1 March 2003

AGREEMENT REACHED ON GLOBAL FRAMEWORK CONVENTION ON TOBACCO CONTROL

"Major step forward for the health of peoples and nations" -
Dr Gro Harlem Brundtland

GENEVA - 171 Member States of the World Health Organization (WHO) have
finalized a groundbreaking public health treaty to control tobacco supply
and consumption. They agreed on a final text for a WHO Framework
Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) governing tobacco taxation, smoking
prevention and treatment, illicit trade, advertising, sponsorship and
promotion, and product regulation.

The negotiations, the final round of which began on 17 February, conclude
four years of work to produce an international tobacco control treaty. The
agreement is part of a global strategy to reduce tobacco-related deaths
and disease around the world.

"The convention we have agreed on is a real milestone in the history of
global public health," said Dr Gro Harlem Brundtland, Director-General of
WHO. "Moreover, it is a milestone in international collaboration in a
globalized world. It means nations will be working systematically together
to protect the lives of present and future generations, and take on shared
responsibilities to make this world a better and healthier place. I
congratulate our Member States on their courage and vision in drafting a
treaty that will effectively reduce the impact of tobacco on the health of
populations for decades to come."

"Tobacco kills in every country of the world, and probably most of us know
someone who has died," she added. "Due to the actions that will follow
from our shared commitments, millions and millions of lives will be saved.
The treaty is based on the determination and inspiration of the many who
have worked so hard to conclude an effective and strong convention."

The final text will be presented to the World Health Assembly in May for
adoption. Once it has been adopted, the FCTC will be opened for signature
by Member States. The treaty will come into force shortly after it has
been ratified by 40 countries.

The text requires signatory parties to implement comprehensive tobacco
control programmes and strategies at the national, regional and local
levels. In its preamble, the text explicitly recognizes the need to
protect public health, the unique nature of tobacco products and the harm
that companies that produce them cause.

Some of the key elements of the final text include:

Taxes - The text formally recognizes that tax and price measures are an
important way of reducing tobacco consumption, particularly in young
people, and requires signatories to consider public health objectives when
implementing tax and price policies on tobacco products.

Labelling - The text requires that at least 30 per cent - but ideally 50
per cent or more - of the display area on tobacco product packaging is
taken up by clear health warnings in the form of text, pictures or a
combination of the two. Packaging and labelling requirements also prohibit
misleading language that gives the false impression that the product is
less harmful than others. This may include the use of terms such as
"light", "mild" or "low tar".

Advertising - While all countries agreed that a comprehensive ban would
have a significant impact in reducing the consumption of tobacco products,
some countries have constitutional provisions - for example, those
covering free speech for commercial purposes - that will not allow them to
implement a complete ban in all media. The final text requires parties to
move towards a comprehensive ban within five years of the convention
entering into force. It also contains provisions for countries that cannot
implement a complete ban by requiring them to restrict tobacco
advertising, promotion and sponsorship within the limits of their laws.

The text also explicitly requires signatories to the convention to look at
the possibility of a protocol to provide a greater level of detail on
cross-border advertising. This could include the technical aspects of
preventing or blocking advertising in areas such as satellite television
and the internet.

Liability - Parties to the convention are encouraged to pursue legislative
action to hold the tobacco industry liable for costs related to tobacco
use.

Financing - Parties are required to provide financial support to their
national tobacco control programmes. In addition, the text encourages the
use and promotion of existing development funding for tobacco control. A
number of countries and development agencies, have already pledged their
commitment to include tobacco control as a development priority.

The text also requires countries to promote treatment programmes to help
people stop smoking and education to prevent people from starting, to
prohibit sales of tobacco products to minors, and to limit public exposure
to second-hand smoke.

The elements of the treaty reflect WHO and World Bank policies on a
comprehensive plan to reduce global tobacco consumption. While there have
been nearly 20 World Health Assembly resolutions to support tobacco
control since 1970, the difference with this treaty is that these
obligations will become legally binding for Parties to the convention once
it comes into force. (keralamonitor.com)

Silicon Graphics launches innovative and cutting-edge family of servers
and super clusters in the Middle East

Emirates Computers to distribute innovative product deploying superior
technology

Dubai -March 1, 2003

Silicon Graphics Inc., (SGI), the world's leader in high-performance computing,
visualization and the management of complex data as well as the leading
technical computing partner of Emirates Computers, has recently launched
a new linux system based on Intel Itanium 2 in the Middle East. Solely
distributed in the UAE by Emirates Computers, the product is built on SGI's
supercomputing architecture and targeted at technical users who are seeking
to achieve breakthrough performance with open-source computing.

"Having firmly established itself with its superior range of products,
services and solutions, SGI ensures that customers are able to gain strategic
and competitive advantages in their core business, as well as empower a
world of innovation and discovery," said Gilbert Soufan, Territory Manager,
Middle East. The recently launched system that combines SGI's supercomputing
architecture with Intel and the Linux operating system surpasses traditional
clusters, high end microprocessor-based servers and vector-based computers
in system performance and cost-efficiency."

"There is a disruptive force in the computing world today. LINUX has entered
the IT scene making its own rules. SGI has been quick to learn how to play
by these rules and in doing so, the company has invented the world's fastest
UNIX server," said Hani Harik, President of Emirates Computers. "It is
interesting to note that by giving to the Linux community some of SGI's
patented technologies, this enabled the company to build a terrific performance
machine."

SGI Altix 3000 superclusters can scale up to hundreds of Intel® Itanium®
2 processors with a built-in SGI® NUMAlink interconnect fabric that delivers
information between nodes up to 200 times faster than conventional clustering
switches. Each node of an SGI Altix 3000 supercluster can run a single
Linux operating system image over 64 Intel Itanium 2 processors and up
to 512 GB of memory.

Due to global shared memory across cluster nodes, SGI Altix 3000 can hold
a higher degree of complex geometries of complete workflows in memory enabling
new application breakthroughs that traditional Linux xlusters or re-purposed
e-commerce UNIX servers cannot tackle. This unprecedented scalability comes
in a fully supported, standard 64-bit Linux operating system and advanced
development environment specifically optimized for technical applications.

Recent tests indicate that the combination of SGI's powerful NUMAflex architecture
and Intel's most advanced microprocessor in an open source-computing environment
yields potent price and performance breakthroughs in nearly every measurable
category. The SGI Altix 3000 family triumphed in across-the-board benchmark
and real-word application tests measuring processor and system performance,
memory and I/O throughput, in addition to compute-intensive application
performance. -keralamonitor.com