Afghan opium crop soars to "frightening levels": UN
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Opium production has soared to "frightening record levels" in Afghanistan, which now has more land producing drugs than Columbia, Bolivia and Peru combined, the United Nations said on Monday.
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Afghanistan's opium cultivation jumped  64 percent to a record 324,000 acres this year and drug exports  now account for more than 60 percent of the economy, the United  Nations drugs office said Thursday.
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The Taliban has seen a resurgence in Afghanistan due in part to proceeds from the nation's drug trade. Afghanistan produces about 93 percent of the world's illicit opium, despite U.S. efforts to eradicate it. "You can try to kill us but we will still grow poppy," one farmer told CNN.
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Afghan President Hamid Karzai says the  rampant drugs trade poses a bigger threat than the Soviet invasion.
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Afghanistan's poppy harvest is expected to top all records this year as the country spirals deeper into a vicious circle of drugs, corruption and insecurity.
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The United Nations is expected to declare a &quot;significant increase&quot; in the cultivation of opium poppies in Afghanistan stemming from weak eradication, alternative income and interdiction programs, the US State Department said.
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UNITED NATIONS, Aug. 27 -- Opium production in Afghanistan has increased by 34 percent over the past year, and the country is now the source of 93 percent of the heroin, morphine and other opiates on the world market, according to a report by the United Nations' anti-drug agency.
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VIENNA -- Afghanistan produced dramatically more opium in 2006, increasing its yield by nearly 50 percent from a year earlier and pushing global opium production to a new record high, a UN report said today .
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Opium production in Afghanistan, which provides more than 90 percent of the world's heroin, broke all records in 2006, reaching a historic high despite ongoing U.S.-sponsored eradication efforts, the Bush administration reported yesterday.
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A UN report -- noting while opium poppy cultivation in Afghanistan was up 64 percent the past year, opium production had only increased 17 -- has still led one UN official
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KABUL - Afghanistan&#39;s opium production is approaching record levels. A new United Nations report says drug production has shot up more than 60 per cent in the past year.
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The United Nations warned nearly 90 countries including the United States and most of Europe on Thursday to prepare for more deaths from heroin overdoses because of surging opium production in Afghanistan.
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A U.S. report warns that an increase in poppy cultivation will expand the influence of drug lords on Afghanistan's government.
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Poppy cultivation in Afghanistan, the source of most of the opium and heroin on Europe's streets, was up sharply this year.
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The United States says it expected Afghanistan&#39;s illicit poppy crop to jump by an alarming 239 per cent over the past year. &quot;Current cultivation levels equate to a potential production of 4,950 tonnes of opium
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The United Nations urged NATO forces Tuesday to take military action to destroy the opium industry in southern Afghanistan, saying cultivation of the crop is out of control in the embattled Asian country.
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AFGHANISTAN is in danger of becoming a &quot;narco-state&quot; because soaring opium cultivation now accounts for 60 per cent of the economy, the United Nations warned yesterday.