RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil -- Army tanks, 3,000 troops and 35,000 police officers patrolled Rio's streets Sunday for the start of the city's glittering Carnival parades.

Security was tight after four people were killed and dozens of cars and buses torched last week in violence blamed on drug gangs.

But there have been few reports of violence involving the revelers themselves. One exception was an American tourist shot in the leg Sunday in a traffic dispute. He was not killed.

Many nations celebrate Carnival, especially in Latin America. But Rio's parades are the most famous. The city's tourism authorities said they expect 400,000 out-of-town visitors for this year's Carnival.

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Brazil's most notorious drug lord was moved Thursday to a prison far from Rio de Janeiro after gang members -- allegedly on his orders -- terrorized the city ahead of today's opening of its world-famous Carnival.

Officials announced that 3,000 soldiers would be sent to Rio to help keep peace during Carnival after a week of violence.

Luiz Fernando da Costa was taken from a Rio penitentiary Thursday and sent to Sao Paulo state, then driven to the Presidente Bernardes prison, which is considered Brazil's most secure.

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New Leader Faces Battle On Reform

RIO DE JANEIRO -- The killing usually starts after sunset or in wee hours of the morning, when gunfire turns a mass of decayed housing units in Complexo da Mare into a war zone.

Drug traffickers from three factions are waging a daily fight for control of the slum. No one is safe--not the families who crouch fearfully in their homes, not even participants in an internationally respected youth program run by Rio activist Yvonne de Mello.

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PORTO ALEGRE, Brazil - Leonilda Zurita railed against the U.S. yesterday for backing Bolivia's efforts to curb cultivation of the coca plant - the source of cocaine but also chewed by poor Bolivians to ease hunger.

Zurita, a Quecha Indian who was handing coca leaves to anyone who approached her, was among thousands of anti-globalization activists at the third World Social Forum, a counterpoint to the concurrent World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

Though they came from around the world, the activists were united in their anger at what they call "neoliberalism," or the perceived U.S. control over the world through free-market economics, liberal trade and the breakdown of national borders.

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For the four officers, it was a routine patrol. Their police car was cruising along one of the main roads in Rio de Janeiro's North Zone last week when it was ambushed.Thirty men armed with shotguns, pistols, rifles, submachine-guns and grenades attacked the car, killing two of the policemen and, by mistake, a 51-year-old woman in a passing bus. The ages of the gang members, one of the city's most feared drug factions, said police, were between 10 and 25.

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Gangs Control The Warren-Like Slums

At least 12 people have been killed in a gun battle between police and suspected drug traffickers in the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro, authorities say.

A policeman died in the shooting in a slum of the city, the Secretary for Public Safety in Rio, Colonel Josias Quintal, said.

He said the shooting began when officers tried to arrest suspected drug traffickers.

More than 250 policemen took part in the operation.

It was not immediately clear if any one was arrested or if any drugs or arms were apprehended.

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RIO DE JANEIRO - AS voters here pick Brazil's president next Sunday, they can expect to have more than the usual election observers watching them. The governor of the state of Rio de Janeiro has asked that the soldiers who patrolled the streets here during the first round of voting on Oct. 6 be deployed again to protect citizens from the threat that criminal gangs will interfere with the election.

Gov. Benedita da Silva wants to prevent a repetition of the "Black Monday" of Sept. 30, when stores, schools, banks, offices and markets in this city of 5.8 million were forced to close on the order of jailed gang leaders unhappy with their living conditions. Gang members also burned buses, paralyzing public transport.

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In a show of strength said to be aimed at securing better living conditions for its imprisoned leader, Rio de Janeiro's most powerful criminal gang has forced schools, businesses and public transport throughout the city to shut down. Followers of Fernandinho Beira-Mar, a drug lord with ties to Colombian guerrillas who has been indicted in the United States, have issued such orders before in slum areas they control, but this action, which was successful despite police efforts to encourage shops to stay open, also affected exclusive neighborhoods, including Ipanema and Copacabana.

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RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (AP) -- Stores and schools across Rio closed Monday, reportedly on orders from the city's most powerful crime gang to protest prison conditions of its jailed leader.

Police increased street patrols and no violence was reported, but fear shut down much of the city.

From trendy Ipanema beach to the city's poor north side, scores of shops didn't open or quickly closed. The Estacio de Sa college let out classes and canceled scheduled exams because students and teachers stayed home.

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RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (AP) - The front-runner in Brazil's presidential race indicated Thursday he would not change current policy of opposing U.S. financial and military aid to Colombia in its war on drugs.

Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of the leftist Workers Party is far ahead of the other candidates in the polls. If his numbers improve only slightly, he could win in the first round on Oct. 6 without a run-off Oct. 27.

In an interview with O Globo television, Lula suggested he would not change the country's foreign policy. Outgoing President Fernando Henrique Cardoso opposes U.S. financial and military aid in Colombia's drug-trafficking efforts.

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After a siege of more than a week, the police in Rio de Janeiro have arrested a powerful gang leader, Elias Pereira da Silva, and charged him with the murder of Tim Lopes, a prominent television reporter. Mr. Lopes was kidnapped and killed early in June, just as he was beginning an investigation of drug trafficking in slum neighborhoods controlled by the gang. His death became a symbol of the government's inability to control criminal groups, generating street demonstrations and demands for a reorganization of the police.

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RIO DE JANEIRO - On a steep hillside, an organization is generously maintaining the local soccer field, donating cash to help operate day- care centers, providing cheap transit, staging musical extravaganzas, offering medicine and food to needy families and assuring the security of the more than 250,000 residents packed into the massive Rocinha ghetto.

There are many such organizations operating throughout Brazil. In Rocinha, as in other favelas, the haphazardly constructed slums across Rio and other big cities in Latin America's largest nation, the organizations are known as "the Parallel Power" - the new euphemism for Brazil's increasingly omnipotent drug lords.

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RIO DE JANEIRO -- On a steep hillside, an organization is generously maintaining the local soccer field, donating cash to help operate day-care centers, providing cheap transit, staging musical extravaganzas, offering medicine and food to needy families and assuring the security of the more than 250,000 residents packed into the massive Rocinha ghetto.

There are many such organizations operating throughout Brazil. In Rocinha, as in other favelas, the haphazardly constructed slums across Rio and other big cities in Latin America's largest nation, the organizations are known as "the Parallel Power" -- the new euphemism for Brazil's increasingly omnipotent drug lords.

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Jailed gang leader seizes control of prison, kills rival inmates

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil - When Brazilian authorities locked up Luiz Fernando da Costa in a top-security prison last year, the notorious drug lord seemed to be out of circulation at last.

Instead, the confinement barely slowed him down.

From his cell in Rio de Janeiro's Bangu I Penitentiary, da Costa has continued to run his drug empire, command gang wars and executions, even negotiate arms deals by mobile phone.

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Violence: Drug Lord Took Over Parts Of The Facility And Killed Rival Bosses, Officials Say.

RIO DE JANEIRO -- One of Brazil's most notorious drug lords surrendered Thursday after taking over parts of a maximum-security prison and killing four rival crime bosses, officials said.

Luiz Fernando da Costa smiled widely and sang a tune before he and members of his Red Command crime syndicate released their hostages and turned in their weapons to authorities inside Rio's Bangu I penitentiary.

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RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil--The crowning achievement of Rodrigo X's young life wasn't graduating from school or scoring a goal on the soccer field--it was throwing his first hand grenade.

The 16-year-old is a combatant in this city not officially at war, but where hundreds of children and adolescents die each year from small-arms fire.

''I looked to the street and the police were coming,'' the teenage gang member told researchers. ''I started exchanging fire with them. I jumped over the wall and got close, then BOOM everything shook. It was the first time I threw a grenade. It was good.''

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VITORIA, Brazil - Its murder rate is higher than Colombia's, drug trafficking is flourishing, the central government is dithering and just recently a bomb exploded inside the local bar association. So it is hardly surprising that people here have begun referring to their city as "the Medellin of Brazil."

Yet many of those responsible for the epidemic of violence and crime here in the capital of Espirito Santo State are themselves officially defenders of the law. According to police investigators and lawyers' and human rights groups, the remnants of the police death squads that once terrorized Brazil's big cities have migrated here and seized power in the state, and they are now operating under the banner of a shadowy group known as the Scuderie Detetive le Cocq, or Shield of Detective le Cocq.

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From the International Desk

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil, Aug. 26 (UPI) -- The Brazilian directors of a controversial new film about Rio's drug culture were summoned Monday by city officials to be deposed on their relationship with a known drug kingpin who is depicted in their movie.

"Cidade de Deus" has received rave reviews from audiences for its authentic representation of life in the Rio "favela" (slum) of the same name, where drug traffickers often operate with impunity and violence and killings are the norm.

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MANAUS, Brazil - For as long as Brazil has been a nation, outlaws of every type, from gold smugglers and slave traders to drug traffickers and gun runners, have taken refuge in the Amazon, the world's largest jungle wilderness, secure in the knowledge that they could not be tracked down.

As of Friday, though, that shelter is no longer guaranteed. A new American-financed, $1.4 billion system of radar and sensors has begun monitoring activity in a 1.9 million-square-mile area of trackless rain forest and rivers that is larger than half the continental United States.

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MANAUS, Brazil, July 26 - For as long as Brazil has been a nation, outlaws of every type, from gold smugglers and slave traders to drug traffickers and gun runners, have taken refuge in the Amazon, the world's largest jungle wilderness, secure in the knowledge that they could not be tracked down.

As of today, though, that shelter is no longer guaranteed. A new American-financed, $1.4 billion system of radars and sensors has begun monitoring activity in a 1.9-million-square-mile area of trackless rain forest and rivers that is larger than half the continental United States.

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