Word: burma
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...crop in Burma hasn't been affected: poppies, the colorful blooms that have been processed into opium for thousands of years, and, in more recent history, refined into heroin. A Feb. 2 report by the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime found that the price of opium in Burma, also known as Myanmar, increased by 15% last year. As a result, Burmese land dedicated to poppy cultivation actually expanded in 2008, despite promises by the country's ruling junta to combat its reputation as one of the world's most notorious narco-states...
News for farmers making a living off the isolated fields and forests of Burma has been dismal over the past few months. Prices for rubber, a key crop, are down an estimated 75% in the southeastern Mon State. Rice has lost a quarter of its value, while maize has been cut by half. Teak, betel nut and palm oil have also been ravaged by the global drop in commodity prices, throwing millions of Burmese who barely cling to the poverty line further into distress...
...uptick in last year's Burmese poppy cultivation signals just how easy it is for impoverished farmers to turn to a delicate red flower when things get tough. Most of Burma's poppies flourish in the northeastern Shan State, which abuts the infamous Golden Triangle, where the borders of Burma, Thailand and Laos meet. (The flowers are also grown in Kachin and Karen states.) And given the omnipresence of opium and heroin smuggling in Burma - the nation is the world's second-largest poppy producer, after Afghanistan - it's hard to imagine how the trade can flourish without at least...
...have been plagued by internal strife between rival factions over the past couple of decades. A general ceasefire framework with the central government is in place but occasional flashpoints of fighting still occur. Karen villagers, who tend to live in the Irrawaddy Delta and in the border region between Burma and Thailand, have been victims of forced relocation and labor programs run by the Burmese military...
Mostly Christians, the Kachin live in northern Burma and were famous during colonial times for their battle skills. Although they, too, waged a decades-long armed struggle against the Burman-dominated regime, the Kachin signed a ceasefire with the government in 1994. Despite a boom in forestry and casinos in Kachin State, quality of life for many Kachin remains poor, with forced-labor campaigns common, along with human-trafficking to nearby China...