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WORLD NEWS Wednesday 11 January 2023
Despite record cocaine seizures, drug cartels roil Europe

By RAF CASERT twerp, made for another
Associated Press record year.
ANTWERP, Belgium (AP) — Among high-profile murder
Each tiny plastic package victims in the Netherlands in
was barely the size of a fin- recent years were a lawyer
gernail and weighed all of representing a witness in a
0.2 grams. Still, the bags of drug gangsters’ trial and
white powder police seized crime reporter Peter R. de
in a Brussels cellar were yet Vries, who was a confidant
another indication that a to the same witness.
surge in cocaine and crack Unspecified threats to the
supply is hitting Europe heir to the Dutch throne,
hard. Princess Amalia, forced
And, with it, comes unprec- her last year to abandon
edented drug violence in student life in Amsterdam
Belgium and the Nether- and return home. Security
lands, whose ports of Ant- reportedly also has been
werp and Rotterdam have beefed up around Prime
proven the main gateway Minister Mark Rutte. In both
for Latin American cocaine cases, it’s suspected that
cartels into the continent. drugs-related crime is a
In Belgium, the justice minis- factor.
ter is forced to live in a safe- And in places like Brussels,
house, out of reach of drug Chief police inspector of the Brussels Morolles neighbourhood, Kris Verborgh shows a package of where the violence might
gangs. crack cocaine in Brussels, Monday, Jan. 9, 2023. Associated Press be less spectacular, co-
In the Netherlands, killings caine and crack are start-
hit ever more prominent than twice the amount grenade attacks, fires and become so bad that even ing to have a chilling effect
people and there are sus- confiscated five years ago. small bombs often linked Justice Minister Vincent in areas like the Marolles,
picions that the reason the “It astounded us,” said Bel- to gangs trying to carve up Van Quickenborne, is liv- a neighborhood so folksy
heir to the Dutch throne gian Finance Minister Vin- the thriving cocaine trade. ing in hiding after evidence quaint it figured in Tintin’s
had to quit her student life cent Van Peteghem. “It On Monday evening, the emerged drugs gangs cartoon adventures.
and return home was also also means the drugs that city better known for paint- might be seeking to kidnap The chief police inspector
linked to threats from drug are entering Europe (unde- er Peter-Paul Rubens and him, or worse. for the neighborhood, Kris
lords. tected) through our ports a famed fashion school In the Netherlands too, Verborgh, said South Amer-
“We almost have to see it are also rising. And that, saw the fatal shooting of home to the global port ican cocaine “seems to be
as a war,” said Aukje de Vr- of course, has a huge im- a child, likely an unwitting of Rotterdam, murder and or seems to have become
ies, the Dutch State Secre- pact,” he told The Associ- victim of the drug war. intimidation have become the new normal.”
tary for customs. ated Press. “A girl of barely 11 that ob- increasingly common as Verborgh says the cost of
Officials in Belgium’s north- Because with cocaine viously has nothing to do drug lords go to extreme the base product in Colom-
ern port of Antwerp on comes not only addiction, with crime gangs is now the lengths to protect their cut bia amounts to some 500
Tuesday announced yet decay and death, but also victim of narco terror that is of the multibillion euro (dol- euros ($536) a kilogram.
another annual record in violence and gang war- turning ever more ruthless,” lar) market. A kilogram of the finished
cocaine seizures last year: fare. said Antwerp Prosecutor And 50 tons of cocaine product can turn into some
110 tons, 23% up com- In the past three years Ant- Franky De Keyzer. were seized there last year 70,000 euros on Belgium’s
pared to 2021 and more werp has suffered dozens of The situation in Belgium has which, combined with An- streets. q

Lebanese Hezbollah condemns Charlie Hebdo cartoons in France

BEIRUT (AP) — Lebanon’s comment from France. rocking Iran.
militant Hezbollah group on Charlie Hebdo has a long One of the finalists depicts
Tuesday condemned the history of publishing vul- a turbaned cleric reaching
cartoons published recent- gar cartoons mocking Is- for a hangman’s noose as
ly by the French satirical lamists, which critics say are he drowns in blood, while
magazine Charlie Hebdo deeply insulting to Muslims. another shows Khamenei
that mocked Iran’s ruling Two French-born al-Qaida clinging to a giant throne
clerics and urged France to extremists attacked the above the raised fists of
punish the publication. newspaper’s office in 2015, protesters. Others depict
The Iran-backed Hezbollah killing 12 cartoonists, and it more vulgar and sexually
said the offensive carica- has been the target of oth- explicit scenes.
tures were an “ugly act by er attacks over the years. “We call upon the French
the magazine” that target- Its latest issue features the government to take de-
ed Iran’s Supreme Leader winners of a recent cartoon cisive measures to punish

A Hezbollah supporter holds up a picture of the leader of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, contest in which entrants those behind the act for
Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan revered as the spiritual were asked to draw the attacking dignitaries of a
Nasrallah, during a ceremony to mark the third anniversary leader for tens of millions of most offensive caricatures whole nation,” Hezbollah
of the assassination of Iran’s Quds force General Qassem pious Shiites throughout the of Khamenei. The contest said in a statement. “The
Soleimani, who was killed in a U.S. drone strike in Baghdad, in world, including in Leba- was billed as a show of French government ...
the southern Beirut suburb of Dahiyeh, Lebanon, on Jan. 3, 2023. non. support for the monthslong should not be a partner in
Associated Press
There was no immediate anti-government protests this offense.”q