Ecuador

IN QUITO, the capital of Ecuador, a fancy meal for two can be had for less than $20, a taxi ride across town costs about $2, and a bottle of the excellent local rum $3. The country is a tourist paradise, especially for holders of the elsewhere battered dollar.The government is hoping that more than tourists will come to the Andes, and to achieve this goal, it has passed a new law allowing U.S. and other foreign companies to set up shop importing duty-free all that they need to produce goods for re-export.

TUESDAY'S TELEVISION HIGHLIGHTS F1 Japanese Grand Prix (T) SPEEDNoon MLB NLCS, Gm. 2: St. Louis@Milwaukee (T) MLB1 ALCS, Gm. 3: Texas@Detroit 45, 57:30 C. foot. Texas Christian@San Diego State (T) CBSSN6 a.m. Southern Mississippi@Navy (T) CBSSN4 Oklahoma vs. Texas (T) ESPNUMidnight Miami@Virginia Tech (T) ESPNU2 a.m. Missouri@Kansas State (T)

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina -- About 75 tons of arms from Argentina, which is a mediator in the border dispute between Ecuador and Peru, were illegally sold to Ecuador during its brief war with Peru over the region last month.Argentina's deputy foreign minister, Fernando Petrella, said that the government had been duped by arms traffickers into signing what officials thought was an agreement to sell the weapons -- 105- and 155-mm cannon, rifles, pistols, heavy machine guns and mortars -- to Venezuela for $34 million.

John W. Ford, a retired accountant who earlier had been a career non-commissioned Army officer, died Nov. 17 of cancer at Gilchrist Hospice Care. He was 70. The son of a drugstore owner and a homemaker, Mr. Ford was born and raised in Columbus, Ga. He was a 1958 graduate of Columbus High School. He joined the Army in 1960 where he attained the rank of chief warrant officer. Mr. Ford was assigned to the communication section of the defense attaché and worked in embassies in Bolivia, Vietnam, India, Burma, Ecuador and Switzerland.

To the people of Ecuador, Tamara G. Fesche might seem to be an angel.Mrs. Fesche is the executive director of ECUAdent, a program that enlists volunteers in the dental profession to aid poor people in foreign countries. She and 23 health care professionals spent 10 days in March in the Ecuadorean villages of Latacunga and Salcedo, treating children who get little dental care.The group included oral surgeons, dentists, nurses, technicians, hygienists and dental assistants. Each participated as a volunteer.

Manuel Jaramillo, the consul of Ecuador in Baltimore, died Wednesday of complications from pneumonia at Johns Hopkins Hospital. He was 80 and lived in Charles Village. For the past 21 years, he had assisted Ecuadoreans here while representing the business and maritime interests of his country. Remembered for his immaculate attire, exuberant hospitality and social graces, he often entertained visitors from South America and introduced them to Baltimoreans in the home he restored in the 2900 block of N. Charles St. "He was a gourmet cook who found great excitement and enjoyment in food," said Fran Hershfield, a friend who lives in Sparks.

GENEVA -- Ecuador's decision to leave OPEC reflects the spirit of the post-Cold War era in which monopolistic and socialist policies have unraveled to make room for freer trade and Western free enterprise.Ecuador will be the first country in the 13-member oil cartel to leave since the group's founding 32 years ago. The decision, announced Thursday night, deals another blow to an organization that has seen its market power wane steadily for nearly a decade and is still reeling from depressed oil prices, rising energy taxes and a successful anti-pollution campaign to restrain the use of oil.What's more, most members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, led by Saudi Arabia, have been producing as much oil as they wish, rendering the cartel useless as a price-setting group.

SAQUISILI, Ecuador -- The indigenous people cling to the high Andes Mountains, coming down as deliberately as the glaciers from the nearby 19,348-foot Cotopaxi volcano.As they have for generations, the Quechua-speaking descendants of the Incas herd sheep on wind-swept hills. They grow crops on terraced slopes of fertile lava turned to soil. At times they descend the 2,000 feet to go to market in this town in the Central Highlands.The hardy mountaineers endure harsh sunlight near the equator and cold, stormy nights.

Sam's Army, that gang of noisy, red-clad, U.S. national soccer team fanatics, already has its tickets -- in Section 21, out in the clanky, scoreboard-end bleachers at Memorial Stadium.Ecuador's team is in town, lacking its two best-known players and all but incommunicative about the rest. And the U.S. team, a hungry Plan B squad if ever there was one, will definitely show up.So, at 7: 30 tonight (ESPN), international soccer returns to Baltimore, 25 years to the month since its last appearance, with a friendly match trimmed in question marks.

QUITO, Ecuador -- Banana billionaire Alvaro Noboa edged left-wing economist Rafael Correa in the presidential election's first round yesterday, setting up a runoff between two candidates who are bitter rivals and polar opposites, according to early results. With nearly two-thirds of the ballots tabulated, Noboa polled 26.8 percent, and Correa had 22.4 percent, according to electoral authorities. Noboa, whose family owns Ecuador's largest banana plantation, closed what many pollsters saw as a 5- or 6-percentage-point deficit with Correa in the campaign's final days.

"Crude" sounds like the standard "this is an outrage" environmental degradation documentary, the latest in a line that includes "An Inconvenient Truth" and films about the deaths of the oceans, the evaporation of water, the murder of dolphins, even the disintegration of dirt. "Crude" fits that bill, but it is something considerably more interesting as well. The outrage in question is the subject of a class action suit filed by 30,000 residents of Ecuador against Chevron, the world's fifth-largest corporation, alleging that 18 billion gallons of toxic wastewater were dumped into the Amazon between 1972 and 1990, fatally poisoning the land and water and sickening inhabitants.

BOGOTA, Colombia -- Files provided by Colombian officials from computers they say were captured in a cross-border raid in Ecuador on March 1 appear to tie Venezuela's government to efforts to secure arms for Colombia's largest insurgency. Officials taking part in Colombia's investigation of the computers provided The New York Times with copies of more than 20 files, some of which also showed contributions from the rebels to the 2006 campaign of Ecuador's leftist president, Rafael Correa.

Federal customs agents seized $3 million worth of cocaine hidden in a cargo ship from Ecuador and docked at Baltimore's main port, officials announced yesterday. Agents discovered the cocaine during a random search Monday of the containerized cargo on the vessel Alianca Shanghai. Michael Hrinyak, the customs agency's security director at the port, said it was one of the largest cocaine seizures at the Baltimore port in recent years. A contraband enforcement team with the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Anti-Terrorism found 310 pounds of cocaine on the ship after a drug-sniffing dog alerted authorities.

QUITO, Ecuador -- Banana billionaire Alvaro Noboa edged left-wing economist Rafael Correa in the presidential election's first round yesterday, setting up a runoff between two candidates who are bitter rivals and polar opposites, according to early results. With nearly two-thirds of the ballots tabulated, Noboa polled 26.8 percent, and Correa had 22.4 percent, according to electoral authorities. Noboa, whose family owns Ecuador's largest banana plantation, closed what many pollsters saw as a 5- or 6-percentage-point deficit with Correa in the campaign's final days.

WASHINGTON - The U.S. Commerce Department lowered tariffs on $1.7 billion worth of shrimp imports from Thailand, India, Ecuador and Brazil yesterday, potentially lowering prices for America's most popular seafood. Thailand, the largest exporter of shrimp to the United States, faces average duties of as much as 6 percent, down from a 10.3 percent preliminary tariff proposed in July after the United States determined that Thai companies were illegally "dumping" exports at below-market prices.

A Memorable Place Journey to the middle of the world By Caroline Sherritt Mooser SPECIAL TO THE SUN After reading Jules Verne's Journey to the Center of the Earth, one feels inclined to do a little exploring. While traveling to the Earth's core remains impossible, the next best thing is trekking to its middle. My trip to Mitad del Mundo -- middle of the world -- began when my sister Annie invited me to visit her while she was studying in Ecuador. I jumped at the opportunity, which would take me to the sole country that is named after the imaginary line dividing our planet into the Northern and Southern hemispheres.

After 14 hours of travel Monday, about three hours of practice since, and then 83 minutes of cautious play last night, Ecuador seemed an unlikely winner at Memorial Stadium.But a breakaway goal with about seven minutes remaining, one that the U.S. team unanimously called an off-side play, resulted in a 1-0 exhibition victory for Ecuador.On- or off-side, however, no whistle blew, and 13,629 fans at the first international match in Baltimore in 25 years went almost silent as the ball rolled into the net -- against the grain of play.

BOGOTA, Colombia -- Files provided by Colombian officials from computers they say were captured in a cross-border raid in Ecuador on March 1 appear to tie Venezuela's government to efforts to secure arms for Colombia's largest insurgency. Officials taking part in Colombia's investigation of the computers provided The New York Times with copies of more than 20 files, some of which also showed contributions from the rebels to the 2006 campaign of Ecuador's leftist president, Rafael Correa.

Children invited to participate in `Pinocchio' At Theatre on the Hill, children can be a part of the show. The first of two children's plays this season is Carlo Collodi's classic tale of Pinocchio, about the live puppet that wants to be a real boy. This production is an adaptation by Brian Way of the original tale, written as a series of stories from 1881 to 1882 and published as a book in 1883. Viewer participation includes offering suggestions to the characters and joining the characters onstage.

IWAS 9 years old when I experienced my first American Christmas. I was at a loss to describe my reaction because my English wasn't very good. When I became completely fluent, I realized the word I was looking for was "bummer." That's because I had the disadvantage of experiencing eight Latino Christmases before celebrating my ninth with an Anglo one. A Latino Christmas is a wonder to behold. If American families are nuclear, then Latino families are electromagnetic, pulling every relative, no matter how distant, into their orbit.