Travel Tips

"France is my home, I'm proud to be Colombian"

French-Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt and 14 other hostages have been freed, after 6 years, five months and 10 days in captivity in the Colombian jungle.
She has become a symbol, especially in France, of suffering and courage. Here she was abruptly at liberty, thin, exhausted, but full of life and humour, capable of a 20-minute speech of precision and wit and emotion and humility on the Tarmac of a Colombian air base.
Speaking directly to Alfonso Cano (main leader of the FARC-EP "Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia"), she said:

"See this Colombia, see the extended hand of President Uribe, and understand that it is time to stop the bloodshed. It is time to drop those weapons and change them for roses, substitute them with tolerance, respect, and as brothers that we are, find a way so that we can all live together in the world, live together in Colombi"

She's full of compassion. Chapeau bas, Madame, Je vous admire

Íngrid Betancourt Pulecio is a French-Colombian politician, former senator and anti-corruption activist. Betancourt was kidnapped by the FARC on February 23, 2002 while campaigning for the presidency, after she decided to campaign in an area of high guerrilla presence and ignored warnings from the government, police and military not to do so. She is still being held by the FARC guerrilla group.
Besides Colombia, her kidnapping has received wide coverage in France due to her French citizenship. From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingrid_Betancourt

As a personnal comment, I totally forgot Michèle is a lady when she was competiting against other rally drivers.
Michèle Mouton is a former French rally driver. She is the most successful and well-known female rally driver of all time.
She was the first (and so far the only) woman to win a round of the World Rally Championship, in Sanremo in 1981. She went on to finish a close second overall in the 1982 WRC, with only the unreliability of the Audi Quattro that she was driving ultimately enabling rival Walter Röhrl to snatch the title.
Walter Röhrl said on her (approximativ): "A monkey could win with the Audi Quattro". I think he was affraid at that time how Michèle was good. A bad war, not fair.
In 1985, she was the first woman to win the Pikes Peak International Hillclimb race in the US. Mouton effectively quit rallying after the Group B category was banned in late 1986, eager to start a family.
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michele_Mouton

The actress and fashion model who makes me dreaming ...
She’s so beautiful, interesting and intelligent ! Hearing her on the radio is a must, on all subjects !
Verry popular in France

Jeanne d'Arc was a 15th century saint and national heroine of France. She was the only person ever recorded to have commanded the entire army of a nation at the age of seventeen.
She was captured by the English and tried by an ecclesiastical court led by an French, but English partisan; the court convicted her of heresy and she was burned (three times) at the stake by the English when she was nineteen years old. Twenty-four years later, the Vatican reviewed the decision of the ecclesiastical court, found her innocent, and declared her a martyr. She was beatified in 1909 and canonized as a saint in 1920.

She has remained an important figure throughout French and Western culture.

"...Nobel Peace Prize for 1991 to Aung San Suu Kyi of Myanmar (Burma) for her non-violent struggle for democracy and human rights. "

...In awarding the Nobel Peace Prize for 1991 to Aung San Suu Kyi, the Norwegian Nobel Committee wishes to honour this woman for her unflagging efforts and to show its support for the many people throughout the world who are striving to attain democracy, human rights and ethnic conciliation by peaceful means."

She is a pro-democracy activist and leader of the National League for Democracy in Burma, and a noted prisoner of conscience and advocate of nonviolent resistance. Suu Kyi won the Rafto Prize and the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought in 1990 and the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991. In 1992 she was awarded the Jawaharlal Nehru peace prize by the Government of India for her peaceful and non-violent struggle under a military dictatorship. She is currently under detention, with the Burmese junta repeatedly extending her detention. According to the results of the 1990 general election, Suu Kyi earned the right to be Prime Minister, as leader of the winning National League for Democracy party, but her detention by the military junta prevented her from assuming that role.

More under (with the help of VT friend Yenina)
Free Burma

others ... I miss some !!