Seven Foreigners Are Among Drug Convicts Killed. a Filipina Is Spared for Now. JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - Ignoring international pressure and heart-wrenching last-minute family pleas for clemency, Indonesia executed eight men on drug charges early Wednesday, Indonesian news media reported. However, authorities said they had spared for now a female prisoner from the Philippines who had been scheduled to die. Officials did not release an immediate statement confirming the executions of seven foreigners and an Indonesian. News reports cited unnamed officials, and Amnesty International said it had received confirmation of the executions. The Brazilian Foreign Ministry said its one citizen among the condemned had been put to death. [continues 690 words]
KABUL, Afghanistan - Mohammad Ashrafy waited for the death of the family figurehead, a respected mullah, before he finally planted opium for the first time this year. And sometimes, when he gazed out over the huge stretch of poppies he grew on his land in the Ghor province of central Afghanistan this spring and summer, he felt guilty, recalling the admonishments of his late uncle, Mullah Mortaza Kahn. "We know growing opium is against Islam, but we have to do it," said Ashrafy, 38. "I was the only person left here not growing it, and there was no mullah telling me to stop." [continues 894 words]
Attacks, Army's Weakness Delay Progress WARDAK, Afghanistan - Two months after a gun attack, the bullet holes in the Datsun sedan have been patched and it runs beautifully. But water engineer Asil Kahn walks with a limp, and he still has two bullets in his body, one of them half an inch from his spine. The vehicle's humanitarian logo made Kahn a victim in the battle for Afghanistan's future, where water engineers, mine-clearers and humanitarian workers -- people the country needs most -- are prime targets for militants trying to destabilize President Hamid Karzai's interim government. [continues 539 words]
As Opium Production And Banditry Soar, The Country Is At Risk Of Anarchy, Some Warn, And Could Allow A Taliban Resurgence WARDAK, Afghanistan - Two months after a gun attack, the bullet holes in the Datsun sedan have been patched and it runs beautifully. But water engineer Asil Kahn walks with a limp and he still has two bullets in his body, one of them half an inch from his spine. The vehicle's humanitarian logo made him a victim in the battle for Afghanistan's future, where water engineers, mine-clearers and humanitarian workers - people the country needs most - are prime targets for militants trying to destabilize President Hamid Karzai's interim government. [continues 1647 words]
DASHTIDZHUM He was a threadbare child of 12 when he set out from his village for the city, a small, serious boy with a big mission: to sell 1 kilogram of Afghan opium in the Tajik capital to help his parents feed his 11 brothers and sisters. But in the venal, cutthroat underworld of Dushanbe, it is easy to cheat a village boy. The dealer who promised to pay him the following week simply disappeared. So Oiyatula Rakhimov returned home empty-handed. [continues 1053 words]
Afghanistan's Drug Trade Has Ensnared The Poor In Tajikistan, For Whom Smuggling Offers A Chance At A Better Life. DASHTIDZHUM, Tajikistan -- He was a threadbare child of 12 when he set out from his village for the city, a small, serious boy with a big mission: to sell 2 pounds of Afghan opium in the Tajik capital to help his parents feed his 11 brothers and sisters. But in the venal, cutthroat underworld of Dushanbe, it is easy to cheat a village boy. The dealer who promised to pay him the following week simply disappeared. [continues 2021 words]
