Category: Pacific

The effort is centred on the Golden Triangle, where the borders of Thailand, Myanmar, and Laos meet and from where illicit items including drugs are trafficked to lucrative markets across Southeast Asia. UN News spoke with Jeremy Douglas, the Regional Representative of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) for Southeast Asia and the Pacific, on a mission to… Read More

“I first started taking drugs when I was 15,” says 49-year-old Prapat Sukkeaw. “I smoked marijuana, but it was laced with heroin. I felt like I was floating, and it meant that I could forget about all the problems that I faced as a teenager. It was a beautiful feeling.” Prapat Sukkeaw is one of an estimated 57,000 people who… Read More

Afghanistan, one of the world’s largest producers of heroin and methamphetamine – most of it smuggled abroad – is home to nearly 4 million drugs users, according to the UN. The worsening crisis has left most of the country’s drug treatment and rehabilitation centers struggling to cope. A walk through what is considered in Kabul to be a ‘gold standard’… Read More

UN Special Representative Roza Otunbayeva was briefing the Security Council on the dire situation facing the country and the international aid effort, with UN women workers among those now prevented by Taliban edicts from working. “We will not put our national staff in danger and therefore we are asking them not to report to the office” she said, adding that the… Read More

Volker Türk, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, expressed similar concerns on the opening day of the Council’s summer session, adding that the de facto authorities had “dismantled the most fundamental principles of human rights, particularly for women and girls”.  In a joint report presented to the Council by the Special Rapporteur for Afghanistan and the Working Group on discrimination… Read More

The agency has been working with village security units in communities in Thailand as part of its border management programme. UNODC says that the supply of synthetic drugs through the region “remains at extreme levels.” UN News spoke to UNODC’s Regional Representative, Jeremy Douglas, and Eakkachai Suphan, a village security volunteer in the village of Sop Ruak in Thailand, which… Read More

Tom Andrews, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar, insisted that current conditions there were “anything but conducive” for the return of Rohingya refugees. Death trap He stressed that the very generals who had launched “genocidal” attacks against the Rohingya, causing hundreds of thousands to flee the country, were now in power and “attacking civilian… Read More

Latest news reports said the death toll is at least 275. More than 1,000 people were hospitalised but close to 800 of those involved in the crash have reportedly been discharged. According to reports, railway officials and India’s minister in charge of the vast network, said on Sunday that a signal fault was the likely cause, which led to a… Read More

“I want to make the most of my time, even in prison, and this training should help me find a job later,” said Denny, 31, who has just over two years left of a five-year prison sentence. “Of course, I knew how to make a coffee before, but here I am learning about different flavours, smells and aromas, and about… Read More

“Key peace and security issues, such as the situation on the Korean Peninsula, must be an area for cooperation,” she cautioned in a briefing to the 15-member Council on recent developments. “Diplomacy – not isolation – is the only way forward.” During the Council’s emergency debate on the issue, members expressed divergent views, with many agreeing that diplomacy can forge… Read More