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From Our Own Correspondent

The Taliban's Opium War

From Our Own Correspondent

BBC

News, News Commentary

4.41.3K Ratings

🗓️ 10 June 2023

⏱️ 29 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Kate Adie introduces stories from Afghanistan, Nigeria, India, Ukraine and Panama. Opium poppies from Afghanistan have provided the raw materials for the world's heroin trade for decades, with successive governments failing to curtail this illicit crop. Now back in power, the Taliban have decreed a new ban on opium cultivation, sending patrols to destroy crops across the country - often leaving poor farmers with no other means of income. Yogita Limaye joined a patrol in Nangahar province. When Nigeria's new President, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, was sworn in at the end of May, he called the occasion 'a sublime moment'. Few people expected any revelations or surprises in his inaugural speech - but when he went off-script, there was a scramble for petrol across the country. Mayeni Jones weighs up the mood as Mr Tinubu took power. The scale of the recent rail disaster in Orissa state in India was shocking: nearly three hundred people died and more than a thousand more were injured. Amid the chaos of the aftermath, Archana Shukla reported on the human losses, and spoke to many families desperate for news of relatives who'd been travelling that day. The forcible removal of children from Ukraine to Russia, or Russian-controlled territory, has been a sinister element of Moscow's tactics during the invasion and occupation of the country. Sarah Rainsford has spent months tracing what really happened to these children - and met Ukrainian mothers and grandmothers who ventured into Russian territory to get them back. One swallow doesn't make a summer - but how many swifts make a spring? Stephen Moss is a passionate naturalist who's travelled around the world to spot some of its most threatened species. On a recent visit to Panama, he was worried to hear that climate change is now affecting the timing of huge seasonal bird and wildlife migrations. Producer: Polly Hope Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith Production Co-ordinator: Helena Warwick-Cross

Transcript

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0:00.0

BBC Sounds Music Radio Podcasts

0:05.6

Today, how going off-script by Nigeria's new president led to a country-wide scramble

0:11.6

for petrol. The chaotic aftermath of India's worst rail crash in over 20 years, as families

0:18.8

frantically searched for news of their loved ones. Joining the hunt for Ukraine's missing

0:24.6

children and speaking to the mothers going to Russia to try and get them back. And in

0:30.4

Panama, a much quieter springtime in the rainforest this year, as the planet warms, the rhythms

0:37.0

of bird migration appear to be shifting.

0:41.0

We start in Afghanistan, where the Taliban and other latest in a line of governments

0:45.8

which have tried to eradicate the country's lucrative opium poppy trade. Around 80% of

0:52.0

the global opium supply used to come from Afghanistan, and nearly all the heroines sold in Europe

0:58.1

is still made from raw Afghan opium. Under the previous Afghan government, the United

1:03.8

States spent billions trying to eradicate this trade, which it claimed was a major source

1:09.0

of funding for the Taliban's fighters, a claim which the Taliban hotly denied at the

1:13.8

time. Now the Taliban themselves are in power in Kabul, and last year their supreme leader

1:20.4

in turn announced a new ban on poppy growing. BBC analysis of satellite images has shown

1:26.9

cultivation has dropped dramatically over the last year. But as Yogi Telemire heard, this

1:33.7

apparent success comes at a cost for many poor Afghan farmers who are struggling to survive.

1:40.0

Our car rattled along the bumpy mud roads, deep in eastern Afghanistan's Nungarhar province.

1:47.1

Despite the rough terrain, we chosen to use a small, nondescript vehicle to keep a low profile

1:52.9

for safety reasons. Winding around the foothills of the spin-car mountain range by the border

1:58.4

with Pakistan, we met up with two pickup trucks full of Taliban fighters. They were part

2:04.3

of an anti-narcotics unit, and after a lot of effort convincing senior officials, we'd been

...

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