Word: tobacco
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...corporate wellness programs and socially screened investment funds, some of the world's largest life-insurance companies still own billions of dollars in tobacco-industry stocks, Harvard physicians assert in a new report...
...argued, of course, that life- and disability-insurance companies have everything to gain from customers who live long and healthy lives - and continue to pay their premiums. So it would not be in the insurers' interest to support tobacco use. But the authors argue that in fact, insurers profit both ways. "Although investing in tobacco while selling life or health insurance may seem self-defeating," the authors write, "insurance firms have figured out ways to profit from both. Insurers exclude smokers or, more commonly, charge them higher premiums. Insurers profit - and smokers lose - twice over...
...study is a follow-up to a similar one conducted in 1995. For the new report, Boyd and his Harvard colleagues used a proprietary database called Osiris, which updates its financial data daily, to cull information on the major shareholders of tobacco-related equities. The researchers cite New Jersey-based insurer Prudential Financial as a typical example of what they discovered. Prudential, which sells both life and long-term-disability insurance, owned about $264 million in the stocks of Reynolds American, which makes Camel cigarettes, and Philip Morris International, which manufactures the Marlboro brand. (Watch TIME's video "Au Revoir...
...became full," says Tarakai, "we set up our own camps. Today we are setting up the 11th camp." Each day brings new arrivals to the camps dotted among the vast stretches of land belonging to the Tarakais, where the family grows sugarcane, wheat, corn and very lucrative quantities of tobacco. The family also operates power projects and recently acquired the Pakistan franchise for Gloria Jean's, a café chain. It owns a tire factory in Swat's main town of Mingora, but like much else in the valley, it was seized by the Taliban. In recent years, Liaqat Tarakai...
...Back at Aman camp, Liaqat Tarakai inspects a building that once served as a storage facility for his tobacco. "I am going to make this into a hospital," he says. "We will have a ward, equipment, everything." But even he realizes there are limits on how much he can do, and for how long. The army claims to have cleared much of Buner and has begun to call residents back. In the coming weeks, Aman's parents may be able to take their baby home. "But the Swatis will be staying," says Tarakai, "for some time...