LONDON: King Charles III’s cancer diagnosis will not prevent him flying abroad next year for foreign visits, a Buckingham Palace official said, as the monarch wrapped up a tour of Australia and Samoa.
“We’re now working on a pretty normal looking full overseas tour program for next year, which is a high for us to end on, to know that we can be thinking in those terms,” the official said late Saturday.
Charles was diagnosed with an undisclosed cancer earlier this year but doctors agreed he could pause his treatment to allow him to travel to Australia and Samoa.
The palace announced in April that he would make a limited return to public duties, as doctors were “very encouraged” by his progress.
The official added that the king had “thrived” on the tour’s program which had lifted “his spirits, his mood and his recovery.”
“In that sense, the tour, despite its demands, has been the perfect tonic,” he added.
The tour was Charles’ first to Australia, where he is also head of state, since he became king following the death of Queen Elizabeth II in September 2022.
Charles and Queen Camilla left Samoa Saturday after the marathon 11-day tour that saw the king carry out more than 30 engagements.
The royal couple visited Sydney, Canberra and the Samoan capital Apia, where Charles attended a meeting of Commonwealth nations.
The 56-nation bloc — made up mostly of British ex-colonies — had hoped to focus on a future threatened by climate change, but instead bickered over a troubled past marked by slavery and colonization.
King Charles to resume foreign tours after cancer diagnosis
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King Charles to resume foreign tours after cancer diagnosis
- Doctors agreed King Charles could pause his treatment to allow him to travel to Australia and Samoa
California joins UN health network following US departure from WHO
- California Governor Gavin Newsom decried the United States’ move on Friday, calling it a “reckless decision” that will hurt many people
CALIFORNIA: California said on Friday it will become the first US state to join the World Health Organization’s global outbreak response network following the Trump administration’s decision to pull Washington out of the WHO.
The network, comprised of more than 360 technical institutions, responds to public health events with the deployment of staff and resources to affected countries. It has tackled major public health events, including COVID-19. The state’s decision to join the network comes more than a year after US President Donald Trump gave notice that Washington would depart from the WHO. On Thursday, it officially withdrew from the agency, saying its decision reflected failures in the UN health agency’s management of the pandemic.
California Governor Gavin Newsom decried the United States’ move on Friday, calling it a “reckless decision” that will hurt many people.
“California will not bear witness to the chaos this decision will bring,” Newsom said in a statement. “We will continue to foster partnerships across the globe and remain at the forefront of public health preparedness, including through our membership as the only state in WHO’s Global Outbreak Alert & Response Network.”
The governor’s office said he met with the WHO’s Director General, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, this week, where they discussed collaborating to detect and respond to emerging public health threats.
The WHO did not immediately respond when reached for comment.
