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“We urge the government of the Philippines to take all necessary measures to bring killings associated with the campaign against illegal drugs to an end and cooperate with the international community to investigate all related deaths and hold perpetrators accountable,” the UNHRC member-states said in a joint statement delivered by Iceland on June 19. […]

As an empathetic society, we need to separate out addiction from criminal behaviour. Yes, it’s true that addiction can be a driver of crime, but addiction itself is not – and should not be considered – criminal. By turning over resources currently used to prosecute addicts to health services who can treat addiction, as a society we are sending a message that we want these people to get better, and to become contributing members of our communities. […]

The harm reduction test was deemed an “overwhelming success” in the report. It explained, “The pilot demonstrated that such an intervention is possible and that people are willing to use the service, despite the limitations arising from the tight timelines, inauspicious physical infrastructure and the lack of dissemination strategies on-site during the festival.” […]

Gino Vambuca, the president of Harm Reduction Australia, said the federal government should do “something concrete” and propose funding for a pill-testing initiative through the ministerial drug and alcohol forum, which brings together state and territory justice ministers. […]

If Canada pulls this off, it could provide a model for other countries to relax their drug laws — and particularly their marijuana laws — without violating international treaty obligations or, at the very least, without getting punished for disobeying the treaties. It’s not just, then, that Canada is changing its own drug laws. […]

ACT Health Minister Meegan Fitzharris said the success of the pill-testing trial had shown there was demand for the service at future events. “This will assist to better understand how pill testing may help reduce the harms of illicit drug use at festivals and will inform next steps and future drug policy,” she said. […]

New York moved a significant step closer to legalizing recreational marijuana, as a study commissioned by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo will recommend that the state allow adults to consume marijuana legally, the governor’s health commissioner said on Monday. […]

There is tremendous gap between policy-makers in Vienna and the reality on the ground. So far in eyes of many activists, the INCB have been the bad guys. However, now that the science is being put back into policy by the WHO – an actor external to the UNODC, it is quite possible this process could be the catalyst for the legwork of educating decision-makers about reality and stakes on the ground. […]

A potential class action lawsuit is brewing amongst people denied entry to music festivals after a sniffer dog “indication”, despite not carrying any drugs. At least five people were denied entry to the Above and Beyond event in Sydney on the weekend, with one person being given a six month suspension. […]

Festival goers have been banned from Olympic Park in Sydney for six months by police despite not committing any offence in what has been labelled a ‘serious abuse of police powers.’ NSW police followed through on their threat earlier in the week that at the Above & Beyond festival on Saturday they would ban revellers if a dog reacted positively, even if no drugs were found. […]

Festivalgoers are being urged to report instances of being turned away from ‘Above & Beyond’ festival via a social media campaign run by the Greens party. “If NSW police go ahead with their plan to deny entry to people at ‘Above and Beyond’ even after a false positive, we’ll be seeing them back in court next week,” according to the Sniff Off campaign posted on their Facebook page. […]

The plan also attracted criticism from the former commissioner of the Australian Border Force, Roman Quaedvlieg, who spent more than three decades in drug enforcement. Mr Quaedvlieg dubbed the police move “extraordinary”. “Festival drugs are risky granted but a person can have minute drug traces from handling cash, infused into garment fabric etc,” he posted on Twitter earlier this week. […]

Independent Victoria MP Fiona Patten was part of a delegation which visited Lisbon and studied what’s now known world wide as “The Portugal Model”. She insists – despite a tendency towards more conservative politics in Australia – this country is ready to take the same controversial step that Portugal did 17 years ago. […]

Since reforming its policy in 2001, Portugal’s annual overdose death rate has dropped to 0.35 per 100,000 people. In Australia our overdose death rate is more than twenty times higher than that, a figure that is rising every year. At the start of 2000 Portugal had 1600 annual cases of drug-related HIV. […]

NSW Greens MP Jenny Leong brushed off the defeat, insisting the police plan was an overreach of powers and claiming drug dogs get it wrong up to 75 per cent of the time. “If the NSW Police wanted people to be safe at festivals they would be advocates of pill testing, they would be stopping the war on drugs and they would be supporting a harm-minimisation approach,” she said outside court. […]

New South Wales Greens MP David Shoebridge says he will be taking the state police to court. The sought injunction is over a controversial drug dog policy announced earlier this week that would see people rejected from an event if a sniffer dog indicated they had drugs on them, even if that was not the case. […]

Manuel Cardoso, who is credited for his role in reforming the Portuguese system in 2001, told Fairfax Media that Australia should decriminalise all drugs and treat drug use and abuse as a public health issue rather than one of criminal justice. “Decriminalising is considered by the United Nations as a good practice, the International Narcotic Control Board consider that the Portuguese experience is a good practice, it’s something to try to implement [here],” he said. […]

Three people are taking NSW Police to court over a controversial plan to deny entry to a Sydney concert anyone who is singled out by a sniffer dog – regardless of whether drugs are actually found. In conjunction with The Greens’ Sniff Off campaign, three of the festival’s patrons said on Thursday they plan to seek an urgent injunction in the Supreme Court on Friday in what they say is an overreach of police powers. […]

From crime to health to business, Canada’s decision to legalize marijuana is a grand progressive experiment that promises to answer a host of questions, […]

“Bestival strongly advises festival goers to avoid taking any illegal substances,” says a Bestival spokesperson in a statement. “However, harm reduction and customer welfare are our priorities, so we have made the decision to bring The Loop onboard to offer drug safety testing onsite, giving people the opportunity to make informed choices.” […]

Fans may want to think twice before attending ‘Above and Beyond’ music gig as police warn fans will be kicked out if a drug sniffer dog just sits next to them. They will be refused entry regardless of whether drugs are even found on them. Fans are slamming the police for harsh warning: ‘So presumed guilty even after being proven innocent?’ […]

The decision has been slammed by politicians, drug safety advocates and civil libertarians who point to the questionable reliability of sniffer dogs and argue that police are abusing their powers. “Penalising people for the failure of the drug dog program is a clear abuse of police powers,” NSW Greens MP David Shoebridge said. […]

A new police policy around drugs, sniffer dogs and music festivals may be illegal and ”a clear abuse of police powers,” lawyers say. It’s a fundamentally flawed approach. Sniffer dogs are notoriously ineffective, producing false positives up to 80 percent of the time. By this logic, 4 in 5 people approached by dogs at the Above and Beyond — many of whom will have paid over $100 for a ticket — will be denied entry on no grounds at all. […]

The evidence so far suggests that, far from encouraging drug-taking, testing services seem to make people think twice. The Loop reports that 10-15% of the drug users it deals with decide to ditch their stash on learning what is really in it (which has included everything from concrete to anti-malaria medicine). […]

Even though legalisation for recreational use is so far limited to cannabis in Uruguay, Alaska, California, Washington and Colorado, Noffs thinks there will be a domino effect. “It’s inevitable, partly because big pharma and those behind the recreational cannabis push in the US are going for it, so there’s a market force there, but also, people are starting to see it comes down to control: how much control do we want over drugs, and how much control do we want the black market to have over us? […]

Pill testing in Australia has taken another positive step forward, with a Northern Territory minister stating it should be made available at music festivals. NT Assistant Police Minister Jeff Collins said there had been a lot of measures “to try and reduce the number of pills taken, including sniffer dogs and the like.” […]

It’s time for a new perspective on drugs, on addiction and on how we manage drugs as a country. We know how to make Australia the safest place on the planet when it comes to drugs and young people. It’s time to leave the past behind and get on board with pill testing and evidence-based treatment. […]

All UK festivals should provide drug-testing facilities, experts and campaigners have urged, following the deaths of two young people believed to have taken high-strength ecstasy at a festival over the bank holiday weekend. […]

Australia tends to think about drugs in a binary fashion. Do we prohibit this drug? Or is it widely available? The question should no longer be whether to ban drugs or not, perhaps the question on our every law makers lips should be “how much control do we want?” and “what plans are in place to avert the next major drug crisis?” […]

People want to know what is in their drugs, that is now clear, and they respond sensibly and appropriately when given the chance. Of course we can “just say no”, don’t take them but what if they persist? The answer is “just say know”. […]

The Police Federation spokesman on drugs policing, Simon Kempton, has called for a rethink on drugs policy, saying prohibition has “never worked”. Sgt Kempton, who works for Dorset Police, said the government should consider the Portuguese approach, where the possession of drugs has been decriminalised since 2001. […]

“The court believes the testimony of Maria in that she was an innocent carrier,” Exposto’s lawyer Tan Sri Shafee Abdullah said. “She was tricked into carrying the bag because of what we now call the internet scam, internet romance.” […]

It appears that different parts of Australia are choosing considerably different approaches to drug policy. It remains to be seen if Premier Marshall’s approach will be successful at reducing methamphetamine use among schoolchildren, but existing evidence suggests that it will not. […]

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s bloody crackdown on drugs is pushing the country’s most vulnerable people even further towards the margins, says Global Commission on Drugs executive secretary Khalid Tinasti […]

Drug education, addiction prevention and addiction treatment should be informed not by ideological belief or moral crusade but by evidence-based research. These services must promote harm reduction and human rights. We should not be in the business of preventing drug use, in the same way, that we shouldn’t seek to prevent people from having a cup of coffee, glass of wine, or cigar – instead we must be in the business of preventing drug policy harms caused by prohibition policies, and preventing and treating drug addiction. […]

Federal penitentiaries in Canada will soon offer clean needles to inmates who are likely to inject drugs while behind bars, answering a decades-long call by harm-reduction advocates who say the overdue initiative prevents the transmission of blood-borne illnesses and to withhold it would be in violation of Charter rights. […]

In an editorial last Thursday entitled Drugs Should Be Legalized, Regulated, and Taxed, Fiona Godlee, editor in chief of the British Medical Journal, notes that under drug prohibition, the global trade “fuels organized crime and human misery,” and asks, “Why should it not instead fund public services?” […]

When law enforcement officers call for drugs to be legalised, we have to listen. So too when doctors speak up. Last month the Royal College of Physicians took the important step of coming out in favour of decriminalisation, joining the BMA, the Faculty of Public Health, and the Royal Society of Public Health in supporting drug policy reform. […]

If pill testing results in just one person thinking twice before making a poor decision that may end their life and devastate many others, surely this is a strategy we can all get behind. We will wait for the results of the trial, but the early indications are that it supported many more people to keep safer than they would have otherwise been. […]

The Federal Government has used this proposal to dog whistle community prejudices towards addicts, seeking to make political mileage out of it, all the while saying they’re acting in peoples’ best interests — it is nothing short of disgraceful. […]

A NSW coroner has scolded the law’s treatment of illicit drug users, venting her frustration over the lack of supervised injecting rooms in western Sydney. Deputy State Coroner Harriet Grahame made the frank remarks on Tuesday during an inquest into the 2016 deaths of six opiate users, which also heard expert fears of illicit fentanyl being on the verge of infiltrating Australian shores. […]

A number of young people at a music festival in Victoria have shown support for an Australian-first pill-testing trial, and say they want more drug checks. […]

As you might know, Canberra’s edition of Groovin the Moo recently provided a free drug testing service, allowing punters to decide whether or not they’d like to eat drugs that could kill them. And unsurprisingly, two samples of potentially lethal drugs were identified. But saving lives isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. […]

Politicians from across the divide say more pill testing trials at music festivals will save lives, after 128 people made use of the first trial at Canberra’s Groovin the Moo festival last Sunday. […]

NSW Police Minister Troy Grant — who has long been fierce opponent of pill testing — told Daily Telegraph columnist Miranda Devine yesterday that in “no way” would the service be implemented while his government is in power.“I’m a thousand percent against it — no way the NSW Government will be adopting pill-testing,” he told Devine. […]

“How many funerals do we have to go to of people that have taken these substances and found out they’re not what they’re sold?” asked Liberal backbencher Warren Entsch during an interview with ABC Radio, adding that pill testing could help educate young people about the substances they are taking, […]

The support letter is signed by three bands on the bill, Ocean Alley, Cosmo’s Midnight and Moaning Lisa, as well as Gavin Findlay, vice-president of Music ACT and Tim Hollo, CEO of Green Music Australia. Other signatories were from Families & Friends for Drug Law Reform, Canberra Alliance for Harm Minimisation & Advocacy and The Connection, Public Health Association of Australia, World Federation of Public Health Associations, ACT Council of Social Service Inc, Unharm, Noffs Foundation, Australia 21 and Social Research & Evaluation Pty Ltd. […]

Australia’s former top cop has slammed governments for waging a war on drugs insisting it’s failed “abysmally”. Former Australian Federal Police commissioner Mick Palmer has backed a Greens proposal to legalise cannabis use by adults, saying the current policy “makes no sense at all”. […]

Asked why the government wouldn’t want the tax revenue, Mr Hunt said it didn’t want to put the mental health of Australians at risk. But Senator Di Natale argues governments around the world are realising that prohibition of cannabis causes more harm than it prevents. “It’s time Australia joined them,” he said. […]

Musicians, health professionals and a Greens MLA have argued a pill-testing trial could “potentially save lives” in an open letter sent to Groovin the Moo promoters just a fortnight before the Canberra festival is held. Greens drug law reform spokesman Shane Rattenbury, three bands and 16 drug reform advocates and health stakeholders put their name to the letter urging Cattleyard Promotions chief executive Kathryn Holloway to support the pilot. […]

The consortium behind plans to conduct Australia’s first legal pill-testing trial at Groovin the Moo in Canberra says it has offered the promoter legal indemnity if they are allowed to test drugs at the festival. Cattleyard Promotions are yet to agree to the drug-checking pilot despite the Canberra leg of the festival taking place on April 29. […]

Portugal has stepped up and set an example for the world. It has shown that the traditional solution to drug addiction, which was attempting to suppress through iron fist of government, is not the most moral nor efficient means of solving the problem. Hopefully, the world follows Portugal’s example and takes steps to end the 75-year-old worldwide tyranny of the war on drugs. […]

No compassionate society should treat a health issue as a criminal one, promoting fear and isolation in the process. And no wise government would continue to expend resources on measures so plainly ineffective and counterproductive as enforcement and interdiction, when evidence-based treatment and prevention measures are at hand. […]

The problem with this reporting is that law enforcement has not been shown to be an effective means of reducing a seemingly never-ending supply of drugs. Despite this, research shows that 66% of government money allocated to addressing alcohol and other drug-related issues is spent on law enforcement, while only 21% is spent on treatment and only 9% on prevention. […]

This is not about condoning or encouraging the use of drugs. It is about harm minimisation, saving lives and helping people get well. It works. This is also about public safety. The government will provide security inside and outside the centre. We urge people to keep an open mind and to judge the trial on its results. […]

Of ongoing concern is the use of the death penalty in drug cases. Fifteen countries implemented or imposed capital punishment for drug crimes in 2017. Iran executed more than 200 people convicted of drug offences. Although fewer executions were imposed for drug crimes in 2017, extrajudicial killings have been commonplace in the Philippines’ “War on Drugs”. […]

Amnesty recorded at least 993 executions in 23 countries in 2017, down by 4% from 2016 (1,032 executions) and 39% from 2015 (when the organization reported 1,634 executions, the highest number since 1989). At least 2,591 death sentences in 53 countries were recorded in 2017, a significant decrease from the record-high of 3,117 recorded in 2016. […]

The countries known to have executed people for drug-related crimes are China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Singapore. Amnesty’s report states it is also possible that Vietnam and Malaysia executed people for drugs offenses, but it was unable to confirm that. Because of secrecy about how laws are enforced in a number of countries, the exact number of people executed for drug-related crimes globally remains unclear […]

Misinformation and prejudice towards these types of drugs has halted psychedelic research in Australia, and other countries, meaning drug companies are hesitant to develop psychedelic treatments. The study’s lead author Stephen Bright told Starts at 60 that Australia is falling behind when it comes to research on psychedelic treatments, noting a number of prestigious institutions including UCLA, John Hopkins School of Medicine and New York University have conducted a series of clinical trials. […]

A group representing the elderly has appealed to Parliament to be able to grow its own cannabis. Grey Power’s Otamatea branch, from Northland, said older people with “unbearable” conditions should not have to deal with illegal gangs to get cannabis for medical use. Denying people alternative means of pain relief when traditional medicines did not work was a form of elder abuse, the group’s representative Beverley Aldridge told MPs today. […]

Ice users will be permitted to inject the drug in Melbourne’s new supervised injecting room despite the State Government previously saying crystal methamphetamine would be banned from the centre. The North Richmond injecting centre’s regulations say any drug of dependence can be injected at the medically supervised facility but users must have less than a trafficable amount. […]

The former INCB head, Werner Sipp, said on a special event at the 58th session of the CND that: “ […] the Portuguese approach can be considered as a model of best practices.”. You’d think as a “model of best practices” the Portuguese model would be promoted by the INCB. You’d be wrong. […]

By no means is pill testing intended to be a stand-alone “solution”, nor does it condone the use of illicit drugs. Instead, the argument is that we need to change the language of drug use from deviance and criminal justice labels to pragmatic notions of harm and public health, where any policies or programs implemented seek to reduce the harms associated with drug use. […]

“We are calling for further collaboration between law enforcement and healthcare providers to ensure that they take appropriate action to reduce the harm caused by drugs. It is important to focus on prevention, public awareness campaigns and education to shift cultural attitudes, so that use of party drugs is identified as a public health issue rather than a criminal one.” […]

ACT Greens leader and spokesperson for drug law reform Shane Rattenbury, is rallying support for the nation’s first pill-testing trial at this month’s Groovin the Moo festival at the University of Canberra by urging community groups and individuals to sign an open letter to the festival promoter, which has not yet given its support. […]

The Scottish Government has turned to Australia for help as it builds its case to create the UK’s first safe drug injecting space – an innovation that could save hundreds of lives. Public health minister Aileen Campbell has held discussions with officials in the Victorian state government about their decision to open a “fix room” in Melbourne later this year. […]

The government has supported a police and crime commissioner’s proposals to tackle drugs. Responding to a question in Parliament Policing Minister Nick Hurd said he welcomed West Midlands PCC David Jamieson’s focus on the issue. Mr Jamieson has championed the benefits of Heroin Assisted Treatment and wants the benefits of Drug Consumption Rooms to be considered. […]

The call for drug law reform is getting stronger, both globally and domestically. There is a growing acknowledgement amongst communities and former holders of positions of authority that the century-old drug prohibition model has failed. But the subject of illegal drugs is polarising, which makes drug law reform is a slow-moving process. […]

Drug using nurses and harm reduction workers could be hired at Victoria’s first supervised injecting room for their “lived experience of substance use”. North Richmond Community Health wants registered nurses and harm reduction practitioners with “lived experience of substance use” to apply for roles at the centre, listing it under the heading of essential skills and experience in the position descriptions. […]

On average, 115 Americans die each day from an opioid overdose, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Studies have said safe injection sites mitigate risky drug behavior, reduce the frequency of overdoses, curb the spread of HIV and viral hepatitis, do not increase drug use or local crime and have the potential to save millions of dollars in the U.S. […]

The drug checking kits will allow students who have purchased drugs to ensure they have indeed bought what they believe and that the drug is ‘safe.’ The campaign, to bring drug checking kits which can detect potentially lethal contaminants, has been pushed by SSDP Ireland for the last two years. […]

The New South Wales government plans to ban people with a history of drug offences from living in social housing in parts of inner city Sydney. The desire to provide an environment that helps people who are trying to minimise their drug use and stay away from drug markets is understandable. […]

Scientific data is growing exponentially in support of the notion that legalized cannabis access can significantly mitigate opioid use and abuse. On Monday, the esteemed Journal of the American Medical Association, Internal Medicine published a pair of persuasive new studies reinforcing this opinion. […]

A letter between ACT Health Minister Meegan Fitzharris and Groovin The Moo promoter Cattleyard obtained by Fairfax Media revealed the promoter’s support for the trial was “contingent” on a list of requirements being met. It’s understood some of the demands can’t be met under current ACT laws. […]

Welcome to Portugal. The country’s low-key, non-headline-generating drug policy, based on compassion, public health, and public safety, is a stark contrast with the U.S., as the mind-boggled response of the activists suggests. […]

Portugal decriminalised drugs 15 years ago. There’s been a decrease in drug use, crime, disease and overdoses. Other nations are taking the same prescription, and ending proscription. It’s an approach that should appeal to progressives, libertarians and conservatives alike – progressives and libertarians because of their support for freedom, and conservatives because of their appreciation for rational, evidence-based policy. […]

A proposal to hold a trial at next month’s festival at the University of Canberra received the green light from the university. Late last week former Australian Federal Police (AFP) Commissioner Mick Palmer wrote to promotors of Groovin the Moo, noting the university’s support was “very positive”. “I am delighted to see the progress being made towards improving the safety of attendees at the festivals and similar events through supporting drug pill testing in the ACT,” Mr Palmer wrote. […]

The Victorian report includes a recommendation to “monitor” the situation in prisons, and defer some of these issues to an advisory body. We remain hopeful the advisory body will consider prison reforms alongside the other welcome recommendations in the report. […]

Pill testing should be introduced at music festivals to help emergency workers treat patients suffering adverse reactions like overdoses, according to an inquiry into Victorian drug law reform. A state parliamentary committee investigating laws and regulation of illicit drugs released the mammoth 680-page report with 50 recommendations. It proposed authorities, but not festival goers, have access to “back-of-house” testing of substances so they can treat patients and issue alerts to the public to prevent other incidents. […]

President of the Australian Drug Law Reform Foundation, Alex Wodak, is quoted in the report and was present in parliament when it was tabled. “Our efforts to date have been a miserable failure. We’ve relied almost exclusively on efforts to cut the supply of drugs, probably well intentioned, but the market force is very powerful,” Dr Wodak told AAP on Monday. […]

Labor’s MP Geoff Howard, insisted a move away from the ‘war on drugs’ did not mean going soft on crime. “Rather, it emphasises that law enforcement responses to illicit drug use should focus on trafficking and criminal behaviour arising from use, while people apprehended solely for use and personal possession be directed to a range of treatment and support options, where necessary,” he said. […]

A new, 50-state study finds that putting more people in jail for drug offenses doesn’t reduce drug use or overdose deaths. Jake Horowitz, director of research and policy at Pew Charitable Trusts’ Public Safety Performance Project, said they compared states’ drug imprisonment rates to rates of drug use, overdose death and drug arrests, and found no correlation at all. […]

A pre-eminent group of health and social service providers are calling for all Australian governments to decriminalise drug use and to treat it primarily as a health and social issue. The group, comprising doctors, academics, sociologists, criminologists and social service providers want to see drug laws reformed to remove penalties and jail time for people caught with drugs for personal use. […]

After a disappointing false start last year, the time has come for the ACT to break new ground by holding Australia’s first pill testing trial. It is an opportunity for the territory to earn its reputation as a forward-thinking jurisdiction while displaying leadership on a nationally-relevant issue. […]

At a conference on drugs at NZ Parliament today, Ms Clark, who is a member of the Global Commission on Drug Policy, said the global war on drugs had failed, with devastating consequences for individuals. Ms Clark said the proposed synthetic cannabis law change was more of the same. “That is heading in the war on drugs direction which isn’t going to work (…). […]

The University of Canberra has paved the way for a pill-testing trial to take place at next month’s Groovin the Moo festival. A spokeswoman for the university confirmed it was supportive of the trial. “The University of Canberra is open to supporting a pill-testing trial at a festival held on university grounds, providing the main stakeholders and relevant authorities are all in agreement,” she said in a statement. […]

Decriminalisation and proper regulation of sale would mean cannabis could be enjoyed responsibly without users being exposed to criminal sanction, which would also keep it away from children and make health care readily available to those who are affected by addiction or other related health issues. […]

Legalization advocates have long speculated that the crackdown on pot is merely an attempt to squelch any competition, and that “Big Pharma” is working behind the scenes to maintain cannabis prohibition. Meanwhile, the classification of substances as conducted by the DEA has been based on a minimal understanding of chemistry or proper facts. […]

Testing was the best way to helps save lives, the Drug Foundation’s Samuel Andrews said. “We need the government to step up to enable this to happen and that’s where the ball lies for going forward.” He said the testing usually took between 10 to 15 minutes and during that time those testing their drugs were given harm reduction advice. […]

President Donald Trump is proposing to fight the opioid epidemic using the death penalty, a vicious and counterproductive policy that would do little to make the country safer and echoes the policies of authoritarians like Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte. […]

There are renewed calls for a needle and syringe program (NSP) at the Alexander Maconochie Centre after a review of the prison’s opioid replacement therapy program recommended the move. […]

The campaign against the warrantless use of sniffer dogs in public places by NSW police is moving North. The Sniff Off campaign, which is a collaboration between Greens MLC David Shoebridge and the NSW Young Greens, launched in Newcastle on Friday night. […]

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte fuelled an extraordinary war of words with the United Nations by saying that their human rights team should be fed to crocodiles if they came to investigate his controversial war on drugs. […]