Hired assassins in Mexico are willing to work for suppressed wages not so much out of economic desperation but because murder-for-hire has proven to be a gateway to more lucrative criminal activity. Factor in the uncontrollable flow of arms and the unlikelihood of criminal prosecution, and the assassination business is booming.

The appearance of four bodies hanging from a bridge in Cuernavaca serves as a grim reminder that Mexico’s drug war is far from over.

The recent outburst of ethnic violence in Kyrgyzstan will serve to strengthen Russian influence in the region.

A drug trafficking campaign is being conducted against Russia on a broad scale affecting all spheres of its political, social and economic life. Kyrgyzstan plays an important role in this campaign. There are ten main routes of heroin traffic from Afghanistan (occupied by the US forces) with six of them crossing the Kyrgyz city of Osh, an important hub of Afghan drug traffic.

This report is about American and British involvement in the Afghan drug trade in opium, focusing on the history of such involvement, and the nature of the drug trade since the 2001 occupation of Afghanistan. Today, Afghanistan supplies more than 90 per cent of the world's illicit opium, from which heroin is made. So who’s profiting from the trade?