Coca Plantation, Cocaine Lab Discovered in Amazon

The Brazilian Army has discovered the first known coca plantation in Brazil’s Amazon, along with a fully equipped laboratory to manufacture cocaine.

The discovery was made using helicopters and small boats to reach plantations and the lab near the the northwestern city of Tabatinga, close to the border with cocaine producing nations Peru and Colombia, army Lt Col Antonio Elcio Franco Filho said.

The discovery has prompted a search for similar fields in the region.

Experts believe it could mean a  change in the geostrategy of some Colombian cartels, even though the climate in the Amazon was not believed to favour coca plantations. Well it sure didn’t stop them!.

The coca-leaf – the key ingredients in cocaine – is usually grown in the mountainous regions of Andrean countries.

{ Adapted from International Press Reports}

Millions Starve As Tons Of Food Rots In Haitian’s Ports

Bureaucratic red tape  have led to a back log of containers full of food stacking up in Haiti’s ports which is being felt as far away as 600 miles in Miami.

Governments attempts to clean up the  corrupt port system that has help make Haiti a major conduit for Columbian cocaine has added new layers of bureaucracy – leaving millions of Haitians starving. So deperate is the situation that many are forced to eat cookies made of dirt, salt and vegetable oil.

The flies, crockroaches and rotting stench are faced by the port workers daily.

All because in part, of  government efforts to clean up a port system that the World Bank recently ranked as the second-worst in the region behind Guyana.

Haiti’s custom reforms effort have the backing of the international community with the US government helping fund port security and the UN peacekeepers stepping up anti-smuggling patrols along the coast and Dominician borders.  

Of course if one wanted their goods out in a timely manner I suppose some greasing would take place somewhere…………………..

{Adapted from International Press Reports}

Mexico’s Coke Zero Drops Deadly Sweetner

CocaCola has reformulated the Mexico version of CocaCola Zero removing an artifical sweetner that is banned in the US and which caused an outcry from consumer advocates.

The sweetner – sodium cyclamate – banned in the States 39 years ago by the Food and Drug Administration, was found to be link to cancer based on lab findings.

Coco Cola made the change because of ”significant advances in food technology that we did not have when we launched the formula in Mexico” {February 2007}, the company spokeman Rafael Fernandez said.

Sodium Cyclamate - still legal in more than 50 countries - was replaced with a combination of two other artifical eweetners, aspartame and acesulfamek.

{Adapted from International Press Reports}