Dear Colleagues

Here is some UNESCO drug news from around the world:

India-AIDS 3.5 million Indians HIV-infected till mid-1998: government report

NEW DELHI, Nov 9 (AFP) - India for the first time admitted Tuesday that as
many as 3.5 million Indians were carrying the human immuno-deficiency virus
(HIV) that leads to AIDS. A health ministry report which contained figures
for the period up to mid-1998, said 1.4 million males living in urban India
were HIV-infected compared to 800,000 women living in the cities. The World
Health Organisation has said as many as seven million Indians are carrying
HIV. Others, however, put the figure at around five million. While
releasing the report, Prasada Rao, additional secretary in the health
ministry, highlighted the problems in establishing accurate satistics.
"There are severe limitations in making such calculations," said Rao. "The
main purpose of working out these estimates was to evolve programmes for
arresting the trend and providing care," he added. Rao said that the
government had come up with a detailed state-wise break-up of HIV-infected
cases so that they could "sensitise state-level functionaries" to the
magnitude of the problem. The report has given 26 Indian states "high,
moderate or low" risk exposure to AIDS. The western Indian state of
Maharashtra has the highest number of cases, followed by the states of
Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Manipur. West Bengal and Gujarat
fall into the moderate risk category, while the rest of the country falls
into the "low AIDS prevalence" category. A deeply conservative country,
India has had problems addressing many of the issues linked to AIDS, such
as intravenous drug use, homosexuality, prostitution and teenage sex. India
took a 191-million-dollar loan from the World Bank in September this year
to fund its five-year project to battle the spread of AIDS in the country.

Pakistan-addicts Pakistan's little angels of death seek escape through heroin

KARACHI, Nov 15 (AFP) - Kashif, a 14-year-old Pakistani boy, has few
ambitions in life. He has already chosen a journey which will probably kill
him in just a few years. "I am a hero chasing heroin for death," said
Kashif, as he inhaled powdered heroin from a burnt cigarette foil with a
group of friends. Children like Kashif have become a major worry for social
workers here, where they are known as the "little angels of death."
Pakistan has some four million drug addicts, half of whom are hooked on
heroin. Some 72 percent of addicts are younger than 35, according to
official figures. "It is dangerously alarming as the trend is increasing
among children," said social worker, Salim Azam, who heads an organisation
working to rehabilitate heroin addicts. Most of the drugs come across the
border from Afghanistan, which last year became the world's top opium
producer. "There are around 200,000 children heroin addicts in the country.
Now children have started coming to us frequently. Kashif has come to me at
least six times for treatment," Azam said. But rehabilitation seems far
from the mind of the frail youngster, covered in dirt. "I will get rid of
this only once I am in the grave," he said. During the day he roams
Karachi, begging on minibuses by reciting verses from the Koran. The money
goes on heroin. "I earn 150 to 200 rupees (three to four dollars) a day and
then take the medicine," he said. "If I do not take it, then I sweat badly
and my body aches. For the last six years, I have been living for this
heroin." Kashif's four young brothers are also addicts and live on the
city's pavements. They learned about the drug through their father, Babu
Mukhtiar, a former taxi driver and long-time addict. He sometimes uses a
syringe to inject, mixing the heroin powder with lemon juice to make it
soluble. Kashif has seen a lot in his short life. His mother and friends
have died, his family have become beggars and visits to police stations and
hospitals are regular. But every time he escapes for heroin. "Not only
could I not fulfil a promise to my dying mother but I could not protect my
own brothers from addiction," he said. Like Kashif, there are thousands of
boys sleeping on pavements or in Karachi's graveyards, who crowd around
roadside restaurants for leftover food. "The story starts mostly with
charas (hashish) then glue sniffing and ends at heroin with death," said
the social worker Azam. "The boys beg, steal or get forced into child
prostitution or become the instruments of the drug pushers." Social workers
trace the history of heroin to the Afghan war which broke out in 1979, at a
time when there were few addicts in the country. The Soviet invasion and
years of fighting brought a Kalashnikov culture and heroin. Addicts in
Pakistan spend 40 million dollars a year and consume 130 tonnes of drugs.
"We are no longer a producing country but a target country," said Brigadier
Mukhtiar Ahmed, a senior official of the army-led Anti-Narcotics Force. "It
is a huge market." Now more than one million heroin addicts live in Karachi
alone including 80,000 children, who often live in groups around a leader.
"I take shares from everybody because I save them from all difficulties. I
myself was brought here by my friends," said 15-year-old Mohammad Nasir.
"The cruel world teaches us everything." Every child has a harrowing story
to tell. "My friend who introduced me to heroin has just died," said
16-year-old Mohammad Arif. "I sold my sister's jewellery, the kitchen
utensils, everything. Even then my mother admitted me to hospital five
times. I want to hug my mother again but I cannot leave this." Social
workers say the children easily fall prey to the drug mafia or militant
groups. "Children are our future and we have to save them from going into
the valley of death," said social worker Abdus Sattar Edhi.

Indonesia-drugs 50 kilograms of heroin coming into Indonesia every month:
report

JAKARTA, Nov 15 (AFP) - At least 50 kilograms (110 pounds) of heroin pours
into Indonesia every month, most of it by courier from the Golden Triangle
countries of Thailand, Laos and Myanmar, a report said Monday. The
Indonesian Observer quoted Colonel Wilhelmus Laturete, the head of the
National Police drugs and narcotics division as saying the figures were
obtained from the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA). The DEA information
indicated that at least one member of an international drug syndicate
entered Indonesia daily carrying around 1.5 kilograms of heroin, and in
some cases three people daily carrying a total of 4.5 kilograms of the
narcotic. That information tallied with drug seizures made at Jakarta's
Sukarno-Hatta international airport, Laturete said. "When we interrogate
the suspects they always say that it is not the first time they have
entered through SH airport. Many even inform us that they have acted as
couriers at least three or four times with payments of up to 6,000 dollars
for each trip," he said. He added that once in the country, the drugs were
carried by local couriers to different cities and bar and nightclub
distribution points, and that his force needed more sophisticated detecting
equipmnent and personnel. The Observer quoted customs and police sources as
saying that around 15 kilograms of heroin was seized in Indonesia monthly.
It also quoted national police chief Rusmanhadi (Eds: one name) as saying
stern action had been taken against police in East Java found to be
involved in drug sales and distribution. In addition to the estimated
480,000 heroin users in the country (based on a figure of one gram per user
per month), ecstacy pills, amphetamines, marijuana and cocaine were also
entering the country in large quanities, the Observer said. Those drugs
were sent by "certain individuals" through air cargo shipments and by mail
from Nigeria, Thailand and Singapore and packed in a way that fooled police
dogs, the Observer said.

Germany-Liechtenstein Liechtenstein a haven for money-laundering: report

BERLIN, Nov 6 (AFP) - South American drug lords, the Italian Mafia and
Russian criminal gangs are believed to be laundering money through
Liechtenstein, often with the help of influential politicians, judges or
financial executives, the German magazine Der Spiegel reported in its
latest edition. Basing its report on information from the German
intelligence service, the BND, the magazine said that drug cartels in
particular were in regular contact with a former government member who in
turn relied on a network of senior figures in the small EU country's
political, judicial and financial elite. The risk of being caught was
minimal, Der Speigel said, because all those implicated "backed each other
up to make illegal financial transfers at the request of international
criminals." The magazine also gave the names of several fund managers who
it said were suspected of helping to launder cash through the country,
which has built a reputation rivalling Switzerland as a destination for
tax-free, confidential banking. Der Spiegel said the BND obtained the
information via a system it has set up in southwest Germany allowing it to
listen in one telephone conversations and to monitor computerised data
exchanges.

Nicaragua-drugs Nicaraguan ex-top police officer arrested for drug trafficking

MANAGUA, Nov 7 (AFP) - Authorities seized an arsenal of weapons including
mortars and AK-47s, 125 kilogrammes (275 pounds) of cocaine and arrested a
former senior police official in a raid just west of here, a
law-enforcement spokesman said Sunday. Some 300 AK-47 assault rifles, RPG-7
mortars, and more than 100 cases of ammunition were confiscated, and the
former chief of police in the nation's north Atlantic Autonomous Region
(RAAS), Roger Ramirez was detained, said National Police spokesman Carlos
Bendana. Ramirez was fired from the RAAS in 1993 on suspicion of ties to
drug trafficking in the Caribbean region, and was employed as a trial
attorney. Bendana said the raid came as part of a probe into the robbery of
a Managua bank by eight attackers who killed one guard, injured another and
made off with some 90,000 dollars.

SKorea-FBI FBI head joins condemnation of North Korea's alleged drug smuggling

SEOUL, Nov 9 (AFP) - The visiting chief of the US Federal Bureau of
Investigation (FBI) called Tuesday for international condemnation of North
Korea's suspected sponsorship of terror groups and drug smuggling.
"Obviously, no state should be sponsoring either terrorism or the
production and distribution of dangerous narcotics," FBI director Louis
Freeh said when asked about the North's alleged drug sales. "This is not
only the position of the United States but, certainly, would be the
position of the United Nations and all of the international conventions."
The FBI chief is in Seoul to attend Interpol's 68th general assembly which
opened Monday for a five-day run. Freeh's remarks on North Korea's
suspected drug trafficking came at a news conference jointly held with his
South Korean counterpart Kim Kwang-Sik, commissioner general of the
National Police Agency. South Korea's intelligence agency said in a report
last month that cash-strapped North Korea was producing around 40 tonnes of
illegal drugs annually to earn hard currency. Seoul's National Intelligence
Service (NIS) said that the Stalinist regime in Pyongyang had smuggled the
drugs through its diplomatic missions or overseas businesses since 1970. In
a bid to ride over its economic hardships, North Korea has also relied on
an illegal trade in smuggled gold bars, ivory and bogus notes, the South's
intelligence agency said. The NIS claimed the North had been running three
mints to counterfeit fake bills and circulate them abroad. While staying in
Seoul, the FBI chief met South Korean officials, including Prime Minister
Kim Jong-Pil. Police sources said the FBI and the South Korean government
were discussing opening an FBI liaison office in Seoul. "We are trying to
make a final arrangement to get that approval (for opening the office),"
Freeh said.

SAfrica-justice-Basson Apartheid police supplied mandrax for chemical warfare

PRETORIA, Oct 29 (AFP) - South Africa's apartheid-era police force supplied
huge quantities of the narcotic drug mandrax to the government's
biochemical warfare programme, the murder and fraud trial of biochemical
expert Wouter Basson heard Friday. The defence lawyer for Basson -- facing
61 charges, including murder, fraud and drug dealing -- rejected witness
Stephen Beukes' claim that Basson had ordered him to make 100,000 mandrax
pills in the 1980s. Basson had merely commissioned fake mandrax to catch
African National Congress (ANC) soldiers smuggling the drug, lawyer Jaap
Cilliers said. He said the police had at that time supplied mandrax to the
apartheid government's shadowy biochemical warfare programme, Project
Coast. "Project Coast had unlimited access to such tablets through the
police," Cilliers said. "If this is true, it would have been totally
unnecessary and indeed very strange that you would have received an order
to manufacture mandrax tablets," Cilliers said to Beukes, a former member
of an army medical unit under Basson's command. He said the mandrax ordered
by Basson, who had operational responsibility for Project Coast, were fakes
to be used to catch ANC guerrillas smuggling the drug. The ANC, which has
headed government since the first all-race election of 1994, led the fight
against the apartheid government. Under cross-examination, Beukes conceded
that he did not know if the pills he made were mandrax as he had not
analysed the ingredients supplied by Basson. Another witness Friday,
chemical scientist Johan Koekemoer, told the court that in the early 1990s
he had manufactured almost a tonne of ecstasy on orders of the head of
Project Coast, former surgeon-general Neil Knobel. The drug was one of
several incapacitating products designed by Delta G, a front company for
Project Coast, to warp the thinking and judgement of the apartheid
government's enemies, he said. Basson has pleaded not guilty to all the
charges against him. He is on bail pending the outcome of the trial. The
trial, which started in earnest Monday and is likely to last at least two
years, is expected to shed light on the apartheid government's sinister
biochemical warfare programme. Some details were revealed last year when
the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, investigating apartheid-era
abuses, heard allegations that Basson had worked on developing bacteria
that would kill only blacks. He is also alleged to have designed drugs that
could kill without trace and potions to make black women infertile, leading
to his being dubbed "Dr Death". State prosecutors alleged Monday that
Basson had used his standing with the apartheid government to defraud it of
millions of rands through some 46 front companies. The trial continues.

Colombia-drugs Colombia police fear resurgence of "narcoterrorism"

BOGOTA, Oct 14 (AFP) - Colombian authorities fear a possible wave of
bombings in retaliation for the capture and possible extradition of 30 drug
kingpins but are doing everything possible to prevent them, a government
source said Thursday. "We cannot rule out a violent criminal reaction,"
said the source, who requested anonymity. "But this is not the time of
Pablo Escobar (the head of the Medellin cartel who was gunned down in 1993)
when various Colombian cities were 'flooded' with bombs. Now we have (drug
gangs) under control." Colombian police, working in cooperation with
American authorities in "Operation Millennium," arrested 30 drug
traffickers late Tuesday and early Wednesday morning, including Fabio
Ochoa, a former associate of Escobar in the Medellin cartel who already
spent some time in jail cocaine charges. The 30 were captured in Bogota,
Cali and Medellin. They were allegedly part of the "Millennium cartel,"
which used the Internet and sophisticated technology to bring about 30
tonnes of cocaine a month into the United States, worth about five billion
dollars, according to the director of the Colombian police, General Rosso
Serrano. Serrano said Wednesday that if the criminals arrange more
violence, "there will be more extraditions." Ochoa, who was in prison from
1990 to 1996, denied being the head of the Millennium Cartel, as
authorities in Bogota and Washington have said. As a prominent member of
the Medellin cartel, Ochoa planned a number of attacks with Escobar and has
pressed for the end of extradition, according to police. "We would prefer a
tomb in Colombia over a jail cell in the United States," the cartel leaders
proclaimed several years ago in a statement under the name "The
Extraditables." At the time, the group set off bombs in Bogota and other
cities to mark their war against extradition and fight to the death to
liberate members of the Cali cartel. According to police, the Extraditables
and the Medellin cartel were dismantled in 1993 when authorities shot and
killed Escobar.

Uzbekistan-torture Islamic opponents to Uzbek regime tortured and killed in
prison

TASHKENT, Oct 18 (AFP) - Several Islamic opponents to the regime led by
President Islam Karimov have died after being tortured in prison, the head
of an Uzbek human rights group, Talib Yakubov, said Monday. Gzhaloliddin
Sobidzhanov died "a violent death" last week in the northwestern prison of
Jasliq, Yakubov said. Sobidzhanov had been sentenced in May 1998 to nine
years in prison for "membership of an illegal religious organisation,
possession of arms and drugs." A leader of the opposition party Birlik,
Dzhurakhan Azimdzhanov also died in Jasliq in June. "His chest had been
slashed with a knife and a part of his face had been disfigured through
torture," Iakubov said. According to the human rights group, 38 prisoners
died at Jasliq prison this year and some 15,000 people have been imprisoned
in the institution on grounds of religious activities since early this
year. Karimov has launched a wide-ranging campaign against members of the
Wahabi religious group and Islamic extremists but his opponents accuse him
of using the campaign to arrest numerous opponents.

Afghan-drugs Afghan Taliban orders opium crop to be cut by a third

KABUL, Oct 6 (AFP) - Afghanistan's ruling Taliban has ordered opium growers
to cut next season's crop by a third and appealed to the international
community to boost aid in return. "Since the season for poppy sowing has
arrived again, we are announcing to all poppy growers to decrease by a
third their poppy cultivation," Taliban Supreme leader Mulla Mohammad Omar
said in a Radio Shariat broadcast. "Violators will be given legal
punishment." Afghanistan's 1999 opium crop reached a record 4,600 tonnes,
more than double the 1998 haul. The United Nations Drug Contol Programme
(UNDCP) said 97 percent of this year's crop was grown in areas controlled
by the Taliban. The Taliban Islamic militia controls most of Afghanistan
after a five-year civil war against the United Front, which controls the
northeast. Omar said in return for announcing the cut in opium production,
he hoped the world community would help fund public projects in Afghanistan
and help improve its dire economic situation. "If they helped in funding
such projects and to overcome other economic problems in return for the
elimination of poppy cultivation, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan would
continue its efforts for the complete elimination of poppy cultivation,"
Omar said. According to the UNDCP raw opium is grown in 18 of Afghanistan's
31 provinces and in early September the world body warned "there is room
for further expansion if no action is taken". Afghanistan is the world's
largest source of opium and its deadly derivative heroin has been listed by
the UN as a key issue linked to sovereign rights. Ousted president
Burhanuddin Rabbani holds the Afghan seat in the UN General Assembly, a
claim the Taliban says is rightfully theirs as the militia now controls
most of the country. But critics have argued the Taliban should not be
recognised as the legitimate government until it makes efforts to eliminate
Afghanistan's opium harvest.

Venezuela-Chavez-Asia Hugo Chavez in profile-heightening Asian tour

CARACAS, Oct 7 (AFP) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is to leave Friday
for a profile-heightening tour of Asia and Europe while defending his
radical reforms here. Chavez has raised eyebrows since he swept into power
in February, shaking up traditional power structures with the formation of
a powerful Constitutional National Assembly to rewrite the country's
charter. It was a move he said would replace Venezuela's "false democracy"
with "a new democracy with the people as protagonists." Chavez is to arrive
Saturday in Beijing where he is to meet Chinese President Jiang Zemin,
before continuing on to Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Singapore
and the Philippines. He is expected to underline potential investment
opportunities in Venezuela, particularly in the energy, minerals and
technology sectors. A brief visit with top government officials in Spain
and France will follow, with his arrival back in Caracas scheduled for
October 25. Chavez has made numerous overseas visits around Latin America
and the Caribbean, and in September alone was in Washington, New York --
where he spoke to the United Nations general assembly -- and in Germany,
then Rome featuring an audience with Pope John Paul II. The 45-year-old
president, a former commander of the parachute regiment who led a failed
1992 coup attempt, will be speaking during the European leg of his tour in
Madrid and Paris on Venezuela's version of the "third way." Policies he is
advocating include the formation of a Latin American Community of Nations
as part of a "multi-polar" society -- criticising the "savage
neo-liberalism" he says southern developing countries are suffering from.
Chavez also has refused to allow US anti-drug flights above Venezuelan
territory, and taken a neutral position toward both sides in the
neighboring civil war between the Bogota government and Colombian rebels.

Rowdy Yates
Director
Scottish Drugs Training Project

Tel:                   +44 (0) 1786 - 467732 (office)
                         +44 (0) 1786 - 467737 (direct line)
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