Costa Rican a celebrity after certified miracle
TRES RIOS, Costa Rica – On a warm spring day, Floribeth Mora was in her bed waiting to die from a seemingly inoperable brain aneurysm when her gaze fell upon a photograph of Pope John Paul II in a newspaper.
“Stand up,” Mora recalls the image of the pope saying to her. “Don’t be afraid.”
Mora, her doctors and the Catholic Church say her aneurysm disappeared that day in a miracle that cleared the way for the late pope to be declared a saint in a ceremony April 27 at the Vatican where Mora will be a guest of honor.
Mora has been greeting a stream of local and international visitors in her modest home in a middle-class neighborhood outside the Costa Rican capital, and accepts invitations to as many as four Masses a day. The faithful have given her so many letters to deliver to current pontiff Pope Francis that she has had to buy an extra suitcase.
Iran vice president: Reactor row resolved
TEHRAN, Iran – Iran will redesign its Arak heavy-water reactor to greatly limit the amount of plutonium it can make, the country’s vice president said Saturday, marking a major concession from the Islamic Republic in negotiations with world powers over its contested nuclear program.
The comments by Vice President Ali Akbar Salehi come as the talks face an informal July 20 deadline to hammer out a final deal to limit Iran’s ability to build nuclear arms in exchange for ending the crippling economic sanctions it faces.
4 French journalists set free in Syria
PARIS – Ten months after their capture in Syria, four French journalists crossed the border into neighboring Turkey and reached freedom Saturday, though dozens more remain held in the country’s chaotic civil war.
Edouard Elias, Didier François, Nicolas Henin and Pierre Torres – all said to be in good health – were freed during the weekend in unclear circumstances in what has become the world’s most dangerous, and deadliest, conflict for journalists.
Syria is considered the world’s most dangerous assignment for journalists. The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists said in April that 61 journalists were kidnapped in Syria in 2013, while more than 60 have been killed since the 3-year-old conflict began.
At barricades, Ukraine insurgents await Easter
DONETSK, Ukraine – Pro-Russian forces in eastern Ukraine on Saturday prepared to celebrate Orthodox Easter at barricades outside government offices seized in nearly a dozen cities, despite an international agreement to disarm and free the premises.
In Donetsk, Denis Pushilin, a co-chairman of the self-appointed Donetsk People’s Republic, which is demanding broader regional powers and closer ties to Russia, vowed insurgents will continue occupying government offices until the new pro-Western Kiev government is dismissed.
The Easter preparations and fortification efforts come two days after top diplomats from Ukraine, Russia, the United States and the European Union issued a statement calling for an array of actions including the disarming of militant groups and the freeing of public buildings taken over by insurgents.
Associated Press
