The illegal drugs trade plays a large part in filling up war chests of politicians and funding armed campaigns of Maoist guerrillas and Islamic militants in the Philippines, the country's police chief said Thursday. "'Narco-politics' is not entirely a new phenomenon," Director General Jesus Verzosa added in a statement. "It happened in the past and, chances are, it can happen again if law enforcers, and the community will lower their guard to prevent drug syndicates from influencing political activities in some parts of the country." [continues 248 words]
Thirty people have been killed or found dead in Mexico, including 13 tied-up bodies discovered inside a bus in Sinaloa, in the latest carnage linked to drug wars in the country, officials say. The 13 had their hands tied behind their backs and were face down in a neat row, inside a bus in San Ignacio village, in northwestern Sinaloa state - home to Mexico's largest drug cartel, local officials said on Thursday. "We have unfortunately found 13 bodies... most of them youth," Jose Jiovan Rosas Corrales, a local official, said. [continues 179 words]
SINGAPORE: Southeast Asian nations are closely watching Australia's reaction to the imminent hanging of one of its citizens in Singapore ahead of a key regional summit, diplomats and analysts said. The scheduled execution on December 2 of heroin runner Nguyen Tuong Van, 25, has become a highly charged issue in Australia, triggering calls for retaliation including economic sanctions and a boycott of Singapore firms. Nguyen was arrested at Changi airport three years ago while in transit from Cambodia to Australia with 400 grams (14 ounces) of heroin in his possession. The death penalty is mandatory for drug trafficking in Singapore. [continues 350 words]
ILLEGAL drug use in the country jumped by more than two-thirds over the past five years with young urban workers increasingly using amphetamines and marijuana, the government said Friday. The survey of households in 2004 found there were 6.7-million illegal-drug users in the country, about two million of whom were either young professionals or minimum-wage earners, the Department of Labor said at a conference on drug use. Labor Undersecretary Manuel Imson said this was an alarming increase from earlier studies which found there were 1.7-million drug abusers in 1996, rising to four million in 1999. [continues 81 words]
COTABATO - A radio broadcaster who accused officials of being close to drug dealers was shot dead Sunday while traveling on a motorbike with a companion. Rolando Morales of DXMD station was ambushed near Polomolok town in South Cotabato, Chief Supt. Danilo Mangila said yesterday. Morales was the sixth journalist killed this year. No suspect was arrested and the motive of the attack was not immediately known. Wounded was his unidentified woman companion, the regional police commander told reporters. Morales was a vocal critic of illegal drug dealers in the area, Mangila said. He had often accused local government officials of either protecting drug dealers or being involved in the trade themselves, he said. Philipine National Police chief Director General Artiro C. Lomibao flew to the procince yesterday to oversee the probe of Morales' slay. "We would like to assure the public that there will be no let-up in the manhunt operation against Morales' killers, " Lomibao said. [end]
DRUG use and trafficking is growing alarmingly in the Philippines, where it is now a P300 billion industry serving the rest of Southeast Asia, a senior official said yesterday. The country is also fast becoming a top transshipment point for drugs in the region, especially methamphetamines, said Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency chief Anselmo Avenido. About 3.4 million of the country's 84 million people are "more or less hooked to drugs" and nearly half of these are regular users, he said. [continues 841 words]
RIYADH: An Iraqi and a Pakistani were beheaded on Saturday in Saudi Arabia after being convicted of drug trafficking, the Interior Ministry said in a statement. Matar bin Hussein bin Bakheit al-Khazaali, an Iraqi national, was executed in the northern town of Arar, after attempting to smuggle an undisclosed amount of hashish into the ultra-conservative kingdom, the statement carried by SPA official news agency said. Meanwhile, Pakistani Mohammad Amin Abdullah Khan was beheaded in the Red Sea city of Jeddah after he was found smuggling an undisclosed amount of heroin "which he had swallowed". [end]
At least 27 convicted drug criminals were executed in China to mark Wednesday's international anti-drug day, while scores of others were sentenced to death or to prison terms, state press reports said. Fourteen people were sentenced to death in China's southwestern Sichuan province on Tuesday, with nine of them immediately taken to the execution grounds and shot, the China News Service reported. The sentencing took place at a rally at the Shuangliu county sports ground in the provincial capital of Chengdu, where local authorities also incinerated 40 kilograms of drugs, it said. [continues 162 words]
KABUL: Afghan interim authorities have begun destroying poppy fields despite violent protests from farmers who are about to harvest the heroin-producing crop, a United Nations official said on Wednesday. UN Drug Control Programme country director Bernard Frahi said Afghan security forces had been mowing down the lucrative flowers in Nangarhar, Helmand and Uruzgan provinces. "The destruction began on April 8 ... by the security forces of the interim administration and the provincial authorities," he said. "There are many fields to be destroyed," he added, without giving an estimate of the total area under opium poppy cultivation. [continues 87 words]
SINGAPORE: A German woman suspected of drug trafficking in Singapore escaped hanging and was granted bail yesterday after banned substances found in her flat fell below the minimum needed to impose the death penalty. But Julia Suzanne Bohl, 23, is facing the grim prospect of a long prison term after prosecutors brought additional cases against her, ranging from peddling cannabis to allowing drug-taking in her apartment. Laboratory tests showed the amounts of various drugs seized in a raid on her apartment were not enough to warrant a death sentence. [continues 272 words]
