[Cincinatus' Wife]

Brazil's leftist under fire from left over striking workers and land invasions. *** RIO DE JANEIRO - The first big trouble for Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is coming from the least likely of places: the left. The former Communist spent the first six months of his presidency shoring up Brazil's flagging economy. But now Mr. da Silva, or Lula, as he is known here, is paying the price for failing to address the country's social problems immediately, specifically, Brazil's inequitable distribution of land. According to the government, the 37 biggest landowners own more territory than the 2.5 million smallest ones.

The Landless Workers' Movement (MST) has launched a series of land invasions designed to pressure the government into speeding up agrarian reform. The group called a moratorium on such invasions during the election campaign late last year, but it abandoned the stay in March, turning up the heat by invading scores of farms, ranches, and government buildings in their most concerted series of actions in years. Some political analysts call the unrest the biggest threat to the popular president's nascent administration. "This is one of Lula's biggest problems," says David Fleischer, the editor of Brazil Focus, a political journal. "It's really stirred up a hornet's nest."***

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Colombia to Start Talks With Militia *** ARAUCA, Colombia - An outlawed Colombian paramilitary group agreed to peace talks and promised to lay down its weapons by 2005, while the president symbolically moved the capital to a war zone to show that his government, not leftist rebels, controls the country. The paramilitary United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, or AUC, promised Tuesday to start demobilizing its 10,000 troops by the end of the year.

The official peace negotiations come after a December cease-fire and six months of exploratory talks. The AUC is an umbrella paramilitary group that is accused of some of the worst human rights abuses in Colombia's 39-year civil war. It arose in the 1980s to counter extortion and kidnappings by leftist rebels in rural areas where government troops had little or no control.

"I believe that this can contribute to the country laying down the foundation for peace," President Alvaro Uribe said from the city of Arauca, where he moved the capital for three days. There was no immediate comment from the leftist rebels, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. The FARC has said it would join peace talks, but has demanded a safe haven and other preconditions the government refuses to accept. ***