VOA News | April 30,2018: Poppy harvest season is underway in Afghanistan, the world’s largest producer of opium. Farmers in eastern Nangarhar province say they do not have any other options but to cultivate poppy to make a living. U.S. and Afghan forces continue to target drug-processing labs across Afghanistan in order to target Taliban financial
RFE/RL’s Radio Free Afghanistan | April 25, 2018: Afghans heading to take part in the opium harvest tell RFE/RL they have no other way of making a living. Afghanistan is the world’s biggest poppy producer. Copyright (c) 2018. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave NW, Ste 400,
Al Jazeera / March 17, 2018: Opium production in Afghanistan has been on the rise since the US invasion in 2001. Last year 9,000 tonnes were produced, an increase of 87 percent. As a result, the record number of people turning to drugs in desperation is also increasing. Al Jazeera’s Tony Birtley reports from Kabul, Afghanistan.
Ozy: Because new tactics are giving farmers an alternative to poppy fields. Abdul Hadi is a farmer in a village in southern Afghanistan. For more than a decade, he has wrestled with the difficult landscape, producing wheat and other sustainability crops despite failing irrigation systems and harsh winters. “Less than half of the farmers could afford to
VOA News December 2, 2017 ISLAMABAD — The top U.S. general in Afghanistan said Saturday recently launched joint strikes against Taliban sources of revenue have destroyed more than $50 million worth of narcotics in southern Helmand province. Afghanistan produces about 85 percent of the world’s opium. Income generated from drugs is providing 60 percent of the
Ayaz Gul VOA News November 20, 2017 ISLAMABAD — The United States has launched its first counter-narcotics military offensive in partnership with local allies in Afghanistan to try to deprive the resurgent Taliban of its largest source of funding. The move follows years of criticism that international forces are not doing enough to curb the opium
Ayaz Gul VOA News November 15, 2017 ISLAMABAD — Afghanistan has produced a record 9,000 metric tons of opium this year, up 87 percent compared with 2016 levels. The sharp increase is recorded in a new joint survey released Wednesday by the Afghan Ministry of Counter Narcotics and U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). The
AFP: In 2016 Afghanistan, which produces 80 percent of the world’s opium, made around 4,800 tonnes of the drug bringing in revenues of three billion dollars, according to the United Nations. The Taliban — which banned poppy cultivation when it ruled Afghanistan — now appears to wield significant control over the war-torn country’s heroin production line,
Washington Post: One recent morning, three figures in white lab coats descended cautiously into a pitch-black netherworld beneath a crumbling bridge in the Afghan capital. They picked their way through garbage and sprawled limbs, passing hundreds of huddled men whose gaunt, wary faces were briefly illuminated by the flare of matches and drug pipes. The doctors
VOA News May 16, 2017 WASHINGTON — The world’s number one opium-producing country, Afghanistan, is braced for an exploding poppy harvest this year, as farmers are cultivating the illicit crop in areas where it has never grown before. “Unfortunately, the narcotics production is on the rise this year,” Javed Qaem, Afghan deputy counternarcotics minister, told international