Poppy Cultivation in Afghanistan Remains Stable: World Drug Report 2011
23 June 2011
Global opium poppy cultivation reached some 195,700 hectares (ha) in 2010, a small increase over 2009, shows the flagship report launched today at United Nations Headquarters by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon; Yury Fedotov [...]. [...] Opium production declined, however, by 38 per cent to 4,860 tons due to a blight that wiped out much of the opium harvest in Afghanistan in 2010. Nonetheless, the bulk of opium production still took place in Afghanistan...
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Price of Opium Triples amid Struggling Economy, Planned Troop Drawdown
21 June 2011
Far away from the war, in the remote hills of Badakhshan, there is another battle raging. Trundling into the valleys on dusty roads ripped up by large SUVs, an Afghan task force is heading towards their target: an industry so profitable that many fear it's Afghanistan's only viable option once the West pulls its troops and money out. We've joined up with the Ministry of Counter Narcotics looking for opium. Here in Badakhshan, the Taliban aren't much...
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Canada's Engagement in Afghanistan: Quarterly Report January-March 2011
16 June 2011
Progress in Afghanistan has been achieved on a number of fronts at the national, provincial, district and local levels. The pace of change in Afghanistan however has been slow and not without setbacks. Sustaining progress—whether political, economic or social—will depend on continuing Afghan leadership, within government and in particular throughout Afghan society. While much remains to be done, Canada continues to be inspired by those...
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Poppy Harvest in Helmand Undeterred
03 June 2011
Late May marks the end of the annual poppy harvest in Khan Neshin, a remote and thinly populated district in southernmost Helmand Province. First cleared by United States Marines in 2009, the district was one of nine in the province to be included in this year’s counternarcotics eradication campaign.Government-led eradication is intended to go hand in hand with wheat-seed distribution. The goal is to offer farmers a viable alternative to the...
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Aid Workers Fight Secret War against HIV
31 May 2011
The checkpoints on Kabul's streets and concrete barricades around its key buildings are a reminder of the war Afghanistan has been in since 2001. But beneath some of its bridges are signs of another war - the battle against HIV. During a recent afternoon, aid workers weaved in and out among the hundreds of drug addicts who gather daily under a bridge in the Pul-e Sought-a neighbourhood of the city to smoke and inject heroin. Men of all ages huddle...
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Opium Cultivation to Decrease Slightly Overall but Likely to Expand in N-NE: UN
18 April 2011
Opium poppies are being grown this year in parts of Afghanistan where last year there were none, but overall cultivation of the drug will decrease slightly, the United Nations said in a report on Monday. Four provinces in the east, west and north of Afghanistan that had been "poppy-free" have returned to cultivation, the U.N. drug agency UNODC said in its "Opium Winter Rapid Assessment" report, a forecast of trends for the year ahead. But Helmand,...
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Pakistan-Afghanistan Relations: A Pakistani Narrative
08 April 2011
A paper authored by Mr. Rahim Ullah Yousafzai, Executive Editor, The NEWS International at Peshawar bureau and a prolific writer on security issues, provides an overview of the state of Pak-Afghan Relations and analyses different issues that affect the relations between two Islamic neighbouring states. Some of the issues covered in the paper include terrorism, narcotics control, water resource issues, media and Afghan refugees, etc. as well as provide...
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Afghanistan Drugs: Evolution from a War Economy to a Drug Economy
04 April 2011
This new AAN thematic report (with SWP Berlin) by German scholar Citha D. Maass looks into the beginnings and the evolution of drug production in Afghanistan during its three decades-long war. Starting with the Western-supported anti-Soviet jihad in 1979, drug production became a major base for the country’s war economy. After the fall of the Taleban regime in 2001, the US rehabilitated the former mujahedin leaders who – as the Taleban...
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Opium Poppies Creep Back in Eastern Afghan Province
01 April 2011
Farmers in an area of eastern Afghanistan that has been opium-free for years say they are growing poppies again. Residents of Tagab district accuse the government of reneging on promises to reward them if they switched to other crops. As in other parts of the country, farmers have also been tempted back into poppy cultivation because of the spiralling rising price of opium. Farmers who abandoned the crop three or four years ago, like Mohammad Ajan,...
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US Promises to Better Coordinate with Partners on Afghan Drug Raids
24 March 2011
The United States said on Thursday it would coordinate better with its partners on heroin raids in Afghanistan after rattling Kabul officials with an operation with Russia last year. Over the past two years the former Cold War foes have been tackling heroin production in Afghanistan, which produces 90 percent of the global total, as Russia struggles to contain a crippling HIV/AIDS crisis. A joint raid last October, in which they destroyed four drug...
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