NEW Biscuits with possible plastic pieces, metal found in ground pork: Here are the recalls for this week
Here are the latest recalls Canadians should watch out for, according to Health Canada and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.
The Biden administration has quietly ditched a key gauge used for decades to measure success in the war on drugs, suspending satellite monitoring of coca crops in Colombia as cocaine production surges in South America.
A State Department spokesperson said the move was "temporary" but gave no timeframe for data collection to resume or explain why it was suspended in the first place. It was also unclear whether satellite surveys would continue in Peru and Bolivia, which together account for about half of coca production in the Andean region.
The move, first reported by Colombia's El Tiempo newspaper, has drawn outrage from Republicans in Congress from Florida, who have been calling for the president to decertify Colombia's government for failing to cooperate in U.S. anti-narcotics efforts. But it tracks with leftist Colombian President Gustavo Petro's efforts to refocus law enforcement efforts away from the rural backwaters where coca is grown to instead chase large-scale smugglers and money launderers who reap the bulk of the drug trade's profits.
"We are constantly assessing the effectiveness of various counternarcotics efforts and make changes to our efforts as needed," the State Department spokesperson said in an emailed statement. The spokesperson gave the comment on condition of anonymity, citing agency policy. "We continue to work with the Government of Colombia on the monitoring of illicit coca crops."
Since at least 1987, the U.S. government has published annual estimates of coca cultivation in Colombia. The numbers soared to an all-time high in 2020, when the U.S. Office of National Drug Control Policy estimated that 245,00 hectares of land -- an area three times the size of New York City -- was planted with the illicit crop used to make cocaine. Last year's report showed production was almost unchanged in 2021 from the same high level.
In the first five months of 2023, Petro's government has manually eradicated just 4,511 hectares of coca -- down almost 90% from the 33,454 hectares yanked during the same period a year ago, when the law and order conservative Ivan Duque was still in power.
While the U.S. hasn't commented on what prompted the policy shift, Republicans have seized on it to attack Petro, a former leftist guerrilla, as he seeks better ties with Venezuela's socialist government and tries to cut a deal with the nation's last remaining rebel group.
"This is a gift to the Petro Administration," Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, the vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and a senior member of the Committee on Foreign Relations, said in a statement to The Associated Press. "It's another example of the Biden Administration giving concessions to far-left governments in the region."
Petro has pushed back, arguing that the U.S. would be wise to refocus its attention on the fentanyl crisis, which is blamed for tens of thousands of overdose deaths.
"Things change," he wrote in a Tweet this week in response to attacks from Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar, a Miami Republican who chairs a subcommittee of the House Foreign Affairs Committee dealing with Latin America. Without directly addressing questions about the future of the U.S. coca monitoring effort he said "the structure of drug consumption is changing for the worse, reducing demand for cocaine, which is starting to flow to other parts of the planet."
Adam Isacson, the director for defense oversight at the Washington Office on Latin America, said that satellite monitoring of coca crops offers valuable insights into Colombia's ability to assert state control in remote, economically depressed areas that have long been dominated by illegal armed groups.
But as a tool for estimating cocaine flows it's less reliable than other measures that have remained mostly stable in recent years like data on cocaine purity, street prices and overdose deaths. Additionally, the United Nations in conjunction with Colombian authorities annually conducts its own survey of coca cultivation that combines satellite data with on-the-ground verification.
Still, he suspects politics also may have played a role in the U.S. decision to pull the plug.
"If you put a lot of weight on hectares you're on a collision course with the Petro government, which doesn't want to make eradication the center of its narcotics strategy," he said. "The U.S. may be calculating it doesn't need a major irritant with its closest military ally in the hemisphere."
The Biden administration has tried to delicately downplay policy differences with Colombia's first-ever leftist government on narcotics, trade, negotiations with armed rebel groups and sanctions on Venezuela's socialist government, emphasizing instead the more than two decades of close bilateral cooperation.
The diplomatic dance has yielded some positive results. Petro visited the White House in April and spoke alongside Biden about a "common agenda" to fight climate change and address migration. A few days later, the U.S. said it would launch a processing center in Colombia to handle growing numbers of migrants from Venezuela and elsewhere in South America seeking entry into the U.S.
"We are going down the same river, a river that leads us to ever-greater democracy and ever-greater freedom," Petro said at the White House.
The State Department spokesperson said that disrupting cocaine trafficking remains a "high priority" because it foments violence, crime and death throughout the hemisphere.
The White House's drug policy coordination office, which every July releases the coca monitoring report, did not respond to a request for comment.
------
AP Writer Juan Francisco Valbuena in Bogota, Colombia, contributed to this report.
Here are the latest recalls Canadians should watch out for, according to Health Canada and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.
A new poll suggests a majority of Canadians feel their right to freedom of speech is in danger.
A source close to singer Britney Spears tells CNN that the pop star is 'home and safe' after she had a 'major fight' with her boyfriend on Wednesday night at the Chateau Marmont in West Hollywood.
Police moved in to clear an encampment at New York University on Friday at the request of school officials, a move that follows weeks of pro-Palestinian protests at college campuses nationwide that have resulted in nearly 2,200 arrests by police.
The federal government will provide Toronto just over $104 million in funding to host the 2026 FIFA World Cup.
Emotional support animal registrations in the United States reached 115,832 last year, by an industry group’s count. But in the eyes of reptile rescuer Joie Henney, there’s only one: 'Wally Gator.'
Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit has released new details about a wrong-way collision in Whitby on Monday night that claimed the lives of four people.
Danny DeVito had the opportunity to know way more about Drew Barrymore than the rest of us.
What do you need to pack for a cruise? When it comes to this upcoming cruise from tour and travel company Bare Necessities, the answer appears to be very little.
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
A group of SaskPower workers recently received special recognition at the legislature – for their efforts in repairing one of Saskatchewan's largest power plants after it was knocked offline for months following a serious flood last summer.
A police officer on Montreal's South Shore anonymously donated a kidney that wound up drastically changing the life of a schoolteacher living on dialysis.
Since 1932, Montreal's Henri Henri has been filled to the brim with every possible kind of hat, from newsboy caps to feathered fedoras.
Police in Oak Bay, B.C., had to close a stretch of road Sunday to help an elephant seal named Emerson get safely back into the water.
Out of more than 9,000 entries from over 2,000 breweries in 50 countries, a handful of B.C. brews landed on the podium at the World Beer Cup this week.
Raneem, 10, lives with a neurological condition and liver disease and needs Cholbam, a medication, for a longer and healthier life.
The lawyer for a residential school survivor leading a proposed class-action defamation lawsuit against the Catholic Church over residential schools says the court action is a last resort.