WYTHEVILLE, Va.—About 20 Southwest Virginia projects received more than $30 million in awards today from the Virginia Tobacco Indemnification and Community Revitalization Commission.

The lion’s share—$25 million – was awarded to the proposed King College medical school.

“We see this as a game changer,” commission Executive Director Neal Noyes said when presenting the plan to the Southwest Virginia Economic Development Committee.

After it was unanimously approved there, it received similar support from the full commission.

The grant covers half the estimated cost of constructing a medicine and health sciences center and carries a number of stipulations.
In addition, Bristol Virginia Utilities received $3.5 million to create a redundant broadband connection in Southwest Virginia and to link with Mid-Atlantic Broadband, which serves Southside Virginia.

The Bristol-based Birthplace of Country Music Alliance received $250,000 to be used for capital improvements for its cultural heritage center project.

By David McGee
October 29, 2009 2.tricities

Berlin – A German Catholic bank that was revealed to have made indirect investments in companies producing weapons, tobacco and the contraceptive pill said Monday that it had disposed of the ‘ethically dubious’ shares in question.

Pax Bank, a Cologne-based church investment firm, was revealed by a report in the Spiegel news magazine on Saturday to have been involved in investments worth some 1.6 million euros (2.3 million dollars) in companies including defence giant BAE Systems, British American Tobacco and US pharmaceutical firm Wyeth.

‘We made the sale order first thing this morning,’ the bank’s director Winfried Hinzen told the German Press Agency dpa.

Pax, which had made the investments in conjunction with another church financial organization, Liga Bank, said that the day-to-day running of their investments had been under the control of Union Investment, an asset management firm.

The bank apologized for the ‘error.’

Clients of Pax are predominantly ecclesiastical institutions, or those with links to churches such as religious orders, hospitals and charities as well as theology students.


Copyright © 2009 Monstersandcritics

Major US, Canadian and British life and health insurance companies have billions of dollars invested in tobacco companies, a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine

Wesley Boyd, the study’s lead author, found that at least $US4.4 billion ($5.5 billion) in insurance company funds are invested in companies whose affiliates produce cigarettes, cigars and chewing tobacco.

“It’s clear their top priority is making money, not safeguarding people’s well-being,” he wrote.

Tobacco is considered the leading cause of lung cancer and a major risk factor for heart attack, stroke, pulmonary disease and cancer.

According to the World Health Organisation, it is a contributing factor in 5.4 million deaths a year.

Researchers first revealed that health and life insurance companies had major investments in tobacco companies in 1995 in an article in the British medical journal Lancet.

“Although investing in tobacco while selling life or health insurance may seem self-defeating, insurance firms have figured out ways to profit from both,” Mr Boyd wrote.

“Insurers exclude smokers from coverage or, more commonly, charge them higher premiums. Insurers profit – and smokers lose – twice over.”

According to the study, US insurer Prudential Financial has $US264.3 million ($328 million)dollars invested among three US tobacco companies, including Reynolds America and Philip Morris.

Canadian insurer Sun Life Financial, which sells life, disability and health insurance, has a stock portfolio with more than one billion dollars in two tobacco companies, including $US890 million ($1.1 billion) in Philip Morris.

Copyright © 2009 Theaustralian