AFGHANISTAN FAILING TO TACKLE OPIUM CULTIVATION, SAYS BBC

LONDON -- Afghanistan's new government is failing to tackle the cultivation
of opium poppies, the BBC said Thursday after carrying out an investigation.

BBC radio 4's today program said it had found little evidence that the
crops were being eradicated despite Britain Foreign Secretary Jack Straw's
announcement earlier this year that almost a third of the country's poppy
field had been destroyed.

It suggested that a bumper crop would increase the amount of heroin on its
way to the UK from Afghanistan, where 90 percent of the illicit drug
originates, IRNA reported.

Javad Akmed, a member of the security forces assigned to the eradication
program, told the BBC that the team came to Afghanistan and "made
themselves look busy," but that only about 2 percent of the crops in the
area had been destroyed.

Today reporter Raphael Rowe, who visited Bedakhshan, one of the major
growing provinces, said it was the same story elsewhere, with the highest
figure given of 10 percent.