Hello, the O-Pimme Radio in London.

This is the edition broadcast on the 28th of May 2016,

and it's introduced by Kate Aide.

Hello, the opium trade is booming in Afghanistan.

Today a guided tour of the Poppy fields from a farmer and a policeman.

There are screams of joy at a political rally in Turkey.

The President is growing ever more powerful, the cheers of his supporters ever louder.

We're talking periods with teenage girls in Malawi and exploring a hip hangout in Venice with a dark and painful history.

One of the key objectives in the war in Afghanistan and the nation-building effort that followed was to eradicate opium.

Billions of pounds were spent and hundreds of lives were lost,

yet this year the country is harvesting a bumper crop.

Afghanistan now produces more opium than the total output of the countries in the

so-called Golden Triangle, Myanmar, Laos and Thailand.

Some of it provides funds for the Taliban, which is continuing an armed struggle against the

Kabul government.

Justin Rowlet has been out to one of the regional capitals of Afghanistan.

There he says, as elsewhere in the country,

the opium trade is becoming more institutionalised than ever.

Even the local police openly support the business.

Mazar-E-Sharif is one of the safest and best-run cities in Afghanistan,

a model of good governance. Yet just half an hour out of town in a small village of

mud-walled houses and it is obvious what the main cash crop is. We stop at a big poppy field right beside the road. It must

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