Asia’s Opium Resurgence   

By 2005, Laos was proclaiming itself to be opium free, while the United Nations reported that Burma’s harvests had fallen by more than 50 percent from their peak. Indeed, the following year, then-UN Office on Drugs and Crime Executive Director Antonio Maria Costa predicted that the days of the Golden Triangle were numbered. The optimism was apparently misplaced. Last year’s annual UN opium survey for Southeast Asia reported a 22 percent increase in opium poppy cultivation on a year earlier, while in Laos production surged 55 percent. (The Diplomat)

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New PM Faces Chinese Influence   

Laos' newly-appointed prime minister is more pro-Vietnam than his predecessor but may have to contend with giant neighbor China's rapidly rising influence on his country, analysts say. (Radio Free Asia)

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