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From 6 July 2006, a graphic version of the current edition is available at the Daily News Online web site.

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WHO country representative, Dr Jean Kalilani, said at World No Tobacco Day in Molepolole, that tobacco also contributes to high public health costs of treating tobacco related diseases.

Tobacco use also kills people at the height of their productivity, depriving families of breadwinners and nations a healthy workforce.

Kalilani lamented that current smoking mortality is the result of past lifetimes of tobacco consumption during the day commemorated under theme: Tobacco and Poverty, a Vicious Circle.

She said from 1950 to 2000, tobacco killed more than 60 million people in developed countries alone and that if the current trends continue, tobacco will kill more than 100 million people in the first two decades of the 21st century.

Studies across the six WHO regions of the world show that it is the poorest people who tend to smoke the most in both developing and developed countries.

"The same people bear most of the disease burden." She decried that tobacco use makes poverty worse among users and their families since the users are at much higher risk of falling ill and dying prematurely of cancers, heart attacks, respiratory diseases and other tobacco related diseases.

Kalilani said Botswana like other countries, was taking part in tobacco control. She said in 2003, Botswana took part at the Inter-Governmental Negotiations for the Framework Convention for Tobacco Control, which was developed in response to the current globalisation on the tobacco epidemic.

Bontle Mbongwe, a representative of Botswana at the gathering, scooped a certificate and the WHO Director's General's Award for leadership in Global Tobacco Control.

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