tagged w/ Opium
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By FISNIK ABRASHI
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Afghanistan will ask international donors next month for $4 billion to revive its agricultural sector, but it could be a hard sell with another massive crop of opium expected this year.
Despite the sharply rising price of grain, foreign-funded efforts to promote legal alternatives to the narcotic have largely failed.
Farmers still make much more from growing poppy, the raw material for heroin, which flourishes amid Afghanistan's Taliban insurgency and rampant lawlessness. Half of the country's production comes from Helmand province, a stronghold of insurgents.
Roughly one out of every seven farmers in this predominantly rural nation of 32 million people grow opium. Giving them alternatives is part of Afghanistan's plan to invest $4 billion over the next five years in its outdated agricultural sector.
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By FISNIK ABRASHI
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Afghanistan will ask international... more
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Iraqi farmers trying to make ends meet are increasingly turning to cultivating poppies whose product is turned into heroin because they can no longer make a living growing traditional crops like oranges and pomegranates. Farmers are getting help making the switch in their production from experienced Afghan growers, and are being funded by drug smugglers who supply heroin to Saudi Arabia. According to this report: "The growing of poppies has now spread to Diyala, which is one of the places in Iraq where al-Qa'ida is still resisting US and Iraqi government forces... The growing and smuggling of opium will be difficult to stop in Iraq because much of the country is controlled by criminalised militias."
I don't like the sound of mixing drugs and terrorist groups... Mostly because of the potential for spinning the wars on drugs and terror further into a political mess. Could this happen?Iraqi farmers trying to make ends meet are increasingly turning to cultivating poppies... more
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The UK is planning a new scheme in the fight against the Taliban in Afghanistan: targeting opium crops. The scheme would provide subsidies to woo Afghani farmers off opium production.
Says Lord Malloch-Brown: "We have to do a much better job of not targeting the farmers, the producers whose hearts and minds we are trying to win in the counter-insurgency effort. We have to target the industry above that - the financiers, the shippers, the drug big men who are benefiting from the production. We know who they are and the government of Afghanistan know who they are. A system banning them from travel, listing them and freezing their bank accounts, hitting at the industry's infrastructure, strikes me as an area in which more can be done."
Do you think this is a good strategic move for Britain?The UK is planning a new scheme in the fight against the Taliban in Afghanistan:... more
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So, prices will go down and there will be some black available on the market, but I'd be wary of smoking it - a huge amount of Depleted Uranium has been dropped onto Afghanistan these past six years.
See: http://www.leechvideo.com/video/view1801762.htmlSo, prices will go down and there will be some black available on the market, but... more
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Remembering the Iran/Contra scandal and the fact that the CIA has ofttimes financed its black operations by smuggling and selling drugs, this would not surprise me at all.Remembering the Iran/Contra scandal and the fact that the CIA has ofttimes financed... more
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What this article talks about, the US pushing for eradication in Afghanistan, is simply not plausible, and the US knows it. It physically is very possible to eradicate poppy with spraying and cutting, but its just not realistic in the political context of Afghanistan today. Approximately 2/3 of the Afghan economy is dependent on opium, so removing that through eradication would collapse the country. The country is already bordering on instability and the Karzai government has a tenuous grip on power as it is. Karzai has already denied allowing the US to eradicate in Afghanistan once, and he will do it again, because if the countries economy really collapses it gives the resurgent Taliban a tremendous advantage, and almost assures the Karzai cant remain in power.What this article talks about, the US pushing for eradication in Afghanistan, is... more
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Kaj
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added this
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4 years ago
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Kaj Larsen looks at the heroin industry in Afghanistan--the world's largest producer of heroin.Kaj Larsen looks at the heroin industry in Afghanistan--the world's largest... more
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Kaj
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added this
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6 years ago
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