Drugs

Struggling for Democracy in Guinea-Bissau: Drug Trafficking, Military and Politics

Struggling for Democracy in Guinea-Bissau: Drug Trafficking, Military and Politics

Repeated coups, military rebellions and political assassinations have transformed Guinea-Bissau, the new hub for cocaine trafficking (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime) into...
Drug addicts turn to HIV drugs for lethal mix

Drug addicts turn to HIV drugs for lethal mix

Drug peddlers in South Africa have introduced a new deadly drug whose ingredients contain life-prolonging antiretrovirals for people infected with HIV, a move that...
Huge marijuana plantation discovered in South Africa

Huge marijuana plantation discovered in South Africa

Police discoveries of marijuana plantations are becoming common in South Africa as hardly a week goes by without police “stumbling upon” them. A recent...
Mozambique’s presidents stuffing Africa with drugs

Mozambique’s presidents stuffing Africa with drugs

Mozambique President Armando Guebuza and past leader Joaquim Chissano have been fingered as chief culprits in shielding drug barons in the southern African nation, which...
Toxic counterfeit drugs poisoning hundreds of thousands

Toxic counterfeit drugs poisoning hundreds of thousands

Counterfeit medicines are a serious problem afflicting some 90 countries worldwide, and they kill an estimated 700,000 people annually. The key to fighting the...
Corruption: Zimbabwe health workers creating artificial HIV drug shortages

Corruption: Zimbabwe health workers creating artificial HIV drug shortages

A private grouping of lawyers in Zimbabwe has claimed that there is rampant corruption at government hospitals and municipal clinics as HIV and Aids...
Guinea-Bissau: EU and U.S. lose war against crime?

Guinea-Bissau: EU and U.S. lose war against crime?

The European Union has given up on its mission to build a stable democracy in Guinea-Bissau just two years after it launched a mission...
Drug cartels losing ground in African drug war?

Drug cartels losing ground in African drug war?

Security authorities in The Gambia have seized about $1bn worth of cocaine on transit from South America to Europe. The authorities also seized large...
Uganda airport fights increasing drug trafficking

Uganda airport fights increasing drug trafficking

One German national, a Kenyan, a Nigerian and one Ugandan are being held by police in Uganda after being arrested at Entebbe international airport in...
Liberia: Sirleaf lauded for massive drug bust

Liberia: Sirleaf lauded for massive drug bust

Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf has been praised for putting together an anti-corruption administration after authorities of the Liberia National Security Agency aided an...
Nigeria: End of the road for politician drug smuggler?

Nigeria: End of the road for politician drug smuggler?

A Nigerian politician seeking to fund his election campaign swallowed over two kilograms of cocaine (4.4 lbs) to be traded in Germany, has confessed...
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Indignities implicit in Arizona immigration crackdown

Common sense, Albert Einstein once observed, is the collection of prejudices. Taking a twist on Einstein’s observation, recent legislation approved in the U.S. state...
Africa: Drug trade fund terrorist activities

Africa: Drug trade fund terrorist activities

In only five years, Sub-Saharan Africa has become the new hub for drug cartels from Latin America trying to gain entry into Europe. North...
West Africa: A future of shared roles in pharmaceutical development

West Africa: A future of shared roles in pharmaceutical development

It is funny. The more I listen to pharmaceutical industry players on increasing access to quality medicines, the more relevant Nkrumah’s African unity becomes....
U.S. dollars and a world of proxy cocaine users!

U.S. dollars and a world of proxy cocaine users!

It simply beats my imagination as to how every single U.S. citizen has already handled cocaine or risks handling it in the very near...
Guinea under rebel threat

Guinea under rebel threat

A rebel attack is being prepared in Guinea Bissau and the Casamance region in Senegal, against Guinea, Conakry has announced. According to officials, the...
Caribbean and West Africa’s trans-Atlantic cocain trade

Caribbean and West Africa’s trans-Atlantic cocain trade

According to the International Narcotics Control Board, stockpiles of cocaine are being built up in West Africa from where it is smuggled into Europe,...
A Khat fight in Ethiopia and the United Kingdom

A Khat fight in Ethiopia and the United Kingdom

Khat, a popular mild narcotic that has been used in most of the Eastern African region as well as the Arabian peninsula since time...
Africa capable of research and development of drugs

Africa capable of research and development of drugs

African-based researchers and institutions have the capacity to develop new drugs and diagnostic tools for diseases affecting Africans, but are hampered by a lack...
Transport minister questioned over abandoned cocaine plane

Transport minister questioned over abandoned cocaine plane

The police in Sierra Leone have questioned the country's sacked Transport and Aviation Minister Kemoh Sesay over the landing in the country of a...
President sacks transport minister over mysterious plane filled with cocaine

President sacks transport minister over mysterious plane filled with cocaine

Sierra Leone's President Ernest Bai Koroma has relieved Transport and Aviation Minister Ibrahim Kemoh Sesay of his duties with immediate effect. The announcement, which came...
Guinea-Bissau fast becoming a narcotics and terrorism haven

Guinea-Bissau fast becoming a narcotics and terrorism haven

The Brussels-based International Crisis Group (ICG) has stressed the need for urgent support to Guinea-Bissau from the international community to save the country from...
Negative police drug test results anger pupils

Negative police drug test results anger pupils

Eleven children from a private school in Centurion thought it was a big joke when they were arrested for possession of dagga on...
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Health Ministers to discuss pharmaceutical industries in Africa

The ministers of health of the African Union (AU) member countries will meet 17 May in Geneva, Switzerland, at a special session alongside the...
Researchers from Canada and Uganda breakthrough on new malaria drug

Researchers from Canada and Uganda breakthrough on new malaria drug

Canadian and Ugandan researchers at Makerere University said they had recorded a breakthrough in their search for new drugs to treat malaria, noting that...
The poor stand to lose from anti-patent crusades

The poor stand to lose from anti-patent crusades

Should poor governments be allowed to break drug patents for humanitarian reasons? That question is front-and-center at a major public health conference sponsored by...
Is Ghana producing cocaine?

Is Ghana producing cocaine?

A top Ghanaian psychiatrist and a member of the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) has kicked up some controversy by saying the West African...