Nations torch $1 bln of seized ‘narcotics’

Mongolia sets July 9 runoff

YANGON, June 27, (Agencies): Myanmar, Thailand and Cambodia torched nearly $1 billion worth of seized narcotics on Monday, a defiant show of force as police struggle to stem the rising flow of drugs in the region.

The burnings, to mark the UN’s world anti-drugs day, follow another year of record seizures of narcotics from the remote borderlands of Myanmar, Laos, southern China and northern Thailand.

Myanmar in particular remains one of the world’s great drug-producing nations, a dark legacy of decades of civil war in its frontier regions where troops and ethnic rebel forces have vied for control of the lucrative trade.

Armed gangs churn out vast quantities of opium, heroin and cannabis and millions of caffeine-laced methamphetamine pills known as “yaba” which are then smuggled out across Southeast Asia.

An estimated $385 million was burnt in three official ceremonies around Myanmar on Monday, according to a senior police officer in the capital Naypyidaw.

At the biggest bonfire in Yangon, huge clouds of smoke filled the sky as authorities set fire to stacks of opium, heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine tablets worth almost $220 million.

“We burnt a record amount of drugs today ... because police have seized more in recent years,” drug enforcement officer Myo Kyi told AFP.

On an industrial estate on the outskirts of Bangkok, Thai authorities incinerated some $589 million worth of drugs including 7,800 kilogrammes of yaba pills and 1,185 kilogrammes of the more potent crystal methamphetamine.

Buddhist monks and military officers were among 13,500 people prosecuted for drugs crimes in 2016, up 50 percent from the previous year, according to data seen by AFP.

“Drug production has increased every year since 2006,” Yangon police chief Win Naing told crowds gathered for Monday’s ceremony on the outskirts of the city.

Naing

No winner in Mongolia:

The third-place finisher in Mongolia’s presidential vote cried foul and demanded a recount on Tuesday after electoral authorities declared he was narrowly beaten for a spot in next month’s runoff election.

The drama capped a campaign marked by corruption scandals plaguing all three candidates that overshadowed voter concerns over unemployment in the debtladen country wedged between Russia and China.

The result of Monday’s vote was put off by several hours until Tuesday morning, angering supporters of Sainkhuu Ganbaatar of the Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party (MPRP).

“We should recount it, otherwise we lose our democracy,” Ganbaatar told AFP. “They are violating people’s votes.”

Former judoka Khaltmaa Battulga of the opposition Democratic Party finished first with 38 percent of the vote, the General Election Committee said, well short of the 51 percent majority needed to win outright.

The country’s electoral authorities said the runoff — Mongolia’s first ever — would be held on July 9th.

Ganbaatar had been in second place in the early vote count but he eventually was overtaken by parliament speaker Mieygombo Enkhbold of the Mongolian People’s Party (MPP), who squeaked by with a 0.1 percentage point edge.

Trump’s partner slapped with ban:

Authorities in Indonesia have issued a travel ban against the Indonesian business partner of US President Donald Trump after he was accused of threatening a deputy attorney general, officials said Monday.

Billionaire Hary Tanoesoedibjo has been barred from leaving Indonesia from June 22 to July 12 due to the case, which is under investigation by the National Police’s criminal investigation unit, said Agung Sampurno, the Indonesian Immigration Office spokesman.

He said the travel ban could be extended upon a police request.