Afghan opium cultivation bounces and shifts 2 years after ban, UN says
Voice of America
FILE - Afghan farmers harvest opium sap from a poppy field in Argo district of Badakhshan province, June 30, 2024.
Opium poppy production in Afghanistan, long the world's dominant supplier of the raw material for heroin, has risen by a fifth in the second full year since the Taliban banned it but remains a fraction of pre-ban levels, a U.N. report said on Wednesday.
Valdecy Urquiza, currently Interpol's vice president for the Americas, poses for a photo at the Interpol General Assembly in Glasgow, Scotland, Nov. 4, 2024.
FILE - A photographer walks past buildings damaged by a Russian military strike, in the town of Pokrovsk in Donetsk region, Ukraine, Nov. 4, 2024.
FILE - This file photo taken on May 28, 2024 shows Takao Doi, an astronaut and special professor at Kyoto University, holding the world's first wooden satellite, named LignoSat, during a press conference at the university's campus in Kyoto.
FILE - Chadian troops participate in the closing ceremony of operation Flintlock in an army base in N'Djamena, Chad, March 9, 2015.
FILE - Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Canada Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in New Delhi, Sept. 9, 2023. The two have denounced the violence that erupted Sunday at several locations in suburban Toronto, including a Hindu temple.
FILE - Chinese sailors sit in rows during a tour arranged for foreign journalists, a day before the opening of the West Pacific Naval Symposium in Qingdao in eastern China's Shandong province, April 21, 2024.
Somali Americans in Minneapolis, Minnesota, participate in an October 19, 2024, Town Hall conducted by VOA Somali Service. Somali Americans in Minneapolis, Minnesota participate in an October 19, 2024, Town Hall conducted by VOA Somali Service.
FILE - Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un are pictured at the Pyongyang Sunan International Airport outside Pyongyang, North Korea, June 19, 2024. (Kremlin pool photo via AP)
In this June 1, 2017 photo, women walk with children wearing matching hats as they cross a bridge at a public park on International Children's Day in Beijing. FILE - A boy rides on the back of a bicycle along a street in Beijing, June 1, 2018. East Asia's birth rates over time
Troops take part in training at a base of the Korean People's Army's special operations forces, at an undisclosed location in North Korea, in this picture taken Oct. 2, 2024, and released by the Korean Central News Agency via KNS on Oct. 4, 2024.
Former President of Botswana Mokgweetsi Masisi, right, hands over his office to newly elected President Duma Boko at the Office of the President, Gaborone, Botswana, Nov. 4, 2024.