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| Yet another tragedy on Lake Victoria. PHOTO: New Zealand Herald |
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- As many as 200 people may have died when an overcrowded ferry sank in the Tanzanian waters of Lake Victoria
- Uncertainty grew on both sides of the Channel as EU leaders roundly rejected UK PM Theresa May's 'Chequers plan'
- In Syria the offensive against Idlib province was postponed indefinitely; elsewhere the regime accidentally downed a Russian plane
- The EU's anti-trust watchdog queried whether Amazon's use of vendor data is a threat to competition
- The Trump administration slapped tariffs on another $200b worth of Chinese goods
- The Francophone and Anglophone regions of Cameroon slid further into civil strife
- The Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn paid a record settlement of US$27.5m to four sex-abuse victims
- German doctors believe a member of the Russian activist collective Pussy Riot was intentionally poisoned in Moscow
- A far-right ex-military figure and a leftist mayor became the frontrunners in Brazil's heated presidential campaign
- The British diver whom Elon Musk had repeatedly called a paedophile sued the Tesla CEO for defamation
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| Colombia is producing more cocaine than ever. PHOTO: AFP |
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Cocaine. It's become a measure of wealth in Britain, it arrives faster than a take-away pizza in Glasgow and it is the drug de rigueur within certain strata of American society. Wealthy countries are ingesting more of cocaine than ever but its ubiquity has done nothing to lessen the human cost at the other end of the production line.
Not just an Eric Clapton song
Cocaine use in the West is skyrocketing. The wide-reaching Global Drug Survey found that 1 in 4 cocaine users in London (and 1 in 3 of their counterparts in Glasgow) regularly received deliveries within half an hour of ordering. One can infer the size and complexity of the underlying business operation that must be in place to support such fast delivery. Turns out it's not just Uber Eats and Deliveroo that are making the rounds in your suburb.
London Mayor Sadiq Khan has called out middle-class cocaine users for causing a spike in gang-related violence. His police commissioner went a step further, and branded liberal enthusiasts of the 'Bolivian marching powder' as hypocrites. He has a point. Cocaine users seldom pause to consider the ramifications of their drug use, but this is by design. Traffickers are emulating well-established business practices (a la seafood or fast-fashion) by creating a firewall between their customers and the bloody means of production.
Fortunately, the sophistication of modern drug-trafficking businesses is matched by Interpol's anti-trafficking units. Using a dazzling array of technology enforcers have developed deep insight into how cocaine is arriving in Europe; it appears that hundreds of tonnes of the white stuff lands in Antwerp each year.
Farm to mirror consumption
A report by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime released a startling figure this week: in 2017 Colombia produced 31% more cocaine than it had the prior year. 1,400 tonnes came out of Colombia - the largest amount since the UN started keeping records in 1999. Little surprise then that coca plants take up more than 1,700 square kilometres of arable land in Colombia. What was surprising was the UNODOC estimate that 80% of coca crops are still in the same regions they were a decade ago. Cocaine production appears to have continued unabated within a law enforcement vacuum.
Coca in Colombia has become a multi-generational business. And government efforts to subsidise the planting of other crops have failed at the first hurdle. It's true that only a fraction of the wealth created by the global drug trade (measured in the hundreds of billions) makes its way back to those toiling in the hills around Nariño and Tumaco. Yet even that amount is significantly higher than what farmers could make with the legal alternatives promised after the peace deal between the government and FARC. In fact farmers were drawn even more strongly to coca after the plunge in coffee prices last year.
The Colombian government faces the same difficulty that their counterparts in Afghanistan do with their booming opium farms: the economic incentives are against them. That plus the fact that leaders in small towns who do try to urge farmers to substitute crops often end up getting killed by the gangs.
What happened to the War on Drugs?
More than four decades have elapsed since the phrase was coined. And progress has been piecemeal, slow and easily-reversed. US Presidents from Nixon to Trump have described the importance of fighting organised drug traffickers through a framework of military aid, prohibition, and intervention.
But the half-billion dollars in military aid given each year to Colombia isn't enough to put a dent in the supply. Efforts to prohibit cocaine use are also clearly not registering, considering the voracious (and rising) appetite for the drug. And as for intervention - consider the case of Joaquín Guzmán, a man who is emblematic of America's approach to the war on drugs. Guzmán, better known as 'El Chapo' (a reference to his short stature), was once the feared head of the Sinaloa cartel. Today he languishes in police custody as he awaits trial in the United States. Guzmán is one of nearly 30 major cartel bosses who have been arrested or assassinated in the last decade. And yet, none of these interventions have curbed trade. Or violence.
Last year in Guzmán's home country of Mexico 29,000 people were murdered - the vast majority by warring cartels and gangs. The growing professionalism of cartels in smuggling, organisational structure and work ethic is matched only by their increased savagery in the streets. In some states the Los Zetas cartel (known for their martial prowess having recruited heavily from the Mexican armed forces) are currently being challenged by the Jalisco New Generation Cartel - a group known to peel the faces off their victims.
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| Summit on a summit. PHOTO: Getty |
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Moving heaven and earth
Legend holds that the spiritual home of Korea is high up on Mount Paektu, close to the Chinese border. In its crater lies the aptly-named Heaven Lake, a scenic body of water. This week South Korean President Moon Jae-in and his northern counterpart Kim Jong-un shared a highly-choreographed but undeniably powerful moment. It marked the end of Moon's first summit to Pyongyang.
Only the heartless could find fault with this joyous coming-together of leaders. But away from the exuberance (and photoshoots) lies an impasse. Kim's regime has already destroyed its nuclear test facility at Punggye-ri. It has also indicated that the launchpads at Tongchang-ri will be next. Moon has relayed the message that the next step forward must be a second Kim-Trump summit. But the outcome of that dialogue is anything but predictable. It will also inevitably raise questions about the future of the 27,000 American soldiers currently stationed in South Korea.
Many in the region hope that from the eruptive past of recent Korean history, a peace - as tranquil as Heaven Lake - can form. We shall see.
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| A burning roadblock in northern Kosovo. PHOTO: Armend Nimani / AFP |
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Old-fashion swap meets
In Balkan corridors of power a plan is being hatched to end the dispute over Kosovo. It features a land-swap between Serbia and Kosovo and almost no one likes it.
The Kosovars - themselves ethnic Albanians - have rarely gotten the better end of the bargain when dealing with Belgrade. Serbians have punished any sign of Kosovar nationalism for over a century. In 2008 the southern region tried to force its luck with a bid for independence, only to be stuck in stasis. The de facto state won America's support early on but failed to win over Serbia (or its Security Council backers, Russia and China). The status quo has raised tensions on the ground.
Its not entirely surprising that a modern independence movement has failed to make headway. Many in Belgrade - particularly those with fond memories of SFR Yugoslavia - abhor the thought of losing the wayward province. It's rarely mentioned that it was Marshal Tito who nourished Kosovar chauvinism and land-rights in order to counterbalance the most powerful member of the bloc, Serbia.
The foreshadowed deal would create a legal basis for partition and territorial swaps. But it would also strike a blow to the heart of multicultural projects everywhere: territories defined by ethnicity are back in.
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| Fret no more. PHOTO: The Independent |
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Have you started thinning out on top? Not to worry: grab some sandalwood perfume. A group of researchers studying hair-loss have stumbled across a potential cure in the form of artificial sandalwood odorants. The chemical used to mimic that calming smell stimulates a cell receptor OR2AT4 which is found in outer hair follicles. Amazingly, in tests the application of the perfume was found to actually stimulate hair growth and decrease cell death. While scientists are excited to learn more about these ancient receptors in our hair that can "smell", the rest of us are charging headlong in the perfume section of the local pharmacy.
And if your hair-loss was caused by a bad break-up then we've got more good news: stew in it. You'll probably get told by well-meaning friends that the best thing to do after a bad bust-up is to distract yourself (with new activities, hobbies or lovers). Don't listen to them: a new study has found that reflecting and focusing on the pain actually speeds up the healing process. Psychologically unentangling oneself might be hard but is certainly worth it.
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| Entire hillsides cleaved off in Naga, Cebu province. PHOTO: Bullit Marquez / AP |
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The Philippines remains in dire circumstances. Monsoonal rains have loosened earth across the archipelago. Hopes are fading for as many as 50 people whose two villages were buried by landslides. So far 22 bodies have been pulled from the earth; it pushes the national death toll above 100. Many more are missing. Adding further grief to the situation is the fact that many illegal mines dug into mountains are believed to have contributed to the deadly landslides.
Meanwhile in the Carolinas a new problem has emerged in the wake of Hurricane Florence. Politicians continue to dispute the impact of climate change. Despite the evidence of increasingly powerful and increasingly frequent hurricanes there remains a stubbornness among some lawmakers to accept what is disparaged as liberal science. At least 34 people have died and millions of animals have been killed in farming communities. And the cleanup is likely to cost billions in communities that were still rebuilding after the devastation caused in 2016 by Hurricane Matthew. And still, the debates continue.
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Featured long-reads from inkl publishers:
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Bloomberg Businessweek learns that Al Gore is still optimistic
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Washington Post explores how Ben Carson ruined his department
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Financial Times finds out why Christiano Ronaldo is worth €100m
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Quote of the week...
"At least you got a nice boat out of the deal" - US President Donald Trump tries to console a North Carolinian with a joke about the yacht that Hurricane Florence dumped in his backyard.
What to do this weekend...
The Rugby World Cup, if that's your cup of tea. If not, one should find and purchase a copy of Beth Macy's 'Dopesick' - a haunting, unwavering investigation into America's opioid crisis.
One last thing
inkl brings you the world's best news coverage for just 3 cents per day. Essential news, without ads, clickbait or paywalls. Do it now if you haven't already.
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