Crime Archive

A mysterious crop disease has torn through the poppy fields of southern Afghanistan, leading Antonia Maria Costa, head of the United Nations Office for Drugs and Crime, to decrease the projection for the 2010 opium harvest by an astonishing 2,600 metric tons, or one-third of the national output. Scores of Afghan farmers have supported Costa’s claim, indicating that the opium harvest currently taking place in Afghanistan’s five main opium producing provinces will result in meager yields. The socioeconomic impact of the failed harvest comes at a precarious time, as thousands of international and Afghan troops are preparing to pacify the […]

MONROVIA, Liberia — Almost a year ago, President Barack Obama used his long-awaited speech in Ghana to address a question with which the African continent is all too familiar: corruption. “No country is going to create wealth if its leaders exploit the economy to enrich themselves,” Obama lectured his audience in the Ghanaian Parliament. Since then, the question of corruption has taken on added urgency, and not just in Africa. The visit this week to Washington by Afghan President Hamid Karzai highlighted the degree to which U.S. concerns over widespread Afghan corruption have taken a back seat to war-time priorities. […]

The rigid-hull inflatable boat with 10 U.S. Navy sailors aboard pulled up alongside the blue-and-white dhow on the choppy, sapphire waters of the Gulf of Aden. The dhow’s six occupants, dressed in sandals, loose pants and t-shirts, stood to meet the heavily armed Americans. Seeing the sailors’ assault rifles, some of the dhow crewmen raised their hands to show they were unarmed. So began an encounter last December between suspected pirates and the men and women tasked with hunting them. With their hulking, gray home vessel, the destroyer USS Donald Cook, looming in the background, the sailors tried to initiate […]