Word: tobacco
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...plan goes further: instead of the old system of joint ventures, foreign companies would have the right to acquire 100% ownership of Soviet firms. The Soviets are already scrambling for Western trade to alleviate the acute shortages that have brought consumers to the verge of revolt. To ease the tobacco rationing that prompted smokers to riot in almost a dozen cities, Philip Morris and RJR Nabisco announced plans last week to sell 34 billion cigarettes to the Russian Republic...
...Both ideas are anathema to Republicans, some of whom, like House minority whip Newt Gingrich, are calling for tax cuts to blunt the edge of a recession. G.O.P. leaders responded with a call for a cut in capital gains taxes, which Democrats adamantly oppose, along with higher levies on tobacco and alcoholic beverages and a $10,000 limit on individual deductions for state and local taxes...
Tempers are smoldering across the Soviet Union as irate smokers vent their rage over the country's summer-long tobacco shortage. "No tobacco -- no work!" shouted angry factory workers in Kuibyshev who would rather strike than switch. In the Urals town of Perm, nicotine-starved crowds blocked the main street, and "tobacco riots" have hit other cities...
...limiting consumption to five packs a month. President Gorbachev fired Vladilen Nikitin, his appropriately named head of state procurement, after finding his explanation for the shortage "unconvincing and unsound." Soviet smokers seem to agree. "It was bad enough when they took our vodka away," grumbled a man in a tobacco line. "There was eau de cologne or home brew to replace it. But what do you smoke instead of tobacco?" Suggested a young man next to him: "Try some grass...
...flops. A ban on trade with Rhodesia was in effect for 13 years, beginning in 1967, after the white racist government unilaterally declared independence from Britain. Neighboring South Africa kept Rhodesia -- now Zimbabwe -- supplied with arms, gasoline and vital consumer goods while acting as middleman for the country's tobacco exports. In 1977 the U.N. banned arms sales to South Africa to protest apartheid, and independently, many countries restricted their economic ties in the mid-1980s. Still, South Africa's economy has prospered...