World in brief: Gadhafi celebrates 40 years in power
Tripoli, Libya – Libya staged a lavish spectacle Tuesday, parading white-robed horsemen and gold-turbaned dancers as jets streaked overhead to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the coup that brought Moammar Gadhafi to power in the oil-rich nation.
The four-day festivities were designed to highlight the volatile leader’s acceptance on the world stage, but were overshadowed by new controversies about the return of the only man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing. While African leaders held a summit to coincide with the celebrations, most Western leaders stayed away.
The Libyan leader, known for his outlandish outfits and penchant for conducting state business in tents, kicked off the celebrations before dawn Tuesday, timed to coincide with the start of the coup, with a feast at a former U.S. air base that was later turned into a Libyan military camp.
Cuba and U.S. may restart direct mail
Washington – The United States and Cuba will start talks this month on resuming direct mail service between the two countries for the first time in nearly half a century as the Obama administration continues to try to engage the communist island, U.S. officials said Tuesday.
The negotiations, set for Sept. 17, will follow the resumption in July of talks on the legal immigration of Cubans to the U.S., according to the officials.
Direct postal service between the United States and Cuba was terminated in 1963 and since then mail between the countries can take weeks to arrive since it must be routed through third countries.
Low opium prices undercut Taliban
Kabul, Afghanistan – Cultivation in Afghanistan of opium, the nation’s most lucrative cash crop and a major funding source for the Taliban, has fallen sharply this year in large part because an excess supply of the drug has pushed down prices to a 10-year low, according to a U.N. report scheduled to be released today.
The Obama administration has changed course on its opium policy here, moving away from eradication efforts favored by the Bush administration that senior officials now say wasted millions of dollars. Instead, funding is being directed toward programs to persuade farmers to grow other crops. But more than those nascent efforts, U.N. officials said the larger cause of the decline in opium cultivation this year was a deteriorating market for the drug.
The area under opium poppy cultivation fell this year by 22 percent, to 123,000 hectares, the second consecutive year of decline, after a rapid growth of opium farming since the war began in 2001, according to the United Nations’ 2009 Afghanistan Opium Survey.