( dpa ) - The United States Friday singled out Burma and Venezuela as the worst failures in upholding international commitments to block illegal narcotics.
Venezuela has become a major transshipment point to Europe and the United States, and Burma is now the largest source of methamphetamine pills in Asia, the US said in its annual International Narcotics Control Strategy Report for Congress.
The other countries named in the report as major drug producing and transit countries were Afghanistan, The Bahamas, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Haiti, India, Jamaica, Laos, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, Panama, Paraguay and Peru.
In Venezuela, the US said the report would justify funding for civil society groups "and other beleaguered democratic institutions" for the "benefit of the Venezuelan people."
Burma has compensated for declining poppy cultivation by boosting its export of synthetic drugs, and seems to tolerate and even encourage the "criminality" of suspected drug traffickers, the report said.