The $13-billion merger, announced in January, makes the new group the second largest private tobacco company after the American Philip Morris, which sells Marlboro - the dominant global brand. The tie-up which brings together brands such as 555 State Express, Rothmans, Benson & Hedges, Dunhill and Peter Stuyvesant, is expected to put Philip Morris's dominance in doubt and also trigger off other mergers.

The tobacco companies, including the new group to be known as New BAT, admit that their main objectiveis to target emerging markets. A New BAT spokesman admitted in January that the group would target the growing markets in China, Africa, India and south-east Asia. If New Bat succeeds, it will cause more deaths than any war, disease or famine has yet claimed.

In other words, the sleek brands that will flood those regions as a result of the targeting are the biggest single killer known to history, and are, therefore, more lethal than the cruise missiles rained by Uncle Sam on Iraq, for instance, but scarcely attract a fraction of the publicity.

Health experts estimate that cigarettes will claim four million lives a year worldwide by 2000 and 10 million a year by 2030, of which seven million will be in the including ASH, the anti-smoking pressure group, the British Medical Association (BMA) and Oxford University dons - have opposed the merger, arguing it will lead to more deaths in the developing world.

The BMA have accused the New BAT of seeking new smokers in the developing world because its sales areunder pressure in the developed world, where lawsuits, anti-smoking legislation and adverse publicity have tarnished its image. But one of the most effective critics of the deal is Prof Richard Peto of Oxford University, a main author of the biggest study of the dangers of smoking, published in the British Medical Journal, in which scientists from China, America and Britain interviewed the families of one million people who died between 1986 and 1988.

According to Professor Peto, "It this merger means more cigarette sales, it'll mean more cigarette deaths because half of all smokers eventually get killed by their habit unless they can manage to quit." Peto added: `The cigarette sold by these two companies are already causing more than half a million deaths a year and 20 years from now they will be causing a million deaths a year worldwide.'

Despite these horrific predictions, British foreign office and prime minister's office have overruled health department's objections to the merger, arguing that theimportance of boosting exports overrides the threat to lives in the developing world. New guidelines being drawn up by the foreign office will order British embassies worldwide to help tobacco firms corner new markets.

According to British media reports, embassy staff will be told `they must offer the same legal advice and support to tobacco companies that they give to other British firms' - including information on local markets. Company official will also continue to accompany ministers on trade missions abroad.The British government move comes after publication of statements by the foreign secretary Robin Cook that British foreign policy would be guided by ethical principles. Cook's ethical foreign policy is apparently comfortable with the promotion of mass murder, albeit disguised as business promotion, in the interest of boosting exports.

Third World Network Features/ Crescent International