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Pope prepares for 84th birthday

Pope John Paul receives a cake to celebrate his birthday during a special audience in the Paul VI hall at the Vatican on Saturday. PHOTO: REUTERS

Pope John Paul II prepares to celebrate his 84th birthday tomorrow, bouyed by plans for fresh trips abroad despite poor health which had led to fears his trademark foreign travel was over.

The pontiff will symbolically blow out the candles on a birthday cake prepared for him by his cook, Sister Germana, and millions of copies of a book of his memoirs will be published in several languages to mark the occasion.

But his entourage said that the best present for the ailing pope will be his trip on June 5 and June 6 to the Swiss capital Bern, where he is due to meet with thousands of young Roman Catholics.

It will be his first travel out of Italy since a visit last September to Slovakia that sparked fears that it would be his last trip abroad. During the trip the pope was too weak to read out in full any of his speeches and appeared exhausted.

And last October, during celebrations to mark the 25th anniversary of his pontificate, senior church figures began talking openly about the possibility of his death.

But John Paul has in recent months appeared in much better form. The improvement is due, according to medical sources, to rest, a better diet, speech therapy, physiotherapy and better-adapted treatment for his Parkinson's disease.

The pope is now even considering going to the French shrine at Lourdes in mid-August, a trip that would coincide with the 150th anniversary of the Catholic dogma of the Immaculate Conception.

John Paul, whose confinement to a wheelchair limits his movements, has received other invitations, including ones to Mexico and Austria, but the Vatican has not yet said if he will accept any.

Despite his poor health, the pontiff has a busy agenda, with regular public appearances and private audiences.

John Paul, who staunchly opposed the US-led war on Iraq, is due to meet US President George W. Bush on June 4. He will tell him that US policy in the Middle East is misguided, a Vatican source said.
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