Production of methamphetamine is skyrocketing in Southeast Asia, with prices dropping and usage expanding, the U.N.’s anti-drug agency said Monday.

Even as seizures of the drug known as speed, ice and “ya ba” in its various forms reached a record high last year, street prices have dropped, indicating increased availability, said a report released by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.

The agency said methamphetamine has become the main drug of concern in 12 out of 13 East and Southeast Asian countries, up from five a decade ago. The only exception was Vietnam, where heroin is considered the major problem.

In Thailand alone, 515 million methamphetamine tablets were seized in 2018, 17 times the total amount of the drug seized a decade ago in all 13 countries combined, the U.N. agency said. Much of the supply comes from neighboring Myanmar.

“Data on seizures, prices, use and treatment all point to continuing expansion of the methamphetamine market in East and Southeast Asia,” said Tun Nay Soe, the agency’s inter-regional program coordinator.

The report warns that organized crime groups in the region have stepped up their involvement in making and trafficking methamphetamine and other drugs in the Golden Triangle, the region where the borders of Myanmar, Laos and Thailand meet that has historically been a major source of opium and heroin.

It said the drug market in East and South-East Asia had shifted from such opiates to methamphetamine since the latter part of the 2000s.

“The shift to methamphetamine has affected even countries traditionally known to have a relatively large market for heroin, such as China and Malaysia,” it said. “In Malaysia, the number of methamphetamine users detected by law enforcement authorities surpassed that of heroin users for the first time in 2017.”

In another indicator of the methamphetamine epidemic, medical treatment related to its use dominated the number of drug-related admissions in several East and Southeast Asian countries, the report said.

The drug agency warned that other synthetic drugs were also gaining traction in Asian markets.

“Potent synthetic opioids (e.g. fentanyl), implicated in fatalities in other parts of the world, are being identified by some countries in the region,” it said. Fentanyl is one of a number of opioids responsible for growing deaths of drug users in the United States.

“Aside from methamphetamine which is getting most of the attention because of the surge in seizures and street price drops, synthetic opioids and other drugs have also been found across the region,” said Jeremy Douglas, UNODC regional representative for Southeast Asia and the Pacific.
…

Production of methamphetamine is skyrocketing in Southeast Asia, with prices dropping and usage expanding, the U.N.’s anti-drug agency said Monday.

Even as seizures of the drug known as speed, ice and “ya ba” in its various forms reached a record high last year, street prices have dropped, indicating increased availability, said a report released by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.

The agency said methamphetamine has become the main drug of concern in 12 out of 13 East and Southeast Asian countries, up from five a decade ago. The only exception was Vietnam, where heroin is considered the major problem.

In Thailand alone, 515 million methamphetamine tablets were seized in 2018, 17 times the total amount of the drug seized a decade ago in all 13 countries combined, the U.N. agency said. Much of the supply comes from neighboring Myanmar.

“Data on seizures, prices, use and treatment all point to continuing expansion of the methamphetamine market in East and Southeast Asia,” said Tun Nay Soe, the agency’s inter-regional program coordinator.

The report warns that organized crime groups in the region have stepped up their involvement in making and trafficking methamphetamine and other drugs in the Golden Triangle, the region where the borders of Myanmar, Laos and Thailand meet that has historically been a major source of opium and heroin.

It said the drug market in East and South-East Asia had shifted from such opiates to methamphetamine since the latter part of the 2000s.

“The shift to methamphetamine has affected even countries traditionally known to have a relatively large market for heroin, such as China and Malaysia,” it said. “In Malaysia, the number of methamphetamine users detected by law enforcement authorities surpassed that of heroin users for the first time in 2017.”

In another indicator of the methamphetamine epidemic, medical treatment related to its use dominated the number of drug-related admissions in several East and Southeast Asian countries, the report said.

The drug agency warned that other synthetic drugs were also gaining traction in Asian markets.

“Potent synthetic opioids (e.g. fentanyl), implicated in fatalities in other parts of the world, are being identified by some countries in the region,” it said. Fentanyl is one of a number of opioids responsible for growing deaths of drug users in the United States.

“Aside from methamphetamine which is getting most of the attention because of the surge in seizures and street price drops, synthetic opioids and other drugs have also been found across the region,” said Jeremy Douglas, UNODC regional representative for Southeast Asia and the Pacific.
…

U.S. air pollution is disproportionately caused by white consumers, while African-Americans and Hispanics are burdened most by the emissions, a peer-reviewed study showed on Monday.

On average, African-Americans are exposed to about 56 percent more fine particulate matter pollution than is caused by their consumption of goods and services, said the study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Hispanics, on average, bear a burden of 63 percent excess exposure, it said.

Whites, on the other hand, experience a “pollution advantage,” meaning they are exposed to 17 percent less pollution than is caused by their consumption.

“What surprised me the most was the magnitude of the discrepancy,” said Jason Hill, a biosytems engineering professor at the University of Minnesota and co-author of the study. “It’s surprisingly large.”

The study was the first to quantify what it called “pollution inequity” and to track it over time.

Particulate matter pollution has a wide variety of sources including coal-fired power plants, agriculture, road dust and industry. Blacks and Hispanics bear a higher proportion of the pollution because of where most of them live, compared with where most white people live, said the study, which tapped census data.

The problem occurs across the country, not just in industrial areas alongside major cities like Houston and New York, it said.

The study was paid for in part by a five-year grant that included money from federal agencies including the Environmental Protection Agency and was launched when Barack Obama was president. The grant has continued to be funded by the administration of President Donald Trump.

Both racial minorities and whites have benefited from clean air regulations, the study found, with fine particulate pollution falling about 50 percent on average between 2003 and 2015.

But the pollution inequity remains stubborn, it said.

Public-health advocates and environmentalists say the Trump administration’s push to unravel regulations on power plants, industry and vehicles while pursuing increased drilling and mining will make air pollution worse.

The study found that fine particulate pollution from domestic sources caused about 102,000 premature U.S. deaths a year from heart attacks, strokes, lung cancer and other diseases.

Julian Marshall, an engineering professor at the University of Washington and co-author of the study, said its approach could be extended to other pollutants.

“When it comes to determining who causes air pollution, and who breathes that pollution, this research is just the beginning.”
…

U.S. air pollution is disproportionately caused by white consumers, while African-Americans and Hispanics are burdened most by the emissions, a peer-reviewed study showed on Monday.

On average, African-Americans are exposed to about 56 percent more fine particulate matter pollution than is caused by their consumption of goods and services, said the study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Hispanics, on average, bear a burden of 63 percent excess exposure, it said.

Whites, on the other hand, experience a “pollution advantage,” meaning they are exposed to 17 percent less pollution than is caused by their consumption.

“What surprised me the most was the magnitude of the discrepancy,” said Jason Hill, a biosytems engineering professor at the University of Minnesota and co-author of the study. “It’s surprisingly large.”

The study was the first to quantify what it called “pollution inequity” and to track it over time.

Particulate matter pollution has a wide variety of sources including coal-fired power plants, agriculture, road dust and industry. Blacks and Hispanics bear a higher proportion of the pollution because of where most of them live, compared with where most white people live, said the study, which tapped census data.

The problem occurs across the country, not just in industrial areas alongside major cities like Houston and New York, it said.

The study was paid for in part by a five-year grant that included money from federal agencies including the Environmental Protection Agency and was launched when Barack Obama was president. The grant has continued to be funded by the administration of President Donald Trump.

Both racial minorities and whites have benefited from clean air regulations, the study found, with fine particulate pollution falling about 50 percent on average between 2003 and 2015.

But the pollution inequity remains stubborn, it said.

Public-health advocates and environmentalists say the Trump administration’s push to unravel regulations on power plants, industry and vehicles while pursuing increased drilling and mining will make air pollution worse.

The study found that fine particulate pollution from domestic sources caused about 102,000 premature U.S. deaths a year from heart attacks, strokes, lung cancer and other diseases.

Julian Marshall, an engineering professor at the University of Washington and co-author of the study, said its approach could be extended to other pollutants.

“When it comes to determining who causes air pollution, and who breathes that pollution, this research is just the beginning.”
…

As climate change accelerates, the United Nations Environment Assembly will this week consider whether to start assessing, and setting rules on, technologies that could pull carbon out of the atmosphere or block some of the sun’s warmth to cool the Earth.

Delegates at the week-long meeting in Nairobi will debate a proposal from Switzerland, backed by 10 other countries, to begin examining geoengineering technologies, which backers say could help fend off the worst impacts of runaway climate change.

If adopted, the proposal could lead to the highest-level examination yet of the controversial technologies, which have gained prominence as efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions fall short.

“We need to have an understanding on the implications of using such technologies, and how they would be governed in the future,” Siim Kiisler, Estonia’s environment minister and president of the Nairobi meeting, told journalists on Monday.

“Just ignoring the issue does not help. We have to talk about it,” he said.

Franz Xaver Perrez, Switzerland’s environmental ambassador and head of its delegation in Nairobi, said his nation had concerns that sun-dimming technology, in particular, could have “a tremendous negative impact.”

Nonetheless, “we should not be guided by concerns, but have a better understanding of the situation first”, he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation, noting that “we might need multilateral control of these technologies.”

Opponents say the technologies present huge potential risks to people and nature, and could undermine efforts to cut emissions, not least because many are backed by fossil-fuel interests.

“These technologies provide a perfect excuse for delaying action or weakening our current emissions reduction targets,” warned Carroll Muffett, president of the Washington-based Center for International Environmental Law, in a telephone interview.

Rapidly slashing emissions – by switching to greener power, preserving forests and similar measures – remains the cheapest and safest way to fend off worsening droughts, floods, storms and other impacts of global warming, he said.

But research is moving ahead fast on two groups of alternative technologies to curb climate change, as emissions continue to rise.

One set aims to suck heat-trapping carbon out of the atmosphere and store it underground, or use it in other ways.

The other focuses on cooling the planet by blocking some of the sun’s energy, through measures such as high-altitude planes that spray reflective sulphur particles into the stratosphere.

‘Light’ use

In a paper published on Monday in the journal Nature Climate Change, scientists modeling the use of solar geoengineering technology said limited deployment – to halve expected warming over the next century, rather than stop it entirely – could dramatically lessen risks from stronger tropical cyclones, for instance.

Earlier modeling of solar geoengineering to avert all projected warming flagged the possibility of changes in water availability, sparking fears the technology could shift monsoons, and create “winners” and “losers.”

Opponents of the technology have suggested it could even be “weaponized,” with a water-short country deploying the technology to improve its rainfall at the expense of neighbors.

But the new modeling suggests no region would see dramatic shifts with lighter use of the technology, although the scientists noted the results were based on an “idealized” study.

Lead author Peter Irvine, a postdoctoral research fellow at Harvard University, said solar management would need to work hand-in-hand with reducing emissions, and could not “replace mitigation.”

David Keith, the leader of a team focused on solar geoengineering research at Harvard and a co-author of the study, said the modeling suggested “geoengineering could enable surprisingly uniform benefits” if used with mitigation efforts.

Option to ban

A high-profile report released by climate scientists last October, exploring how to hold global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial times, the most ambitious goal set by governments in the 2015 Paris Agreement, specifically did not consider the use of solar geoengineering.

It said the technology was untested, had “substantial” risks, and would not address the problem of oceans becoming more acidic as they absorb growing amounts of carbon dioxide.

Muffett said bodies such as the U.N. Environment Assembly, if they did begin exploring geoengineering technologies, should leave open the possibility of banning them entirely, as progress on their development could boost pressure to deploy them.

The assembly also should make sure any panel assessing the technologies included representatives of poorer countries and indigenous groups, while excluding those who held patents on the technologies or stood to profit from them, he said.

This week’s meeting is not the first effort to explore and potentially regulate the emerging technologies.

Member nations of the Convention on Biological Diversity in 2010 set a non-binding moratorium on the use of geoengineering technologies, though agreed to permit research on them.

And an ocean pollution convention has banned the dumping of iron into the sea to boost uptake of carbon dioxide by algae, while also allowing research on the topic.

Janos Pasztor, executive director of the Carnegie Climate Geoengineering Governance Initiative, which hopes to spur effective governance of the emerging technologies, described the U.N. Environment Assembly’s focus on them as a positive step.

“What is needed is governments to engage and start a serious conversation about these issues,” he said.

If approved, the Swiss-backed proposal being presented in Nairobi this week would require U.N. Environment to analyze the technologies and report by August 2020 on how they could be governed and used at scale, among other things.
…

As climate change accelerates, the United Nations Environment Assembly will this week consider whether to start assessing, and setting rules on, technologies that could pull carbon out of the atmosphere or block some of the sun’s warmth to cool the Earth.

Delegates at the week-long meeting in Nairobi will debate a proposal from Switzerland, backed by 10 other countries, to begin examining geoengineering technologies, which backers say could help fend off the worst impacts of runaway climate change.

If adopted, the proposal could lead to the highest-level examination yet of the controversial technologies, which have gained prominence as efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions fall short.

“We need to have an understanding on the implications of using such technologies, and how they would be governed in the future,” Siim Kiisler, Estonia’s environment minister and president of the Nairobi meeting, told journalists on Monday.

“Just ignoring the issue does not help. We have to talk about it,” he said.

Franz Xaver Perrez, Switzerland’s environmental ambassador and head of its delegation in Nairobi, said his nation had concerns that sun-dimming technology, in particular, could have “a tremendous negative impact.”

Nonetheless, “we should not be guided by concerns, but have a better understanding of the situation first”, he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation, noting that “we might need multilateral control of these technologies.”

Opponents say the technologies present huge potential risks to people and nature, and could undermine efforts to cut emissions, not least because many are backed by fossil-fuel interests.

“These technologies provide a perfect excuse for delaying action or weakening our current emissions reduction targets,” warned Carroll Muffett, president of the Washington-based Center for International Environmental Law, in a telephone interview.

Rapidly slashing emissions – by switching to greener power, preserving forests and similar measures – remains the cheapest and safest way to fend off worsening droughts, floods, storms and other impacts of global warming, he said.

But research is moving ahead fast on two groups of alternative technologies to curb climate change, as emissions continue to rise.

One set aims to suck heat-trapping carbon out of the atmosphere and store it underground, or use it in other ways.

The other focuses on cooling the planet by blocking some of the sun’s energy, through measures such as high-altitude planes that spray reflective sulphur particles into the stratosphere.

‘Light’ use

In a paper published on Monday in the journal Nature Climate Change, scientists modeling the use of solar geoengineering technology said limited deployment – to halve expected warming over the next century, rather than stop it entirely – could dramatically lessen risks from stronger tropical cyclones, for instance.

Earlier modeling of solar geoengineering to avert all projected warming flagged the possibility of changes in water availability, sparking fears the technology could shift monsoons, and create “winners” and “losers.”

Opponents of the technology have suggested it could even be “weaponized,” with a water-short country deploying the technology to improve its rainfall at the expense of neighbors.

But the new modeling suggests no region would see dramatic shifts with lighter use of the technology, although the scientists noted the results were based on an “idealized” study.

Lead author Peter Irvine, a postdoctoral research fellow at Harvard University, said solar management would need to work hand-in-hand with reducing emissions, and could not “replace mitigation.”

David Keith, the leader of a team focused on solar geoengineering research at Harvard and a co-author of the study, said the modeling suggested “geoengineering could enable surprisingly uniform benefits” if used with mitigation efforts.

Option to ban

A high-profile report released by climate scientists last October, exploring how to hold global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial times, the most ambitious goal set by governments in the 2015 Paris Agreement, specifically did not consider the use of solar geoengineering.

It said the technology was untested, had “substantial” risks, and would not address the problem of oceans becoming more acidic as they absorb growing amounts of carbon dioxide.

Muffett said bodies such as the U.N. Environment Assembly, if they did begin exploring geoengineering technologies, should leave open the possibility of banning them entirely, as progress on their development could boost pressure to deploy them.

The assembly also should make sure any panel assessing the technologies included representatives of poorer countries and indigenous groups, while excluding those who held patents on the technologies or stood to profit from them, he said.

This week’s meeting is not the first effort to explore and potentially regulate the emerging technologies.

Member nations of the Convention on Biological Diversity in 2010 set a non-binding moratorium on the use of geoengineering technologies, though agreed to permit research on them.

And an ocean pollution convention has banned the dumping of iron into the sea to boost uptake of carbon dioxide by algae, while also allowing research on the topic.

Janos Pasztor, executive director of the Carnegie Climate Geoengineering Governance Initiative, which hopes to spur effective governance of the emerging technologies, described the U.N. Environment Assembly’s focus on them as a positive step.

“What is needed is governments to engage and start a serious conversation about these issues,” he said.

If approved, the Swiss-backed proposal being presented in Nairobi this week would require U.N. Environment to analyze the technologies and report by August 2020 on how they could be governed and used at scale, among other things.
…

A deadly form of plague has broken out on Uganda’s border with Democratic Republic of Congo and several people are thought to have died of the disease, the World Health Organization said  on Monday.

The agency praised Ugandan health workers for vigilance and prompt action in spotting a suspected outbreak of pneumonic plague, which the WHO says is usually fatal unless detected early and treated with antibiotics.

Uganda’s Health Ministry reported two probable cases of the illness in Zombo district on March 5 after a 35-year-old woman died and her 23-year-old cousin reported similar symptoms, the WHO said in a report.

Further investigation revealed the dead woman had lived in Atungulei village in Congo’s Ituri province, and her 4-year-old child had died days beforehand. Finding her sick at her child’s burial, her relatives took her to Uganda for treatment.

The cousin’s symptoms raised suspicions of plague and a preliminary rapid diagnostic test was positive for the disease.

Results on additional specimens sent to Uganda’s Plague Laboratory in Arua were pending. The patient was steadily improving, the WHO report said.

Some 55 people, including 11 health workers and people who took part in the dead woman’s funeral, had been identified as high risk contacts and were being followed up.

Three other people reportedly died of similar symptoms in Congo, the WHO said, and Congolese authorities were investigating. Plague is endemic in Democratic Republic of Congo, Madagascar and Peru, according to the WHO.

Congolese health authorities are already fighting a major outbreak of Ebola further south in Ituri and North Kivu provinces.

Pneumonic plague is caused by the Yersinia pestis bacteria, usually found in small mammals and their fleas. Humans can be infected through flea bites, unprotected contact with bodily fluids or contaminated materials and the inhalation of droplets or small particles from a patient with pneumonic plague.

 
…

A deadly form of plague has broken out on Uganda’s border with Democratic Republic of Congo and several people are thought to have died of the disease, the World Health Organization said  on Monday.

The agency praised Ugandan health workers for vigilance and prompt action in spotting a suspected outbreak of pneumonic plague, which the WHO says is usually fatal unless detected early and treated with antibiotics.

Uganda’s Health Ministry reported two probable cases of the illness in Zombo district on March 5 after a 35-year-old woman died and her 23-year-old cousin reported similar symptoms, the WHO said in a report.

Further investigation revealed the dead woman had lived in Atungulei village in Congo’s Ituri province, and her 4-year-old child had died days beforehand. Finding her sick at her child’s burial, her relatives took her to Uganda for treatment.

The cousin’s symptoms raised suspicions of plague and a preliminary rapid diagnostic test was positive for the disease.

Results on additional specimens sent to Uganda’s Plague Laboratory in Arua were pending. The patient was steadily improving, the WHO report said.

Some 55 people, including 11 health workers and people who took part in the dead woman’s funeral, had been identified as high risk contacts and were being followed up.

Three other people reportedly died of similar symptoms in Congo, the WHO said, and Congolese authorities were investigating. Plague is endemic in Democratic Republic of Congo, Madagascar and Peru, according to the WHO.

Congolese health authorities are already fighting a major outbreak of Ebola further south in Ituri and North Kivu provinces.

Pneumonic plague is caused by the Yersinia pestis bacteria, usually found in small mammals and their fleas. Humans can be infected through flea bites, unprotected contact with bodily fluids or contaminated materials and the inhalation of droplets or small particles from a patient with pneumonic plague.

 
…

A radical decrease in greenhouse gas emissions is needed if farmers are to have time to prepare for major changes in rainfall that could decimate crops, researchers said in a report released on Monday.

Already wet areas will see more rain and dry areas will get drier at a pace determined by emissions levels, researchers said in the journal “Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.”

These changes will happen regardless of action taken on climate change, but by curbing emissions, countries can buy time to adapt to new rainfall levels.

For this study, researchers looked at wheat, soybeans, rice and maize, crops that make up about 40 percent of the global caloric intake, under different emission scenarios.

“I think it’s worrying,” lead author Maisa Rojas, professor of climatology at the University of Chile told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

“Even in the low-emission scenarios you see the time of emergence now or very soon.”

“Time of emergence” is the year a region’s normal fluctuations in rainfall shift dramatically.

Most of the crops consumed around the world are produced by rain fed-agriculture, according to the International Water Management Institute, a nonprofit science research organization.

About 60 percent of farmed land in South Asia and 95 percent in sub-Saharan Africa is rain dependent.

If the world meets the goals set out in the 2016 Paris Agreement to keep the global temperature rise to under 2 degrees Celsius, these regions will have 20 to 30 years to prepare and adapt farming practices.

If these standards are not met and emissions continue at the current rate or increase, some regions will see changes as early as 2020.

Rojas noted that poorer, dryer countries will disproportionately feel the negative effects of such changes and may become dependent on imports.

Dry regions like Southern Africa and Australia, which she said are already seeing a decrease in precipitation, need to immediately look into irrigation systems, dams or growing different foods altogether.

Wet regions like India are more of a mystery.

More rain could benefit crops and boost food production. However, more rain in combination with increased heat and certain soil types may lead to flooding, which could wipe out food supplies.

If the Paris Agreement standards are met, the most impacted areas will have until 2040 to prepare for the coming precipitation changes.

They may have time to limit the land area harmed by rainfall changes and prevent hunger or price hikes to food supplies. This study, said Rojas, is a first look at where we can expect those changes to happen and roughly when they will arrive.

“Every time we thought about climate change up to now, we thought, ‘This is something that will happen in the future,'” said Rojas. “We need to hurry up.”
…

A radical decrease in greenhouse gas emissions is needed if farmers are to have time to prepare for major changes in rainfall that could decimate crops, researchers said in a report released on Monday.

Already wet areas will see more rain and dry areas will get drier at a pace determined by emissions levels, researchers said in the journal “Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.”

These changes will happen regardless of action taken on climate change, but by curbing emissions, countries can buy time to adapt to new rainfall levels.

For this study, researchers looked at wheat, soybeans, rice and maize, crops that make up about 40 percent of the global caloric intake, under different emission scenarios.

“I think it’s worrying,” lead author Maisa Rojas, professor of climatology at the University of Chile told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

“Even in the low-emission scenarios you see the time of emergence now or very soon.”

“Time of emergence” is the year a region’s normal fluctuations in rainfall shift dramatically.

Most of the crops consumed around the world are produced by rain fed-agriculture, according to the International Water Management Institute, a nonprofit science research organization.

About 60 percent of farmed land in South Asia and 95 percent in sub-Saharan Africa is rain dependent.

If the world meets the goals set out in the 2016 Paris Agreement to keep the global temperature rise to under 2 degrees Celsius, these regions will have 20 to 30 years to prepare and adapt farming practices.

If these standards are not met and emissions continue at the current rate or increase, some regions will see changes as early as 2020.

Rojas noted that poorer, dryer countries will disproportionately feel the negative effects of such changes and may become dependent on imports.

Dry regions like Southern Africa and Australia, which she said are already seeing a decrease in precipitation, need to immediately look into irrigation systems, dams or growing different foods altogether.

Wet regions like India are more of a mystery.

More rain could benefit crops and boost food production. However, more rain in combination with increased heat and certain soil types may lead to flooding, which could wipe out food supplies.

If the Paris Agreement standards are met, the most impacted areas will have until 2040 to prepare for the coming precipitation changes.

They may have time to limit the land area harmed by rainfall changes and prevent hunger or price hikes to food supplies. This study, said Rojas, is a first look at where we can expect those changes to happen and roughly when they will arrive.

“Every time we thought about climate change up to now, we thought, ‘This is something that will happen in the future,'” said Rojas. “We need to hurry up.”
…