BRASILIA, Aug. 31 - An unprecedented meeting of South American presidents opened here today with leaders stressing their support for Colombia while expressing deep concern about the possible "Vietnamization" of its four-decade-old civil war or spillover of the conflict into neighboring countries.

The dozen leaders gathered in the Brazilian capital for a summit conference organized to encourage increased economic integration among South American nations. But one day after President Clinton's visit to Colombia--and with $1.3 billion in U.S. aid on the way, the bulk of it for the military--the agenda was overshadowed by the $7.5 billion Plan Colombia designed to fight drug trafficking and stabilize the country.

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BRASILIA, Brazil (Reuters) -- Brazil is dispatching thousands of troops to its jungle border with Colombia to prevent fallout as the neighbouring country launches an offensive against drug traffickers and rebel forces, the national security chief said.

Gen. Alberto Cardoso, the president's chief security adviser, told Reuters in an interview late on Monday that "Plan Colombia" -- the neighbouring country's $7.5 billion assault on drug traffickers in rebel strongholds -- is causing major concern for Brazil.

"For Brazil, Colombia is causing the biggest worry," Cardoso said. "Our attention is dedicated to the effects it could have on Brazil, like the flight of guerrillas and the transfer of (drug) laboratories and plantations."

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BRASILIA -- When Henry A. Kissinger visited here as secretary of state in the mid-1970's, his Brazilian counterpart, Antonio Azeredo da Silveira, made a point of escorting him on a tour of Itamaraty Palace, the ultramodern glass and marble headquarters of the Brazilian Foreign Ministry.

Afterward, Mr. Silveira asked his American guest for his impressions.

Grinning with amusement, Mr. Silveira later recalled in an interview Mr. Kissinger's reply: "It's a magnificent building, Antonio. Now all you need is a foreign policy to go with it."

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BRASILIA, Brazil (AP) -- Secretary of State Madeleine Albright stressed the need to preserve the region's democratic advances and boost free trade on Tuesday during meetings with top Brazilian officials.

Albright met with President Fernando Henrique Cardoso and Foreign Minister Luiz Felipe Lampreia during her five-hour stay in Brazil -- the first leg of her whirlwind five-day tour that will also take her to Argentina, Chile, Ecuador and Bolivia.

"We discussed the need to ensure that the democratic tide continues to rise in the Western Hemisphere," Albright said at a news conference before leaving for Argentina. "Over the past two decades, democracy has made enormous gains, but in some areas of the region it is experiencing considerable stress."

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BRASILIA, Brazil -- U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright won support from Brazil Tuesday for strengthening the region's fragile democracies, but failed to enlist it behind a $1.3 billion fight against Colombian drug traffickers.

Albright, kicking off a tour of five South American countries, said her one-day visit to Brazil showed bilateral relations were the best in 50 years and differences in opinion "were far fewer than the areas of agreement."

But Brazil's Foreign Minister, Luiz Felipe Lampreia, stressed the "autonomy" of Latin America's largest country, and said it would not participate in the Washington campaign to help battle Colombian drug traffickers.

"We have no intention of participating in any common international action," Lampreia said.

Brazil, which shares a long Amazon jungle border with Colombia, fears a massive military assault could drag it into the country's bloody civil war or send droves of refugees into Brazil.

[end]

BRASILIA, Aug. 15 -- Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright won support from Brazil today for strengthening the region's fragile democracies, but failed to enlist it behind a $1.3 billion fight against Colombian drug traffickers and rebels.

Dr. Albright, kicking off a tour of five South American countries, said her one-day visit to Brazil showed bilateral relations were the best in 50 years and differences in opinion "were far fewer than the areas of agreement."

But Brazil's Foreign Minister Luiz Felipe Lampreia stressed the "autonomy" of Latin America's largest country, and said it would not participate in the major Washington campaign to help battle Colombian drug traffickers.

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BRASILIA, Sept. 1 -- The presidents of South America's 12 countries today rebuffed President Clinton's appeal, made earlier this week, that they endorse a new American-backed military and police offensive aimed at drug trafficking and guerrilla groups in Colombia. In a joint declaration at the end of a two-day summit meeting here, the leaders expressed support for efforts by Colombia's president, Andres Pastrana, to negotiate an end to four decades of civil conflict there.

But they pointedly omitted any mention of Mr. Pastrana's plan to use military means to weaken the cocaine cartels and the left-wing guerrilla and right-wing death squads that are allied with them.

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RIO DE JANEIRO, June 12 - At least 30 people who helped, or planned to help, the Brazilian Congress in a nationwide drug trafficking investigation have been killed since the probe began 14 months ago, a member of the investigating committee said today.

The slayings are evidence of how extraordinarily difficult it has been for the government of Latin America's largest and most populous nation to attack a culture of lawlessness and impunity that has become deeply rooted throughout this country of 170 million people.

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RIO BRANCO, Brazil - The bodies have turned up one or two at a time, in ditches and tall grass on the edge of town. Most of the dead have been thieves and drug dealers, who in many cases across Brazil were tortured for hours or mutilated - a hand or arm chopped off - before being shot in the head at close range.

State civil police investigated the cases, and rarely arrested anyone. Now, federal police and human rights activists say they know why: The civil and military police were themselves the killers.

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RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil - A clash between rival gangs inside a prison in western Brazil Thursday left 13 inmates dead and another 13 wounded, authorities said.

The two groups were vying to control the drug trade within Pascoal Ramos penitentiary in Cuiaba, 980 miles northwest of Rio de Janeiro, said Jose Carlos de Carvalho, coordinator of the Mato Grosso State prison system.

Hundreds of riot troops were sent in to end the violence. Carvalho insisted no police were involved in the killings. In a search police said they found two revolvers and 350 packets of cocaine.

[end]

Investigators in Brazilian probe have won the support of the working class, one observer points out, because 'people see the rich and powerful . . . going to jail. Slowly, things are changing.'

RIO DE JANEIRO--He was one of their own, a federal legislator. But his trail led a congressional investigative commission deep into a blood-spattered labyrinth of criminality, transforming the legislators into national heroes and forcing Brazil to confront the dimensions of the threat posed by drug mafias.

The congressional deputies, a colorful mix of veteran crime fighters, evangelical Christians and ex-addicts, traveled to the Amazon state of Acre on the Bolivian border to hold hearings. They listened to frightened witnesses, some masked to hide their identities, accuse Congressman Hildebrando Pascoal and his family of turning Acre into a narco-state.

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BRAZIL: More than 100 inmates escaped from a crowded jail in Sao Paulo after six armed men stormed the prison early on Monday to spring two alleged drug traffickers before the Christmas holidays, Brazilian police said yesterday.

"We are in a high-risk time of the year, not only because of the holidays but also because it is getting very hot," said Sao Paulo's 7th District police chief, Col Marco Antonio.

"These two had been in since August and as we moved closer to the end of the year they probably increased the pressure on those who could rescue them," Col Antonio said.

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RIO DE JANEIRO (Scripps Howard News Service) -- Brazilian authorities have launched a crackdown on a violent dance craze amid fears that it has claimed the lives of more than a hundred young people.

``Funk balls'' divide Rio's impoverished youth into two gangs which take part in organized fights each weekend at dozens of illegal all-night ``raves.'' About 300,000 young people regularly attend funk balls at more than 100 venues.

But the state government, which has ordered an official inquiry, says the events encourage violence, corrupt minors and are linked to drugs. In the last 2-1/2 weeks, two leading party organizers have been arrested and charged with inciting violence.

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BRAZIL - When police arrested Father Georges Saliba they thought he was an impostor using the sanctity of the cloth to escape detection.

With 11.5 kg of cocaine strapped to the inside of his cassock, they instantly dismissed the 47-year-old's claims that he was a Catholic priest. But it was revealed last week that the drug mule is in fact a real priest who regularly celebrates Mass in Sao Paulo, Latin America's biggest city.

Gen Gilberto Tadeu Vieira Cezar, chief of Sao Paulo's federal police, said: "Father Saliba was on his way to Portugal when officers arrested him at the international airport. He was carrying cocaine which was divided into small bags and strapped to the inside of his religious clothing."

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Drug dealers in Brazil thought they had come up with the perfect Christmas present for their best clients - a free CD for every five kilos of cocaine purchased.

But their plans came unstuck when the police raided the headquarters of the Red Command, one of Brazil's most notorious criminal gangs. Apart from seizing large quantities of drugs, the authorities also took possession of hundreds of copies of "Prohibited Rap", a pirate CD the gangsters had specially pressed for their regular customers.

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RIO DE JANEIRO - A series of congressional investigations in recent weeks has uncovered widespread official corruption in Brazil, roiled political circles and raised real, if slim, hope that the probes will lead to jail time for the most prominent perpetrators.

The investigations, known here as CPIs, have centered on banks and the judiciary, and on organized crime. Thus far, the organized crime investigation has been the most successful, as the panel has unearthed a web of corruption and criminal acts - in many cases involving drug trafficking - that has spanned 11 states and included more than 60 government officials.

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A team of parliamentary crusaders is being credited with making unprecedented strides against organised crime, including the unravelling of drug mafias that involve politicians, businessmen, police and bankers in half of Brazil's states.

Led by Magno Malta, a singing evangelical priest who beat drug addiction to become a member of the congress, the all-party commission has exposed a national network of crime. Since beginning work in April it has brought about the imprisonment of 39 people, including one congress member accused of slicing off a victim's limbs with a chainsaw.

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A new team of parliamentary crusaders is being credited with making unprecedented strides against organised crime in Brazil, including the unravelling of drugs mafias that include elected politicians, businessmen, police and bankers in half the country's states.

Led by Magno Malta, a singing evangelical priest who beat drug addiction to become a member of congress, the all-party parliamentary commission has exposed a national network of crime.

Since the commission began work in April it has brought about the imprisonment of 39 people - including one congress member accused of slicing off a victim's limbs with a chainsaw.

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BRASILIA (Reuters) - Brazil and Peru are going to join forces to fight the growing penetration of Peruvian drug cartels across the countries' Amazon jungle border, a senior official said Friday.

The announcement came as the arrest this week of a Brazilian lawmaker on allegations he ran a death squad with links to a drug ring in the border state of Acre highlighted rising ties with Brazil's Amazon by regional drug barons.

``Peru is doing an excellent job in eradicating coca crops with crop substitution programmes and that is pushing the drug cartels toward the border region with Brazil,'' Walter Maierovitch, Brazil's drug secretary, told journalists.

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BRASILIA (Reuters) - A Brazilian congressional commission Tuesday approved a damning report on drug trafficking and the activity of death squads in the jungle state of Acre, linking them to lawmaker Hildebrando Pascoal.

The report, by a special commission, accused 28 people, including Pascoal, his brother and two of his cousins, of being members of an international crime ring, a spokeswoman for the head of the congressional panel said.

Pascoal has been under investigation for months by another congressional committee for allegedly running a notorious death squad in the Amazonian border state. At the beginning of August, the committee unanimously decided to begin proceedings to strip Pascoal of his congressional immunity.

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BRASILIA, Brazil (AP) -- Brazil and Peru are renewing an agreement to fight drug trafficking along their remote Amazon jungle border, Brazil's top drug official said Friday.

The agreement, to be signed Monday in the Peruvian capital of Lima, updates a 1976 accord for repression and prevention of trafficking, Antidrug Secretary Walter Maierovitch said.

Peru's program to substitute the cultivation of coca, the plant used to make cocaine, had pushed traffickers toward the border, he said.

According to Barry McCaffrey, head of the White House's anti-drug policy, the program has led to a 56 percent reduction of cocaine production in Peru and a 22 percent decline in Bolivia.

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SAO PAULO (Reuters) - A French expatriate was arrested in Brazil's Amazonian state of Para Saturday and charged with masterminding a Colombian drug-trafficking ring, authorities said.

The suspect, identified as Mario Serge, is accused of heading a gang that smuggled cocaine from Colombia to France, said a police officer in Para's capital, Belem. There were no further details about the suspect.

Local television network Globo said police found huge quantities of cocaine wrapped in small plastic bags or hidden in food cans at Serge's house in Belem, about 1,863 miles from Sao Paulo. Police could not confirm the details.



[end]

The White House's drug policy chief warned Monday that Colombia faces a "giant threat" because of cocaine production.

Gen. Barry McCaffrey said that production in Colombia sparked economic and security problems and hindered government talks with leftist guerillas, adding the problem had worsened in the last four years.

But the director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, said there was "absolutely zero" chance of direct U.S. involvement in the region.

"Our vision is that the United States must be prepared to provide resources, equipment, training and intelligence but the most important thing is to provide political support," McCaffrey said at a news conference in Brazil, the first stop on a four-nation visit to Latin America.

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Brazil's Amazon Indians face possibly their biggest threat yet from Colombian drug traffickers, Brazil's drug secretary warned yesterday.

Cocaine traffickers - harassed by mounting military operations along their air routes - have moved to the ground, "using the Indians to transport coca paste directly to clandestine laboratories in Colombia," Walter Maierovitch said.

Indians with their knowledge of the jungle are able to move by foot, mule and canoe with little police interference, Brazilian officials say.

"They are being harassed into transporting drugs," said Roberto Lustosa, a spokesman for the national Indian foundation, Funai. "Some tribes are having their first outside contact with traffickers."

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RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (AP) -- Five men drove up to a bar on Rio's poor north side and opened fire with automatic rifles, killing four people in an attack targeting a drug dealer, police said Tuesday.

The shootings took place shortly after midnight Monday in the Pavuna district, police in nearby Rocha Miranda said.

Two of the victims were members of local samba groups who were performing at the bar. Police said they were shot by accident because they were standing close to the gunmen's target -- a 17-year-old drug trafficker.



[end]

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil -- Even before it starts, the summit of European, Latin American and Caribbean leaders has challenged the United States and its special relationship with Western Hemisphere nations.

The possibility of a free trade zone linking the European Union and the Mercosur trade bloc is a new option for South America, a region sometimes seen as North America's back yard. And though free trade is years away at best, there clearly is a new player at the table.

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SAO PAULO -- Police say they have uncovered an elaborate drug-trafficking ring masterminded by an American expatriate who recruited Brazilian Air Force officers to smuggle cocaine to Europe on military jets.

Air Force pilots and high-ranking officers with customs clearance allegedly stashed the narcotics in their luggage on routine military flights to Spain and France, police said.

Authorities said this week they believe Missouri-born John Michael White, jailed twice in Brazil on drug-related charges, was the brains behind the operation that lasted at least one year.

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RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (AP) Brazil's top drug authority says Colombian cartels are using native people in the Amazon jungle to transport drugs, a newspaper reported Saturday.

Anti-drug Secretary Walter Maierovitch said Indians carry drugs from Brazil to refineries in Colombia, the Jornal do Brasil newspaper said.

Maierovitch spoke at a meeting this week between Brazilian and Colombian authorities to discuss drug-trafficking in the Amazon, the newspaper said.

Officials drew up a report that will be the basis for an agreement on combatting trafficking to be signed in July. Peru also will be asked to sign. The report called Brazil's border region lawless, blaming a failure by authorities to promote economic and social development, the daily said.

Brazil is installing a $1.2 billion Amazon Surveillance System, which uses radar and aircraft to combat trafficking, as well as forest burning and illegal gold mining.



[end]

SAO PAULO, Brazil (AP) A man armed with a revolver barges into a high school classroom, walks over to 18-year-old Elcio de Souza and shoots him dead in a Sao Paulo suburb. The apparent motive: an unpaid gambling debt.

In another city suburb, 14-year-old Maria das Gracas Martins was about to enter school when a single bullet pierced her heart, killing her instantly. The killer reportedly wanted to get back at girls who had picked a fight with his younger sister.

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RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (AP) Federal police seized 77 pounds of cocaine aboard a Brazilian Air Force cargo plane and are investigating possible links between military personnel and drug traffickers, the Air Force Ministry said Tuesday.

The drugs were found Monday on a Hercules C-130 bound for Palma de Mallorca, Spain, where it was scheduled to pick up spare parts for Brazilian military aircraft, the ministry press office said.

The plane departed from the Rio de Janeiro air base Sunday and made a refueling stop in the northeastern city of Recife, where the drugs were detected by drug-sniffing dogs. The pilot and eight crew members were detained pending further investigation.

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Tribes in the Amazon rainforest have appealed against a patent granted in the United States on one of their most sacred plants, ayahuasca. It is believed to be the first time a native group has sought to revoke a plant patent on medicinal and cermonial grounds.

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RIO DE JANEIRO, March 8 (Reuters) - Brazilian police seized 662 pounds (300 kilograms) of Colombian cocaine, destined primarily for Spain, and arrested six men in the culmination of a two-year investigation, Globo TV Network said on Monday.

Three Brazilians and three Colombians were charged with drug trafficking after police on Monday raided a farm and airstrip outside Londrina, 237 miles (381 km) northwest of Curitiba, the capital of the southern Brazilian state of Parana.

Most of the cocaine, thought to come from the Colombian city of Cali, was to be hidden in frozen chicken or instant coffee and shipped to Spain, the Globo TV report said. The rest was headed for Brasilia.

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RIO DE JANEIRO, Dec 28 (Reuters) - Shops and restaurants near the governor's palace in Rio reopened on Monday after drug traffickers forced them to close over the weekend to honour a drug lord killed by police, community leaders said.

Residents and business owners in the middle-class neighbourhoods of Laranjeiras and Cosme Velho said shootouts between rival gangs in the nearby shantytowns were common, but the forced closings showed a new level of brashness.

"I've lived in the neighbourhood for more than 20 years and I've never seen businesses shut down like this," said Thereza Amayo, a former president of the residents' association. She said it felt like they were living in a war zone.

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Rio de Janeiro police found aholiday spirit of a different kind when they discovered Santa dolls stuffed with cocaine and Christmas tree ornaments filled with marijuana in a shantytown near the city centre.

A police spokesman said on Tuesday that foot patrol officers found the stash in an abandoned backpack with wrapping paper in it at the Coroa residents' association headquarters, where toys are normally wrapped and distributed for the holidays.

The cocaine, in clear plastic bags, was hidden inside the Santa dolls under their red cloth hats. At Easter time, police found chocolate eggs laced with the drug.

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RIO DE JANEIRO -- When the judge announced the verdict just after midnight--acquitting all 10 former police officers charged in a slum massacre--the defendants fell to their knees cheering and then joyously lifted their black-robed lawyer onto their shoulders.

Shocked with disbelief, family members of the 21 victims simply turned and walked away.

"I thought that one or another could be absolved, but not all of them," said Rita da Silva, the widow of one of the victims.

Five years after hooded off-duty police massacred 21 residents of Vigario Geral, one of Rio's most violent slums, Brazil's justice system is, its critics say, earning the country another international black eye.

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Lethal police, drug lords dominate Rio's steep, stinking slums

RIO DE JANEIRO - The hillside slums of Rio are a world away from the white sand beaches of Ipanema or the Copacabana samba clubs.

People here in the favelas will vote in today's national elections. Voting is mandatory. But their concern isn't whether Brazil's president Fernando Henrique Cardoso wins re-election without a runoff.

Their aim is to survive another day, to not get killed by police or drug dealers, to muster enough energy to make it up and down the steep, stinking hills of the favelas.

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SAO PAULO (Reuters) - It is the same grisly story every week. Gunmen enter a makeshift bar or a house in the slums that ring South America's biggest city and start shooting.

The body count is soaring this year - 197 fatalities in 56 multiple homicides between Jan. 1 and Aug. 21, compared with 162 dead in such massacres in all of 1997. Few of the killers are ever caught, but police are certain the booming trade in drugs is behind almost all of the bloodshed. "Traffickers are more and more violent.

They shoot at random, to them it's the same thing to kill one or ten people," San Paulo police homicide head Marco Antonio Desgualdo said. - --- Checked-by: Patrick Henry

[end]

BRASILIA (Reuters) - President Fernando Henrique Cardoso Tuesday signed a decree that will speed the process whereby Brazil raises money to fight drug trafficking by auctioning seized assets, officials said.

``As the law stood, the auction of property taken from drug runners could only happen after a conviction, which takes on average between five and seven years,'' said Walter Maierovitch, the head of Brazil's new National Anti-Drugs Secretariat.

``When we got around to the auction, the planes and cars were junk,'' he said.

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RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil - Brazilian military police used spades, hoes and tractors to destroy 37 acres of marijuana, one of the country's largest ever drug plantations, Globo Network television said Monday.

Police spent three days in the interior of the northeastern state of Pernambuco destroying some 65,000 marijuana plants, which were ready for harvesting and marketing across Brazil, Globo said. It did not give a precise location for the plantation.

"I've been working in the region for 10 years and I've never seen so much marijuana as there is in this area," said military policeman Jose Marcos do Santos.

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Military police in Brazil used hoes, spades and tractors to tear up 37 acres of marijuana, one of the country's largest drug plantations, Globo Network TV said Monday. Police spent three days in the state of Pernambuco destroying about 65,000 marijuana plants.Globo didn't give a precise location for the plantation.



[end]

Brazilians spent $7 billion on illegal drugs like marijuana and cocaine in 1997, an amount equal to half the money spent fighting illegal drugs.

- --- Checked-by: (Joel W. Johnson)

[end]

BRASILIA, July 17 (Reuters)- Brazil needs to rethink its anti-drugs policy to fight an ``emerging mafia'' of drug-runners linked to Colombia's cocaine and heroin cartels, the head of Brazil's new anti-drugs office said on Friday.

Judge Walter Maierovitch, appointed head of the new National Drugs Secretariat (SND) last month, also said Brazil would begin offering medical treatment to drug addicts to focus its police efforts on tackling traffickers.

``Up to now we have been fighting the war on the street corners and in the shantytowns. We have to fight the dirty money and the organised crime,'' Maierovitch told reporters after a meeting of state anti-narcotics chiefs.

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Brazil's president Fernando Henique Cardoso, signed a decree Friday creating a post for the country's first central anti-drug chief. Cardosa named Gen. Alberto Cardosa, who now represents the armed forces in the presidential palace, to the post.

- --- Checked-by: Melodi Cornett

[end]

New Agency Will Coordinate Control Effort at National Level for First Time

SAO PAOLO, Brazil—Rapid increases in drug-related crime, especially drug trafficking, have prompted President Fernando Henrique Cardoso to order the creation of a special government body to coordinate drug policy.

The planned Special Secretariat on National Policies for the Control of Drugs, which would be accountable to Cardoso, will coordinate the activities of government agencies fighting drugs on three fronts: trafficking, use and production. Final plans for the secretariat's operations are expected to be presented to Cardoso this week, and the office may be operational before the end of June, officials said.

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BRASILIA (Reuters) - President Fernando Henrique Cardoso on Tuesday signed into law a bill criminalizing money laundering, in an attempt to end Brazil's reputation as a clearing house for the proceeds of organized crime.

The bill, approved by the Senate last month, provides for prison terms of three to 10 years for the crime.

The United States had long urged Brazil to introduce laws fighting money laundering.

Brazil's location close to cocaine-producing countries and its strict bank secrecy laws are believed to have attracted drug gangs, gun-runners, smugglers and corrupt officials seeking to disguise their cash.

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The decrease places the South American nation behind Colombia for the first time.

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil - In a war on drugs that often seems a lost cause,there is some unprecedented good news from South America.

Peru, long the world's top producer of coca leaf, saw a 27 percent fall in production last year, dropping it for the first time behind Colombia in total acres under cultivation.

Over two years, Peru's coca acreage has dropped an impressive 40 percent, and government officials are now talking seriously about eliminating illegal coca - the active ingredient in cocaine - in five years.

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RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (AP) -- Brazil's largest tobacco company on Thursday denied reports that it buys, markets and exports high-nicotine tobacco grown secretly in Brazil.

Souza Cruz, which is owned by British conglomerate B.A.T. Industries, said in a statement that it ``does not promote the cultivation or marketing of any variety of high-nicotine tobacco.''

The denial was in response to an Associated Press report that farmers in southern Brazil grow high-nicotine strains known as ``fumo louco'' -- crazy tobacco in Portuguese -- by the ton and sell them to Souza Cruz.

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VERA CRUZ, Brazil Juca Schneider hadn't seen anything like it in 30 years as a tobacco field instructor.

The dark green plants towered above him, 12 feet high, 7 feet taller than regular varieties. From the stalks sprang broad leaves with veins that bulged like a body builder's.

"Even out in the field, I had a hard time approaching the stuff without getting dizzy" because of the plant's high nicotine content, Schneider said.

"That smell was heavy; felt cold in my lungs. It made the back of my neck crawl."

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RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil Brazilian police said Monday that they seized 232 pounds of cocaine that was hidden in the luggage of a Colombian national arriving at Rio de Janeiro's international airport.

Police said it was the single largest seizure of cocaine at Rio airport.

Alexander Suarez Castanho, 28, who arrived from Bogota Sunday, was carrying the drugs in three suitcases, police said.

He was arrested at the airport but has refused to make a statement before appearing in court, police said.

[end]

SANTA CRUZ DE SOL, Brazil Freakish tobacco plants that explode from the soil in this remote river valley grow huge leaves on stalks as thick as Louisville Sluggers. The growers here call it fumo louco. (Crazy tobacco.)

Crazy not just because it grows so big and so fast. Crazy because it has been genetically altered by one of the world's largest tobacco companies to pack twice the nicotine of other commercially grown leaf.

The farmers of Brazil's Southernmost state are growing it by the ton for the world market, Associated Press has found, though it could not be learned for certain which countries are importing it.

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