Pope's French visit leaves debt
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France's Catholic Church posts a huge deficit after a weekend visit by the Pope to the southern shrine of Lourdes.
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LOURDES, France - A frail Pope John Paul II celebrated an open-air Mass on Sunday as several hundred thousand pilgrims, many in wheelchairs, crowded onto a field near a French shrine to the Virgin Mary that is associated with miraculous cures of the sick.    The Mass was a highlight of the Pope's two-day visit to Lourdes, a town in the Pyrenees where Roman Catholic tradition says St...
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Differences between France and the  United States over how much of Iraq's debt to cancel hardened  on Saturday as the two attended a meeting aimed at promoting  international harmony.
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Iraq cleared around $81 million in  debt it owed the International Monetary Fund late last week,  fund sources said on Monday, opening the way for the first aid  to flow from the global lender to Iraq.
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French Finance Minister Nicolas Sarkozy unveils his first and only budget on Wednesday, hoping to leave his mark by holding down spending and bringing France back inside EU deficit limits for the first time in ...
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The Paris Club is due to approve on  Wednesday a moratorium on debt repayment for countries hit by  the Asian tsunami disaster, French Finance Minister Herve  Gaymard said.
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The Vatican released details of its financial report Friday, saying increased contributions from dioceses and individuals &#151; primarily from the United States &#151; helped keep it in the black despite rising labor costs and a falling dollar.
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The world's wealthiest nations, including the United States, support a temporary suspension of billions of dollars in debt repayments by tsunami-devastated countries to give them a necessary "breath of oxygen" for recovery and reconstruction, a French official said Wednesday.
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PARIS President Jacques Chirac of France will return from a lavish five-day state visit to China on Tuesday with industrial orders worth more than $4 billion, a success that is not going unnoticed in neighboring European countries and may intensify
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PARIS  - France's public deficit will drop by about &#36;12 billion US in 2005 to conform with European Union rules, the French premier said in an interview.
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A French Finance ministry spokesman said the Paris Club of creditor nations had reached deal Sunday to write off 80 percent of the debts Iraq owes them.
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At meetings of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund the French said non to the US proposal of writing off 90-95 per cent of Iraqâs $12bn of bilateral debt.
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The Paris Club of creditor nations reached an agreement Wednesday to freeze debt repayments of countries hit by the Asian tsunami, the Club's president said.
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Nicolas Sarkozy, the first French president to divorce while in office, met with Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican on Thursday amid a new blaze of publicity over his personal life. via News24.com
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France will donate 45 million euros (61 million dollars) toward disaster relief in the Indian Ocean, in addition to money donated privately by individuals, companies and organizations, Foreign Minister Michel ...
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Pope Benedict sets off on Tuesday  on one of the most delicate trips by a Pontiff, visiting  Turkey, where resentment is seething over his comments on Islam  and opposition to Ankara's EU bid.
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PARIS  - French President Jacques Chirac told his government to push for the Paris Club of creditor nations to put a moratorium on debt payments owed by countries hit by tsunamis in southeast Asia.