Communist-controlled Laos has suffered an unprecedented spike in violent crime as drug trafficking from neighboring Myanmar, China and Vietnam has risen dramatically, the US government reported.
The cultivation of opium, the raw material of heroin, has plummeted in Southeast Asia’s Golden Triangle over the past decade, but the trade in amphetamine-type drugs and cannabis has grown.
The US Department of State’s annual assessment of world drug production and suppression efforts last year reported that Myanmar’s military leaders may have reined in interdiction to avoid alienating ethnic armed groups that are heavily involved in the drugs trade, to minimize the chance of armed conflict ahead of November elections, it said on Thursday.
Myanmar’s seizures of amphetamine-type drugs between January and October last year totaled 1.8 million pills, compared with 13.1 million during the corresponding period in 2009.
Neighboring Thailand, a major market for Myanmar drug producers despite rigorous law enforcement, seized 32.1 million methamphetamines last year.
The International Narcotics Control Strategy Report said that in late 2009 and last year, there were a number of significant, multitonne drug seizures by Lao law enforcement authorities linked to smuggling from Myanmar, Vietnam and China. In one case, 2 tonnes of methamphetamines originating in Myanmar were seized near the Lao capital, Vientiane, apparently en route to Thailand.
Some African drug trafficking gangs also use Laos as a transit route, and US authorities continue to seize opium gum from Laos, where authorities estimate the illicit drug economy accounts for 10 percent of GDP, or about US$750 million.
“There was also a disturbing and hitherto unforeseen level of violent crime related to drug trafficking by domestic and international networks,” the report said. “A series of alarming broad daylight shootouts involving a number of persons, sometimes using sophisticated ‘war weapons,’ caused a sense of shock” in the normally peaceful capital.
The Lao government faces enormous obstacles in policing more than 5,000km of international borders along heavily forested, mountainous jungle and the Mekong River. While it participates in regional anti-narcotics conferences, it rarely shares operational information on drug cases with regional partners, the report said.
On secretive North Korea, the report said “the absence of any seizures linked directly to North Korean state institutions suggest a possible end to state involvement in drug trafficking.”
From the mid-1990s through 2003, there were many cases of narcotics trafficking to Taiwan and Japan involving North Koreans and state assets such as seagoing vessels and military patrol boats. However, for the past eight years there has been no known large-scale trafficking to either place with North Korean state involvement, the report said.
Still, rising reports of methamphetamine trafficking to China suggest continuing manufacture of the drug in the impoverished state.
“This and continued trafficking in counterfeit cigarettes and currency suggests that enforcement against organized crime in [North Korea] is lax,” the report said.
An Australian university student who has never visited China and has only a modest social media following would seem an unlikely target for the Chinese government. However, when a Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman personally denounced Drew Pavlou at a news conference, it was just the next phase in an extraordinary campaign against the 21-year-old that has fueled concerns over China’s targeting of critics overseas. Pavlou first placed himself in the superpower’s sights when in July last year he organized a small sit-in at the University of Queensland, where he studies, to protest against various Chinese government policies. Since then, the Global
‘ASKED TO MOVE OUT’: Indonesian coast guard personnel argued with a Chinese vessel over territorial claims after it entered the country’s exclusive economic zone An Indonesian patrol ship confronted a Chinese coast guard vessel that spent almost three days in waters where Indonesia claims economic rights and that are near the southernmost part of China’s disputed claims to the South China Sea. The Indonesian Maritime Security Agency on Friday night detected Chinese ship 5204 entering Indonesia’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ) in what Indonesia calls the North Natuna Sea. The agency sent a patrol ship that closed within 1km of the Chinese coast guard vessel and they communicated to affirm their position and their nation’s claims to the area, Indonesian Maritime Security Agency head Aan Kurnia said. “We
BEFORE WINTER COMES: Snow cuts off roads into Ladakh for four months or more each year, so the crunch is on to get food, tents and high-altitude equipment to Leh From deploying mules to large transport aircraft, the Indian military has activated its entire logistics network to transport supplies to thousands of troops for a harsh winter along a bitterly disputed Himalayan border with China. In the past few months, one of India’s biggest military logistics exercises in years has brought vast quantities of ammunition, equipment, fuel, winter supplies and food into Ladakh, a region bordering Tibet that India administers as a union territory, officials said. The move was triggered by a border standoff with China in the snow deserts of Ladakh that began in May and escalated in June into hand-to-hand
Since her personal telephone number was posted online, Hong Kong democracy advocate and Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions chairperson Carol Ng has received menacing calls from strangers and been bombarded with messages calling her a “cockroach.” She is not alone. A sophisticated and shady Web site called HK Leaks has ramped up its “doxxing” — where people’s personal details are published online — of Hong Kong democracy advocates, targeting those it says have broken Hong Kong’s National Security Law. Promoted by groups linked to the Chinese Chinese Communist Party and hosted on Russia-based servers, HK Leaks has become the most prominent “doxxing”
RSS