Latin America honours saints John Paul II and John XXIII

BBC News, 27 April 2014

Floribeth Mora, who says she was cured of an aneurism by Pope
John Paul II, presents his relic to Pope Francis

Related Stories

• Vatican declares two popes saints
• Ceremony images
• Life of John Paul

Tens of thousands of people have gathered across Latin America to celebrate the canonisation of Popes John Paul II and John XXIII.

They were declared saints by Pope Francis, before a crowd of hundreds of thousands in the Vatican.

Pilgrims and leaders from Latin America were among those who attended the ceremony on Sunday.

Born in Argentina, Pope Francis is the first Latin American to lead the Roman Catholic Church.

In Costa Rica, some 20,000 people assembled in the national stadium for a vigil, which began on Saturday night.

They watched the Sunday-morning Mass in St Peter's Square on big screens in San Jose.

'God-chosen country'

A woman from the Central American nation played a key role in the canonisation of Pope John Paul II.

The Church says Floribeth Mora's life was miraculous saved by the Polish-born Pope.

She had a rare type of brain aneurysm that could not be operated on and says she was cured after praying for the late Pope in 2011.

That was the second miracle required by the Vatican for Pope John Paul to be declared a saint.

In Mexico, a country Pope John Paul II visited five times,
some 1,500 people took part in a vigil

Costa Rican pilgrims were among those who travelled to Rome for the Mass

Argentine and Venezuelan pilgrims prayed together in the Vatican's
St Peter's Square

Ms Mora was at the ceremony in St Peter's Square.

"God has chosen this very beautiful country to carry out a miracle, something unexplainable," a young Catholic named Carlos Cruz told Reuters.

In Mexico - which was part of Karol Wojtyla's first visit abroad after he became Pope in 1978 - some 1,500 people took part in a vigil in the capital's main cathedral.

"Those of us here have come because of our faith, fervour for Jesus Christ and to ask John Paul II to intercede on our behalf," said Maria Ines Rivera.

Brazil, which has the largest Catholic population in the world, has become the first country to name a church after Saint John Paul II.

The small church, in a poor neighbourhood of Salvador, was opened by the Pope in 1980.

'Four Popes'

The Mass was attended by Pope Emeritus Benedict, who quit as pope last year, and roughly 100 foreign delegations.

Pope Francis paid tribute to the two new saints as "priests, bishops and popes of the 20th Century".

Pope Francis declares John Paul II and John XXIII as new saints

Relics of each man - a container of blood from John Paul and a piece of skin from John - were placed near the altar.

At the climax of the service, Pope Francis said in Latin: "We declare and define Blessed John XXIII and John Paul II to be saints and we enrol them among the saints, decreeing that they are to be venerated as such by the whole Church."

The Vatican estimated some 800,000 pilgrims had poured into Rome to see the two-hour ceremony first-hand.

"Four popes in one ceremony is a fantastic thing to see and to be at, because it is history being written in our sight," said Polish pilgrim Dawid Halfar.

John Paul II was Pope from 1978 until his death in 2005.

John XXIII was born in the Italian city of Bergamo. He introduced a number of reforms in the Catholic Church during his papacy, between 1958 and 1963.

Related Articles:

Popes John Paul II and John XXIII made saints in double canonisation

Floribeth: John Paul II's Costa Rican 'miracle' woman

Brazil passes online privacy law as Web governance conference starts in Sao Paulo

Deutsche Welle, 23 April 2014

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff has ratified a bill guaranteeing Internet privacy and access to the Web. It comes as Sao Paulo hosts a global conference on Internet governance.

The legislation, which was passed by parliament late on Tuesday, puts limits on the metadata that can be collated from Internet users in Brazil. It also makes Internet service providers not liable for content published by their users and requires them to comply with court orders to remove offensive material.

Rousseff, who was in Sao Paulo for the opening of the NetMundial global conference on Internet governance, has been at the forefront of efforts to formally recognize Internet freedom and privacy.

Rousseff has been pushing for
measures on Internet governance

Last year, when it was revealed that she had been under surveillance by the National Security Agency (NSA), Rousseff cancelled a state visit to the US and started to champion Internet freedom and privacy.

Speaking at the opening of NetMundial, she said that "the Internet we want will only be possible in a scenario of respect for human rights, in particular the right to privacy and freedom of expression."

Despite her differences with the US, Rousseff praised Washington for its decision to hand over the management of ICANN and IANA, which manage the Internet's global domain name system, next September.

"I salute the US government's recently announced plan to replace its links to IANA and ICANN with a global management of those institutions," she said on Wednesday.

During the two-day conference, government officials, industry executives and academics from around the world are expected to agree on a set of principles to enhance online privacy that does not overly restrict the Internet's self-regulated nature.

They will also debate how to govern the Internet after the US hands over the reins at ICANN. The meeting's resolutions are non-binding, but Brazil hopes they can serve as the foundation for further discussions on Internet governance.

The main challenge is to find common ground between different governments and corporate Internet giants like Facebook and Google, who are opposed to more regulation.

ng/rc (AP, Reuters)

Antarctica, a Dream Destination for Tourists

Jakarta Globe – AFP, Apr 20, 2014

Mt Hersch from Cape Hallet with Seabee Hook penguin colony in
foreground, Antarctica. (Wikimedia Commons/Andrew Mandemaker)

President Frei Base, Antarctica. As the sun sets, the cloudy sky melds with the glaring white of the frozen terrain. Tourists trudging in single file line marvel over blue glaciers in Antarctica, a hip new vacation destination.

The group paid a small fortune — $3,000 per head — for a quick five-hour visit to the frozen continent, arriving by plane.

“Coming to Antarctica was a dream for me and my wife,” American John Reiss, 81, said as he stood beside his wife Sharon, 73.

“We signed up a couple years ago, but we couldn’t get on it, so we went on a waiting list. This year we signed a year in advance and we made it.”

The couple boarded a cruise ship in Florida, where they live, to head to Punta Arenas in the south of Chile, where they caught a two-hour flight to Antarctica.

Penguin colonies

The tourists visited the island of King George, in the South Shetlands archipelago and the neighboring Russian station of Bellingshausen with its out-of-place Orthodox church.

They also saw the small Chilean hamlet of Villa Las Estrellas home to just 64 people and colonies of penguins.

Another option is to tour Half Moon Island, a habitat of seals and penguins that is home to the Argentine base of Teniente Camara.

There they can sip a hot cup of coffee, send a postcard and get their passport stamped with a picture of a krill, a kind of small shrimp that is the symbol of the base.

“It was a fantastic experience. The first thing that makes this trip special is being able to visit such a well-preserved, untouched continent,” said Canadian Maureen Malone, 69.

“The second is being able to see the penguins. Everybody loves the penguins. Also, I was able to see around the bases, see how the different countries are sharing the region.”

Tourism is one of the few economic activities allowed by the Treaty of the Antarctic and the Madrid Protocol, which bans mineral extraction on the white continent.

Landing on frozen sea

The Antarctic draws more than 30,000 tourists per year, from November to March, when there is no problem landing on the frozen sea.

Most arrive on ships that cross Drake Passage in the Southern Ocean, which has some of the world’s worst weather, setting off from Ushuaia in southern Argentina and from Punta Arenas.

“Ninety percent of the tourists from around the world who come to Antarctica leave from Ushuaia. The cruises last an average of 11 days. The cheapest ones cost $5,000. The most expensive, which last 15 days and go to the South Pole, cost $12,000,” Brazilian Gunnar Hagelberg, owner of Antarctica Expeditions, told AFP.

More than 35,350 people will have visited Antarctica by the end of this year — 1,000 more than last season and 8,000 more than in 2011-2012, according to the International Association of Antarctic Tour Operators.

“We carry from 120 to 130 people per season. We have seen a 15 to 20 percent increase in the number of tourists who want to see the continent,” said Nicolas Paulsen, deputy commercial director of the Chilean airline Dap, which offers logistical and tourist flights.

Paulsen said tourism in Antarctica is rising three percent more per year than tourism to Chile, which is up seven percent. Most visitors come from the United States, Australia, China, Russia and, more and more, from Brazil.

“Antarctica is vital for us. It affects the climate, the sea currents. Tourism is important because the more people get to know it, the more they will want to protect it,” said Paulsen.

Agence France-Presse

Garcia Marquez, an influence 'all over the planet'

Yahoo – AFP, Myriam Chaplain Riou, 17 April 2014

Colombian writer and Nobel Prize for Literature 1982 Gabriel Garcia Marquez

 attends on December 5, 2006 in Havana the inauguration of the XXVIII New Latin

American Cinema festival (AFP Photo/Baltazar Mesa)

Paris (AFP) - Gabriel Garcia Marquez was an enormous influence on a huge number of writers worldwide, in particular through his 1967 novel "One Hundred Years of Solitude".

Far beyond South America and the wider Hispanic world, Garcia Marquez's influence was felt by and played out in the work of authors "all over the planet", Claude Durand, the French translator of the landmark novel, told AFP.

With its mix of myth, fantasy and family saga, critics have also observed the influence of Garcia Marquez in Salman Rushdie's "Midnight's Children".

(FILE) Former US President Bill Clinton (R) speaks

 with Colombian writer and 1982 Literature Nobel Prize

 laureate Gabriel Garcia Marquez during the IV

International Congress of the Spanish Language on

March 26, 2007 in Cartagena, Colombia (AFP Photo/

Cesar Carrion)

Rushdie once told an interviewer that there was "a whole group of writers" including himself and Garcia Marquez "who, broadly speaking, are thought of as a family", namely a Magical Realism family.

"The thing about Garcia Marquez that I admire, that I think is extraordinary, is that his writing is based on a village view of the world," he added, referring to the imaginary village of Macondo in "One Hundred Years of Solitude".

In China, writer Mo Yan, who won the Nobel prize for literature in 2012, was so bowled over by that novel that he "read and reread his Chinese translation", one of the author's translators, Chantal Chen Andro, told AFP.

As with Garcia Marquez, "Magical realism" is a feature of Mo Yan's work, she said.

"One finds it in particular when they evoke their childhood and their homeland... giving full rein to their imagination," she added.

The Haiti-born Canadian author Dany Laferriere said "One Hundred Years of Solitude" left its mark.

'A staggering moment'

"When I read this book in 1974 in Haiti after it was brought from Canada by a friend it was a revelation, a staggering moment," he said.

"The rhetorical torrent of Garcia Marquez, his vivid metaphors, dazzled the young reader that I was was then and marked the writer that I became," he said.

In 2009, Britain's Wasafiri magazine for international contemporary writing asked 25 authors to name the book that had most shaped world literature over the previous 25 years.

Nobel Prize for Literature winner in 1982

 Gabriel Garcia Marquez, sitting alongside

 his wife Mercedes Barcha, is asked by

 admirers to dedicate books before boarding

 the train to his hometown Aracataca on

 May 30, 2007 in Santa Marta, Colombia

(AFP Photo/Alejandra Vega)

"One Hundred Years of Solitude" was the only novel to be picked more than once with three authors citing it.

Chika Unigwe, a Belgium-based Nigerian-born author who won Africa's biggest literary prize in 2012, said Garcia Marquez's masterpiece completely redefined how people looked at reality.

"Its language is powerful; the manner in which it crosses genres is revealing and I cannot think of a single writer friend I know who has not been influenced by Marquez," she said.

Nil Parkes, a British performance poet of Ghanian descent, said: "I think "One Hundred Years of Solitude" taught the West how to read a reality alternative to their own, which in turn opened the gates for other non-Western writers like myself and other writers from Africa and Asia.

"Apart from the fact that it's an amazing book, it taught Western readers tolerance for other perspectives," he added.

Sujata Bhatt, an Indian poet who is based in Germany, said the book stood alone.

"I believe that the last book that has had a significant impact on world literature was "One Hundred Years of Solitude"," she said.

In France, the writer had many admirers including the late President Francois Mitterrand who invited him to the Elysee Palace.

"Garcia Marquez showed me the way to narrative freedom. I am an absolute admirer of his work and I have an immense debt to him as to Gunter Grass," French writer Erik Orsenna told AFP.

"When I discovered Garcia Marquez, it was an enormous shock. We were in France and it was the time of the 'nouveau roman (new novel)' and narrative was banned.

Literature Nobel Prize Colombian Gabriel

 Garcia Marquez arrives at the University of

 Guadalajara in Guadalajara, Mexico, on

November 23, 2007 (AFP Photo/Ivan

Garcia)

"And then, suddenly, on the other side of the Atlantic, an author was reinventing quixotic stories, with magnificent characters," he said.

Durand said that Garcia Marquez's agent sent him the manuscript for "One Hundred Days of Solitude" before it was published in Spanish.

"He was not known then (but) I understood very quickly, with my wife who is from Cuba, that it was a masterpiece," he said.

And Garcia Marquez's influence even left its mark on Iranian politics.

His 1996 novel "News of a Kidnapping" sold out in Tehran in 2011 when opposition leader Mir Hossein Moussavi said its description of Colombian kidnappings had much in common with his life under house arrest.

"If you want to know about my situation in captivity, read Gabriel Garcia Marquez's "News of a Kidnapping"," he told his daughters during a meeting, resulting in Iranians flocking to book shops.

Floribeth: John Paul II's Costa Rican 'miracle' woman

Yahoo – AFP, María Isabel Sanchez, 17 April 2014

Floribeth Mora poses in a little chapel with the image of late pope John Paul II

 at her home during an interview with AFP on March 26, 2014 in Dulce Nombre

de Cartago, Cartago, Costa Rica (AFP Photo/Ezequiel Becerra)

Floribeth Mora poses in a little chapel with the image of late pope John Paul II at her home during an interview with AFP on March 26, 2014 in Dulce Nombre de Cartago, Cartago, Costa Rica

Dulce Nombre (Costa Rica) (AFP) - Call her the miracle lady on the hill -- one with a brain aneurysm whose healing was declared a miracle, clearing the way for the late John Paul II to become a saint.

Floribeth Mora, a 50-year-old Costa Rican, has now become a sort of religious icon herself.

Sick people flock every day to her home, a small dwelling full of crucifixes. She tells them to have faith.

Jazmin Torres (L) cries as she talks about her sick mother with Floribeth Mora (C)

 whose healing from a brain aneurysm was declared a miracle, clearing the way

 for the late John Paul II to become a saint, March 26, 2014 in Cartago, Costa

Rica (AFP Photo/Ezequiel Becerra)

Three years ago, doctors told Mora she had an untreatable brain aneurysm and sent her home to wait for death.

But she survived, leaving doctors perplexed. On July 5 last year, Pope Francis called Mora's case a miracle, making it possible for John Paul II to be canonized on April 27.

Mora lives in a small house on a hill in Dulce Nombre de Cartago, 20 kilometers (12 miles) east of Costa Rica's capital San Jose.

The doorway features a large portrait of the late Polish pope, candles and flowers, along with an image of the Virgin Mary and copies of medical documents certifying her health turn-around.

Mora has a magazine with Karol Wojtyla on the cover and rarely lets go of it.

To one man whose wife is dying, she says, "Pray a lot to John Paul II, as I did."

Dressed in a light blue blouse that sets off her fair skin and brown hair, Mora welcomed a team from AFP amid the bustle of preparing for her trip to Rome, receiving sick people and running two small family businesses.

'Don't be afraid'

Mora remembers the day in April 2011 when she got her bad news. A neurosurgeon said she had an aneurysm on the right side of her brain.

"The left side of my body became paralyzed. I could not move my hands, could not hold a spoon or a glass. I would drop everything," she said.

After a series of tests, doctors told her that her case was hopeless, and sent her home to await her demise.

"Her life was fading away, but she always prayed to the pope," said Father Sergio, her spiritual adviser.

Lying in bed on May 1, 2011, Mora watched John Paul II's beatification.

"At eight o'clock the next morning, I heard a voice in my room that said, 'Get up. Don't be afraid,'" she recounted.

She said that from the magazine with the picture of the late pontiff, she saw hands appear, urging her to get out of bed.

"The Lord took away my fear and agony, and gave me the peace and certainty that I was healthy," Mora said.

Gradually, she recovered and in November of that year, an MRI "confirmed what I had been saying -- that I was healthy. It was the work of God," she said, her voiced filled with emotion.

And what does the neurosurgeon Alejandro Vargas have to say?

"If I cannot explain it from a medical standpoint, something non-medical happened," he said. "I can believe it was a miracle."

The 'crazy lady'

Mora relayed her story in February 2012 on the late pope's web page.

"I wanted the world to realize the grandeur of God. But I never imagined the magnitude that this was going to take on," she said.

Three months later, the Vatican contacted her, and Mora traveled to Rome. Tests confirmed she was totally healthy.

Her devotion to John Paul II began when he visited Costa Rica in 1983.

Floribeth Mora looks at an image of late

 pope John Paul II during an interview

 with AFP on March 26, 2014 at her

 residence in Dulce Nombre de Cartago,

 Cartago, Costa Rica (AFP Photo/Ezequiel

Becerra)

"He exuded holiness. To see him, at the age of 19, had an impact on my life. I turned to him in the darkest moments of my illness so he would intercede with God on my behalf."

John Paul II, who died in April 2005, was beatified after a miracle was proclaimed involving a French nun. But a second miracle was needed for him to be canonized, or made a saint.

It is a miracle not everyone believes in, even in this country where the Catholic faith is classified as "official," which is rare in Latin America.

"In the supermarket, in the street, people say, 'There goes that crazy lady!' But the crazy lady is healthy because God cured me. God bless my madness because I can share with my family," says Mora, who is married and has four children and six grandchildren.

Born in a poor neighborhood of San Jose, she says she is the same person she always was.

"She has not changed, although many people come to see her," says a neighbor, Flor Varela.

In Mora's house, a distraught man is on the verge of tears.

"My wife no longer speaks. We do not know if she sees us, if she hears us. I come with faith for you to take a petition to the pope," said Jose Torres, a small-scale farmer.

"Nothing is impossible for God," answers Mora. She is seated on a sofa in the living room. A trunk there is full of letters for her to take to Rome.

Related Articles:

"Cellular Communcation" - Apr 12, 2014 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll) - New

"The Quantum Factor" – Apr 10, 2011 (Kryon channeled by Lee Carroll) (Subjects: Galaxies, Universe, Intelligent design, Benevolent design, Aliens, Nikola Tesla (Quantum energy), Inter-Planetary Travel, DNA, Genes, Stem Cells, Cells, Rejuvenation, Shift of Human Consciousness, Spontaneous Remission, Religion, Dictators, Africa, China, Nuclear Power, Sustainable Development, Animals, Global Unity.. etc.) - (Text Version)

"... Cell Division - a static process?

Let me take you to the cellular division process. We've said this before, but you need to hear this to understand how it works. A cell is ready to divide. The Human body is designed to rejuvenate... all tissue. You've been told that there's some tissue that does not rejuvenate, but that is incorrect. It all rejuvenates at different speeds at different times and in different ways. It rejuvenates. So now you know that the Human body is designed to live a long time. Unfortunately, the energy that you have created on this planet and what you've gone through, has beat it up. You don't live much more than 80 years. That was not the design.

The Biblical personalities were sometimes prophets and sometimes masters and sometimes just there... and lived for hundreds of years. Did they really? Or perhaps this is that just a metaphor? Did they get that right in the Bible without a error in transcription? I'm going to tell you the truth. It's very accurate. Thousands of years ago you lived a very long time, Lemurian. If you knew your lifespan, you'd gasp. But not anymore. Instructions have been given over time to DNA, literally, by the energy of the planet... en energy that you have created through consciousness.

A cell divides. Right before it divides, it needs the blueprint to clone itself. The blueprint is available from the stem cell. The stem cell gets its information from the quantum part of the DNA, which has never changed since you were born. It's remained static, since nothing has ever changed it... and the fact that you don't believe it's changeable and have just accepted aging. There's not a conscious effort to do anything with it, and it just lays there like it always did.

The diving cell "talks" to the stem cell and says, "Do the same thing you always did? Change anything?" And the stem cell talks to the cell that is dividing, saying, "Make another one just the same." Then you rejuvenate just like the last one, accepting everything you received when you were born. ..."

16 dead, thousands evacuated in Chile blaze

Yahoo – AFP, Miguel Sanchez, 13 April 2014

View of houses in flames during a fire in Valparaiso, 110 km west of
Santiago, Chile, on April 12, 2014

Valparaíso (Chile) (AFP) - At least 16 people were confirmed dead and more than 10,000 evacuated on Sunday after a huge fire tore through Chile's historic port city of Valparaiso, officials said.

The blaze, which started in nearby woods on Saturday, gutted 500 homes as a wall of flames advanced on the city of 270,000, famed for its UNESCO-listed center.

"It is a terrible tragedy, without doubt the worst fire in the history of Valparaiso," President Michelle Bachelet declared after arriving in the city to oversee the emergency response to the disaster.

Members of a family rummage through

 the ruins of what it was their home, 

destroyed by a blaze overnight, in an

 attempt to salvage some of their

 belongings, in Valparaiso, Chile, on

 April 13, 2014 (AFP Photo/Felipe

Gamboa)

"Families have not only lost their homes and their possessions but also their family memories," she lamented during a tour of the worst-hit areas.

The cause of the inferno remains under investigation. Bachelet has declared the area a disaster zone, allowing the armed forces to assist in the relief efforts.

The stench of smoke and charred wood shrouded Valparaiso as dawn broke, with firefighters still working to battle the flames that so far has ravaged just under 2,000 acres (809 hectares).

'I've lost everything'

Residents who had been evacuated returned to their neighborhoods to discover their homes reduced to smoldering ruins.

Mother-of-four Monica Vergara said she had lost everything but voiced relief that her children were safe.

"I heard a huge explosion and it felt like our house lifted up. A fireman evacuated us," she told AFP. "I've lost everything but my four children are safe and that's all that matters."

The overnight death toll increased from four to 16 early Sunday as rescuers began discovering bodies in destroyed dwellings.

A man walks amid the ravage caused by

 blaze overnight, in Valparaiso, Chile, on

April 13, 2014 (AFP Photo/Sebastian

Villaroel)

"At this time there are 16 confirmed dead," Valparaiso Police Chief Julio Pineda told 24 Horas television.

Roughly 500 people were being treated for injuries, mostly minor but some serious.

Firefighters warned that extinguishing the flames was complicated by the area's hilly geography, narrow streets and persistent strong winds.

Overnight, many residents watched helpless, from distant vantage points, as the hills burned bright red. Thick smoke clouded the sky.

Those caught in the path of the blaze after it erupted Saturday afternoon reported a fast-moving inferno that roared toward town, fanned by winds and searing temperatures.

'Encircled by hell'

"It was as if hell encircled my family," Miguel Ramirez told AFP.

"The fire raced down the hills and destroyed everything in its path."

More than 200 inmates at a women's prison were evacuated due to "large amounts of smoke produced by the fire," said Tulio Arce, regional jail guard director.

With the city spread out over more than 40 hills, emergency vehicles had trouble getting to their destinations.

"My brother's house was entirely burnt. We had only finished it two weeks ago. We tried to save something but it was truly an inferno," one resident, Cristobal Perez, told the Chilevision television network.

View of burning houses during a fire

 in Valparaiso, 110 km west of Santiago, 

Chile, on April 12, 2014 (AFP Photo/

Felipe Gamboa)

"I started to become overcome by the smoke along with my two dogs. It was terrible -- impossible to breathe," another resident told the channel.

The vast blaze has caused cuts to power and drinking water in many areas.

Valparaiso is one of Chile's most important ports. It lived its era of glory from the mid-19th century to the early 20th as a stopover point for ships steaming down South America and to round its southern tip into the Atlantic Ocean.

The center of the city still features the many colored houses dating from that period, built by European immigrants. Its cobbled streets and funicular trams running up near-vertical rails supported its 2003 listing as a UNESCO-protected heritage site.

Fires occur frequently in central Chile, where summer sends temperatures soaring. In February 2013, some 105 homes were destroyed in Valparaiso, affecting 1,200 people, after a 27-year-old man started a blaze.

Related Article:

Valparaiso: UNESCO heritage site dubbed 'Jewel of the Pacific'

France's top diplomat visits Cuba, first time in 30 years

Yahoo – AFP, 12 April 2014

France's Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius (L) participates in a wreath-laying

 ceremony at the Jose Marti monument at Revolution Square, Havana, on April 12,

2014 (AFP Photo/Yamil Lage)

Havana (AFP) - French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius arrived Saturday in Havana for a brief visit aimed at strengthening ties, as Cuba begins talks with the European Union on normalizing relations.

"This is the first time in 31 years that the head of French diplomacy is on an official trip to Cuba," Fabius told reporters as he spoke of revitalizing ties with the Americas' only communist nation.

"France wants to strengthen its ties with all of South America and, in this context, we wanted relations to be strengthened in particular with Cuba," Fabius added as he was received by his counterpart at the Foreign Affairs Ministry.

"Today we note a favorable development -- and great potential -- in our bilateral relations," said Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez, as he pledged his "willingness to continue to work on common goals" with France.

Coming from Mexico, where he accompanied President Francois Hollande for a state visit, Fabius was set next to meet the head of Cuba's Catholic church, Cardinal Jaime Ortega, as well as representatives of French businesses in Cuba and a number of civil society leaders.

He returns to Paris this evening.

Cuba in early March agreed to a proposal by the European Union for talks paving the way to normalizing diplomatic relations, which turned frosty a decade ago over Havana's human rights record.

Trade between France and Cuba is modest, worth around $388 million (280 million euros) a year, with the balance solidly in France's favor.

Related Articles:

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Latin America, Caribbean proclaim 'zone of peace'

Frans Timmermans (left) and Bruno Rodriguez signed

 an agreement to engage in political consultations. Photograph:

Yamil Lage/AFP/Getty Images

Europe should look again at Cuba, says Dutch foreign minister

Netherlands opens political dialogue with Cuba

Kryon Q&A

Question (2005): Dear Kryon: I read in a spiritual article that Fidel Castro's mission is to show how to do things without money, that this is the reason why he and the tropical revolution have been kept alive. Is that true? If not, then why didn’t Cuba change when Eastern Europe changed? Has Fidel Castro been working for the light or is he a part of the old energy?

Answer: This leader is of the old energy, but was needed for the time. The real reason was to bring the Soviet Union close to your shores in order to help with the year 2000 Armageddon scenario that didn’t happen. His earthly masters would have played a very important part in Cuba with the nuclear war you didn’t have.

That’s the whole reason, and now he exists as a relic of what didn’t happen. His society is poor, and the culture is not elevated or pleased with itself. This energy will change soon… sooner than you think. Then you will see a Cuba that has been “hiding” for a very long time, and also realize the unbalance and cultural richness that has been there all along.

Antarctica, a dream destination for tourists

Yahoo – AFP, Vitiria Velez, 12 April 2014

A tourist takes snapshots at Chile's Presidente Eduardo Frei military

 base, on King George island, in Antarctica, on March 14, 2014 (AFP

Photo/Vanderlei Almeida)

President Frei Base (Antarctica) (AFP) - As the sun sets, the cloudy sky melds with the glaring white of the frozen terrain as tourists trudging in single file line marvel over blue glaciers in Antarctica, a hip new vacation destination.

The group paid a small fortune -- $3,000 per head -- for a quick five-hour visit to the frozen continent, arriving by plane.

"Coming to Antarctica was a dream for me and my wife," American John Reiss, 81, said as he stood beside his wife Sharon, 73.

A group of tourists board an aircraft at

 Chile's Presidente Eduardo Frei military

 base, on King George island, in Antarctica,

 on March 14, 2014 (AFP Photo/Vanderlei

Almeida)

"We signed up a couple years ago, but we couldn't get on it, so we went on a waiting list. This year we signed an year in advance and we made it."

The couple boarded a cruise ship in Florida, where they live, to head to Punta Arenas in the south of Chile, where they caught a two-hour flight to Antarctica.

Penguin colonies

The tourists visited the island of King George, in the South Shetlands archipelago and the neighboring Russian station of Bellingshausen with its out-of-place Orthodox church.

They also saw the small Chilean hamlet of Villa Las Estrellas home to just 64 people and colonies of penguins.

Another option is to tour Half Moon Island, a habitat of seals and penguins that is home to the Argentine base of Teniente Camara.

There they can sip a hot cup of coffee, send a postcard and get their passport stamped with a picture of a krill, a kind of small shrimp that is the symbol of the base.

"It was a fantastic experience. The first thing that makes this trip special is being able to visit such a well-preserved, untouched continent," said Canadian Maureen Malone, 69.

"The second is being able to see the penguins. Everybody loves the penguins. Also, I was able to see around the bases, see how the different countries are sharing the region."

Tourism is one of the few economic activities allowed by the Treaty of the Antarctic and the Madrid Protocol, which bans mineral extraction on the white continent.

Penguins play at Chile's Presidente Eduardo Frei military base, on King

 George island, in Antarctica, on March 14, 2014 (AFP Photo/Vanderlei Almeida)

Landing on frozen sea

The Antarctic draws more than 30,000 tourists per year, from November to March, when there is no problem landing on the frozen sea.

Most arrive on ships that cross Drake Passage in the Southern Ocean, which has some of the world's worst weather, setting off from Ushuaia in southern Argentina and from Punta Arenas.

"Ninety percent of the tourists from around the world who come to Antarctica leave from Ushuaia. The cruises last an average of 11 days. The cheapest ones cost $5,000. The most expensive, which last 15 days and go to the South Pole, cost $12,000," Brazilian Gunnar Hagelberg, owner of Antarctica Expeditions, told AFP.

More than 35,350 people will have visited Antarctica by the end of this year -- 1,000 more than last season and 8,000 more than in 2011-2012, according to the International Association of Antarctic Tour Operators.

"We carry from 120 to 130 people per season. We have seen a 15 to 20 percent increase in the number of tourists who want to see the continent," said Nicolas Paulsen, deputy commercial director of the Chilean airline Dap, which offers logistical and tourist flights.

Paulsen said tourism in Antarctica is rising three percent more per year than tourism to Chile, which is up seven percent. Most visitors come from the United States, Australia, China, Russia and, more and more, from Brazil.

"Antarctica is vital for us. It affects the climate, the sea currents. Tourism is important because the more people get to know it, the more they will want to protect it," said Paulsen.

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"Around the Horn" - (a message from Kryon channeled by Lee Carroll)

“… Now, in the process of all of this, there's going to be renewed interest in Antarctica, and you're going to find some interesting things about the land under the ice. The topography of the land under the ice does not match the topography of the ice above. Some astonishing shapes will be revealed when you map the actual land under the ice. Points of mountains are going to be revealed, giving an entire different idea of what Antarctica might have been and what its purpose really is. The continent that is uninhabitable by Human Beings may very well be the engine of life for Human Beings. And I will leave it at that. …”