U.N

Feb. 27 (UPI) — The global cocaine market is the fastest-growing segment of the illicit drug trade, driven by rising production in South America and increasing demand in Africa and Asia, according to a United Nations report released this week.

Ecuador, meanwhile, has become one of the countries most affected by violence and the expansion of drug trafficking routes, the report said.

The findings appear in the 2025 report of the International Narcotics Control Board, the U.N. body responsible for monitoring compliance with international drug control treaties. It was published Thursday.

Global cocaine production exceeded 3,700 metric tons in 2023, a 34% increase compared with 2022, according to the control board.

The expansion is largely attributed to Colombia, where both the area under illicit coca cultivation and the production capacity of clandestine laboratories increased.

“The global cocaine market continues to expand and diversify,” the board said, warning that trafficking routes now reach “all regions of the world.”

While Western and Central Europe and North America remain the main destination markets, the report highlights rising consumption and seizures in Africa and parts of Asia.

In Africa, seizures rose 48% in 2023 compared with the previous year, which the report said reflects an expanding market rather than merely a transit region.

Between 2013 and 2023, the number of cocaine users worldwide increased from 17 million to 25 million, according to U.N. data.

Against this backdrop, Ecuador has emerged as a critical hub.

“In South America, the impact of increased cocaine trafficking has been felt particularly in Ecuador, which in recent years has experienced a wave of lethal violence caused by both local and transnational criminal groups,” the control board said.

Ecuadorian authorities seized more than 290 metric tons of cocaine in 2024, an unprecedented figure and approximately 30% higher than in 2023.

The surge in trafficking has coincided with a deterioration in security. The country recorded 6,964 violent deaths in 2024, with a homicide rate of 38.76 per 100,000 inhabitants, meaning the rate has quintupled over five years.

The report notes that Ecuador has become a major maritime export hub for cocaine shipments bound for the European Union.

In March 2025, Ecuadorian and European authorities dismantled an intercontinental criminal network that shipped tons of cocaine in maritime containers from South America to Europe.

In that operation, 73 metric tons of cocaine were seized in Ecuador and several European Union countries. Authorities arrested 14 people in Germany and Spain and 36 in the port city of Guayaquil, according to the report.

The control board also warned that traffickers are using increasingly sophisticated concealment methods to evade controls, including chemically altering cocaine to hinder detection during routine inspections, embedding the drug in plastics and textiles and using double-bottom compartments in legitimate goods.

Offshore deliveries coordinated through geolocation systems have also been seen.

As an example, the report cited the 2024 seizure of 13 metric tons of cocaine at the port of Algeciras in Spain, hidden in a shipment of bananas from Ecuador and described as the largest cocaine seizure in the country’s history.

The report further warns that sustained increases in production and the diversification of routes reflect a structural transformation of the global cocaine market, with criminal networks operating in an increasingly transnational manner and with greater logistical capacity.

The board stressed that the phenomenon is no longer limited to traditional production or consumption regions but now involves multiple continents at different stages of the drug trafficking chain.

Feb. 24 (UPI) — The United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday adopted a resolution calling for an immediate, full and unconditional cease-fire in Russia’s war in Ukraine, despite the United States’ abstention and a failed U.S. bid to strip language identifying the Kremlin’s aggression.

The 193-member body met on the fourth anniversary of Moscow’s full-scale invasion and voted 107 in favor, 12 against and 51 abstentions to adopt the “Support for lasting peace in Ukraine” resolution.

President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine thanked the nations for standing with Ukraine against Russia’s invasion.

“These are the right and necessary steps,” he said on social media. “And we will keep working actively to achieve peace, together with our partners.”

Among nations that abstained in the vote were China and the United States.

Washington had proposed a motion of division to vote separately on two paragraphs in the resolution, but it failed in an 11-69 vote, with 62 abstentions.

Ukraine had staunchly objected to the U.S. motion.

“Weakening or removing this language would send a very dangerous signal that these principles are negotiable,” Deputy Foreign Minister Mariana Betsa of Ukraine said, describing the motion as “deeply concerning and cannot be accepted.”

Tammy Bruce, deputy U.S. representative to the United Nations, said the war must end now, but that it “will require sacrifices and compromises” and called on “everyone to do all in their power to lower the rhetoric and engage in good faith.”

“As we’ve said, this resolution also includes language that is likely to distract from ongoing negotiations, rather than support discussion on the full range of diplomatic avenues that may pave the way to that durable peace,” she said.

“For this reason, the United States called for a vote on the two paragraphs and ultimately chose to abstain on the resolution.”

The move underscores the United States’ drift from Ukraine and its European allies under the Trump administration, which is seeking its own end to the war. It also aligns with Russia, whose deputy permanent representative, Anna Evstigneeva, told the Assembly that diplomacy is what is needed, not declarations, and that the U.N. resolution disregards Trump’s negotiations “to find a compromise.”

“Do not fall for it,” she said. “What you have before you is not an instrument of peace, it is an instrument of politicization.”

Russia began the war on Feb. 24, 2022, when it launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine under the pretense of a special military operation to denazify its neighbor.

In the four years of war, Russia and its economy have been saddled with thousands of sanctions that have seen it turn to Iran, China and even North Korea for assistance, weapons and even foreign soldiers.

According to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Russia has suffered an estimated 1.2 million casualties and as many as 325,000 killed.

Ukraine has suffered about 55,000 soldiers killed in the war, according to Zelensky. About 20% of its territory has been illegally occupied by Russian forces. Russia has also been accused of unlawful deportation and unlawful transfer of Ukrainian children from occupied areas of Ukraine to Russia.

Russia is also being accused of weaponizing winter in an effort to break Ukraine’s resilience by depriving millions of electricity, heating and water amid freezing temperatures, Betsa told reporters in a press conference at the U.N. General Assembly with allied nations behind her.

“We reaffirm our unwavering commitment to ensure full accountability for crimes committed under international law,” she said. “Justice for victims is not optional.”

General Assembly Vice President Tania Serafim Yvonne Romulado, delivering remarks by the assembly’s president, Annalena Baerbock, emphasized that it was a permanent member of the Security Council who “continues to inflict untold suffering on the Ukrainian people” in violation of the U.N. Charter.

Nearly four million people are internally displaced, 5.7 million live as refugees and nearly one-third of Ukraine’s population, more than half of all children, have been forced to flee.

“We cannot allow the violation of international law to become the norm, and we must safeguard the founding principles of our Charter,” she said.

“And this Assembly can lead the way.”