself and I'm…super excited to think we're going to be hosting this event, we're going to have all these champions coming into town, showing a different side of Richmond…”

Exactly what is meant by showing a different side of Richmond is not clear – perhaps Mr Fernandez means the contrast of an elite international sporting event hosted by a town which is home to a multinational company where profits can be counted in the number of lives cut short. Certainly the vision of cyclists at the peak of aerobic fitness is a striking contrast to the misery of the last years of many smokers, tethered to an oxygen machine or disfigured by cancer surgery.

EUROPE: TRANSPARENCY BLACKED OUT ON TOBACCO

The European Commission has been criticised by NGOs and Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) for failing to adhere to its transparency obligations as a party to the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC). The criticisms arise from a Freedom of Information (FOI) request lodged by NGO Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO) in March 2015 for documents related to the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), a proposed free trade agreement between the USA and the European Union, expected to be the largest trade agreement in history.

The FOI request …