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30 Nov 2009 13:53:00 GMT
Poppies and poverty in Afghanistan
Written by Martin Jelsma and Tom Kramer

Nangarhar province in eastern Afghanistan is traditionally one of the main opium producing regions. But since governor Gul Agha Sherzai was appointed, poppy cultivation has reduced significantly. We recently visited the province to find out how this has happened and how the population feels about it.

We drive from Kabul to Jalalabad, the capital of Nangarhar. The winding road takes us down a beautiful gorge. Nangarhar province partly consists of a fertile valley well-suited for agricultural production. The valley is surrounded by mountains, with the Spingar belt in the south which includes the Tora Bora cave complex, notorious for being a Taliban stronghold and suspected location of Osama bin Laden in the first days of the U.S. invasion. Those areas are very poor, due to lack of arable land and water. Farmers here struggle to eke out a living. Opium has been their main cash crop for buying food, clothes, and pay for access to education and health.

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30 Nov 2009 12:56:00 GMT
Displaced villagers living with climate change
Bangladesh's Kalinagar village, crammed on an elevated dyke, is a landscape flooded with straw and clay huts covered in blue tarpaulin. Over 14,000 people displaced by a combination of Cyclone Aila and rising water levels struggle to survive there.

I had come to listen to their stories. And as the crowds gathered it seemed that everyone from a 14-year-old child to an elderly woman knew exactly how to discuss climate change without using acronyms - something well-educated people in the West struggle to do.

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25 Nov 2009 17:02:00 GMT
No homes in sight for 900,000 Myanmar cyclone survivors
BANGKOK - For about 100,000 people in Myanmar who have been living in makeshift shelters since Cyclone Nargis hit 18 months ago, Wednesday's news of fresh donor money spells light at the end of the tunnel.

But for the remaining 900,000 people whose homes were destroyed or damaged, the prospects are dim.

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23 Nov 2009 16:20:00 GMT
Bangladesh shows urgency of dealing with climate change
"My father was hit by lightning and died when I was three. I don't like fishing but I do it so I can go to school - and to help my mum." These are the words of 10-year-old Bijon Bayen, who lives in Kainmari Village in southwest Bangladesh.

It was early morning, and before approaching Bijon I had been watching and admiring him wading through the muddy water for a while. He looked so peaceful and calm, just visible through the picturesque morning mist.

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23 Nov 2009 15:48:00 GMT
Afghanistan's hidden drug problem
By Martin Jelsma and Tom Kramer, Transnational Institute.

Winter is starting in Herat, a province in south-western Afghanistan, where we've come to look at the country's own drug problem. The city has one of the highest rates of heroin users in Afghanistan.

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