Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan fight opium smuggling

KABUL: Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan on Monday agreed to bolster regional cooperation to combat drug smuggling at a time when the cultivation of illicit opium poppy is increasing.

Afghanistan provides about 90 per cent of the world’s opium, the raw ingredient used to make heroin, and the UN and Afghan government have long tried to wean the country off the lucrative crop. Money from the sale of opium is also used to fuel the insurgency, helping to buy weapons and equipment for the Taliban.

The largest areas of opium poppy cultivation are in the violent south of the country, where it can be hard to make money on legal crops and where criminal networks exist to buy and sell the poppy crop.

“Despite a decade of initiatives by the Afghans and international community, opium production is increasing,” said Yuri Fedotov, executive director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.

“This situation can’t continue.”

Most of the opium from Afghanistan is shipped through Iran and Pakistan, and the three countries have for the past four years been involved in a UN-sponsored initiative to set up joint planning cells in each country to coordinate their efforts. They pledged to bolster joint operations targeting smugglers and the networks they use to get the drug to the international marketplace.

“Iran is a transit route and the production of drugs in Afghanistan is on the increase,” said Iranian Interior Minister Mostafa Mohammad-Najar, who heads the country’s counter-narcotics department.

“The reason is high demand.”

Ministers in charge of counter-narcotics for Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran met in Kabul on Monday at a UN organised gathering.

The UN has said that insecurity and rising opium prices have driven Afghan farmers to increase cultivation of the illicit opium poppy by 7 per cent in 2011, despite a major push by the Afghan government and international allies. Production in Afghanistan had dropped significantly in 2010 because of a plant disease that killed off much of the crop.

Revenue from the drug has helped fund insurgents, and the number of people invested in the underground opium economy has made it difficult for the Afghan government to establish its presence in opium-heavy regions.

Other countries in the region have also expressed worries about increasing production. The Russian government recently said about 2 million of its citizens are addicted to opium and heroin – most of which comes from Afghanistan. It has repeatedly called on Nato forces to do more to stop Afghan production.

A report last month showed that opium cultivation is spreading to new parts Afghanistan, a troubling trend as international troops are trying to stabilize the country so that they can hand over security responsibilities to the government by the end of 2014.

Much of this is attributed to soaring prices. Dry opium costs about 43 per cent more than it did a year ago.

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Egyptians begin voting in first post-Mubarak poll

CAIRO: Voting has begun in Egypt’s first parliamentary elections since the ouster nine month ago of longtime authoritarian leader Hosni Mubarak.

The vote is a milestone many Egyptians hope will usher in a democratic age after decades of dictatorship.

But the ballot has already has been marred by turmoil in the streets, and the population is sharply polarized and confused over the nation’s direction.

Still, the vote promises to be the fairest and cleanest election in Egypt in the living memory.

Voters stood in long lines Monday outside some polling centers in Cairo well before they opened at 8 am local time, a rare sign of interest in political participation after decades of apathy.

Mubarak was ousted in a popular uprising in February.

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Eleven dead, 33 missing in Indonesia bridge collapse

TENGGARONG: The death toll from a bridge collapse in Indonesian Borneo which hurled dozens of vehicles into a murky river has risen to 11; officials said Monday as authorities probed the cause of the disaster.

More than 30 people are believed to be missing after the 720-metre-long bridge – built to resemble San Francisco’s Golden Gate – over the Mahakam River collapsed on Saturday.

“The number of people killed were 11,” East Kalimantan province’s search and rescue agency head Harmoni Adi told reporters.

National Disaster Management Agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, who earlier put the toll at 10, said that bodies were washing up on the river banks.

“Thirty-nine people have been injured and based on reports by the community, at least 33 are missing,” he told AFP.

“It’s difficult to know exactly how many are missing because we don’t know how many vehicles and people fell when the bridge collapsed,” he said adding there was “zero visibility” in the river which is up to 40 metres (yards) deep.

Nugroho said rescue teams would use echo-sounding to analyse the position of the bridge’s underwater metal frame to ensure it is safe to start removing the debris.

Witnesses reportedly heard a loud crashing sound as the structure buckled, sending a public bus, cars and motorcycles plunging into the broad river in Kutai Kartanegara district.

Survivors desperately swam to the shore, screaming in panic, while others were trapped underwater beneath the debris.

The cause of the collapse was not immediately clear but Nugroho said on Sunday that a steel support cable for the bridge, finished in 2002, snapped as workers were repairing it.

The Jakarta Post daily quoted Public Works Minister Djoko Kirmanto as saying the bridge had been weakened after being struck by boats several times.

“A pillar almost collapsed last year because it was hit by a cargo barge that carried coal,” Kirmanto told the daily.

Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has ordered an investigation into the cause of the accident.

Indonesia is setting a blistering pace of growth, expected to top six percent this year, but investors complain infrastructure is hopelessly inadequate and that the nation is mired in corruption and red tape.

“Around ten to 20 percent of project funds usually go to corruption. The consequence is that building materials are of low quality,” said Sri Adiningsih, an economics lecturer at the Gadjah Mada University in Jogjakarta.

The government last year announced plans to spend $140 billion on infrastructure until 2014, more than half of which would have to come from the private sector.

There have been a string of bridge disasters in Indonesia in recent years, including two others this year, according to local newspapers.

Last month, a bridge in South Sumatra province collapsed under the weight of a trailer-truck loaded with construction materials, and in September two workers were killed and four injured when a bridge under construction collapsed in the same province.

Also on Sumatra Island, 12 children died in October last year when a suspension bridge collapsed as they were taking part in a traditional ceremony to dispel bad luck.

And in April 2009, one person died and two others were injured when a bridge collapsed in Central Kalimantan province.

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China says “deeply shocked” over Nato attack on Pakistani soldiers

BEIJING: China’s Foreign Ministry said on Monday it was “deeply shocked” about a Nato cross-border air attack that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers and urged respect for Pakistan’s independence and sovereignty.

“China is deeply shocked by these events, and expresses strong concern for the victims and profound condolences to Pakistan,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said in a statement on the ministry’s website.

“China believes that Pakistan’s independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity should be respected and the incident should be thoroughly investigated and be handled properly,” he said.

Pakistan has reacted with fury over the Nato cross-border air attack that could undermine the US effort to wind up the war in Afghanistan.

Nato described the killings as a “tragic unintended incident” and said an investigation was under way. A western official and an Afghan security official who requested anonymity said Nato troops were responding to fire from across the border.

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Two US senators call for tough line with Pakistan

WASHINGTON: Senior lawmakers suggested Sunday that the US take a harder line with Pakistan, after Islamabad retaliated for Nato’s deadly misfire by closing parts of its border with Afghanistan and demanding the US vacate a drone base.

The comments by Sens. Jon Kyl, an Arizona Republican, and Dick Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, show how strained Pakistan’s relationship with the US, and Congress specifically, has become in recent months.

Lawmakers approve billions of dollars in military and civilian aid for Pakistan with the expectation that its government will help target al-Qaida operatives and push Afghan militants toward peace talks
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”There’s a lot of diplomacy that has to occur and it has to be tough diplomacy in the sense that they need to understand that our support for them financially is dependent upon their cooperation with us,” said Kyl, the Senate’s No. 2 Republican.

Durbin, the second-ranking Senate Democrat, said Pakistan’s latest move is further evidence that the US must end its military involvement in the region and bring troops home.

”As difficult as it is to fight our way thru this diplomatic morass between the incompetence and maybe corruption of Afghanistan and the complicity in parts of Pakistan, our soldiers are caught right in the middle of this at a time they are trying to bring peace to the region,” Durbin said.

Nato says it is investigating its likely involvement in Saturday’s attack, which killed 24 Pakistani troops along the Afghan border. Afghan officials say their soldiers called for help after being fired upon from the direction of Pakistani border posts.

Outraged by the attacks and claiming they were unprovoked, Islamabad swiftly closed its border to trucks delivering supplies to coalition troops in Afghanistan and demanded the US vacate within 15 days a base used by American drones.

The blockade is guaranteed to frustrate Congress, already incensed that Pakistan never tipped off the US to Osama bin Laden’s hideout within its borders.

While calling for tougher diplomacy with Pakistan, Kyl said he would stop short of cutting off US aid entirely to Pakistan. He said that severing ties in the past has only led to an increased influence of Islamic extremists among Pakistan’s military ranks.

”It’s very important to maintain the relationship for the long haul,” he said, without offering more specifics on how that might be done.

Durbin suggested the U.S. back out from the region from a military standpoint.

”We’ve got to leave it to Afghan forces,” he said. Kyl and Durbin spoke on ”Fox News Sunday.”

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