The western Canadian province of British Columbia began a three-year pilot program to stop prosecuting people for carrying small amounts of heroin, meth, ecstasy, or crack cocaine, as part of an effort to fight a drug overdose crisis.
B.C. is at the epicenter of Canada's drug overdose and trafficking crisis that has killed more than 32,000 nationally since 2016. Preliminary data showed there were 2,272 suspected illicit drug toxicity deaths in 2022, the second largest annual number ever recorded, behind 2021, which had 34 more deaths.
A rapidly expanding cemetery in a southern Russian village offers insight into the convicts who are fighting - and dying - for the secretive mercenary army of Wagner Group. There were around 200 graves at the site on the outskirts of Bakinskaya village in Krasnodar region when Reuters visited in late January.
Many of the men buried at Bakinskaya were convicts who were recruited by Wagner last year after its founder, Yevgeny Prigozhin, promised a pardon if prisoners survived six months at the front, this reporting showed.
Frustration simmered among residents and business groups in China navigating stricter COVID control curbs as the country reported another record high of daily infections just weeks after hopes had been raised of easing measures.
The resurgence of COVID cases in China, with 32,695 new local infections recorded for Thursday as numerous cities report outbreaks, has prompted widespread lockdowns, as well as pushback.
China's COVID response is taking a mounting toll on the world's second-largest economy, and its central bank made a widely-anticipated move of support, cutting the amount of cash that banks must hold as reserves.
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Reply to Canada's British Columbia tries decriminalizing drugs to fight overdose crisis by reuters
The western Canadian province of British Columbia began a three-year pilot program to stop prosecuting people for carrying small amounts of heroin, meth, ecstasy, or crack cocaine, as part of an effort to fight a drug overdose crisis.
B.C. is at the epicenter of Canada's drug overdose and trafficking crisis that has killed more than 32,000 nationally since 2016. Preliminary data showed there were 2,272 suspected illicit drug toxicity deaths in 2022, the second largest annual number ever recorded, behind 2021, which had 34 more deaths.
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