AFGHAN DRUG TRADE EXPLODING, PUTIN SAYS

Regional Leaders Swarming to His Support

MOSCOW - President Vladimir Putin said Thursday that U.S.-led forces
in Afghanistan are doing "almost nothing" to stem the flow of drugs
from that country.

Since the fall of the Taliban regime in 2001, Afghanistan's opium
production has risen dramatically, much of the product making its way
to western Europe via central Asia and Russia.

The cultivation of opium poppies was largely eliminated under the
Taliban's religious policing, but farmers have resumed cultivating and
harvesting the profitable crop.

"They are doing almost nothing there even to lessen the drug threat,"
Putin said at a meeting with the head of Russia's drug agency, Viktor
Cherkesov, referring to the U.S.-led international force in
Afghanistan. "Our efforts through diplomatic and political channels
are not achieving results yet."

He said it is necessary to step up co-operation with all the countries
involved in the anti-terrorism effort in Afghanistan, and especially
to drive home to western countries that they, too, were threatened by
the Afghan drug trade.

Putin said that Russian drug authorities should do a better job of
informing the West of the drug threat they themselves face.

Cherkesov told Putin that experts estimate 70 to 80 per cent of the
opiates in Britain originate in Afghanistan.

UN surveys estimate Afghanistan accounted for three-quarters of the
world's opium last year, and the trade brought in $2.3 billion US,
more than half of the nation's gross domestic product.

Meanwhile, there were signs that Putin's move to scrap elections for
regional governors as part of an anti-terrorism campaign has gained
support.

Russia's regional governors are flocking to join Putin's ruling party
days after they were told that the Kremlin plans to abolish direct
elections and appoint them directly.

In keeping with its traditions of secrecy, the president's United
Russia party is refusing to say who has joined since Putin made his
announcement after the Beslan tragedy.

Leaks to the media suggest that at least 10 governors or senators --
regional representatives in the upper house of parliament -- have
become members in the past two weeks. Twenty more are reported to have
applied and are to join this week.

When Putin told the 89 governors that they would effectively be
stripped of their powers, many sat stunned and open-mouthed. But none
has dared to complain publicly. On the contrary, some said they were
delighted by the decision.

Yuri Lodkin, a communist governor from the working-class region of
Bryansk, told reporters that he thought the changes were "fantastic."