LIMA, Peru--Surging cocaine production is rattling Peru after years of relative calm, raising fears that the associated increase in violence and corruption could derail one of the fastest-growing economies in Latin America.

The cultivation of coca, and the capacity to make cocaine from it, have been steadily rising in Peru, while neighboring Colombia has been aggressively cracking down on production. Peruvian cocaine exports, according to one study, have overtaken those from Colombia, though Colombia remains the world's leader in cocaine production.

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After a lull, production is rising, feeding demand in Brazil, Europe and East Asia, officials say. With flashy cartel men replaced by a piecemeal network, the trafficking is harder to combat.

SANTA LUCIA, PERU -- Rustic mule trains ferry vital chemicals to clandestine jungle labs.

Booby-trapped fields ward off intruders.

Trekkers never seen on the Discovery Channel backpack the prized finished product on epic journeys from steamy Amazon hideaways to chilly highland distribution depots.

And a shadowy remnant of the notorious Shining Path rebel army, led by a charismatic man named Artemio, uses its muscle to pocket a fortune in a sinister protection racket.

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Mexican and Colombian drug traffickers are importing a far more brutal operating style to Peru, say authorities.

This message chilled Sonia Medina the most: "Listen, we know who your daughter is," the anonymous threat came via text message over her cellphone. "And we think she is good-looking."

As Peru's top drug prosecutor, Ms. Medina, a former judge who stands just 5 feet tall, is confronting the nation's increasingly violent drug-trafficking problem head on. She is whisked around by bodyguards - - sometimes one, sometimes three - and never rides in a car without tinted windows.

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LIMA, Peru - He was a strapping and fearless reporter originally from Tallahassee who wanted to earn his stripes to become a foreign correspondent.

So Todd Smith headed to the drug-trafficking hub of Uchiza in central Peru and photographed the small planes loaded with semi-refined cocaine bound for Colombia.

Smith did not leave Uchiza alive. His body, tortured and with a sign denouncing him as a U.S. undercover agent, was found in a Uchiza playground on Nov. 21, 1989. He was 28 years old and worked for the Tampa Tribune. He is the only U.S. reporter who has been killed while covering Peru's drug trade.

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Tribune Journalist Was Abducted There

Peru's president has promised to try to reopen the investigation into the 1989 slaying of Tampa Tribune reporter Todd C. Smith.

Alan Garcia's pledge followed a meeting with U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson on Thursday and came without reporters' prompting at a subsequent news conference in Lima, Peru's capital.

"We'll work with the justice system to bring to light the truth and so at least his parents will have the consolation of knowing the truth," Garcia told reporters.

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A New Program Aims To Help Coca Growers Raise Paiche, A Huge, Endangered Fish Known For Its Flaky Meat.

Pucallpa, Peru -- Teofilo Tapullima knows first hand the dangers that lurk beneath the muddy waters of Peru's Amazon jungle: Piranhas, fresh-water rays, and the giant paiche fish, to name a few.

He recently found out just how tricky a paiche can be when he had to net one at the research institute where he works outside Pucallpa, in northern Peru.

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Peru's president is promoting the virtues of legal coca, but the country's defense minister said Wednesday that Peru remains committed to eradicating the illegal portion of the crop that is the raw material for cocaine.

"Should illegal coca leaf crops disappear? There is no doubt. That is the objective," Defense Minister Allan Wagner told Radioprogramas radio. "How to achieve that requires a lot of intelligence and political sensitivity to know how this can truly advance."

Eradication is a touchy -- and deadly -- issue in Peru, the world's second-largest producer of cocaine after Colombia.

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LIMA, Peru -- The polls have closed and the ballot count is underway. But Peruvians will have to wait at least a month until they know who will be their next president.

With more than 80% of the votes tallied Monday, Ollanta Humala, 43, a retired army officer supported by many of the country's indigenous and mixed-race poor, led with 30.3%, Peru's election authority said. Alan Garcia, 56, a center-left former president, was second with 24.9%. Conservative congresswoman Lourdes Flores, 46, was close with 24%. No candidate had the majority needed for an outright victory. A runoff between the top two vote-getters will be held in late May or early June.

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Runoff for Top 2 Vote-Getters Likely in May

LIMA, Peru -- Peruvians headed to the polls Sunday in presidential elections that pitted a populist military man against a hard-talking congresswoman and a former president who left the country in shambles 20 years ago.

Political newcomer Ollanta Humala, 43, a retired lieutenant colonel with support among the country's Indian and mixed-race poor, held a narrow lead, according to early election results.

No candidate was likely to win a majority in Sunday balloting, meaning Peru would need to conduct a runoff between the top two vote-getters next month. A poll Saturday by local polling firm Apoyo showed 27% of Peruvians backing Humala. Lourdes Flores and Alan Garcia were tied for second place with 23%.

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Any unannounced 'gringo' visitor to this tiny village is a dead man. As endless coca fields spread into the forests of Peru's Apurimac jungle, mountains of coca leaves dry in the sun of Llaruri's dirt streets, at the heart of one of the world's largest cocaine-producing areas.

'Last time, I came here with a Canadian engineer and coca farmers thought we wanted to eradicate their crops, so they blocked the road, drove us away at gunpoint and threatened to shoot us,' said my driver as we approached the village. 'A local teacher saved us at the last minute by suggesting that they should check our identities first.'

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LIMA, Peru -- If Ollanta Humala, a retired army officer with no governing experience, wins Sunday's presidential election, he may become the South American leader who most worries Washington.

"He falls in the same league" as Latin America's two left-leaning leaders: Venezuela's Hugo Chvez and Bolivia's Evo Morales, says Dennis Jett, U.S. ambassador to Peru from 1996 to 1999. "He is just as wacky as Chvez and Morales, and perhaps more unpredictable, because, basically, his only experience is an attempted coup d'etat and as a human rights abuser."

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Front-Runner Could Be the Latest Unorthodox South American Leader

In most professions, reaching the top requires a stellar track record of experience and achievement. But in Latin American politics, a barren resume can serve as a ticket to the presidential palace.

The latest example may turn out to be Ollanta Humala, the front-runner heading into Peru's April 9 presidential election who is waging his first political campaign.

A former lieutenant colonel, Humala led a failed military uprising in 2000 but was otherwise unknown to most Peruvians until just a few months ago. Yet Humala paints his inexperience as an endowment.

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Peru's brutal rebel movement, the Shining Path, long thought to be all but extinct, is on the warpath again, boosted by an alliance with drug traffickers.

Its Maoist guerrillas almost vanished after the capture of their founder and leader, Abimael Guzman, in 1993, with only a few hundred left sheltering in remote highlands.

But those mountains are now the setting for a dramatic growth in cultivating coca to produce cocaine, and veteran fighters are now serving new masters, the drug barons.

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Coca Leaves Are Not Cocaine

Leaving Listuguj and Campbellton for a journey to South America is always exciting, as is coming back. With a grant from the Quebec Art Council, I went to Peru to do a research about coca leaves, a plant that Andean people have used for more than 5,000 years. They call it Mama-Coca or Mother-Coca and I brought three leaves with me. Arriving at the Montreal airport, the custom officer was unequivcal. "There are drugs and we have zero tolerance for drugs," she said before seizing the leaves.

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LIMA - Fifteen years ago, Florida journalist Todd Smith was slain after he ventured into Peru's jungle to investigate links between Shining Path guerrillas and the cocaine trade.

At the time, Peru's Interior Ministry said the 28-year-old Tampa Tribune reporter had been captured by the Maoist rebels and possibly sold to drug traffickers for $30,000, the bounty then offered for anyone suspected of being a U.S. drug enforcement agent.

A secret counterterrorism court in April 1993 sentenced Shining Path guerrilla Jose Manrique to 30 years in prison for taking part in the murder.

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Assets Frozen: Peruvian Businessman Says Rivals Are Trying To Ruin His Name

LIMA - One of Peru's top businessmen has challenged the United States to start legal proceedings against him in U.S. courts after the White House placed him on its list of overseas drug kingpins.

"I'm sending a letter to the President of the United States asking that they open a trial in the United States so that I can present my case and the American justice system can decide if I am guilty or innocent," said Fernando Zevallos, founder of Aero Continente, Peru's largest airline, who also faces legal proceedings in Peruvian courts.

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LIMA (AP)--About 3,000 rural coca growers marched peacefully into Lima on Monday to demand the government stop programs to eradicate their cocaine-producing crop and release of one of their leaders.

Protest leader Nancy Obregon told The Associated Press that the coca farmers would remain in the capital "until they solve our problems."

Obregon said coca farmers want to speak with Prime Minister Carlos Ferrero and legislators about a law that would protect coca cultivation.

They also want to meet with judiciary officials to discuss the release of one of their leaders, Nelson Palomino, who has been jailed for more than a year on charges of spreading terrorist propaganda.

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LIMA (AP) - It looks and tastes pretty much like the many brands of bottled iced tea that line American supermarket shelves - just don't drink it before a drug test.

Kdrink is one of two new bottled beverages to hit Peruvian stores this year using a formula made from coca leaves, the base ingredient in cocaine. Each bottle of Kdrink contains a trace 0.6 milligrams of the outlawed stimulant.

Although that amount of natural, unprocessed cocaine carries less kick than a cup of coffee, it is enough to create a legal headache for exporters. With the notable exception of Coca-Cola, products using coca leaves are banned in most countries beyond the Andes by strict U.S. and UN import regulations.

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Lima, March 19: The Internet and cellular telephones are making drug traffickers harder than ever to catch and the job will only become more difficult as technology develops, a US anti-drug official said on Thursday.

Messages in Internet chat rooms, where drug smugglers in Latin America can arrange cocaine deliveries in London or Berlin, are almost impossible to intercept and cellular phone text messages cannot be tracked by authorities, Mark Malcolm, intelligence analyst at the United States Drug Enforcement Administration, told an international drug conference in Lima.

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Peruvian coca growers are meeting in the capital Lima to discuss ways to confront the government over their controversial crop.

Farmers are angry that politicians have failed to come up with a financially viable alternative to the crop, which is the raw material for cocaine.

The coca growers have travelled long distances from remote areas of the Andes and Amazon to voice their anger.

Peru is the second biggest producer of cocaine in the world.

Legal Use

Much of it is smuggled to the United States - though a small amount is used legally, brewed in tea or chewed to combat altitude sickness.

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