Nationwide, there are close to 1 million addicts spread all over Afghanistan,including the capital city of Kabul, where throngs of addicts live under bridges and overpasses.One of the elephants in the room in the war in Afghanistan is the opium pachyderm. CNN recently ran a moving story about drug addiction as a way of life passed down from generation to generation in remote Balkh province.

The story featured Aziza, who describes the many uses of opium that serves as a panacea for tranquilizing her children as a substitute for food in hungry bellies, and as a cough medicine or an analgesic for the elderly. The government provides no substitute medical treatment and rehabilitation centers are far away. Even if one can get to them they accommodate only a tiny fraction of the addicted.

Infants Fed Pure Opium: In a far flung corner of northern Afghanistan, Aziza reaches into the dark wooden cupboard, rummages around, and pulls out a small lump of something wrapped in plastic. She unwraps it, breaking off a small chunk as if it were chocolate, and feeds it to four-year-old son, Omaidullah. It’s his breakfast — a lump of pure opium. “If I don’t give him opium he doesn’t sleep,” she says. “And he doesn’t let me work.”

Aziza comes from a poor family of carpet weavers in Balkh province. She has no education, no idea of the health risks involved or that opium is addictive. “We give the children opium whenever they get sick as well,” she says, crouching over her loom. With no real medical care in these parts and the high cost of medicine, all the families out here know is opium. It’s a cycle of addiction passed on through generations. The adults take opium to work longer hours and ease their pain.

Aziza’s elderly mother-in-law, Rozigul, rolls a small ball in her fingers and pops it into her mouth with a small smile before passing a piece over to her sister. “I had to work and raise the children, so I started using drugs,” she says. “We are very poor people, so I used opium. We don’t have anything to eat. That is why we have to work and use drugs to keep our kids quiet.” The entire extended family is addicted.

Carpet weaver Rozigul, 30, is in the detox program with her three-year-old son Babagildi, his pudgy face covered in blemishes. She started using six years ago. “When I was pregnant with this baby I was using drugs. So he was born addicted and was always crying. I would try to keep him quiet and make him sleep, so I just kept feeding him opium,” she stated. Her addicted mother-in-law shares the bed next to her, curled up in a ball and mumbling to herself. Three generations from one family, all struggling with a curse that afflicts well over one million Afghans.

The health dangers from opium: “Opium is nothing new to our villages or districts. It’s an old tradition, something of a religion in some areas,” stated Dr. Mohamed Daoud Rated, coordinator of the center. “People use opium as drugs or medicine. If a child cries, they give him opium, if they can’t sleep, they use opium, if an infant coughs, they give them opium.”

The center is running an outreach program to the areas that are most afflicted. Most Afghans aren’t aware of the health risks of opium and only a few are beginning to understand the hazards of addiction.

“I was a child when I started using drugs” 35-year-old Nagibe states. She states her sister-in-law first gave her some when she was a young teenage bride, just 14 years old. Her children grew up addicts as well. When her husband died, she remarried. She stated: “My new husband doesn’t use drugs, nor does his family. Because of that I was able to come here and get treatment. Now as an adult I understand and I want to leave this all behind.”

It is very tempting for Afghan farmers to cultivate opium, which commands a price that is 7 times higher than wheat and for which the demand is seemingly insatiable. The high profits from the opium trade also enable the local drug lords to corrupt the local anti-drug agencies.The problem has been exacerbated by the return of exiles from Iran who have brought back heroin, the hard core drug which is the processed version of opium.

A contributing factor to the drug epidemic is the Taliban insurgency. First, it creates a conflict over what to prioritize -the security dimension or the anti-drugs campaign and raises serious dilemmas: Does one crackdown on the poppy growers at the risk of alienating them and pushing them into the arms of the Taliban?

While poppy farming has been under some form of control in the relatively secure northern and eastern provinces, production has shifted precisely to the Southern provinces, the area of responsibility of American and British troops and where the fighting is still heavy. The Taliban protects and rakes in profits from the opium crop to finance the war. It is therefore a military objective to push the Taliban outside of the arable areas to cut down on its sources of income.

At present, it seems that the Mexican drug trade is in no danger of being halted. Nor will anyone change the way Aziza deals with her problems. Afghanistan’s opium problem is not confined to Afghanistan. it is a thriving export, and in fact, 90% of the world’s heroin supply comes from Afghanistan. Given the globalization of the drug trade, the Mexican drug cartels have emissaries in the country. The opium processed into heroin makes its way from Mexico to the United States and Canada.

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Jan/28/11: President Yunus-bek Yevkurov of the predominantly Suni Muslim region of Ingushetia in southern Russia stated that Muslim rebels in the northern Caucasus were behind Monday’s suicide attack at Domodedovo Airport in Moscow, which resulted in 35 deaths and wounded more than 130 people. President Yunus-bek Yevkurov is the highest ranking Russian official to publicly blame the rebels for the attack.
The bomber struck in the international baggage claim area of Domodedovo Airport, Russia’s largest and busiest airport, at about 4:32 p.m. local time, according to numerous media reports. Airport authorities stated at least 35 were killed and some 130 were wounded in the terrorist suicide bombing at Domodedovo International Airport in Moscow. News agencies reported that 20 of the wounded were critically injured as the death toll continued to rise Monday evening.

The Interfax news agency reported that the blast was equivalent to approximately 15 pounds (7 kg) of TNT. More than 50 ambulances arrived to transport victims from the site, emergency workers told the news agency. Reports of more than one bomber are being investigated. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev vowed to “track down and punish” those responsible for the attack. He ordered all transportation hubs in the country on to high alert Monday in a statement broadcast on Russian television. The order affects all airport and train stations.

Amateur video posted on YouTube showed the terminal engulfed by smoke, with a pile of bodies in one section and other bodies scattered around the floor. Luggage lay strewn across the ground and there were several small fires. A dazed man in a suit pushed a baggage cart through the carnage.

Although there have been repeated attacks on the Moscow subway and on Russian trains most blamed on Chechen militants, the bombing was the first involving a Russian airport since 2004. Sergei Lavochkin, who was waiting in the arrivals hall for a friend to arrive from Cuba, said he saw emergency teams carrying bloodied people out of the terminal.

Built in 1964, Domodedovo is located 26 miles (42 kilometres) southeast of the centre of Moscow and is the largest of the three major airports that serve the Russian capital, serving over 22 million people last year. It is generally regarded as Moscow’s most up-to-date airport, but its security procedures have been called into question.

Terrorists have previously targeted other transportation centres in Moscow. Twin blasts in the subway last March killed 39 people and wounded more than 60 people. Chechen rebel leader Doku Umarov claimed responsibility for that attack, warning Russian leaders that “the war is coming to their cities.”

In December 2009, Chechen rebels claimed responsibility for blowing up a high-speed train between Moscow and St. Petersburg, an attack that killed 26 people and injured scores.

In 2004, two suicide bombers were able to board planes at Domodedovo by buying tickets illegally from airport personnel. The female bombers blew themselves up in mid-air, killing all 90 people aboard the two flights.

Currently 77 airlines offer regular flights to Domodedovo, serving 241 international and national routes, according to airport’s website. The airport insists that security is one of its top priorities, claiming on its website that its “cutting-edge operations technology guarantees the safety of passengers’ and guests’ lives.”

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January 28, 2011: King Abdullah II has promised some reforms, particularly on a controversial election law. But many believe it’s unlikely he will bow to demands for popular election of the prime minister and Cabinet officials, traditionally appointed by the king.

Thousands of Jordanian opposition supporters took to the streets Friday in the country’s capital demanding the demanding the downfall of the country’s prime minister and venting their anger at rising prices, inflation and unemployment.

Rifai also announced a $550 million package of new subsidies in the last two weeks for fuel and staple products like rice, sugar, livestock and liquefied gas used for heating and cooking. It also includes a raise for civil servants and security personnel.

Jordan’s economy struggles, weighed down by a record deficit of $2 billion this year. Inflation has also risen by 1.5 percent to 6.1 percent just last month, unemployment and poverty are rampant estimated at 12 and 25 percent respectively.

Members of the Islamic Action Front, the political wing of the powerful Muslim Brotherhood and Jordan’s largest opposition party, swelled the ranks of the demonstrators, massing outside the al-Husseini mosque in Amman and filling the downtown streets with their prayer lines. As they broke into a procession, the demonstrators chanted, “In the name of God, the government must change” and the Muslim holy book “Koran is our constitution, jihad is our path.”

Leftist university professor Ibrahim Alloush stated it was not a question of changing faces or replacing one prime minister with another. “We’re demanding changes on how the country is now run,” he saidHe accused the government of impoverishing the working class with regressive tax codes which forced the poor to pay a higher proportion of their income as tax. He also accused parliament as serving as a “rubber stamp” to the executive branch. “This is what has led people to protest in the streets because they don’t have venues for venting how they feel through legal means,” Alloush stated.

King Abdullah II of Jordan urged parliament on Thursday to speed up reform and boost confidence in the government, according to Agence France Presse. The statement from the palace came as the Islamist opposition called for protests after prayers on Friday to press demands for political and economic change.
In spite of social measures already enacted, demonstrations have taken place around the country over the past two weeks against high prices and economic policy. The statement related that Jordanians were “talking about corruption and other problems, some of which are true and others are not.” The king told Senate President Taher Masri and other top officials on Wednesday to address the protests.

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