NATO announced that it will begin targeting drug trafficking in Afghanistan to limit the amount of revenue that the Taliban receives from the drug trade.  From the NY Times:  NATO forces in Afghanistan will step up attacks on drug lords and narcotics traffickers who are supporting an insurgency that has rebounded in the past year and is responsible for rising [...]

An on-line gambling site in the Philippines was busted by South Korean Officials after making over $100 million over 18 months.  From the AFP: The ring allegedly opened a casino in Manila in February last year. They hired 30 Filipino dealers and webcast baccarat games being staged at the casino to domestic online participants. In order to assure [...]

A law enforcement official in the Philippines stated that hired killings and the use of children as drug smugglers are two key problems in the country.  From the Philippine Daily Inquirer: “Guns-for-hire [groups] have the complete ingredients of an organized crime. It is composed of two or more participants. There are connections with various influential pillars of [...]

An Asian Elephant has completed rehab after becoming addicted to heroin giving by wildlife traders.  From the BBC: The four-year-old animal, called Xiguang, received methadone injections for a year at five times the human dosage, state media said. It was illegally captured by traders in 2005 in south-west China. When police arrested the traders and freed the elephant, it [...]

India is facing a possible threat of home grown terrorists after a recent bombing. From the CS Monitor: The portrait of an Indian terrorist has long been a caricature: poor Indian Muslims indoctrinated in radical seminaries and funded by Pakistan, India’s neighbor and longtime enemy. But two of the suspects arrested Wednesday were software engineers, one ran [...]

New York Times Columnist Nichlos Kristof has a column on one woman’s fight against sex trafficking. From the NY Times: This is widely acknowledged to be the 21st-century version of slavery, but governments accept it partly because it seems to defy solution. Prostitution is said to be the oldest profession. It exists in all countries, and if [...]

Microsoft has cut the price of its 2007 Office Suite in China for the next several weeks in an attempt to convert pirated users into legitimate consumers. From Reuters: Microsoft Corp has cut the selling price in China of one of its software products by over 70 percent to counter rampant piracy. It is the first special offer [...]

A government report in South Korea has found that luxury brand Chanel is the most counterfeited brand in the country. From The Korea Times: French luxury brand Chanel most frequently falls victim to widespread trademark breaches in South Korea, which continues to grapple with rampant circulation of fake designer products, a government report showed Sunday. The market for [...]

A new report bu NGO’s in India has found that up to 10,000 children are trafficked into Northeast India each year. From the Times of India: Not less than 10,000 people, mostly children, are trafficked into the Northeast with a good number smuggled in from Bangladesh, Nepal and other South East Asian countries, surveys by NGOs reveal. Most [...]

North Korea has told the United States that it no longer wishes to be removed from its terrorism list. From the New York Times: North Korea said Friday that it no longer wished to be removed from the United States’ terrorism blacklist, signaling that it is hardening its stance amid reports that its leader, Kim Jong-il, may [...]