West and Central Africa appear to the be source of a sharp increase since 2008 in illegal trade in ivory, with China as the main destination, according to Traffic, a group that monitors ivory trade. Trafficking has doubled, the group reports. The suspected increase is based on quantities of ivory seized, which are likely only a fraction of the traffic, the group says. No explanation is given for the increase, but the analysis was done in advance of a Cites meeting to review ivory trade. Cites, Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, is an international agreement to which countries are signatories.
Samantha Orobator of the UK was given a life sentence for drug trafficking rather than the usual death penalty, and it appears she may be able to serve her sentence in the UK, reports the Telegraph, UK. She was charged with carrying 680 grams of heroin when she tried to board a flight from Laos to Thailand in August 2008. While Laos sentences people to death for drugs there have reportedly been no executions since 1989. Orobator became pregnant while in prison, but little information about her situation has been made public.
Mexican police are staging one of their biggest operations in years to try “to prevent a collapse in law and order just south of the US border,” reports Reuters. Ciudad Juarez, a desert city just south of El Paso, Texas, has been the scene for several months of a bloody war between police and drug cartels working with corrupt police officers. The city is at the heart of a major drug trafficking route.
