<p><span style="background-color: initial;"><strong>COCAINE-19: the pandemic and traffickers – </strong></span><span style="background-color: initial;">The coronavirus pandemic is wreaking havoc with the global narcotics trade, scrambling its supply chains, and causing street prices for some illicit drugs to skyrocket, says </span><a href="https://www.unodc.org/documents/data-and-analysis/covid/Covid-19-and-drug-supply-chain-Mai2020.pdf" target="_blank">a new UN report</a><span style="background-color: initial;">. In normal times, cartels ship most of their stuff hidden in planes and ships carrying otherwise legitimate goods. But as coronavirus lockdowns close borders, cripple air travel, and reduce maritime trade, drug producers are struggling with shortages of labor and precursor chemicals, while smuggling their final product is getting a lot riskier. Mexican opioid producers, for example, </span><span style="background-color: initial;">can't</span><span style="background-color: initial;"> get the chemicals they usually import from China. Poppy farmers in South Asia are seeing demand, and prices, for their crops collapse as opportunities to export </span><span style="background-color: initial;">shrivel</span><span style="background-color: initial;">. Latin American drug lords are risking </span><span style="background-color: initial;"><a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-eu-drugs/europe-flooded-with-cocaine-despite-coronavirus-trade-disruptions-idUSKBN22C1TY" target="_blank">bigger shipments</a> </span><span style="background-color: initial;">to Europe, which are easier to detect. Drug shortages can push down consumption, but they also raise prices on the street, which can stoke violence over smuggling routes and markets. More broadly, with the coronavirus pandemic set to plunge </span><a href="https://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/half-billion-people-could-be-pushed-poverty-coronavirus-warns-oxfam" target="_blank">as many as 500 million people into poverty</a><span style="background-color: initial;">, the UN warns that as economies </span><span style="background-color: initial;">open up</span><span style="background-color: initial;"> again, traffickers will have a huge group of willing, vulnerable recruits.</span><br/></p><span style="background-color: initial;"></span><p><strong>ISIS exploits Iraq's COVID crisis – </strong>We previously <a href="https://www.gzeromedia.com/how-coronavirus-helps-terrorists-traffickers-and-militants" target="_self">wrote</a> about the fear that militant groups might take advantage of the coronavirus crisis to wreak havoc as governments are distracted. That's precisely what's playing out in <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/isis-exploits-iraqs-coronavirus-lockdowns-to-step-up-attacks/2020/05/07/1513edee-8f98-11ea-9322-a29e75effc93_story.html" target="_blank">Iraq</a>, where ISIS has exploited COVID-19 lockdowns in recent weeks to launch fresh attacks in urban areas like Baghdad and Kirkuk, killing scores of Iraqi soldiers. Although ISIS holds little of the territory it once ruled (mostly in rural areas) the group has more breathing room now as Iraqi security forces are stretched thin policing the public's compliance with lockdown requirements. The surge in violence comes as the Iraqi government struggles to fill the security void left by the US decision to <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/world-report/articles/2020-03-20/coronavirus-spread-forces-some-us-troops-out-of-iraq" target="_blank">withdraw</a> its own troops because of coronavirus concerns. (In a blow to the Iraqi government, US-led coalition forces that played a central role in the fight to defeat ISIS had already started withdrawing from Iraq as part of a planned troop drawdown.) Even before the COVID-19 crisis, Iraq was plagued by political instability, having failed to install a stable prime minister for five months<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/06/world/middleeast/iraq-prime-minister-mustafa-khadimi.html" target="_blank"> until yesterday</a>, while also facing rising <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/01/22/798492825/we-are-not-going-to-leave-iraqs-protests-escalate" target="_blank">popular unrest </a>over corruption and economic stagnation.</p>
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