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| Friday, 16 April 2004 |
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The Government of the United States of America under Grant Agreement with the Colombo Plan has provided US$110,000 to the Colombo Plan Drug Advisory Programme (DAP) to enable the conduct of two regional narcotics training courses for law enforcement officers from South Asian countries and Afghanistan, as a new initiative. The DAP will coordinate with the officials of the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DAE) in providing the training. The training programmes are expected to be held in mid this year in the Maldives with assistance of the Narcotics Control Bureau and Customs Department of Maldives, states a Colombo Plan Secretariat press release. The objective of this initiative is to enhance the narcotics law enforcement officers' capability and enable regional cooperation among law enforcement agencies of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. The US Department of State, Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) support these training courses with the aim of enabling the participating countries to cooperate regionally to implement anti-drug and anti-crime standards. The expected immediate outcome is upgraded knowledge and skills to combat narcotics trafficking, money laundering and organised crime. Consequent to successful completion of these trainings, in the long term it is expected to enhance existing linkages or establish new linkages, greater intelligence gathering and networking among the trainees, through which increased arrests and convictions of narcotics law violaters, seizures and destruction of narcotics contraband in the Colombo Plan member countries. At a brief ceremony held at the US Embassy, Colombo on March 18 the cheque was presented to Kittipan Kanjanapipatkul, Secretary General of the Colombo Plan by US Ambassador in Colombo, Jeffrey J. Lunstead. Also present were Ms. Nancy Corson, Representative from DEA, US Department of Justice, Ronald Khan, DEA Agent attached to US Embassy, New Delhi and Tay Bian How, Director, Colombo Plan Drug Advisory Programme. Acceping the cheque Kittipan Kanjanapipatkul thanked the Government of the United States particularly the INL of the US Department of State for their unstinted support to the Colombo Plan DAP since its inception in 1972. The DAP has been the prime mover of drug demand reduction programmes in the Asia-Pacific region particularly focusing on human resources development. |
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