Heroin Republic Of Kosovo And Its Secret Of Success

International donors - mainly the EU and the US - have pledged a total of 1.2bn Euros to help rebuild Kosovo at an international conference in Brussels. Over the last 10 years, some $5bn has been pumped into Kosovo, a tiny enclave that back in 2000 was already supplying up to 40% of heroin sold in Europe and North America.

There definitely is a lesson for Africa: to attract Western aid, one only needs to start drug trafficking on a VERY large scale and make sure that it steadily grows, like Afghanistan did: under the tender NATO rule opium production there tripled between 1996 and 2006. Still the president of the country that makes 4 billion a year only in raw opiates manages to squeeze 13 billion Euros in G7 aid pledges after asking for 30. What a panache, something to learn for Ethiopia.