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Pope Francis will visit the French Mediterranean island of Corsica in December, days after skipping the reopening of Paris's Notre Dame Cathedral which was ravaged by a fire in 2019, the Vatican said Saturday. Francis, 87, declined an invitation from French President Emmanuel Macron to attend the Notre Dame reopening ceremony in Paris on December 7. He will however head to Corsica's capital Ajaccio for a conference on the Catholic faith in the Mediterranean one week later on December 15, the Vatican said. Some French bishops were "annoyed" by the pope's decision to stay away from the Notre Dame gala, according to one bishop speaking on condition of anonymity. But the head of the Bishops' Conference of France (CEF) Archbishop Eric de Moulins-Beaufort said: "The star of the Notre Dame reopening ceremony is Notre Dame itself." The pope had not wanted his presence to be a distraction from the essential point of the occasion, he added. "It's not a snub aimed at France," said another bishop. Francis's one-day trip to Corsica will be the first papal visit to the island, where 90 percent of its 350,000 population is Catholic, according to the local Church, and religious traditions remain deeply rooted. He will give two speeches, preside over a mass and meet Macron during his nine hours on the island, the Vatican said. "It is a historic event, we will give ourselves the extraordinary means to put on an exceptional welcome for the Holy Father," said Bishop of Ajaccio Francois-Xavier Bustillo said in a video posted on social media. Francis, who will celebrate his 88th birthday on December 17, has been to France twice since becoming head of the worldwide Catholic Church in 2013. He visited Strasbourg in 2014, where he addressed the European Parliament, and last year went to Marseille for a meeting of Mediterranean area bishops, where he met Macron. Sign up to get our free daily email of the biggest stories! He has yet to make a state visit to France, one of Europe's main majority-Catholic countries. He is also yet to make state visits to Spain, the United Kingdom or Germany. The Argentine pontiff prefers visiting smaller or less established Catholic communities, from Malta to Mongolia. The Corsica visit was championed by the popular media-friendly Bustillo, who was made a cardinal by Pope Francis in September 2023. "It will not be a state visit, but a pastoral visit. It will be a beautiful moment, a moment of hope and joy," he told AFP. In addition, the head of the Catholic Church is scheduled to be at the Vatican on December 7-8 for a service at which he will create 21 new cardinals. Rescheduling appointments over coming months would appear to be tricky, given the multitude of events due to take place in Rome in 2025, a Catholic jubilee year. Bustillo is one of the active cardinals Francis has appointed in the Mediterranean region, with the pope keen they "work together to meet the specific challenges of the area", a bishop told AFP on condition of anonymity. Those issues include migration, global warming and interreligious dialogue. Corsica will be the 47th overseas visit for Francis and his third this year, after a long tour of the Asia Pacific in early September and a trip to Belgium and Luxembourg the same month. cmk-bur/tw/jmPatriots coach Jerod Mayo believes narrow loss to Bills shows potential of his young teamHyderabad : In a major crackdown on the ganja peddling rackets in the city, Hyderabad police apprehended four ganja suppliers, two transporters and a peddler in Kachiguda, seizing 114 kg of contraband from their possession. The arrested have been identified as Balji Govind, 34, Adigarla Prakash Kumar, 23, Malasala Mohan Rao, 44, Rajana Durga Hari Prasad, 20, Kodi Ramana,24, Lalam Gangadhar, 20, and Yethula Gangadhar, 19. All are natives of Anakapalle district of Andhra Pradesh. According to the police, the racket consisted of an interconnected nexus from Andhra, was headed by Balji Govind, who had direct contacts with ganja cultivators in the Chitrakonda Forest area of the Odhisa-Andhra Pradesh Border. He, along with Prakash Kumar and Mohan Rao used to source the contraband from the cultivators at the rate of Rs 1,500 per kg and would sell it to Durga Hari Prasad for Rs 5,000 per kg. As the next node of the supply chain, Durga Hari Prasad would sell the contraband to Kodi Ramana for Rs 10,000 per kg, who had employed two men on a commission basis to transport the ganja to Hyderabad and give it to the peddlers in the city. In Hyderabad, two peddlers, identified as Balaji and Kumari, would sell the drug in the streets to retail consumers in smaller packets, earning Rs 25,000 per kg. Hyderabad Narcotics Enforcement Wing (HNEW) urged the citizens of Hyderabad to report any incidents of sale and usage of any drugs in the city to the HNEW team at +918712661601 .

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