"As the war in Iraq continues for a fourth year, the global image of America has slipped further, even among people in some countries closely allied with the United States," reports Brian Knowlton, citing a new opinion poll by the Pew Research Center. The poll found significant declines in esteem for the United States in countries including Spain, India, Russia, Indonesia and Turkey, and smaller declines in France, Germany and Jordan. "Obviously, when you get many more people saying that the U.S. presence in Iraq is a threat to world peace as say that about Iran, it's a measure of how much Iraq is sapping good will to the United States," said Pew president Andrew Kohut.

In a February 1989 speech to the Executive Committee of the now-defunct Tobacco Institute, the group's Senior Vice President, Charles Powers, sought to save the industry's covert "Scientific Witness" program from impending budget cuts. The program, he said, featured experts "who are our front line of defense in tax, public smoking and advertising hearings every day." Powers complained that "scientists will not buck for love" the scientific consensus on the link between environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) and health impacts. "It takes money," he said. "The Institute can't do it and be taken seriously. We need people who have earned reputations as serious researchers...who can review and critique articles, publish and act as peer reviewers," he said. Powers estimated that it cost an average of $40,000 and took six weeks to identify and train a single expert.

The R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company has contributed $10,000 to an Arizona group, the Non-Smoker Protection Committee. The group is proposing a ballot initiative in favour of The Arizona Non-Smoker Protection Act which it claims would create "a balanced, reasonable, consistent, statewide non-smoking law, protecting minors and preserving private property rights." In fact, the initiative would overturn existing smoking bans in cities such as Tempe and would prevent other cities from instituting them. Dr. Leland Fairbanks, a retired doctor, told Associated Press that the name of the tobacco-friendly proposal has fooled some people into signing the petition supporting the initiative being placed on the ballot."There's a lot of deception going on," Fairbanks said. "Many people think they're signing the health one, but they're signing the R.J. Reynolds one. They're mad, and they should be." Tobacco control groups are proposing an alternative initiative, the Smoke-Free Arizona Act.