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Hi again, this is such a long thread since the last time I finished reading it last night, LOL

I haven't kept current with the present POPPY HARVEST; however, I do know that BBC has featured several stories the past couple months about projects to get farmers to plant something ELSE.

For instance the last time I heard about this, they were teaching farmers in one district how to grow pistachio nuts; I think that the previous feature was about growing flowers for export. NOT poppies, but flowers for Western florists.

For a while it seemed to me that the poppy harvest was BEING PROTECTED, but nowadays not so.

I am deeply concerned that so little is available about the presence of the Chinese in Afghanistan where I understand that they send their military to protect their factories.

ALSO, the very first reports about Afghanistan in the days after 911 was that large numbers of Chinese troops were there --- HOWEVER, maybe that was because they were seen in large numbers in some commercial district containing lots of Chinese owned factories.

I simply don't know.