India remains on major illicit drug producing nations list: Trump administration

Agencies
September 12, 2018

Washington, Sept 12: US President Donald Trump has identified India along with 21 other countries as among the major illicit drug producing or transit nations.

Other Asian countries identified as major drug transit or major illicit drug producing countries are Afghanistan, Pakistan and Myanmar.

The Bahamas, Belize, Bolivia, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Laos, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru, and Venezuela, are other countries listed in the group, as per a presidential determination.

"A country's presence on the foregoing list is not necessarily a reflection of its government's counter narcotics efforts or level of cooperation with the United States," Trump said.

The reasons countries are placed on the list is the combination of geographic, commercial, and economic factors that allow drugs to transit or be produced, even if a government has engaged in robust and diligent narcotics control measures, he said.

Simultaneously, Trump designated Bolivia and Venezuela as countries that have failed demonstrably during the previous 12 months to adhere to their obligations under international counter-narcotic agreements. He also determined that support for programs to aid the promotion of democracy in Venezuela are vital to the national interests of the United States.

Asserting that combatting the ongoing United States opioid epidemic is one of his Administration's most urgent priorities, Trump said his government has dedicated nearly USD 4 billion in additional funding to confront this national crisis.

The Trump Administration is committed to addressing all factors fueling the drug crisis, which is devastating communities across America, including steps to curb over-prescription, expand access to treatment and recovery programs, improve public education programs to prevent illicit drug use before it begins, and to strengthening domestic drug enforcement at the borders, he said.

"Alongside these massive and historic United States efforts, I expect the governments of countries where illicit drugs originate and through which they transit to similarly strengthen their commitments to reduce dangerous drug production and trafficking,? Trump said.

In his presidential determination, Trump expressed his deep concerns that illicit drug crops have expanded over successive years in Colombia, Mexico, and Afghanistan, and are now at record levels.

Drug production and trafficking in these three countries directly affect the US national interests and the health and safety of American citizens, he said.

"Heroin originating from Mexico and cocaine from Colombia are claiming thousands of lives annually in the United States. Afghanistan's illicit opium economy promotes corruption, funds the Taliban, and undermines that country's security, which thousands of United States service men and women help defend," Trump said.

Despite the efforts of law enforcement and security forces, these countries are falling behind in the fight to eradicate illicit crops and reduce drug production and trafficking, he rued.

As such, Trump said that these governments must redouble their efforts to rise to the challenge posed by the criminal organisations producing and trafficking these drugs, and achieve greater progress over the coming year in stopping and reversing illicit drug production and trafficking.

The US will continue its strong support for international efforts against drug production and trafficking, as well as to strengthen prevention and treatment efforts in the United States, he added.

India has been on the list since 2004 when President George W. Bush first issued it under a 2003 law enacted by Congress and President Barack Obama continued to keep it there.

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News Network
November 18,2024

Advisors to US President-elect Donald Trump have instructed his allies and associates to refrain from using the inflammatory language they previously employed when discussing issues related to migrants and the deportation of asylum seekers, in a bid to avoid “looking like Nazis.”

US media reports said that Trump’s associates had been asked to stop using the word “camps” to describe potential facilities that would be used to accommodate migrants rounded up in deportation operations across the country.

The reports said the US president-elect’s allies had been ordered to stave off such charged terms as they would bring to mind “Nazis,” and be used against Trump.

“I have received some guidance to avoid terms, like ‘camps,’ that can be twisted and used against the president, yes,” one Trump ally told American monthly magazine Rolling Stone.

“Apparently, some people think it makes us look like Nazis.”

The presidential advisers also cautioned surrogates and allies to keep racist terms, which have dogged Trump’s campaign, out of their remarks.

They said with Trump’s heated rhetoric that used to compare undocumented immigrants to “animals” and his slight that they are “poisoning the blood of our country,” detractors did not need to reach too far to find parallels to Nazi Germany.

Stephen Miller, who Trump tapped to be his deputy chief of staff of policy, specifically used the word “camps” to describe holding facilities that he hoped the military could put together for immigrants.

Tom Homan, who served as the acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and is chosen by Trump to be in charge of the US borders, was no stranger to such language.

“It’s not gonna be a mass sweep of neighborhoods,” he said in an interview earlier this week. “It’s not gonna be building concentration camps. I’ve read it all. It’s ridiculous.”

Becoming a little more forthright about the new government’s aggressive deportation plans, Homan likened the early days of the Trump administration to the initial invasion of Iraq in 2003.

“I got three words for them – shock and awe,” he said. “You’re going to see us take this country back.”

Trump made immigration a central element of his 2024 presidential campaign but unlike his first run, which was mainly focused on building a border wall, he has shifted his attention to interior enforcement and the removal of undocumented immigrants already in the United States.

People close to the US president and his aides are laying the groundwork for expanding detention facilities to fulfill his mass deportation campaign promise.

The businessman-turned-politician deported more than 1.5 million people during his first term.

The figure do not include the millions of people turned away at the border under a Covid-era policy enacted by Trump and used during most of Biden’s term.

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News Network
November 15,2024

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Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) has killed or captured 69 terrorists linked to the Israeli spy agency Mossad during a major counterterrorism drill in the country's southeast, its spokesman says.  

General Ahmad Shafaei, the spokesman for the “Martyrs of Security” drill, said Friday that a total of 23 terrorists have been killed and another 46 arrested in various clean-up operations ever since the IRGC Ground Force launched it in the Sistan and Baluchestan province on November 1.

Seven terrorists have also turned themselves in during the period.

“The undeniable fact about terrorists is that they rely on arrogant powers, particularly the intelligence service of the wicked and vicious Zionist regime," Shafaei said.

“Unfortunately, weapons and munitions at terrorists’ disposal are among the most sophisticated ones in the world. This accounts for their heavy dependence.” 

The official stated that several members of the disbanded terror teams were non-Iranian nationals, who had been hired by foreign intelligence agencies to carry out acts of sabotage and terror inside Iran.

In a most recent operation, six terrorists were arrested and four others were eliminated, three of whom were non-Iranians, he added. 

On October 26, ten members of Iran's law enforcement forces were killed in a terrorist attack in the Gohar Kuh district of Taftan in the Sistan and Baluchestan province.

The so-called Jaish al-Adl terrorist group claimed responsibility for the assault, which was one of the deadliest in the province in recent months.

The group has carried out numerous terrorist attacks in Iran, primarily in Sistan and Baluchestan.

Its tactics include the abduction of border guards as well as targeting civilians and police stations within the province to incite chaos and disorder.

In January, Iran launched a military operation during which the headquarters of the Pakistan-based terrorist group was targeted in missile strikes, destroying its infrastructure.

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News Network
November 27,2024

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Gaza health authorities say Israel’s military has "erased” over 1,400 Palestinian families in the besieged territory over the past year.

The Health Ministry said in a statement on Tuesday that the Israeli regime "completely erased about 1,410 families, numbering 5,444 people, from the civil registry during the same period.”

It said that there were 3,463 families with only one survivor, while 2,287 families had more than one survivor.

In northern Gaza, Israel’s warplanes have continued dropping bombs over Palestinian families, Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.

It said one airstrike hit a family home in Jabalia, causing numerous casualties on Tuesday.

According to Gaza's civil defense agency, at least seven people were killed and several others wounded in the attack.

Another person was killed in a strike on a house in nearby Beit Lahia, a town in northern Gaza, which has been declared “a disaster area" by the municipality due to "the Israeli war of extermination and siege, and it has no food, water, hospitals, doctors, services, or communications."

The health ministry said, “Israeli forces killed 14 people and injured 108 others in three massacres of families in the last 24 hours.”

“Many people are still trapped under the rubble and on the roads as rescuers are unable to reach them.”

International organizations and leaders believe that Israel’s genocidal war, now in its second year, is a deliberate attempt to destroy the population of Gaza.

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