World

LONDON — After weeks of wild speculation, British people on Saturday digested the shock news that Catherine, Princess of Wales, has cancer, with many praising her courage while others criticised the conspiracies that spread over her absence.

Catherine revealed the news in a highly personal video released on Friday, just weeks after King Charles III said he too is battling cancer.

The candid disclosure leaves the British monarchy in crisis with two of its most senior members simultaneously fighting serious illness.

Charles -- 17 months into his reign when Buckingham Palace announced in February that he would be cancelling all public engagements — led tributes to his “beloved daughter-in-law”.

The ailing 75-year-old monarch spoke of his pride in “her courage in speaking as she did”.

Following other warm words from Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and the White House, British newspapers hailed the courage of the 42-year-old wife of Prince William, heir to the throne.

“Kate, you are not alone” read the front of The Sun.

The tabloid said it was “hugely comforting” to hear Kate say she was getting stronger, and that “perhaps the world will now appreciate why so much secrecy surrounded her surgery in January”.

‘Privacy’ demand 

Others hoped it would end the frenzied rumours. The Daily Mail tabloid took aim at the “social media trolls who have been peddling disgusting conspiracy theories to explain her absence from public life.”

The public also condemned media coverage of the princess however.

Stood outside Kensington Palace in London, Nathaniel Taylor, a 24-year-old government worker, said: “I think it’s really damning what happened to them, what the media has done, how they’ve reacted over these past couple of months.

“I think some speculation is inevitable but the lengths people were going to try and make things up it’s just [too much]. Hopefully people take a look in the mirror.”

At Tower Bridge, Sofia, a 19-year-old student who did not give her family name, said she had seen “weird accusations” about the absence and that the true reason was “sad”.

“Obviously it was a much [more] serious matter,” she said.

In her statement Kate, as the princess is widely known, admitted the diagnosis was a “huge shock” and asked for “time, space and privacy” as she completes chemotherapy.

In the video — recorded Wednesday in Windsor, west of London, where the future queen and king live with their three young children — she insisted she was “well”.

She said it had taken them time to explain the situation to Prince George, aged 10, Princess Charlotte, eight, and five-year-old Prince Louis, “and to reassure them that I am going to be OK”.

“William and I have been doing everything we can to process and manage this privately for the sake of our young family,” Kate added.

Commentators commended its frank nature, with the princess speaking directly to the camera while sitting on a garden bench.

“So many people will have been so moved by the way that she conducted herself during that two minute plus broadcast,” royal expert Richard Fitzwilliams told AFP.

“But there’s no doubt at all that it’s a very, very difficult time for the institution of monarchy,” he added.

Royal health woes 

Buckingham Palace announced on February 5 that tests had identified Charles had “a form of cancer” without giving further details.

He has cancelled all public engagements except audiences with the prime minister and ambassadors, and worked on official papers while receiving treatment.

He has been photographed several times since then, and seen attending church.

Kate was last seen at a public engagement on December 25.

Kensington Palace announced on January 17 that she faced up to two weeks in hospital and several months’ recuperation following abdominal surgery.

She was not expected to be ready to return to public duties until after Easter on March 31, a statement at the time said.

‘Doing their best’ 

But Kate disclosed tests after the operation “found cancer had been present” and that she was now undergoing “preventative chemotherapy”.

Kensington Palace said she would return to official duties “when she is cleared to do so by her medical team”.

“Preventive chemotherapy after surgery is given to reduce the risk of the cancer coming back in the future,” Andrew Beggs, a senior clinical fellow and consultant colorectal surgeon at the University of Birmingham, said.

He added it was “a bit like mopping a floor with bleach when you’ve spilt something on it”, noting chemotherapy “kills any spilt cells”.

BERLIN — Pro-Palestinian protesters heckled and interrupted German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Wednesday as he tried to give a speech at the opening of the Leipzig Book Fair.

Several loud cries could be heard as Scholz began his speech at Germany’s second-largest book fair after Frankfurt.

The Leipziger Volkszeitung newspaper said the protesters appeared to be pro-Palestinian activists and one person could be heard calling, “It’s not a humanitarian disaster, it’s a genocide”.

Scholz stopped his speech to address the protesters, telling them: “Stop shouting, that’s enough.”

“The power of the word brings us all together here in Leipzig, not the power of shouting,” he added, to loud applause.

A man could later be heard calling on the audience to protest against arms deliveries to Israel.

Pro-Palestinian protests have proliferated in Germany and Europe since the Hamas October 7 sudden attack sparked the Hamas-Israel conflict.

Israeli forces have since waged a relentless offensive against Hamas that has killed at least 31,900 people in Gaza, most of them women and children, according to the Hamas-ruled territory’s health ministry.

The outbreak of the war in Gaza has roiled Germany, where Berlin’s staunch backing for Israel has prompted protests that pro-Palestinian voices were being marginalised.

The group “Strike Germany” has called on creative workers to boycott cultural institutions in the country, with a petition gathering hundreds of signatures, among them Nobel-winning author Annie Ernaux.

At the awards ceremony of the Berlinale film festival in February, several winners were accused of making anti-Semitic remarks on stage in relation to Israel’s military assault.

In his opening speech, Scholz stressed the value of literature in helping readers to understand different perspectives.

“With every chapter, with every new page, we can overcome differences that sometimes seem irreconcilable in everyday life,” he said.

DUBLIN — Leo Varadkar on Wednesday announced that he was stepping down as Ireland’s prime minister and leader of the Fine Gael Party in the governing coalition, citing “personal and political” reasons.

Pundits called the move, just 10 weeks before Ireland holds European parliament and local elections, a “political earthquake”. The country must also hold a general election within a year.

Deputy Prime Minister Micheal Martin, leader of the Fianna Fail coalition partner, said the announcement was “unexpected” but added that he expects the government to run its full term.

An emotional Varadkar, 45, said he felt he was no longer the “best person” to lead the country.

“I believe this government can be reelected,” Varadkar said in a statement read on the steps of Government Buildings in the Irish capital, surrounded by his Fine Gael Cabinet colleagues.

“I believe a new Taoiseach [prime minister] will be better-placed than me to achieve that — to renew and strengthen the top team, to refocus our message and policies, and to drive implementation,” he added.

“After seven years in office, I am no longer the best person for that job,” he said.

“I am resigning the presidency and leadership of Fine Gael and will resign as Taoiseach as soon as my successor is able to take up that office,” Varadkar told reporters.

“My reasons for stepping down now are personal and political, but mainly political,” he said, without elaborating.

Earlier this month Varadkar was widely blamed for a twin defeat, including the biggest ever referendum loss by a government, on proposals to reform references to women, the family and care in the Irish constitution.

Varadkar said his centre-right Fine Gael party will have a leadership contest, and that he will remain as premier until the new leader is elected, after parliament returns from recess next month.

JAKARTA — Prabowo Subianto is Indonesia’s president after a convincing election win but he has also been accused of rights abuses while serving as a military chief during the dying days of the Suharto dictatorship a generation ago.

Prabowo claimed a first-round victory over two rivals last month but was officially announced as the new leader by the elections commission on Wednesday, crowning his decades-long battle to win high office in Southeast Asia’s largest economy.

The defence minister won the presidency after a rebrand and rise in popularity aided by his vast wealth, nationalist verve in populist speeches and strongman credentials as chief of the influential military.

“At 18, I signed a vow, I was ready to die for the people and the nation. I have not revoked the vow. I am ready if God summons me,” he told a campaign rally before the election, touting his military service.

The former general’s political ambitions came to the fore in 2004 but he failed to become the presidential candidate of the Golkar Party, Suharto’s former political vehicle.

He ran for vice president in 2009 with ex-president Megawati Sukarnoputri, who failed to win. He would lose the next two presidential elections to the popular Joko Widodo, who is stepping down after reaching the constitutional two-term limit.

Rights groups have expressed alarm that Prabowo could roll back hard-won democratic freedoms, pointing to accusations he ordered the abduction of democracy activists at the end of Suharto’s rule.

Prabowo was dismissed from the military in 1998 over the abductions. The United States for years refused him a visa over his rights record, but he denied the accusations and was never charged.

He has since rehabilitated his image, partly thanks to a savvy social media campaign targeting Indonesia’s youth in which he is portrayed as a “cuddly grandpa”.

Rising approval ratings that made him the presidential favourite were also in no small part due to cannily picking Widodo’s eldest son Gibran Rakabuming Raka as his running mate.

Analysts said Prabowo’s chances were helped by Widodo’s popularity and support, as well as younger Indonesians — more than half of nearly 205 million eligible voters — who did not come of age under Suharto.

“We will fight to bring prosperity for all people of Indonesia. We will continue what was already being built by previous presidents,” Prabowo said in a final pitch to supporters at a campaign rally.

Rights concerns 

While Prabowo has promised more of Widodo’s economic development, the prospect of his presidency had caused alarm among rights groups that democratic gains made since the end of authoritarian rule could be reversed.

“I am still concerned that Prabowo — fully backed up by Jokowi — could roll back reforms achieved with tears and blood of my fellow student activists,” said Usman Hamid, executive director of Amnesty International Indonesia, using the current president’s nickname.

“This could be the end of our hard-won freedom,” he added.

Prabowo was born in 1951 to a wealthy family and a father who served as finance and trade minister, while his grandfather established the country’s first state-owned bank.

After living in Switzerland and England as a child, he returned to Indonesia in 1970 and joined the military.

He married one of Suharto’s daughters, Siti Hediati Hariyadi, in 1983. They later divorced.

Between 1997 and 1998, when some of the kidnappings of activists took place, Prabowo led the elite army force known as Kopassus, used by Jakarta for special operations aimed at tamping down internal unrest.

More than a dozen activists remain missing and feared dead, and witnesses accuse his military unit of committing atrocities in East Timor.

He was dismissed from the military in 1998 over the abductions but was never charged, and went into voluntary exile in Jordan.

On his return several years later, he launched a business career with interests in palm oil and energy before jumping into politics.

Indonesian ally the United States once refused a visa over his rights record and he was also reportedly included on a visa blacklist in Australia before the 2014 election.

But he has since been allowed to visit Washington and Canberra, and has in turn hosted his American and Australian counterparts.

MOSCOW — Russia said on Tuesday that its troops had made gains in eastern Ukraine, building on recent advances against Ukrainian forces in critical need of Western aid.

Facing a difficult situation on the front lines, Kyiv has responded with an increasing number of incursions and attacks on Russian territory bordering Ukraine.

Some of the incursions have been carried out by Russians volunteering to fight in pro-Ukrainian units, which Putin has called to "punish".

"On the Avdiivka front, units of the 'Centre' grouping of troops liberated the village of Orlivka," the Russian defence ministry said.

It is the latest in a string of gains for Moscow, which has built on the capture of Avdiivka a month ago.

Avdiivka's seizure had forced Ukrainian troops to withdraw to defensive lines along Tonenke, Berdychi and Orlivka.

The Ukrainian army has not addressed the potential seizure of Orlivka.

But Kyiv has acknowledged a difficult situation on the battlefield and urged the West to keep up and deliver on its promises of support.

European deliveries have fallen behind, and its industrial capacities remain limited.

Kyiv has urged the US Congress to unblock a $60 billion aid package, which has been stalled due to political infighting.

The delays have been a "shock" for Ukrainian officials, Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said in an online briefing for foreign media.

"We are approaching the end of March and deliberations continue, deliberations on the issue of vital interest, strategic interest of the US in Europe," he added.

The day before, President Volodymyr Zelensky told US Senator Lindsey Graham that is was "critically important" for the US to make a swift decision.

Kyiv has intensified its attacks on Russian territory, with shelling and incursions in the regions of Belgorod and Kursk.

In the past week these attacks killed 16 people and wounded nearly a hundred in the region of Belgorod, its governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said.

Speaking at a meeting of ruling party members, he also announced the evacuation of thousands of children from areas at risk.

“We are evacuating a large number of villages, and now we are planning to evacuate about 9,000 children because of the shelling by the Ukrainian armed forces,” Gladkov said.

The surge in strikes took place ahead of elections that saw Putin win a predictable fifth term as president, after running against no real opposition.

“I am proud that the residents of the region did not succumb to the difficult situation and that many more people came to the polling stations than ever before,” Gladkov said.

‘Punish’ the ‘scum’ 

Putin addressed the border assaults, which have marred his reelection week, in a meeting with his FSB security services.

He claimed Russian troops inflicted “heavy losses” on units that he said where made up of regular Ukrainian soldiers, foreign mercenaries and pro-Ukrainian Russian fighters.

“About these traitors... we must not forget who they are, we must identify them by name. We will punish them without statute of limitations, wherever they are,” Putin said, calling them “scum”.

Ukraine-based militias, made up of Russian citizens who oppose Moscow’s offensive and have taken up arms for Kyiv, have claimed to be behind previous incursions into Russian territory.

One of them is the Russian Volunteer Corps. Its head of staff, identified as Aleksandr, gave an interview on Ukrainian television, denying heavy losses.

“There are losses, but absolutely not of the scale claimed by Putin or the defence ministry,” he said.

On the naval front, Ukrainian forces claim to have destroyed more than two dozen Russian ships since the conflict began in February 2022, including a military patrol boat this month.

Russian state media earlier confirmed that Moscow had replaced the head of its navy, after reports the previous naval chief had been sacked for repeatedly losing Black Sea warships to Ukrainian attacks.