on wednesday and he made comments that perhaps a link to this incident on tuesday evening to the fact that the match was taking place in front of course you might want to see that in the political context. has had very turkey i should say is a very strained relations with friends over the past few years and one and the french president tomorrow micro gauged often in war of words. there with the latest from paris natasha thank you. and now reminder of the top stories on al-jazeera the election commission in ghana has declared president. the winner of monday's election with more than half of the vote but 5 people have been killed in post-election violence police say more than 60 incidents have been reported since the poll the vote pitted president. against the former leader john behalf for the 3rd time the fisa challenger has already

accused the incumbent of rigging the vote amid interest has the latest from there already a lot of businesses have remained shut since the election hearing that there could be clashes after the declaration of results we will monitor the situation to see how things go on to morrow but for now the members of the opposition who are gathered here early earlier today to protest what they call plan to rig the election have disappeared from the headquarters of the election commission shortly after the announcement was made but not when the presidency in printed. rich nations have been accused of hoarding corona virus vaccines as immunization programs get underway the people's vaccine alliance says that 9 out of 10 people in 67 poor countries will not get the coronavirus vaccine next year canada has topped the list of nations which have or have already reserved enough doses to inoculate

their population multiple times whereas bangladesh is only be able to secure enough to vaccinate less than one in 10 people the news comes as canada becomes the latest country to approve the joint finds or buy on take vaccine for use. the british prime minister is in brussels for talks with the president of the european commission in what both sides say is one of the last chances for a breakfast deal talks have stalled over issues including commercial fishing and future compliance with regulations johnson says the e.u. has to relent on its demands but officials on both sides have have briefed concerns that the divides may be unsurmountable it's more than 4 years since britain voted to leave the union. those are the top stories that stay with us the stream is coming up next the scuzzy and new report highlighting a dangerous new trend in the country's drug trade knowledge more news for you in half an hour of the.

hey there welcome to the stream i'm josh rushing sitting in for femi ok today listen if you're watching this live online that means you're watching view you tube and that means the chat box right there but check it out we have a live stream producer there waiting for your comments and questions so you get in to me and i can get into our guests throughout the programs that they queue for joining us but be a part of the show to today we're talking about afghanistan and drugs but this time not poppy and heroin but meth meth this starting to spread across the country if

they're able to actually make it there in afghanistan from a plant that grows naturally these are new developments in the drug trade there and actually here's what's happening with some of the people addicted to it in the country check out that's the whole bunch of them that on the other other when i was very young i went to iran there were 11 of us in one room only me and an old man were not using drugs the rest were using and i gradually started using the drug on the floor that are showing. that i would do whatever it takes from sometimes laboring to stealing and even murder to get math with anything that i could do to get it i would take on the battle and then after. in a showing up not just in afghanistan but in countries around the world from australia to south africa much like the heroin trade out of afghanistan but the other side of this is it's actually bringing a con of me and jobs and commerce to the area of afghanistan that could sorely use it during these times now discuss issues issue i'm joined by

a panel of experts who i'm going to ask to introduce themselves david can we start with you certainly thanks for the introduction josh money as david men still i am an independent consultant and i've been working on the jokes issue in afghanistan for the last 24 years and for the last couple of years looking at the growing meth industry and i can say this for david as someone i've been to afghanistan to 11 or 12 times i've covered over the years when i want to know what's happening with drugs there i go to his reports 1st been a fan of his work for a long time so pick for joining us david mark thank you i'm going to join. more clune the representative for the united nations office in drugs and crime in the afghanistan but we knew since 2009. all of those folks you know the seas were in the country with which is

a major coup. it's absolutely thank you for joining us mark i appreciate it and then from kabul because of that. and thank you just our on look at this for us i currently try to ship communication a company called lamp posts and i have formerly served as the the prime minister of commerce for the government the top one and some so let's get right into it and david you've been looking at the job situation afghanistan for a long time when did meth start to pop on your radar. the 1st time we actually came across it was when i was doing some work on the. the bombing of the heroin laps in 2017 this was a policy that the u.s. forces afghanistan. developed and they were taking out heroin laboratories across the southwest of afghanistan in an attempt to reduce the amount of money

that was available to the taliban so we started exploring this and in doing so spending time in some of the heroin laboratories. coincidentally some of these places were also producing methamphetamine now let's have been produced for a number of years using over the counter medicines and we could see the remnants of the bottles of various congestions and cough mixtures out the back of one of these labs what intrigued me was the fact that some of these cooks in these labs were saying we don't do that anymore so far too expensive and what i could see in some of the photographs that were being taken were some buckets some large barrack plastic barrels of green goo and i started inquiring about this and it turned out this was a federal. wild crop the grows in the mountains of afghanistan being soaked to make methamphetamine and the argument that these crooks are saying is this costs the

cost of production over the counter medicines they congestions we can't make a profit the price in iran is too low so as a consequence we've moved to this a federal based production so as a consequence of that we then start it's a track down what this crop was where it was grown and how the market function so we ended up in places like bosnia and wired back and then subsequently into taiwan are in core and you can see some of the photos of people harvesting the crop in these areas goes completely wild in some places it looks like across in other places it's more of a bush about 2 and a half meters in size and this is harvested and brought down to the mountain so we started doing more and more we're following this market this what we thought was a fairly and nascent market and realized over time that this is developed quite dramatically in those last piece of work we just did for the european monitoring center in lisbon was actually doing

a lab cow. based on some further field work with cooks in back or we could understand more about the visual signatures and how these labs operated and what we realized were people moving away from methamphetamine labs and what we had was a growing cost each industry in effigy in laps and then that product was then being sold to make meth from the effort and we counted these labs using imagery and came across $329.00 laps just in back or alive so this was a this was evidence of a completely shift in scale and the fact that we you know it's a space it's a bit like the coker industry when some of the market shifted away from buying roll coca leaf in places like the levy or columbia to wanting to. by processed products and so what we now have farmers who are one sided their fellow pm and on the other side they're also producing this very music very simple chemistry and using cheap

it's this basic esoteric and this is now turning up in a variety of different places including the iranians the seas doing accounts of not just crystal meth but exeter in suggesting that we may have may have even repurchasing of that product so we've got this this now what we would say is a growing meth economy that links the lower areas in the deserts of the southwest all the way up the mountains where this crops being harvested and and so you know we're seeing a made i don't like your analysis on this i feel like your analysis on this is really at the forefront of it mark is it winding up with everything you're seeing from your is under do you have a bit of a different perspective on this. thanks george i know what david is saying is you know concurs with the results here in a v.c. is seeing would definitely your report very effectively covered the the

abuse or the news side of it and certainly mess of drug use problem throughout the country we're talking about of possibly 3000000 drug users and this is from a survey in 2015 when that who threatening has not reached the levels that is currently out in the country then moving into the rural population is getting very definitely we're seeing an increasing numbers of farmers involved in rural communities and bolton this a pivot it will mirror one of the things a room you have touched upon a touching of all of as well is the leader of the fight of the elicit a call me now an important thing that we have to take into consideration here is none of these rules population groups that are working in this area are actually getting rich from the activity itself these people white often get locked in a cycle of debt to the actual traffickers and the free really are to start looking

at effectively address addressing this problem we need to really be looking at those who profit from the illicit manufacture or the are students and in fact of illicit trafficking of methamphetamine use or there has been an emphasis in afghanistan very much in all forces that already has to focus on product on the table looking at methamphetamine seizures of which there are many continents out its police to seize the return of methamphetamine and the guy has done this year already we're seeing a 50 kilograms was seized at the international airport this year a lead in the country and this is a hero there have been many international slugs but these people the people involved in the federal extraction the manufacture of the net. i mean and even the the little traffickers these are not the people will think if we really want to move in rooms we do need to look at the the deep dive on the illicit of komi getting into the massive amounts of money that organized crime or deriving from

this activity and really looking at ways of affirmatively addressing money laundering a forfeiture and really don't mention those who are proceeding from the activity have some questions stacking up from our online community right now but 1st i want to go to because that on as ask her you know we're seeing images as we're talking about this of the drug addition addiction issue in afghanistan i know you're in kabul i'm curious will where the women and the families and this picture how does drug addiction there out affect the women in afghanistan. thank you josh i'm actually sitting here looking at pictures and listening. to both martin david who are actually the explosive pretty much frustrate it thing and has that shot and i have to say that every morning when i go to work i. call those streets

and there are particular locations where. does drug addicts come to get. hold of those locations because for major parties people are homeless and there have been streets so you can actually see our team on the streets of call. as a direct consequence of. people who unfortunately become drug addicts. there are not many woman actually that you would see lizabeth on the streets but how that doesn't mean that woman are not affected by this. woman are affected mode. and look for most people who can see a little more extreme drug addicts or people who have become drug addicts because the men and their families have been actually the one who brought it in the house and. started being a secondhand smoke or

a 2nd. and i've been issued in. addiction. being saying i think. there's clearly a direct relation between the domestic the rise in the domestic violence from the increase in the number of people who become addicted to drugs and i think clearly. direction and directed. i want to get some questions from our online community right now peter king has asked which gangs are involved with meth are they the same as heroin or is this a different move but it's also ask why is a federal which is thoroughly medicinal not used as a legitimate crop so maybe talk about that in a minute about how we can do develop irresponsibly around this what are the levels of meth productions across the country where is it taking place i don't know but the gains question mark deep with that big in your purview. we are seeing

police drug shipments of of coniston being moved out of the country we're seeing. islam color border crossing from her up into or spend will look at border crossing from going to stern into. pakistan drug consignments are giving you an indication that it is the same groups that are involved in trafficking move her in and methamphetamine so again moving the only one with orders with her who the seizures in the street like the maritime seizures and her wind mentioned but i mean and ketamine being sees it as part of the same concerns so again giving you an indication of these are the 'd same groups in both interested in the substances. but along that the same lines as always dr james there in bradford sent us a comment he's an assistant professor of history from boston bring us up a 2nd what this means not just for afghanistan but for the international market.

who the international mortgage of the of genesis and methamphetamine is extremely cheap compared to the course the companies would nor the traffickers would be incurring in other countries and they would to touch the pull and the the fund that is going to stand in use naturally occurring in a federal really undercut sea coast to trafficking organizations in other. countries they're either having to deliver for most of it will preparation or they're having to do food chemicals and this is using the p. 2 if you know to prove the looting for their book with other precursors which greatly increases the cost to the trafficking organizations ok i'm never going to comment from dr proffered actually that as he would have to ask ourselves a merchants as

a major source of unset any ends does not bode well for the world obviously especially asia which has a dramatic growth in the demand from salamander to last 2 decades but also is really a symptom of this environment and this this global as it marketplace which candidate approaches to drug control haven't worked and they haven't dealt with the drivers of demand so i think more long term solutions and sustainable solutions to this are going to need to focus more on reducing demand and that's as a public health approaches to drug addiction and possibly even decriminalization of use will do more to reduce drug supply in afghanistan mcinnis up well what do you think about the idea decriminalizing drug use in afghanistan. i think that the post tells a political economy and i've learned this clearly for a major part has been shaped by the progression and trafficking

drive and i also think there's a direct correlation between the. coalition military presence on the ground and also the no enforcement activities basically that has focused on. a counter that could take efforts so i think the trend that we have been noticing specially post 2014 after the quick correlation. drawdown in the last one stone has been the sharp rise on the. production and trafficking has and out if you think when the law enforcement efforts so i do believe that there's a stronger. law enforcement company but i'm not particularly sure that currently it's. streamlining and lee. in the

counter-narcotics. but you clearly in the form of decriminalizing marked as the. drug control does it have a position on legalization or decriminalization of drugs that gives them. well from a lot of the comments made to flee a health response with regards to drug treatment is definitely more in line with her punitive response so putting people in jail for using drugs is definitely an outdated. philosophy if i'm not a good way of addressing this problem so definitely looking at a community based psychosocial response to drug treatment will be much more effective than the punitive measures at the same time you have organized crime groups that are profiting out of this organized crime and will continue to profit out of the activities and really chasing the money it really comes down to not the criminalization wolf the usefulness of decriminalization of the actual

trafficking of djibouti there you need to take. concerted action to prevent the traffickers who are international who are prepared to prate of the weakness of the society you know the people who are involved in this in the wrong areas as you said are not getting rich but they might be making a living in a way that that they don't have other options for right now david i think you mentioned colombia as an example or maybe as mark someone mentioned earlier in the show we have a video comment from someone in our community this is from shabnam the seamy she's the executive director of conservative friends of afghanistan who also brings up colombia as an example of how to approach those. however contrary to popular assumptions the illicit drug trade can actually create development opportunities and have a role in peace building for example you could accomplish coca farmers use money from that crops to invest in natural and education or community projects to build

bridges we've roads this is not an easy problem to solve but that's all the more reason to drop an open mind and invite the input of the people afghanistan the food greatest impact holding on to a failed international policy of war and drugs will never produce peace in what i see. today but i'm going to pair that with a comment someone just made in our youtube group there about ephedra has tons of additional uses is there a way that we can actually turn this into a legitimate crop if not take away the condom if that these areas have found around this new plan. it has been a legitimate crop for a number of years i mean it's a crop that if you will what we did in ghastly people were harvesting this very marginal levels and taking it to the pharmacists in a major provincial center and has been shipped to india i mean it has legitimate uses either is all or it's fodder or medicinal crops but you know there's

nothing as attractive as using it to produce methamphetamine and much of the shift towards the say in afghanistan is a function of global developments including some of the developments in iran well as a colleague of mine alex out of home shown when iran squeeze down on its meth lab suddenly all of the treatises that marc was talking about they had to source supply from somewhere and they came to afghanistan and some of the construction workers brought their skills back some of the afghans his truck to work has brought their skills back set up laps and again very local effort started producing this stuff to push back into iran and now we have a very good quality cheap products that is finding its way all the way to australia as mark says the profit margins are great on this i where we we basically work for about $30.00 a kilo but this is this is good quality crystal meth and it is now moving

across southern africa is piers to be moving in southern africa eastern africa sri lanka and as i say turning up in australia where they say the purity level is equivalent to that of other other countries that have a much greater history of methamphetamine production. mark so there's no advantage to the meth coming out of afghanistan there david saying that it's kind of a good pure product is one how do you tell when you find meth and south africa that it's from afghanistan into well why in the world would it be advantageous. george the good of him enough going to of the export trade methamphetamine is for its crystalline which is a new clear indication of it's already extremely pure so the it would be difficult to with an extremely will forensic analysis to determine whether the methamphetamine has come from

a plant based the hood river or if it's pharmaceutical or 'd chemically based so a lot of the. belief that is coming from afghanistan would strain from the trafficking routes and the people who've been involved in the in the truck investigations that into the actual seizures what we have been seeing though in afghanistan is as well as the pure crystalline mittens that i mean there are lower grades of myth confirming becoming available in the market and these are actually travel to and distributed around the mystically in the country and this is being done under the name of tablet a lot of people are assuming that it was ecstasy that was actually m.d.m.a. was in these tablets but from our route with the country according to police forensic lab or treat we are finding out now that at least 70 percent of these tablets to contain methamphetamine as opposed to. any a mode which is supposed to be the listening reading spoken very harmful for society in the countries methamphetamine tablets appear in what you are calling

meth on the market or running out of time but there a couple more questions here from our online audience vinnie wants to know is there a corresponding decrease in heroin use with the increase of bet as in when no dark that's probably a year and or david where there were some hits of use that would be done recently that suggested that by the b.b.c. actually and they were talking to some of the meth users in couple and some of the uses there with we're talking about the fact they used both and they talked about these products for spies a bit like on the supply side their brothers. people are considered other really drug case because i want to i want to bring you in here dea you know but the taliban's biggest position on this and if they came down and put a complete crackdown on as something would be welcomed by the population there. you know that's something that i kept wanting to intervene did you can't you do you talk about a problem dollars actually looking at. linking it to

a security and corruption and the country. unfortunately the way tall of one and. the 2nd equally be a local driver also conflict of the program. so from what they're hearing it's actually i mean when you stream kind of our men state actors including. saul there have been conversations around. the reduction and level of drug production on trafficking on around the time when the top ones are governing the country but clearly from what you're seeing right now there are all to thank for just it's not me being a dirty word or taxing it at this point but if they were to take over it's unclear whether they were allow that to go or if they're just happy to tax it now to to fund the wars that goes on there well that's it that's all the time we have for today i want to thank all of my guests for joining us on this discussion of this

course of a topic afghanistan that we will keep watching here the stream of al-jazeera english and there's 20 of us on the show thank you it's lovely to see you and i will see you again next. business waiters or 2 you'll find a bright spot. business

leaders just vote to buy no bra spock's. al-jazeera while tells the intriguing stories behind 4 classic songs from palestine enjoyed social snapshots of different times and places from the british mandate to 19 fifties jordan and the palestinian diaspora today musical expressions of their cultural identity and the

yearning for the homeland that many were forced from in 1988 songs for the love of palestine on al-jazeera. the u.s. is always of in fact the people all right in the world people pay attention to what goes on here and i do see it as very good that bringing the news to the world from here. forward on. her. hello i'm barbara starr in london these are the top stories on al-jazeera the election commission in ghana has declared president nana a coup for our though the winner of monday's election with more than half the vote but 5 people have been killed in post-election violence police say more than 60 incidents of been reported since the poll or the vote pitted president than a coup for i do against the former leader john muhammad for the 3rd time the defeated challenger as a ready accuse the incumbent of rigging the vote and that interest has the latest

from across already a lot of businesses have remained sharp since the election.