China’s trade surplus reached a record high last year of $1.19 trillion, a 20% increase from 2024.<\/p>\n
Agriculture and Consumer Affairs correspondent Aengus Cox, who recently returned from China, discusses that country\u2019s economy and why relations with Ireland are important to Beijing.<\/p>\n
Aengus explains that China sees Ireland as a bridge in ongoing relations with the European Union.<\/p>\n
Later, Sunday Times reporter Julieanne Corr discusses the increasing use of ketamine in the country.<\/p>\n
Ketamine \u2013 also called ‘Special K\u2019 – is an anaesthetic used in human and veterinary medicine but has become increasingly popular as a recreational drug.<\/p>\n
“Figures from the Health Research Board shows us that people entering drug facilities has tripled between 2021 and 2024,” Ms Corr says.<\/p>\n
“The total figures \u2013 95 in 2021, 251 in 2024 – in some cases that was for ketamine alone, in other cases it was for ketamine and other drugs.”<\/p>\n
She explains the damaging side effects of ketamine misuse.<\/p>\n
“It can cause extreme panic and that dissociative state [that users feel] can lead to mental health difficulties,” she says.<\/p>\n
“It\u2019s very much linked with bladder issues \u2013 people say \u2018ketamine bladder\u2019 – this can cause increased urination.<\/p>\n
The drug has been linked to some high-profile deaths, including Friends star Matthew Perry who accidentally drowned in 2023 with high levels of ketamine in his system.<\/p>\n
You can listen to Behind the Story which is available on the RT\u00c9 Radio Player.<\/p>\n
You can also find episodes on Apple here<\/a>, or on Spotify here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"China’s trade surplus reached a record high last year of $1.19 trillion, a 20% increase from 2024. Agriculture…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":237131,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[134,524,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-237130","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-medication","tag-health","tag-medication","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237130","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=237130"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237130\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/237131"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=237130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=237130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=237130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}