U.N. forsees Afghan poppy harvest boom
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A "cancer of insurgency" in southern Afghanistan could drive the 2007 opium poppy harvest to record levels, the U.N. drug agency chief said Monday.
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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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A Canadian U.N. official who advised the Afghan government on eradicating opium poppy crops was granted amnesty by Dubai Monday, six months after being sentenced to four years in prison on a drug smuggling conviction.
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Opium growth in Afghanistan's unstable south and southwest continues at an alarming rate, and is a windfall for anti-government forces who tax farmers, a U.N. report said Wednesday.
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KABUL, Afghanistan, Sept. 2 -- Opium cultivation in Afghanistan rose a "staggering"  59 percent this year, the U.N. anti-drug chief announced Saturday in urging the government to crack down on big traffickers and remove corrupt officials and police.
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An annual United Nations&#39; survey released Thursday in Brussels finds that opium poppies are being grown in record levels across Afghanistan.
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KABUL, Sept. 19 -- NATO and Afghan forces launched what officials called a "major military operation" against the Taliban in the southern province of Helmand, a haven for opium poppy cultivation and an insurgent stronghold that is considered Afghanistan's most violent territory.
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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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KABUL, 19 November (IRIN) - Opium poppy cultivation in Afghanistan has increased by two-thirds, reaching an unprecedented 131,000 hectares, a new survey by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) revealed on Thursday.
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KABUL, Afghanistan, Aug. 27 â Opium cultivation in Afghanistan grew by 17 percent in 2007, reaching record levels for the second straight year, according to a United Nations report released 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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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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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 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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The international community is making significant strides toward ridding northern Afghanistan of opium, a U.S. counter-narcotics official said Friday, despite setbacks in the Taliban-controlled south and forecasts of another record year of poppy cultivation.
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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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Afghan farmers earned about $1 billion from opium production in 2007, by far the country's largest cash crop, the International Monetary Fund said on Wednesday.