KOMOTINI, GREECE, Oct 15, 2007 (AFP) - A Greek court has sentenced a Turkish man and his German girlfriend to 20 years behind bars for drug smuggling after 67 kilos (148 pounds) of heroin was found in their luggage, a local justice source said Monday.

Turkish Erik Tselik, 28, and his 26-year-old German girlfriend Beate Foil, both of whom live in Munich, were arrested in August 2006 at the Greek-Turkish border.

At the time, border guards found the cache of heroin, worth over one million euros (1.41 million dollars), in the pair's dirty laundry, the source said.

NOUAKCHOTT, Oct 4, 2007 (AFP) - An appeals court in Mauritania has dropped money laundering charges brought against two lawyers defending a drug trafficker, the state prosecutor said Thursday.

Prosecutors had last month charged Mohamed Ould Ahmed Salem and Khattry Ould Ahmed for money laundering after they received tens of thousands of euros believed to have been advance payment for their services in the defence of a suspected Mauritanian trafficker.

KANO, Nigeria, Oct 3, 2007 (AFP) - A high court in north Nigeria adjourned Wednesday to November 6 a criminal case over an alleged illegal drug test brought by Kano State government against the US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer.

The Kano high court ordered the state police to deliver a summons to Pfizer and its nine staff named in the suit, all US citizens living in the United States.

KANO, Nigeria, Oct 3, 2007 (AFP) - A high court in north Nigeria adjourned Wednesday to November 6 a criminal case over an alleged illegal drug test brought by Kano State government against the US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer.

The Kano high court ordered the state police to deliver a summons to Pfizer and its nine staff named in the suit, all US citizens living in the United States.

THE HAGUE, Sept 28, 2007 (AFP) - Dutch customs police screening cargo coming into the port of Rotterdam have seized a massive 1.67-tonne load of cocaine hidden in a shipment from Costa Rica, the ANP news agency reported Friday.

The drug was sniffed out by customs dogs going over a coffee container two weeks ago. The value of the haul was put at 40 million euros (60 million dollars).

Three suspects at the delivery address on the shipment were arrested.

WARSAW, Sept 28, 2007 (AFP) - Polish police announced Friday that they had busted the largest secret laboratory ever to be found turning out amphetamines for a drug trafficking ring.

The lab was hidden in a small country home outside Warsaw, and its eight production lines were capable of making 80 kilogrammes of the illegal drug in a two-day process.

'It is a largest laboratory ever broken up in Poland, with the highest number of production lines,' police said in a statement.

In their raid, police seized chemicals used in the manufacturing of amphetamines.

DAKAR, Sept 25, 2007 (AFP) - Guinea Bissau, a key transit point for international drug traffickers, could pose the greatest threat to stability in west Africa unless the international community steps in to quickly crackdown on the cartels setting up base there, a UN expert warned on Tuesday.

Amado Philip de Andres, deputy representative of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) in west Africa, told reporters on the sidelines of a regional anti-terrorism workshop that cash-strapped and poorly policed Guinea urgently needed help to safeguard regional peace.

NOUAKCHOTT, Sept 20, 2007 (AFP) - Two lawyers defending a drug trafficker have been charged with money laundering after they received 200,000 euros believed to be advance payment for their services, a Mauritanian prosecutor said Thursday.

Prosecutors said they believe the money was wired to them by a suspected Mauritanian trafficker.

'The two lawyers defending one of the accused persons in the drug trafficking case were charged (on Wednesday) for involvement in money laundering .. and use of criminally-generated money,' acting prosecutor Ahmed Ould Abdellahi told AFP.

DUSHANBE, Sept 19, 2007 (AFP) - Tajik police burned Wednesday more than 700 kilogrammes (1550 pounds) of heroin, opium and cannabis from Afghanistan with an estimated market value of three million dollars (2.2 million euros).

'We burned 155 kilogrammes of heroin, more than 500 kilogrammes of opium and 80 kilogrammes of cannabis seized over the past few months from 170 drug traffickers,' said the country's top narcotics fighter Faizullo Gadoyev.

BEIJING, Sept 16, 2007 (AFP) - Chinese authorities have ordered the recall of two contaminated leukaemia drugs blamed for adverse reactions among child patients, state media reported Sunday.

Most of the drugs, produced by a pharmaceutical company in Shanghai, have already been recovered and authorities have tracked down the remainder, Xinhua news agency reported, quoting the Shanghai government.

GENEVA, Sept 7, 2007 (AFP) - NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer on Friday said the Afghan government and international aid agencies needed to do more to stifle the country's burgeoning illicit heroin exports.

'NATO has not prime or even secondary responsibility, the international community -- first and foremost the Afghan government -- they should absolutely do more and be more active in the poppy fields than they are at the moment, they are primarily responsible,' he said.

BEIJING, Sept 6, 2007 (AFP) - Chinese quality inspectors seized more than 10 tonnes of potentially unsafe alcohol and related ingredients on the first day of a crackdown on producers of dodgy spirits, state media reported on Thursday.

Inspectors in the four eastern provinces of Zhejiang, Fujian, Anhui and Jiangxi raided 144 alcohol production facilities, 23 of which were found to be unlicensed, the China Daily newspaper said.

DUBLIN , Aug 30, 2007 (AFP) - Irish customs said Thursday they had made their biggest-ever seizure of heroin, concealed in wood-burning stoves arriving in Dublin by ship from the Netherlands.

The customs said in a statement they had seized 12 kilograms (26 pounds) of heroin, worth an estimated 2.4 million euros (3.3 million dollars), and 2.5 kilograms of cocaine, worth about 175,000 euros.

'Customs officers uncovered ten blocks of heroin and two blocks of cocaine in total,' said Rory O'Connor, head of customs in the port.

BEIJING, Aug 23, 2007 (AFP) - China launched Thursday a campaign to improve the quality of its consumer products in a bid to restore confidence in its industries, which have been plagued by recent safety scandals.

Vice Premier Wu Yi told a conference here that standards of food, drug, agricultural and other products, including those for exports, have to markedly improve before year's end.

TEHRAN, Aug 18, 2007 (AFP) - Iran has arrested 85 African nationals in a crackdown on an international drug trafficking network, Iran's anti-narcotics police chief was quoted as saying on Saturday.

'In the operation, 90 members of the group including 85 Africans from Tanzania, Nigeria and Ghana as well as two Pakistanis were arrested,' Commander Hamid Reza Hosseinabadi said, quoted by the semi-official Fars news agency.

LAGOS, Aug 15, 2007 (AFP) - A Nigerian man arrested at Lagos airport on his way to London had swallowed 1.1 kilograms (2.4 pounds) of a substance thought to be cocaine, wrapped into small packages, media reported Wednesday.

Mohammed Babatunde Jamiu, 43, was arrested Monday with the suspected drugs in his stomach. He has since excreted about 100 of the packages, the reports said.

He told journalists shortly after his arrest: 'I did it to help my family. I am a family man with two kids.'

SAN FRANCISCO, Aug 14, 2007 (AFP) - Young adults who use methamphetamine could be more prone to age-related brain diseases long after they stop using the drug, according to new animal research published Tuesday.

Scientists were working on the previous hypothesis that early meth abuse can cause the same symptoms as those experienced by Parkinson's disease patients who are missing a key protein, said the findings in the journal Neuroscience.

SAN FRANCISCO, Aug 14, 2007 (AFP) - Young adults who use methamphetamine could be more prone to age-related brain diseases long after they stop using the drug, according to new animal research published Tuesday.

Scientists were working on the previous hypothesis that early meth abuse can cause the same symptoms as those experienced by Parkinson's disease patients who are missing a key protein, said the findings in the journal Neuroscience.

LONDON, Aug 14, 2007 (AFP) - British pharmaceutical group GlaxoSmithKline announced Tuesday that US regulators have agreed to review Rotarix, a vaccine for children to prevent a deadly diarrhoea-inducing bug.

The review process by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is the last hurdle before a possible green light to market the product in the United States.

LONDON, Aug 14, 2007 (AFP) - British pharmaceutical group GlaxoSmithKline announced Tuesday that US regulators have agreed to review Rotarix, a vaccine for children to prevent a deadly diarrhoea-inducing bug.

The review process by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is the last hurdle before a possible green light to market the product in the United States.

LAGOS, Aug 9, 2007 (AFP) - A London-bound plane remained grounded in Lagos for a second day Thursday following the arrest of a Nigerian crew member caught with 1.7 kilograms of cocaine, officials said.

'Virgin Atlantic can confirm that the VS652 flight due to operate from Lagos to Heathrow is currently delayed in Lagos,' Virgin Nigeria Airways said in a statement.

The plane was due to fly out on Wednesday but the flight was delayed as Nigerian authorities wanted to carry out a 'customs investigation.'

SAO PAULO, Aug 7, 2007 (AFP) - Colombian native Juan Carlos Ramirez Abadia, one of the most sought-after suspected drug traffickers by the US Drug Enforcement Agency, was arrested Tuesday in Sao Paulo, Brazilian police said.

As head of the Valle del Norte cartel, he is suspected of involvement in hundreds of killings in Colombia and the United States, mainly of police and informers, a police spokesman told AFP.

PRETORIA, Aug 6, 2007 (AFP) - South Africa on Monday stated its readiness to assist Guinea Bissau in tackling drug trafficking as the tiny west African nation has been used as a transit hub for European-bound cocaine.

Speaking to reporters after a meeting with Guinea Bissau Prime Minister Martinho Ndafa Cabi, South African deputy president Phumzile Mlambo Ngcuka said that her country was prepared to assist Guinea Bissau with training and building resources to fight against the drug menace.

RUFISQUE, Senegal, Aug 2, 2007 (AFP) - Authorities in Senegal on Thursday incinerated nearly 2.5 tonnes of cocaine seized weeks ago in a record drug haul in western Africa.

The contraband went up in smoke at a giant furnace at a cement factory in Rufisque, about 30 kilometres (19 miles) east of the capital.

Police estimated that the 2.475 kilos of cocaine was valued at 229 million euros (312 million dollars).

WASHINGTON, July 30, 2007 (AFP) - An independent committee of experts consulted by the US Food and Drug Administration Monday ruled in favor of keeping the diabetes drug Avandia on the market despite its increased risk for heart problems, an FDA spokesman said.

By a 20-3 vote, the FDA Advisory Committee agreed that current clinical trials showed Avandia, produced by GlaxoSmithKline, increased the risk of heart attack in people suffering from type 2 diabetes, said Sandy Walsh.