Soaring Afghan opium warning
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The United Nations warns of a massive 59% increase in poppy cultivation in Afghanistan this year.
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Afghanistan, the world's biggest opium producer, is set for another bumper crop of opium poppies in 2008, providing a windfall for the Taliban, which taxes farmers to finance its fight against government and foreign forces, the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime said Wednesday. Production rose 34...
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Brussels - Opium growing in Afghanistan leapt by two-thirds this year, according to a new UN report on Thursday that warns the former Taliban stronghold could relapse into a &quot;narco-state&quot; and terrorism haven.
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Afghanistan's opium production will increase by nearly 50 percent this year to a record 6,100 tonnes after an &quot;alarming&quot; jump in cultivation in the lawless south.
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The United States estimated on Thursday that Afghanistan's opium production hit a record high last year and said the narcotics trade is undermining democracy and security in the Southwest Asian U.S. ally.
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Responding to a U.N. report warning it  risks becoming a narco-state after opium cultivation jumped to  record levels, Afghanistan said Friday the war on drugs was the  top priority but it opposed aerial spraying of opium fields.
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Afghanistan's counter narcotics ministry said that opium cultivation had likely increased this year even though three times more poppy fields had been eradicated than last year.
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Opium production has soared to "frightening record levels" in Afghanistan, which now has more land producing drugs than Colombia, Bolivia and Peru combined, the United Nations said on Monday.
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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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Poppy cultivation and opium production will continue to increase in Afghanistan, expanding the dangerous influence of drug lords at all levels of the government of President
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Opium cultivation in Afghanistan has hit record levels &#151; up by more than 40 percent from 2005 &#151; despite hundreds of millions in counternarcotics money, Western officials told The Associated Press.
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KABUL, Afghanistan -- The burgeoning illegal opium trade in Afghanistan has become the biggest single threat to democracy, surpassing Al Qaeda and the Taliban and prompting US officials to consider military intervention against the traffickers, US and Afghan officials say.
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Poppy cultivation in Afghanistan, the source of most of the opium and heroin on Europe&#39;s streets, was up sharply this year, reaching the highest levels in the
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A record opium crop in Afghanistan is likely to renewed debate about the United Statesâ troubled $600 million counternarcotics program there.
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The UN fears Afghanistan may grow even more poppies in 2007, surpassing already record levels.
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The top U.S. anti-drug official said Saturday that Afghan poppies would be sprayed with herbicide to combat an opium trade that produced a record heroin haul this year, a measure likely to anger farmers and scare Afghans unfamiliar with weed killers.
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With profits from this spring's record opium crop fueling a broad Taliban offensive, Afghan authorities say they are considering a once unthinkable way to deal with the scourge: spraying poppy fields with herbicide.