Ibero-American Summit
Wraps-Up
Leaders of Spain, Portugal and their former colonies in the Americas on Saturday wrapped up a two-day summit,
held in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, after issuing 14 communiques on a range of issues
targeting controversial agricultural subsidies, trade, poverty, anti-corruption measures and tourism.
The 21 ministers also okayed a permanent secretariat, a possible first step in recasting the summit in a similar mold to the British Commonwealth.
"It is good news for the Ibero-American summits," said Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, who wants future summits to mirror the Commonwealth.
Among the adopted communiques, ministers agreed to lobby the European Union
on agricultural subsides extended to European nations that are considered to negatively affect Latin America.
Also adopted was a communique urging Argentina and Britain to start talks aimed at finding a solution to the sovereignty of the Islas Malvinas or Falkland Islands, which Argentina contests.
The islands were the subject of a brief war between Argentina and Britain in 1982.
Delegates also reaffirmed their support for Bolivia's new president amid violent protests that forced the country's former leader to step down from power last month.
Bolivian President Carlos Mesa opened the session calling on the group to create its own trade bloc.
Next year's summit in Costa Rica will define the secretariat post, based on recommendations from former Brazilian
president Fernando Henrique Cardoso, who coined the controversial idea. Governments eventually warmed to it. Mexico opposed the additional bureaucracy.
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan attended, saying he wanted to promote UN General Assemby reform. Annan asked Evo Morales, who led demonstrations that toppled Bolivia's former president a month ago, to channel his leadership skills into democratic and constructive ends.
Annan found himself unwittingly thrust into one of South America's oldest disputes. Chilean President Ricardo Lagos had offered to "listen" to Bolivia's claim on an outlet to the sea that Chile took after an 1879 war.
The neighboring countries broke diplomatic relations over the dispute.
Local journalists mistook Annan's offer of his good offices as a pledge to mediate -- until the secretary general gingerly excused himself.
Simmering resentment toward Chile fueled riots that toppled Bolivia's previous president, Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada, bringing Mesa to power last month.
"Bolivia's crisis expresses many of the problems that are shared with the rest of Ibero-America," Mesa said at the summit opening Friday.
"It's a long-overdue bill that my country has been paying."
The summit closed just days ahead of a key meeting of trade ministers in Miami. They will work on a Free Trade Area of the Americas, a hemispheric free-trade zone.
Meanwhile, the Andean Community Free Trade Zone took advantage of the meeting to announce its new general secretary, Allan Wagner, currently Peru's foreign minister.
On the sidelines, presidents Vicente Fox of Mexico and Jorge Batlle of Uruguay signed a free trade pact -- Mexico's first with a Mercosur country.
The summit opened two months after World Trade Organization
talks collapsed in Cancun, Mexico.
There, Brazil and Argentina led a group of 22 countries in demanding developed nations axe export subsidies.
Latin America seems to agree on pressuring Europe, through Spain and Portugal, to roll back agricultural subsidies.
The only country sending neither a head of state nor a head of government was Cuba. President Fidel Castro sent Vice President Carlos Lage.
Cuban dissidents led by Oswaldo Paya demanded that a message on human rights violations in Cuba be read at the summit.
Texas Archbishop
Advises Catholics to Avoid Costa Rican Group
In an extremely rare move, Archbishop Patrick Flores has issued a public warning to Catholics to stay away from a group in Costa Rica that some have called a doomsday cult.
Members of the group, which has attracted several
form San Antonio, Texas, claim the Blessed Virgin Mary has been appearing to Juan Pablo Delgado, 23, for the past four years under the title of the Queen and Lady of All Creation.
The messages Delgado said the Virgin has given him include warnings of divine chastisements, annihilation of nations, and plagues unless "the United States, a country of armaments," and Russia are consecrated to her by three unnamed bishops in a Eucharistic celebration.
A message dated June 22, 2002, warns that Pope John Paul II will be removed from his throne and a false pope will take over. The messages are posted at
www.queenofallcreation.com.
San Antonians who have been to the little mountain chapel near San Isidro de Grecia, 40 miles north of San Jose, Costa Rica, say the messages reportedly given by the Virgin have been consistent with Catholic teaching and the religious activities there have changed people's lives.
Deacon Pat Rodgers, director of communications for the Archdiocese of San Antonio, said the archdiocese has received numerous calls concerning the claimed apparitions.
In his column in this week's "Today's Catholic," the archdiocese newspaper, Flores wrote that neither the bishop of Alajuela,
nor the archbishop of San Jose have sanctioned the claimed apparitions and have urged him to caution San Antonians not to get involved with the group.
"I recommend this for your good and the good of the universal church," Flores wrote.
"If (the apparitions) ever receive the approval of the bishops, somewhere down the line, then it will be made public. It has already been made public that it does not have the approval of the bishop or the archbishop in that area."
Flores said Costa Rican bishops also are concerned over apparent irregularities involving the Blessed Sacrament and unauthorized celebration of the sacraments by
non-priests and others without authority from the local bishop.
While Flores didn't mention a name, San Antonio priest Alfredo Prado has been performing sacramental rites at the site without church authority, according to media reports.
Prado's priestly faculties were suspended in 1991 by his religious order in San Antonio, the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate, because of unspecified personal conduct, said Father Sal De George, area superior for the order.
Prado has been forbidden to function as a priest, and the Oblates said they have initiated a canonical process of dismissing him from the order because of his disobedience.
But local devotees of the Costa Rica apparitions don't see any reason to stay away.
Jay Vela, a member of St. Brigid's Parish here who said he has been to the site three times, said church officials have never visited San Isidro de Grecia to see firsthand what's going on.
Vela said he was skeptical when he first went to Costa Rica in September.
"But it was the first time in many years that I've had a sense of truly being forgiven for my sins," he said.
The Catholic Church believes the Blessed Virgin has appeared in many places, and it has approved of apparitions in Mexico City; Lourdes, France; and Fatima, Portugal, among other places.
Bill Nypaver, a member of Our Lady of the Atonement Parish, noted Flores and other Texas bishops have visited Medjugorje, Croatia, where the Virgin reportedly began appearing to three visionaries in 1981, even though that diocese's bishop doesn't believe in the apparitions.
"They asked the pope, 'Should we tell people not to go?' The Holy Father told them that if it was prompting people to pray, fast, attend Reconciliation and receive the Eucharist more, let them go," Nypaver said.
Nypaver doesn't plan to stay away from the Costa Rican group, noting, "canon law says we have a right to go, whether the apparitions are authentic or not. There's nothing cultish going on; you can come and go as you please, and they don't ask for any money."
Nypaver said the Costa Rican warnings aren't related to the end of the world.
"The messages have mentioned chastisements and called people to repent of their sins, but that's pretty typical of apparitions, and it comes from the Bible."
Lean Travel Times
Gaining Strength
The recent era of unprecedented bargains and empty hotels and airplane seats appears to be coming to an end.
Though the travel industry hasn't reached the robust levels it enjoyed before Sept. 11, 2001, consumer surveys, hotel and flight bookings, travel Web site traffic and festival crowds indicate U.S. travelers are putting fears of terrorism, war, disease and an economic slump behind them.
Expedia.com
reported a 50 percent increase in bookings for the second quarter of 2003 over the same period in 2002, and is suddenly seeing more interest in places like Costa Rica and Hong Kong, according to product manager Teri Franklin.
After collapsing earlier this year because of SARS and the war in Iraq, international air traffic is 1 percent higher than a year ago, confirming the steady rise in traffic of the past three months, according to the International Air Transport Association.
It is the first time since February, when SARS and the looming conflict in Iraq frightened off fliers, that passenger traffic has surpassed the year-earlier figure, and the association forecasts that global passenger traffic for all of 2003 will be within 1 percent of the 2002 total.
American Express' annual travel survey, released Oct. 22, showed that Americans plan to spend more on travel in 2004 than they did in 2003. "Consumers are feeling a bit more confident," said Rocco Laterzo, senior vice president for travel. But three-fourths of those surveyed said they are still seeking quality vacations "within a budget."
|
