Brussels plans safer cigarettes across EU

The European Commissions is expected to propose before the end of this year that all cigarettes sold across the EU should be self-extinguishing to help prevent smoke-related domestic fires that kill around 2,000 Europeans each year.

The commission is set to ban traditional cigarettes by 2009-10, according to UK daily the Guardian, forcing smokers to only use "fire-safe" cigarettes. These will stop burning automatically if they are not regularly puffed on with small gaps in the cigarette...