VATICAN CITY: Pope Francis, who has been suffering from influenza, has been taken to a hospital in Rome for a check-up, Italian news agency ANSA reported on Wednesday.
The 87-year-old pontiff had earlier skipped a reading at his Wednesday weekly audience, delegating the task to an aide and telling the faithful he was still not well.
The pope, who has had a number of health issues recently, had cancelled appointments on Saturday and on Monday due to what the Vatican called a mild flu.
On Sunday, he addressed crowds in St Peter's Square as normal, to deliver his Angelus message.
"Dear brothers and sisters, I still have a bit of a cold", Francis said at the audience on Wednesday, announcing that someone else would read his catechesis on envy and vainglory, two of the seven deadly sins.
The reading was about one page long.
The pope did speak at the end of his audience, his voice sounding hoarse and coughing a bit, to greet some of the faithful and issue calls for peace, as is customary.
In December, the pope was forced to cancel a planned trip to a COP28 climate meeting in Dubai because of the effects of influenza and lung inflammation.
In January, he was unable to complete a speech owing to "a touch of bronchitis". Later in the month he said he was doing better despite "some aches and pains".
As a young man in his native Argentina, Francis had part of a lung removed.
The pope also has difficulty walking, and regularly uses a wheelchair or a cane. On Wednesday, he arrived at his indoor audience in a wheelchair.
Pope Francis taken to Rome hospital, ANSA reports
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Pope Francis taken to Rome hospital, ANSA reports
- The 87-year-old pontiff, who has had a number of health issues recently, canceled appointments on Saturday and Monday
Vietnam’s ruling Communist Party re-elects To Lam as general secretary
- Lam, 68, was reappointed unanimously by the party’s 180-member Central Committee at the conclusion of the National Party Congress, the country’s most important political conclave
HANOI: Vietnam’s leader To Lam was re-elected Friday as the general secretary of its ruling Communist Party, securing a new five-year term in the country’s most powerful position and pledging to rev up economic growth in the export powerhouse.
Lam, 68, was reappointed unanimously by the party’s 180-member Central Committee at the conclusion of the National Party Congress, the country’s most important political conclave.
In a speech, he said he wanted to build a system grounded in “integrity, talent, courage, and competence,” with officials to be judged on merit rather than seniority or rhetoric.
No announcement was made about whether Lam will also become president. If he were to get both positions, he would be the country’s most powerful leader in decades, similar to Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
The Congress was framed by Vietnam’s defining national question: whether the country can transform itself into a high-income economy by 2045. During the meeting, Vietnam set a target of average annual GDP growth of 10 percent or more from 2026 to 2030.
The gathering brought together nearly 1,600 delegates to outline Vietnam’s political and economic direction through 2031. It also confirmed a slate of senior appointments, electing 19 members to the Politburo, the country’s top leadership body.
Beyond settling the question of who will lead Vietnam for the coming years, the Congress will also determine how the country’s single-party system responds to world grown increasingly turbulent as China and the United States wrangle over trade and Washington under President Donald Trump challenges a longstanding global order.
Vietnam’s transformation into a global manufacturing hub for electronics, textiles, and footwear has been striking. Poverty has declined and the middle class is growing quickly.
But challenges loom as the country tries to balance rapid growth with reforms, an aging population, climate risks, weak institutions and US pressure over its trade surplus. At the same time it must balance relations with major powers. Vietnam has overlapping territorial claims with China, its largest trading partner, in the South China Sea.
Lam has overseen Vietnam’s most ambitious bureaucratic and economic reforms since the late 1980s, when it liberalized its economy. Under his leadership, the government has cut tens of thousands of public-sector jobs, redrawn administrative boundaries to speed decision-making, and initiated dozens of major infrastructure projects.
Lam spent decades in the Ministry of Public Security before becoming its minister in 2016. He led an anti-corruption campaign championed by his predecessor, Nguyen Phu Trong. During his rise, Vietnam’s Politburo lost six of its 18 members during an anti-graft campaign, including two former presidents and Vietnam’s parliamentary head.
