Peru

Dr. Ernesto Molfino, a general surgeon, died of a heart attack Sunday while playing soccer with a recreation league team at Schooley Mill Park in Highland. The Ellicott City resident was 64. Born in Lima, Peru, where he received his medical education, he moved to the United States and did his surgical residency in Detroit. He then moved to Baltimore and practiced at the old Lutheran Hospital in West Baltimore. He also did a shock trauma fellowship with Dr. R. Adams Cowley at University of Maryland Medical Center.

Mr. and Mrs. Robert Muir of Baltimore are pleased to announce the marriage of their daughter, Ashley Fay, to Nestor Antonio Gavidia, son of Mr. and Mrs. Antonio Gavidia of Lima, Peru. A nuptial Mass was celebrated by Reverend Brendan Hurley, SJ, on Sunday, July 1, at Saint Ignatius Church, Baltimore. A reception for family and friends was held at the Intercontinental Harbor Court Hotel. The couple was attended by Elizabeth Webber of Chicago, college roommate of the bride and Christopher Muir of Germantown, brother of the bride.

SANTIAGO, Chile -- Chile's Supreme Court approved yesterday the extradition of Peru's former president, Alberto K. Fujimori, on charges of human rights abuses and corruption related to his time in power during the 1990s. The ruling, which cannot be appealed, could set an important international precedent for extradition cases of former heads of state wanted for atrocities, according to human rights advocates. After the ruling, Fujimori, 69, could be transported to Peru as early as next week, Chilean government officials said.

LIMA, Peru -- For Magna Morales and Bernadina Alva, peasant Andean women who could barely afford to feed their families, it was a troubling offer but one they found hard to refuse. Shortly before Christmas, government health workers promised gifts of food and clothing if they underwent a sterilization procedure called tubal ligation.The operation went well for Alva, 26, who received two dresses for her daughter and a T-shirt for her son. But Morales, 34, died of complications 10 days after the surgery, leaving three young children and a husband behind.

Maria Reiche,95, a German mathematician who dedicated half a century to protecting and studying massive ancient drawings in the Peruvian desert, died yesterday of stomach cancer in Lima, Peru.The scholar's tireless work promoting the pre-Columbian drawings persuaded UNESCO to declare the 200-square-mile area a world heritage site in 1995.The figures of a hummingbird, monkey, man and spider and other geometric figures were created by members of the Nasca culture between 700 B.C. and 900 A.D. They were scratched into the desert floor about 250 miles south of Lima.

BRASILIA, Brazil -- In this age of genetic mapping and space exploration, Sydney Possuelo devotes himself to tracking down groups of people who have never seen a light bulb.As the controversial director of Brazil's Department of Isolated Indians, Possuelo, 58, has found eight such groups in the past 10 years. He spotted the most recent one in April, after a week of flying a small plane over the Amazon rain forest.The new group is nameless. Little is known of the people besides the shape of their thatched dwellings -- about 15 long, narrow huts near the border with Peru -- and that, like most so-called "lost tribes," they don't want to be found.

The warden of the state-run Central Booking and Intake Center in Baltimore has resigned to direct the correctional division of a Utah company that runs private prisons.Alfred I. Murphy has run the $56-million, high-tech facility since it opened 2 1/2 years ago. "I came here to build this place, to get it up and running," Murphy, whose last day is March 6, said yesterday.Leonard A. Sipes Jr., a spokesman for the state public safety agency, said Murphy's departure had nothing to do with the erroneous release of an inmate Friday.

YARINACOCHA, Peru - For five years, missionaries Ivagene Shive and Mary Ann Lord trekked through the Amazon rain forest, searching for a group of Indians hidden away for generations.The women camped on riverbanks, hoping to find the Indians gathering turtle eggs. They hung gifts - pots, spoons, knives and packets of plastic beads - in trees. They flew over the jungle and dropped bundles of food and cloth.Last year, Shive and Lord interrupted their search when they were summoned to give medical aid to some Indians discovered local loggers.

LIMA, Peru -- Leftist guerrillas holding 74 Peruvian and foreign officials hostage unfurled banners on the roof of the residence of the Japanese ambassador yesterday, calling on the Peruvian government to resume talks to resolve the 18-day standoff."

VILLA EL SALVADOR, Peru -- It's not that Michel Azcueta lacks sympathy for the 73 hostages penned up in the Japanese ambassador's residence, far from it. It's just that he worries that Peruvian security forces, their attention fixed on the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA) guerrillas holding the hostages, are going to miss a much deadlier threat from a different direction."Terror, for the Peruvian people, has never been personified by MRTA," said Azcueta, the mayor of this sprawling shantytown built on seaside sand dunes just south of Lima.

SALARY: $120,000 AGE: 49 YEARS ON THE JOB: 5 How she got started: : Zia Boccaccio, a native of Cuzco, Peru, easily remembers the first time she became interested in alpacas. She was 6 or 7 when she spotted an alpaca on a trip with her family to ancestral land in the Andes Mountains of Peru. She describes the animal as aloof, delicate and beautiful. When she was 21 years old, she married an American and moved to Washington. For about 12 years, she worked as an operational manager for Steilmann European Selection, a German fashion company.

As you read this today, I'm floating in the Atlantic on a cruise ship bound for the Caribbean. Yes, I know. The life of a travel editor is, like, so exhausting. But I'll have you know it's my first vacation in nearly six months, so I'd like to think I've earned it. In preparing for my trip, I was reminded of the new passport rules that go into effect June 1. As of that date, most Americans will need to show a passport or passport card to enter the U.S. by land or sea. Airline passengers already have to show such identification.

The world is a big place and many of us have a bit of trouble finding our way around it. A 2006 Geographic Literacy Study found that two-thirds of Americans ages 18 to 24 couldn't locate Iraq on a map. I can't find my car in the garage at the end of the day; it's only because I read so many travel guides -- and keep the National Geographic Atlas handy at my desk -- that I have even an average knowledge of geography. But 14-year-old Peter Meehan, a North Harford Middle School student, has no such problems.

LIMA, Peru - President George W. Bush arrived in South America yesterday for the final scheduled foreign trip of his presidency, hoping to bolster confidence in efforts to rescue the global economy and move forward on North Korean nuclear disarmament. The 21 member nations of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, whose summit Bush is attending, account for nearly half of all global trade and 55 percent of the world's gross domestic product, reflecting in part the ascendance of East Asia and China.

Mr. and Mrs. Robert Muir of Baltimore are pleased to announce the marriage of their daughter, Ashley Fay, to Nestor Antonio Gavidia, son of Mr. and Mrs. Antonio Gavidia of Lima, Peru. A nuptial Mass was celebrated by Reverend Brendan Hurley, SJ, on Sunday, July 1, at Saint Ignatius Church, Baltimore. A reception for family and friends was held at the Intercontinental Harbor Court Hotel. The couple was attended by Elizabeth Webber of Chicago, college roommate of the bride and Christopher Muir of Germantown, brother of the bride.

SANTIAGO, Chile -- Chile's Supreme Court approved yesterday the extradition of Peru's former president, Alberto K. Fujimori, on charges of human rights abuses and corruption related to his time in power during the 1990s. The ruling, which cannot be appealed, could set an important international precedent for extradition cases of former heads of state wanted for atrocities, according to human rights advocates. After the ruling, Fujimori, 69, could be transported to Peru as early as next week, Chilean government officials said.

LIMA, Peru -- Authorities bolstered the troop and police presence in the earthquake-shattered zone south of Peru's capital yesterday after a wave of looting targeted shops, relief vehicles and aid storage sites. Hundreds of reinforcements were posted along highways and in the hard-hit cities of Chincha, Pisco and Ica, all of which reported incidents of pillaging. Three days after the devastating 8.0-magnitude quake struck -- killing about 500 people and injuring 1,500 others -- tens of thousands of people remained without even temporary housing and a regular supply of water and food.

LIMA, Peru -- A day after an earthquake devastated cities along Peru's southern coast, government officials said the deaths exceeded 500, with at least 17,000 people displaced and with wide areas lacking electricity, telephone service or road access. The deputy chief of Peru's fire department put the death toll at 510 last night. At least 300 of the dead were in Pisco, a port town about 125 miles south of Lima, and more were thought to be buried in rubble, local officials said. Dozens were inside the San Clemente cathedral, which was full for Mass when the quake caved it in about 6:40 p.m. Wednesday.

Dr. Ernesto Molfino, a general surgeon, died of a heart attack Sunday while playing soccer with a recreation league team at Schooley Mill Park in Highland. The Ellicott City resident was 64. Born in Lima, Peru, where he received his medical education, he moved to the United States and did his surgical residency in Detroit. He then moved to Baltimore and practiced at the old Lutheran Hospital in West Baltimore. He also did a shock trauma fellowship with Dr. R. Adams Cowley at University of Maryland Medical Center.

By his neighbors' account, Juan Manuel Rivera-Rondon lived a quiet life in an insular, upscale Montgomery County community where few truly know each other's past. A legal immigrant from Peru, he had married, had two girls and later divorced while living in the United States, court papers show. He had prospered in the home mortgage business, acquiring two expensive houses outside Washington, taking trips with his girlfriend to the Cayman Islands and traveling back to Peru to visit his sick mother.