1.   Experts said the Taliban, which profited from the opium crops, instituted the ban to increase prices so that existing stockpiles would rise in value.

2.   The aid was to cover agricultural supplies and eventually some light manufacturing to supply jobs in areas where the opium crop is important to family earnings.

3.   However, Kyaw Thein noted that farmers in those areas who had joined crop substitution programs were also hurt by the lack of rain which affected the opium crop.

4.   Hundreds of soldiers arrived in a remote corner of northwestern Pakistan on Tuesday to destroy opium crops, the raw material used to make heroin.

5.   Khun Sa has at various times offered to sell his opium crop to the United States and retire if he is allowed to live in peace.

6.   Khun Sa recently offered to sell his opium crop to the United States and disband his army if he is allowed to retire in peace.

7.   Much of the opium crop is refined into heroin and shipped abroad.

8.   On several occasions, he offered to sell his opium crop to the U.S. government.

9.   One possibility, he said, was the creation of incentives to induce farmers to plow under their opium crop.

10.   The latest aerial survey of opium cultivation in Burma, to be released in March, shows the opium crop has increased in Wa, Kokang and other areas.