Bolivia has signed an agreement with the US and Brazil to help reduce the production of illegal cocaine. The US and Brazil will provide technical assistance, including satellite monitoring of coca crops.

Ricardo Soberon, the reformist head of DEVIDA, the Peruvian drug agency, has been fired and replaced. Soberon made waves last August when he implemented a temporary ban on forced eradication of coca plants, taking the US Embassy by surprise, but that was soon reversed on the orders of his boss, Interior Minister Oscar Valdes.

Just before ending 2011, Bolivia presented the formal notification to the United Nations secretariat in New York, announcing their re-adherence to the 1961 UN Single Convention, including a reservation on the use of coca leaf in its natural form, such as coca chewing and infusions.

The president of Bolivia, Evo Morales, yesterday asked inspectors of the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) of the United Nations to support his petition to decriminalize coca leaf chewing or "akulliku" but acknowledged that he failed to convince everyone.

On November 17, Bolivia, Brazil and the United States planned to ratify agreements on a trilateral coca monitoring effort. Officials delayed signing the accord until Friday, and then postponed it indefinitely.

Some 80,000 farmers' families in Colombia depend on illicit coca bush cultivation to survive. UNODC runs projects to wean farmers off illicit crop cultivation by encouraging them to pursue alternative livelihoods

Newly installed Peruvian President Ollanta Humala is facing the first serious challenge to his authority as coca farmer unions have gone on strike to protest the resumption of coca plant eradication. Last month, Humala's government announced a temporary halt to eradication in the Upper Huallaga River Valley, but now eradication is again underway, and the coca farmer unions are up in arms.