CNBC: Last week, Afghanistan released new data showing opium production is surging, information that dovetailed with a widely circulated 2016 United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) report that showed similar findings. The primary problem is a new strain of genetically modified seed that comes from China, which allows poppies to be grown year round.
AA: Illegal poppy cultivation in Afghanistan has surged by 10 percent, the country’s Counter-Narcotics Ministry said Saturday. Ministry spokesman Mohammad Hanif told reporters in Kabul that besides the traditional areas of poppy cultivation in the country’s south and southwest, the northern province of Badghes has fueled much of this year’s surge in illegal poppy cultivation. Click
Tolo News: A number of drug addicts hospitalized in the Phoenix drug rehabilitation center in Kabul have escaped over what they said was an uncertain future and because of their treatment at the institution. Sediqa is the mother of four children who is spending devastating life under the Pul-e-Sukhta bridge in the nation’s capital Kabul, has
Interview Press TV February 13, 2017 Under the pretext of chasing al-Qaeda operatives implicated in the 9/11 attacks on US soil, American forces invaded Afghanistan in 2001. The continued military operation has caused heavy casualties, but US officials claim they are fighting al-Qaeda, the Taliban and most recently Daesh terrorists in the Asian nation. Press
RFE/RL’s Tajik Service January 12, 2017 DUSHANBE — The Tajik Foreign Ministry says that it summoned the Afghan ambassador in Dushanbe late in December and lodged a diplomatic protest over remarks made by the Afghan ambassador to Russia. The ministry said on January 12 that a protest note was handed to the Afghan ambassador in
Tolo News: Drug addicts living under the Pul-e-Sukhta Bridge in Kabul city said on average two to four fellow addicts are dying each day due to the severe cold currently gripping the capital. The Pul-e-Sukhta Bridge is a well-known location for homeless addicts, who also live there with their families. According to one addict, Rahman, between
Tolo News: Afghanistan’s ministry of counter-narcotics Tuesday said that over a million young Afghan male and female youths are drug addicts. The total number of addicts in the country is estimated to be about 3.5 million and three percent of them constitute women, said the minister of counter-narcotics Salamat Azimi. Click here to read more (external
Institute for War and Peace Reporting: Activists and officials in the Afghan province of Herat have warned that rising numbers of children are being recruited to work as drugs mules by local trafficking networks. Street children are particularly vulnerable, amid a massive rise in addiction among minors in the western province. Afghanistan’s booming illicit narcotics industry
Reuters: Saffron is the most expensive spice in the world, selling for as much as $1,200-$1,800 a kilogram, and has long been seen as an alternative crop to opium poppies for poor farmers in a country struggling with the legacy of decades of war and lawlessness. So far, it has had little impact on the opium
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty November 10, 2016 The U.S. Embassy in Dushanbe says it had obtained information about possible attacks on large public gatherings in Tajikistan and its border crossings with Afghanistan. The embassy said in a statement on November 10 that “terrorist groups” may carry out attacks, but did not name them. It urged