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Every individual cigarette sold in Canada will carry a warning message under the terms of a new federal regulation intended to curb smoking, especially among young people, the country’s minister of mental health and addictions announced on Friday. The individual warning label, said to be the first in the world, will supplement the warning messages already printed on cigarette boxes in Canada, a country where smoking rates have fallen sharply over the past few decades. ... Health Canada, the nation’s health agency, is proposing that the warning “Poison in every puff” be printed on the cigarette paper around the filter. (Isai, 6/10)

On Sunday, the World Trade Organization will hold a long-delayed ministerial conference to craft a response to the Covid-19 pandemic, but the issue likely to generate the most debate is a highly controversial proposal to temporarily waive intellectual property rights for vaccines. A version was first introduced in October 2020 by South Africa and India, but appeared to face the proverbial uphill battle until several months later, when the Biden administration unexpectedly backed the effort. But despite various attempts at a compromise, the initiative repeatedly stalled amid objections by the pharmaceutical industry and some wealthy nations where the largest drug companies are based. Now a furious last-minute bid is underway to pass the latest version of the proposal, but the latest version seems to satisfy no one. What is at stake? How will this affect access to medicines and pharmaceutical industry assets? (Silverman, 6/12)

The head of the World Trade Organization predicted a “bumpy and rocky” road as it opened its highest-level meeting in 4-1/2 years on Sunday, with issues like pandemic preparedness, food insecurity and overfishing of the world’s seas on the agenda. At a time when some question WTO’s relevance, Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala hopes the meeting involving more than 120 ministers from the group’s 164 member countries yields progress toward reducing inequality and ensuring fair and free trade. (Keaten, 6/12)

China on Friday attacked the theory that the coronavirus pandemic may have originated as a leak from a Chinese laboratory as a politically motivated lie, after the World Health Organization recommended in its strongest terms yet that a deeper probe is needed into whether a lab accident may be to blame. (6/10)

China is starting to re-impose Covid-19 restrictions just weeks after major easing in key cities, raising concern the country may once again employ strict lockdowns to control its outbreak. Beijing reported 45 new local cases on Monday afternoon, after having single digit cases on most days last week. City officials said an outbreak linked to a popular bar is proving more difficult to control than previous clusters, in a weekend that saw mass testing and rising infections both in the capital and in Shanghai. (6/11)